Linkdump

Time for a short post, no?

Some stuff, mostly links:

Jonathan Lethem at a Kerry rally:
"This time, it's not only the poets who are filled with passionate intensity, not only the rock stars, not only the comedians. This time, even the novelists are filled with passionate intensity. And when you have roused even the novelists to the barricades against you, I am here to suggest that your days are truly numbered."

(via Rake's Progress)
Think writing a novel is easy? Check out Empire of Dirt, the blog of mystery writer John Rickards, which contains multiple naughty words, including the following:
Still kinda wish I could get away with writing "Fuck" 30,000 times and handing the finished manuscript in to Penguin. Sadly, not only would they shout and throw things - or have me committed - but there's a clause in the contract that says "work of publishable quality". Cunning, cunning devils.

(via Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind)
The Cryptozoo collects "the strangest creatures that may never have been". So if you're looking for a place for the in-laws... (via Exclamation Mark)

Jonathan Strahan reports that Small Beer Press will release A Rose in Twelve Petals, a chapbook of short stories and poems by Theodora Goss. The Small Beer chapbooks are a great contribution to the world -- the choice of authors is excellent, the production quality is high (compared to many other such chapbooks, at least), and the price is good ($6). And the cover art by Charles Vess is marvelously phallic.

Charles Stross has a great post about physics and ESP.

Tabula Rasa interviewed K.J. Bishop, and includes a picture of her at a shooting gallery in Vienna.

I'll leave you with this article, about an obese woman who died literally fused to her couch, which she had sat on for six years. It's hard not to laugh at the beginning, but as the details of this woman's life become clearer, it ends up being a haunting and tremendously sad story.

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