PRESUMABLY IN AN EFFORT TO ANNOY ME, Coulton continues to claim that he is “playing a concert” tonight in the fictional American city of CHICAGO.
THIS, of course, is IMPOSSIBLE. I dare you to prove me wrong with pictures.
That is all.
ON THIS VERY NIGHT, reading from his book, THE WILL TO WHATEVS at the Booksmith of Brookline, Massachusetts, my home town.
IF YOU GO, AND IF YOU ARE LUCKY, he will drink scotch and hug you.
IF YOU ARE UNLUCKY, he will merely drink scotch, but that’s pretty good too.
IN ANY CASE, I urge you to go, because he is a kind and very funny human who only RESEMBLES some kind of shaved Russian bear.
That is all.
I WILL BE in the charming community of INTERNETLESS HILLS, Massachusetts for a few days.
THUS, my visits here will be OCCASIONAL and maybe FOLKSY.
That is all.
OBVIOUSLY, the title PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES is itself intrinsically delightful.
AND THERE WILL BE PLENTY OF LITERARY HAY MADE in literary/copyright nerd circles regarding the implications of this mash-up of the public domain and the living dead.
AND OBVIOUSLY I AM DELIGHTED TOO that the book, published in Philadelphia by an independent press is, as of this posting, number 89 on Amazon, purely through its viral, zombielike march across the internet.
BUT WHAT DELIGHTS ME MOST is the fact that Jason Rekulak is behind it, and as per Galleycat, he took the book to the NY ComicCon.
REKULAK was John Sellers’s editor once, and so I had call to speak to him on the phone once or twice back when I was a literary agent. He was very smart and inventive and Sellers-fond; and plus, HIS NAME IS REKULAK, so he sounded more like an alien invader than a book editor.
SO I AM EXTREMELY DELIGHTED that he has risen from the grave of traditional book publishing to help foster what would seem to be an unstoppable, brain-devouring success.
CONGRATULATIONS to Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, and
KNEEL BEFORE REKULAK!
That is all.
PS: Does anyone have any pictures of Ape-Lad from ComicCon?
1969, DALLAS, TX: The first ATM machine is installed. Standing for “AUTOMATED TELLER MACHINE MACHINE,” the first ATM could receive deposits and dispense cash (though only in coins) and was roughly the size of a city block. Despite its name, it was not wholly automated: A single human controller was required to supervise and make manual notations in the customer’s bankbook. He would sit in a little dome atop the machine. However, this bank employee was instructed to wear a tinfoil suit and talk like a machine so as not to ruin the futuristic effect.
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