Ocelopotamus

News, culture, and politics. Not necessarily in that order.

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Entries Tagged as 'Lit'

Russell Hoban News: New Releases and More

September 7th, 2007 · 2 Comments · Books, Culture, Fiction, Film, Lit, News, Russell Hoban, Science Fiction, Theater

I just updated the News page over at The Head of Orpheus, the Russell Hoban Web site I maintain, so I figured I might as well cross-post the info here as well (with a few slight formatting tweaks). Autumn 2007 is shaping up to be a great season for Hoban fans, with Russ’s next novel […]

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Review: Michael Tolliver Lives by Armistead Maupin

August 28th, 2007 · 5 Comments · Books, Culture, Fiction, Film, HIV/AIDS, LGBT, Lit, Reviews, TV

I just finished reading Armistead Maupin’s newest book, Michael Tolliver Lives — well, inhaling it really, because reading Michael Tolliver Lives is less like reading a novel than it is like opening a richly detailed letter from an old friend you inexplicably lost touch with about 15 years ago, and suddenly here he is giving […]

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Roundup: Skydiving Baby Giraffe Edition

August 15th, 2007 · Comments Off on Roundup: Skydiving Baby Giraffe Edition · Activism, Apple, Books, Chicago, Comics, Culture, Death Penalty, Fantasy, Fiction, Film, Food, Health, Human Rights, Internet, iTunes, Journalism, Lit, Media, Meta, Nature, News, Politics, Roundup, TV, Ursula K. Le Guin

Out, damned spot! Fox News caught red-handed, laundering entries on Wikipedia. Keep on scrubbing, Lady MacFox, but those stains belong to you always. The GOP’s California strategy: winning the 2008 election by undoing California’s winner-take-all electoral system. Once the state goes piecemeal, the Repubs gain at least 20 electoral votes from safe GOP districts. Arianna […]

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Roundup: Ronald Reagan Memorial Bridge Edition

August 9th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Activism, Apple, Comics, Culture, Human Rights, Infrastructure, Journalism, LGBT, Lit, Macintosh, Media, Nature, News, Poetry, Politics, Religion, Roundup, Science, Tech, Torture

This is brilliant. Peter Smith at the Huffington Post has a proposal for renaming the new I-35W bridge in Minneapolis that will replace the one that collapsed: “For a while there, back when the Republicans held the White House and both houses of Congress, they were naming things after Ronald Reagan everywhere. Airports. Aircraft carriers. […]

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Yvonne Zipter: “A Canine Metaphysics”

August 1st, 2007 · 3 Comments · Books, Chicago, Culture, Lit, Nature, News, Pets, Poetry, Spirituality

As a sort of spiritual antidote to the horrible Michael Vicks dogfighting story, here’s a lovely poem by Chicago poet Yvonne Zipter (shared here with her permission). It’s from Yvonne’s most recent chapbook, Like Some Bookie God, which came out last year. A Canine Metaphysics In his meditative moments — nose to the air or […]

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Golden Compass Trailer

July 31st, 2007 · 6 Comments · Books, Culture, Fantasy, Film, Lit, News, Video

Finally! An “extended preview” trailer for The Golden Compass. Been waiting for-EV-er for a look at this.   Hard to tell too much for sure, but it does seem like they’ve gotten the look of it right. And it seems like maybe it’s going to be fairly faithful to the book — fingers crossed anyway. […]

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Books: “Too Slow a Form of Information Delivery”

July 13th, 2007 · 2 Comments · Books, Culture, Education, History, Internet, Lit, Mythology, News

Scary quote of the week: In an article from the LA Times about the sad passing of another indie book store owned by a wonderful old eccentric — which is kind of like losing one of the last 12 rare rhinoceroses or something – anyway, toward the end of that article, we read this: Dowdy […]

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I Font You To Font Me

July 9th, 2007 · 2 Comments · Culture, Design, Lit, Typography

NZBC linked to a recent Slate piece in which a gaggle of writers discuss their favorite fonts to work in. I’m a heavy Times user myself, mainly because it’s the only font that doesn’t distract me while I’m working in it — to me it just looks plain and neutral without being hard to read. […]

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In Chicago: Rachel Claff Is Busting Out All Over

June 17th, 2007 · 2 Comments · Blogs, Books, Chicago, Culture, Film, Fringe, LGBT, Lit, Music, Neo-Futurists, New Wave, News, Nightclubs, Performance, Poetry, The Partly Dave Show, Theater

I haven’t done one of these Chicago Fringe scene reports in a while, so here’s what’s on my radar this week: The Neo-Futurists’ annual festival It Came From The Neo-Futurarium VI: Curse of The Neo-Futurarium, consisting of staged readings of various camp-ready old films, kicks off this Thursday, June 21 at 8pm. The first installment […]

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Roundup: Return of the Mouse Edition

June 15th, 2007 · 4 Comments · Activism, Apple, Books, Comics, Culture, Fiction, Food, Hate Crimes, Health, Healthcare Crisis, HIV/AIDS, iTunes, LGBT, Lit, Macintosh, Music, News, Organic Food, Politics, Roundup, Tech, Theater

BOOKS: This week marked the release of Armistead Maupin’s new book Michael Tolliver Lives, which picks up the story of Michael “Mouse” Tolliver, the iconic character from Maupin’s Tales of the City series. Mouse is now in his mid-50s, living with HIV but happily married. Maupin says, “I wanted to tell the story of a […]

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The Bravest Little Hobbit of Them All

June 8th, 2007 · Comments Off on The Bravest Little Hobbit of Them All · Books, Comedy, Culture, Fantasy, Lit, Meta, Music, Video

Posting has been kind of sparse on OcPot this week, because the end-of-the-month deadline drama from last week lapped over into the beginning of the month. It has a way of doing that, sometimes. The drama. So while I have a ton of stuff I’d like to post, it may be be a couple of […]

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I’m the Featured Poet at Molly Malone’s Next Week and Oh My God It’s in the Suburbs …

June 7th, 2007 · Comments Off on I’m the Featured Poet at Molly Malone’s Next Week and Oh My God It’s in the Suburbs … · Books, Chicago, Culture, Journal, Lit, News, Poetry

Those who know me know it takes a lot to get me to venture into the uncharted here-be-dragons-ness that is the “-land” part of Chicagoland. But this coming Monday night, June 11, Nina Corwin and Al DeGenova have done me the immense honor of booking me as the featured poet for their highly regarded poetry […]

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Russell Hoban, The Kraken, and the US Edition of Linger Awhile

June 5th, 2007 · 5 Comments · Books, Culture, Fantasy, Internet, Journal, Lit, Mythology, News, Online Communities, Russell Hoban, Science Fiction

A few days ago I got a package in the mail from the David R. Godine publishing house, who last year republished both of Russell Hoban’s hilarious Captain Najork children’s books in the US (and did a lovely job of it). Inside the package was an advance copy of the forthcoming US edition of Russ’s […]

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Roundup: Magnum Opus Edition

June 4th, 2007 · Comments Off on Roundup: Magnum Opus Edition · Apple, Books, Comics, Culture, Food, Heroes, iTunes, Language, LGBT, Lit, Media, Music, Nature, New Wave, News, Tech, TV, Vegetarian & Vegan

COMICS: For once I’m starting out with the comics section, in honor of the fact that Salon has added Opus by the mighty Berkeley Breathed (Bloom County, Outland) to their repertoire. Oh, happy day. Here’s the first installment. Along with my favorites This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow and Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben […]

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