IT IS FOR ONE REASON ONLY: because Paul F. Tompkins needs 300 of you to fight Persia to make comedy,

AND HE IS USING FACEBOOK to recruit you, city by city, not just to ATTEND one of his FAMOUS COMEDIAN SHOWS…

but also, in effect, by VOLUNTARY ACTION and EARLY COMMITMENT…

TO CAUSE THAT VERY COMEDIAN SHOW TO HAPPEN!

SCIENCE CANNOT EXPLAIN THIS. BUT PFT attempts to HERE. I paraphrase: if you and 299 of your friends commit to seeing Paul F. Tompkins perform in your town, HE WILL GO THERE, without asking any questions, and: HE WILL PERFORM.

RIGHT THIS MOMENT, New York City, is seeking roughly 150 additional Knights in Tompkins’s Service (KITS) in order to conjure his form HERE.

I WILL PERSONALLY BE THERE. And so, I hope, you will be, and we shall congratulate our good taste together, loudly, in the audience, UNTIL PAUL GETS VERY ANGRY AND TELLS US TO BE QUIET.

OR, IF YOU LIVE IN A DIFFERENT CITY, search the Facebook and see if someone has started a campaign to lure Tompkins with the promise of 300 souls. If not, START YOUR OWN FACEBOOK PAGE to begin the ritual. Or search, #tompkins300.

LOOK, I know it is all somewhat confusing and decentralized, but that is the system that Paul has chosen, and though anarchic, I think you will find it EFFECTIVE and DELIGHTFUL once you have made this talented comedy person travel to your town a) BECAUSE HE IS FUNNY and b) BECAUSE YOU MADE IT TO HAPPEN.

IF YOU HAVE ANY LINGERING DOUBTS regarding the wisdom of this scheme, PLEASE REVIEW THIS INTERNET VIDEO of Paul F. Tompkins at the SF Sketchfest of last month:

CASE CLOSED

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?

I HAVE RETURNED FROM THE BOHEMIAN GROVE known as “TED”

MANY OF YOU WANT TO KNOW what sort of strange rituals go on there.

I AM HERE TO TELL YOU: there is no giant wooden owl called Moloch.

THERE IS ONLY GILBERT.

LIZ GILBERT IS, of course, the author of PILGRIMS and STERN MEN and the article that became the movie “Coyote Ugly,” and she is a dear and old friend. So dear and old that I often forget that she also wrote an amazing super bestseller that you may have read.

(SHE IS ALSO A VERY FINE SINGER. Listen to the end of this link for the EVIDENCE)

BUT WHILE SHE IS ADORED in this video, and I adore her as well, the magical thing you may not be able to get through this embedded video is how skeptical the audience initially was of her, and how masterfully she won over this bunch of jaded billionaire/genius TEDTOPIANS through simple, good storytelling.

That is all.

IF YOU ARE NOT ALREADY subscribed to The Sound of Young America, can you explain yourself?

That is all