A couple weeks ago, I got an email out of the blue from an ABC News reporter who wanted to talk about L. Frank Baum and the myths that surround The Wizard of OZ. (A couple years ago, I wrote a review for a new bio of Baum.) We talked for a long time, very fun, and then she included me in her article like I was a professorial, talking-head type of guy. The article can be found here.
Little known fact: Baum called his landscape “OZ” because that was the serving size he required for his sinsemilla. And the Lion was meant to refer to Haile Salassie, the “Lion of Judah”, even though he was only 8 years old at the time.
Don’t believe me? Try that little trick with the movie and “Dark Side of the Moon.” Properly baked, of course.
Yesterday I drove up to northern Michigan, to drop off Number One Son at Interlochen for his week of sketching, drawing, painting and all around visual excitement. For those who haven’t been up to that school, it’s a campus-like feeling in the pines there, less like a camp than the boarding school it is. Spiffy and new, a mecca for tasteful patrons of the arts. 
The literary event of 2011 is here! You’ve been waiting patiently, wondering whether VS Naipaul and Paul Theroux have really buried the hatchet, whether we’ll ever have villains as long lasting and nattily dressed as the Nazis, and why there’s no Nobel Prize for Country Music so Lyle Lovett can win the first. You’ve been waiting for the latest trend, after chick lit, dick lit, mick lit, heimlich lit, flea-and-tick lit, and New Brunswick lit.
Man, there are so many little details about getting a book finished and out, it’s no wonder my former publisher seemed incompetent.
Fall of Berlin Wall — late Sunday night, falling asleep in front of CNN.
So, this whole self-publishing thing has its ups and downs. For each big plus, there’s usually a negative (especially for someone with 20/20 hindsight like me). 
One such decision involves publishing Politically Correct Bedtime Stories in the UK. While it’s been out of print in America since, maybe, 1998, it’s been in print in Britain for more than 15 years. The reason is that my publisher there, Ernest Hecht of Souvenir Press, is a one-man dynamo, raconteur, and all-around savvy character. His firm’s publishing list is interesting and varied, and he keeps my sales up with subtle but steady promotion and mentions in the press. He’s what every publisher should be. He says his only obligation to his writers is to stay in business. I like that directness. It’s worked so far.
An Irishman moves into a tiny hamlet in County Kerry, walks into the pub and promptly orders three beers. The bartender raises his eyebrows, but serves the man three beers, which he drinks quietly at a table, alone.
It’s early spring, so for me, that means at least two things: I’m making props for the school play (more on it later) and I’m officiating at a school spelling bee. Today was the bee, and tonight is the debut of the play, so I got the double whammy.
So it’s 14 months into the new decade, so I thought it was high time to do a little sprucing up with the website. I can’t speak for everyone, but I was getting tired of seeing the three-year-old book Recut Madness trumpeted as the “New Book” at various parts of the site. There isn’t much new copy, but the container is New And Improved! and it should let me update stuff a little more quickly than the old battleship.