Category: Uncategorized
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Captain Insano State Legislator Hall of Fame
Today, this guy made it on the CISL HoF ballot on his first try, introducing a bill to prevent the use of aborted fetuses in food or food additives. Really. Read the story. Ralph Shortey, I salute your utter lunacy. The CISL HoF does not yet exist, but with your help it will. Add your own loony…
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The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature
Those of you with any kind of scholarly interest in the literatures of the fantastic should grab this book as soon as possible. It’s out next month, and as you can see from the TOC below, it’s got a terrific lineup of essays. I can’t wait to get my copies. My own contribution is on…
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Talking Avengers Alliance with Mediabistro
Follow this link to an audio interview I did with Mediabistro’s Jason Boog for their Morning Media Menu podcast feature. We talk Avengers Alliance, and speculate a little on what new spaces are emerging in the borders between social and RPG-style gaming. (There is much more to be said on that latter topic, by the…
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An Open Letter to the Fathers of Cub Scouts
Yesterday I got up at 3:45am and drove from Maine down to Massachusetts for the fifth and final Pinewood Derby of my older son Ian’s Cub Scout career. I have been saving these sentiments up since Ian’s first Derby, and this last one–combined with the irritation of having to drive back through a snowstorm–really set…
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Etymological Musing on Poe’s 203rd Birthday
As a critic in the 1830s, Edgar Allan Poe was referred to as the Tomahawk Man. I got curious about this and looked up the origins of the phrase “hatchet job.” Turns out (he said, after an entire three minutes of research) that “hatchet man,” as someone who does unpleasant tasks, dates (probably) from the…
Crooked House Fictions 