Best rejection yet
Topic: Writing
Came from The Paris Review last week. It was a standard, flimsy rejection note that says:

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to The Paris Review. We regret that we are unable to make use of it at this time.

Your sincerely,
The Editors.

What makes it special and makes me feel great is that someone printed, in blue pen:

Dear Mr. Portocarrero:
WELL DONE; ENTERTAINING.

That's a lot of letter to be spelling out. Bless this person's heart.

George Saunders
Topic: Writing
I was reading an interview with him over at slushpile and, although I may have already posted this stuff, I will post it again. That's how much I like the answers:

Slushpile: What is your single-best, most-important, can't-live-without writing tip you would offer to aspiring authors?

Saunders: Keep going. Your subconscious mind is a lot smarter than you are. Just keep giving it a chance and in time it may reward you. Get out of the way a little bit, have fewer ideas about what kind of writer you are and what it is you are going to accomplish. Find out what kind of writer you are and be prepared to accept that writer, no matter how different he/she is from what you'd hoped.

Slushpile: What is your single-best, most-important, can't-live-without publishing tip you would offer to aspiring authors struggling to break into print?

Saunders: I know this advice feels facile but honestly - stop worrying about getting published. Think about writing something that comes from the heart and that you would feel unashamed to show to your greatest historical writing hero. Maybe we can't get there but I think what every reader wants to read is someone in the act of swinging for the fences, unselfconsciously, with joy and abandon and the highest possible hopes. Who could resist that, right?

That's great stuff.

DFW
Topic: Books
Just finished reading Consider the Lobster, all the essays except the ones that were the same versions I had already read. I was cracking up, it's very funny stuff.

One thing I was thinking about the whole time is how old most of these pieces are. The new ones I hadn't read before - most of them were from the mid-to-late 80s.

Which made me wonder, what's he going to come out with next? What has he been working on recently? Which makes me think that perhaps there is a novel on the horizon...

DFW
Topic: Books
Finally finished Stephen King's Drawing of the Three and moved onto Consider the Lobster. The new ones I read have been great, but I couldn't get through Big Red Son, the one on the AVN awards. When I first read it I really liked it, but the reread, for whatever reason, just wasn't cutting it.

The piece on the usage of English gets dense as hell and wasn't easy to get through, but even on such a dense topic he had me cracking up, mostly in the footnotes. It was very interesting to see how DFW writes about something he is really personally vested in.

The Kafka piece is insightful as hell. It just shows you how deep he goes when he thinks and writes about something.

It's great to have you back DFW.

DFW in PW
Topic: Writing
I was pleasantly surprised when I received my most current issue of Poets & Writers. There is a story in there about DFW and the futile attempts of the writer to get in touch with him to ask him, what he feels, are important questions. Questions meant to reveal more about the man than we know.

Things we, as fans, are curious about.

But DFW is a quiet guy, and apparently won't be doing much press for his new book. He still manages to write a nice piece on what it's like to be a DFW fan.

Really well done and very entertaining.

Cuba in the Classic
Topic: Baseball
http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/ESPNSports/story?id=1436883

It's pathetic if they don't let Cuba play now. How far up their asses do these people have their heads? This is the kind of shit we have to deal with when stupid rules are put in and then blindly followed (reminds me of my high school).

If Cuba isn't in this thing, then it can't really be called a "Classic." It loses all value when the most passionate baseball country in the world (maybe the Dominican rivals it) isn't playing.

Trading Prior?
Topic: Cubs
There are rumors out there that the Cubs might trade mark Prior for Miguel Tejada. Or in a three team swap they would send Prior, Patterson, and Cedeno to Boston, Manny to Baltimore, and Tejada to Chicago.

Ludicrous, I say.

Give up a pitcher like that, who HAS proven himself (unlike Kerry Wood) to be capable of dominating the league for more offense? Why?

This goes back to the current era of baseball we're living in where, if you don't hit .280 and hit 20 homeruns, regardless of what position or how well you play that position that you play, you're considered unsuitable.

I was looking up some numbers for Ozzie Smith and even Mark Lemke - horrible offensive stats, but those guys were everyday, important players on their teams.

Is Hendry saying we don't have enough with Aramis, Lee, Jones, Murton?

We have a real leadoff hitter, that will give us more runs right there. Walker can hit 15-20 HRs if he's not traded. Lee is good for 35+, as is Aramis. Murton might hit 20 himself. Jones is good for 20 more. Barrett could hit 15.

That's ENOUGH.

We need all the quality pitching we can get our hands on.

I rather take a shot on young, unproven regulars (Murton, Cedeno) than on young, unproven pitchers (Hill - whom I really like, Jerome Williams, Angel Guzman).

God I hope he doesn't do this, it would really make me, for the first time, question Jim Hendry's ability as a GM.

Mark Prior is not only one of the best pitchers in the game, he's a part of the Chicago Cubs.

If this trade is made, it will be a clear sign that there are no more teams, just higher paychecks.

What's happening?
Topic: Bulls
A great article by Sam Smith in the Tribune about why the Bulls aren't playing defense like they were last year.

It's true, there's something that can't be quantified that the Bulls are missing. Scrappiness, hustle, whatever you want to call it - but it's gone right now and watching them can be outright painful.

One thing that I found kind of humorous:

This is not a particularly difficult Cavs team to figure out. They play defense occasionally and then run to the corners to watch James dribble around and dunk on someone or pass out to the corners.

NY Strike leaders may go to jail
This is really weird.

They might put the Union leaders in jail for striking if they refuse to go back to work.

ISn't that the whole idea behind a strike? To stop working so you get what you feel you deserve? I read the article and the only quasi-legal basis they have is this:

Michael A. Cardozo, New York City's corporation counsel, asked the judge to issue an order directing union members to return to work. If the order is granted, Cardozo said, the city could ask for $25,000-a-day fines per worker — a punishment that goes beyond the docked-pay penalty that workers already are experiencing for the illegal strike.

"We're doing everything possible to make the union obey the law," he said, adding that union members need to "realize the economic consequences of their actions."

Economic consequences of their actions? Are you kidding me?

Why do I always ask so many more questions than I answer on this blog?

Doping in Tennis
Topic: Sports
Puerta is one of six Argentine players caught up in doping cases in recent years. Guillermo Coria, Juan Ignacio Chela and Guillermo Canas served doping suspensions, and Martin Rodriguez received a warning for a positive caffeine test.

He gets an 8-year ban from the sport, which will "effectively end his career." There's a policy that baseball should model itself after. But if you read the whole article you'll see that they're admitting the amount was negligible and that his wife was taking the medication. Essentially, that is was an accident. But that he's done for 8 years? Weird.

Weirdest of all, did you see that last part?

...Martin Rodriguez received a warning for a positive caffeine test.

Caffeine test?