Dunce Convention Held in Zamora, Spain

I think it's great they get their own conference. I bet those Q and A sessions will be a hoot.

Whose Fist Is This?

Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger to Save Book Expo America's Annual Conference from Julie Andrews, Joe Scarborough

Well, God knows, the book industry needs a hero, so why the hell not? It may as well be Sully who swoops in to save BEA-NYC on May 30 at the Javits Center. Otherwise, who can we turn to among the other big name attendees? Julie Andrews, who has a new book out for young readers called Julie Andrews' Collection of Poems, Songs and Lullabies, which sounds just awful? Or maybe Joe Scarborough, whose new words-on-paper project is Up from Republicanism: How Conservatives Can Take Back America. (Hopefully with a foreword and afterward by Zbigniew Brzezinski (why so many consonants, Zbigniew? Jesus.)

Sully's memoir hasn't been ghost-written yet, so according to today's press release, he'll be "available to sign a promotional piece about" it, which sounds exhilarating, no?

After attending BEA, Sully will of course be on to his next series of heroic projects, including flying to Alaska to save Bristol and Levi's relationship and then going to North Korea to land a plane safely on Kim Jong Il's jumpsuit, for peace. Then he'll come back and take a job in the Obama cabinet, because, again, why the hell not?

This Is the First and Last Time I Will Use the Word 'Tweet' on This Blog

Is there a more odious and nauseating phenomenon on the face of the earth than Twitter? Well, there was, once, and it was the "update your status" or "poke someone" things on Facebook, but times change fast on the Internet, so now we have this New Dumb Thing, my feelings about which can be nicely summed up in the convenient animated short above.

This is how horrible Twitter is: U.S. senators are using it.

You know, I recently went to a panel event where the topic was "Book Marketing On the Web," and, God, it was irritating. One of the panelists, bless her, was beside herself with excitement about Twitter. She had out her laptop and was logged on, giving us constant updates about all the Twittering that was happening about the very event we were all at. At one point, she said something like, "Here's an example of Twitter in action: someone in this very room said it's a little hot in here and someone should open a window." Ha ha ha, laughed the audience, many of whom had their own devices out and were probably doing something equally grotesque with them. Then someone opened a window. Thank God for Twitter, because otherwise how could we humans have relayed that message?!

Sorry, but this shit is stupid.

I understand how technology is changing bookselling, book marketing, book promotion and all that. That's a no-brainer. But I'm sorry, I'm just not convinced that Twittering is essential to this process. Twittering is essential to no process. It is masturbatory uselessness in action.

My favorite part of the panel event, actually, was at the very beginning. The moderator was asking the audience how we all had heard about the event. She named off different methods: LinkedIn (a few hands), Facebook (a few hands), Twitter (a few hands), websites/newsletters (a few hands), and, lastly, "old-fashioned word-of-mouth." At this, the majority of hands in the room went up.

Twitter that, LOLCATS.

Why Doesn't Madam Tussaud's Barack Obama Wax Figure Get a Nice Sash and Tiara?

This is so racist and reverse-sexist. Like a black man can't wear a baby blue sash and a glistening tiara and still look like a world leader?