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The Mary Sue Society

(Via Chizumatic.)

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Now I'm mildly curious about Lost:

At one point, someone will pick up a copy of the novel The Third Policeman by the late Irish writer Flann O'Brien. The cover will be seen for about a second, ABC confirms....
It will be featured at a "key moment" in the show, Craig Wright, who co-wrote the episode with Javier Grillo-Marxuach, told the Chicago Tribune. Wright also said anyone familiar with the book will "have a lot more ammunition" in dissecting Lost plotlines.

(Via Absinthe and Cookies.)

I doubt that I actually ever will watch Lost, but I hope that the glimpse of the book cover will pique some interest in Flann O'Brien, one of the craziest writers of the 20th century. At Swim Two Birds is his best-known novel and a Certified Postmodern Classic(TM) (it's worth reading, nevertheless), but The Third Policeman is his strangest and my favorite. A quick google didn't turn up much that's useful about O'Brien; a couple of introductory articles can be found here and here.

(Later: If I were feeling mischievous, I'd note that O'Brien is the missing link between James Joyce and R.A. Lafferty, and that The Third Policeman is the demonic inverse of Haibane Renmei.)

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From MamaT comes word that Terry Teachout is leaving Crisis magazine in part because "American filmmakers are now making so few movies worth seeing."

I find it difficult to understand how any intelligent, cultivated person could be a film reviewer, but I imagine it's possible if you genuinely love the medium and make an effort to find the good movies that don't get wide release. What I really don't get is how anyone with even minimal intelligence can stand to be a teevee critic.

*****

Pooh poker, anyone?

Soundtrack: Helium Vola, "Selig"

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I liked The Third Policeman (although I suspect I might have liked it better had the reviewers' blurbs on the inside cover of the paperback version I bought at Amazon not completely given away the ending...)