Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Mark Morford: How to live wretched and small (SF Gate)
There are a number of things you can do. You can walk around the streets looking as though you just smelled something disgusting, your face a permanent rictus of distress and revulsion aimed at a world that seems to be closing in around you, a mile-deep locust swarm of sex and debauchery, strange drugs and tight yoga pants, expensive artisanal coffee and gay people smooching in the street.
Emma Brockes: Science says there's no such thing as 'comfort food'. We all beg to differ (Guardian)
Whatever the research says, most of us know that happiness is a sloppy food with parts that everyone else finds revolting.
Jody Rosen: "In Defense of Schlock Music: Why Journey, Billy Joel, and Lionel Richie Are Better Than You Think" (Vulture)
Schlock isn't what we want, at least not what we want to believe that we want. We want to be connoisseurs and, lord help us, we want to be cool. Schlock delivers something more profound: what we need. It's music that serves our awkward yearnings, in a secular era, for uplift, for a touch of the sacred, for a stairway to heaven. It's the soundtrack we turn to for a good long cry in a dark little room, when we're dumped by someone we love.
Alison Flood: Erotica authors live their dreams, survey finds (Guardian)
… a poll of erotica authors about their sex lives. It turns out they're doing it all over the place - on horseback, "on the Haunted Mansion ride at Disney World. Please let them have destroyed the security tape!", in a canoe, at the Louvre and in a cemetery.
Alison Flood: Jeremy Paxman says poets must start engaging with ordinary people (Guardian)
Outgoing Newsnight presenter, judging Forward prize for poetry, says poetry has 'rather connived at its own irrelevance.'
Alison Flood: Tove Jansson should have won Nobel prize, says Philip Pullman (Guardian)
The Moomins' inventor extolled by His Dark Materials author for her 'effortless invention' and 'perfect' drawings.
Maria Popova: F. Scott Fitzgerald on the Secret of Great Writing (Brain Pickings)
Nothing any good isn't hard ….
Mark Coker: Apple's New iOS 8 is Game-Changer for eBook Retailing (Smashwords)
… Apple unveiled iOS 8, the new Apple operating system upgrade that will come out this fall. Buried in a slide during the live demo event referenced as "iOS 8 features we didn't have time to talk about" was an ebook retailing bombshell: iBooks will come pre-installed on iOS 8. The iBooks app is Apple's ebook store. Inside that app is over 250,000 books from Smashwords authors. This is a game-changer for ebook retailing.
Penelope Foreman: I gave birth to an 11lb baby, so a bit more support would have been nice (Guardian)
For me giving birth was a real challenge - and one that comes as more of a surprise than it should.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog
David Bruce's Lulu Storefront
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has approximately 50 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
wrote:
has retired.
took the day off.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
from Marc Perkel
BartCop
Hello Bartcop fans,
As you all know the untimely passing of Terry was unexpected, even by
him. We all knew he had cancer but we all thought he had some years
left. So some of us who have worked closely with him over the years are
scrambling around trying to figure out what to do. My job, among other
things, is to establish communications with the Bartcop community and
provide email lists and groups for those who might put something
together. Those who want to play an active roll in something coming from
this, or if you are one of Bart's pillars, should send an email to
active@bartcop.com.
The most active open discussion is on Bart's Facebook page.
( www.facebook.com/bartcop )
You can listen to Bart's theme song here
or here.
( www.bartcop.com/blizing-saddles.mp3 )
( youtu.be/MySGAaB0A9k )
We have opened up the radio show archives which are now free. Listen to
all you want.
( bartcop.com/members )
Bart's final wish was to pay off the house mortgage for Mrs. Bart who is
overwhelmed and so very grateful for the support she has received.
Anyone wanting to make a donation can click on this the yellow donate
button on bartcop.com
But - I need you all to help keep this going. This note
isn't going to directly reach all of Bart's fans. So if you can repost
it on blogs and discussion boards so people can sign up then when we
figure out what's next we can let more people know. This list is just
over 600 but like to get it up to at least 10,000 pretty quick. So
here's the signup link for this email list.
( mailman.bartcop.com/listinfo/bartnews )
Marc Perkel
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny afternoon.
Book Notes
JK Rowling
J.K. Rowling has added a subtle comment under her pen name Robert Galbraith about the standoff between her publisher and Amazon.com.
The "Harry Potter" author noted in a tweet Wednesday from @rgalbraith there are "lots of ways" besides through Amazon to order her upcoming Galbraith detective novel, "The Silkworm."
Amazon is in a contract dispute with Rowling's U.S. publisher, Hachette Book Group, and isn't accepting pre-orders for "The Silkworm" and other Hachette releases.
Amazon has suggested negotiations will be prolonged and customers in the meantime can buy Hachette books from its competitors.
JK Rowling
2014 Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism
Robin Roberts
"Good Morning America" co-host Robin Roberts will receive the 2014 Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism from Arizona State University's Cronkite School.
The university announced that Roberts will receive the award during an Oct. 6 luncheon in Phoenix.
Roberts worked for several radio and television stations and ESPN before being named co-anchor of ABC's "Good Morning America" in 2005.
The Mississippi native is a graduate of Southeastern Louisiana University.
Robin Roberts
Artwork Auctioned
John Lennon
Whimsical drawings, poems and short stories from two humorous books John Lennon produced in the 1960s fetched skyrocketing prices at auction Wednesday, including $209,000 for a nine-page parody of Sherlock Holmes.
The manuscript, "The Singularge Experience of Miss Anne Duffield," was the top lot in the sale and had been estimated to bring $50,000 to $70,000.
The material was created for the two critically acclaimed books Lennon published during the height of Beatlemania. Sotheby's said 100 per cent of the 89 lots sold, with 83 per cent selling above the pre-sale high estimate.
"In his Own Write" was a collection of 31 short stories and poems full of puns and spelling errors that was published in 1964. It was a big hit with reviewers who compared Lennon to Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear. It was followed a year later by "A Spaniard in the Works," its title a pun on the British term "a spanner in the works," similar to the American expression "a monkey wrench in the works."
The collection belonged to Lennon's British publisher, Tom Maschler, who held on to it for a half-century. Sotheby's described it as the the largest private collection of Lennon's work to come to the market. Before becoming famous as a musician, Lennon, who was fatally shot in 1980, trained as an artist at the Liverpool School of Art.
John Lennon
$1.5M For Collection
Comics
A Kentucky man's comic book collection with first issues of Superman, Batman and the Flash fetched $1.5 million in an online auction this week.
John Wise had collected the valuable super hero comics over three decades.
A comic from 1940 with the first appearance of Flash claimed the top individual price of $182,000. First issues of Superman and Batman from the same era sold for $172,000 and $137,000 in the offerings that ended Tuesday. His issue of the first-ever comic from Marvel sold for $95,000.
Wise says the exploding popularity of super heroes in movies and TV made it a good time to sell. He plans to buy a house and send his grandchildren to college with the profits.
Comics
Elk-Killing Cop Found Guilty
Colorado
A former police officer who killed a trophy elk last year was convicted Tuesday of nine charges including illegal hunting.
Former Boulder officer Sam Carter faces up to six years in prison for shooting and killing the animal last year as it grazed beneath a crabapple tree, The Daily Camera reported.
Carter argued that the elk had become dangerously domesticated and aggressive. But prosecutors told the jury that the killing was a case of poaching by an officer who sought to use his position to get an illegal trophy mount.
After shooting the elk, prosecutors said, Carter called a friend and former officer to pick up the elk's carcass and butcher it. They also said Carter later forged a tag to pass off the dead animal as road kill.
The charges included attempting to influence a public official, one count of forgery, two counts of tampering with physical evidence, first-degree official misconduct, illegal possession of a trophy elk, conspiracy to commit illegal possession of wildlife, unlawfully taking a big game animal out of season, and unlawful use of an electronic communication device to unlawfully take wildlife.
Colorado
Back To Work At CBS 'News'
Lara Logan
CBS News' Lara Logan is back to work at "60 Minutes" more than six months after being ordered to take a leave of absence for her role in a disputed story on the deadly 2012 raid at the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.
CBS News spokeswoman Sonya McNair said Wednesday that Logan has returned. She had no details on when the correspondent resumed work and what type of stories she is working on. Logan did not immediately return a telephone message for comment.
Her October report on the CBS newsmagazine was quickly criticized and became the subject of an internal CBS investigation. The story relied on the testimony by Dylan Davies, a security contractor who said he was at the scene of the raid that since then has become a key Republican criticism of the Obama administration. But his story fell apart and it turned out there was no evidence he was there, and CBS issued a correction.
The internal review also said that a speech Logan made in urging the U.S. to take action in response to the Benghazi raid represented a conflict of interest for a reporter later doing a story on the incident.
The liberal watchdog Media Matters for America, a sharp critic of the Benghazi report from the beginning, had harsh words for CBS News for bringing Logan back.
Lara Logan
Defunct Orphanage
Ireland
The Catholic Church in Ireland is facing fresh accusations of child neglect after a researcher found records for 796 young children believed to be buried in a mass grave beside a former orphanage for the children of unwed mothers.
The researcher, Catherine Corless, says her discovery of child death records at the Catholic nun-run home in Tuam, County Galway, suggests that a former septic tank filled with bones is the final resting place for most, if not all, of the children.
County Galway death records showed that the children, mostly babies and toddlers, died often of sickness or disease in the orphanage during the 35 years it operated from 1926 to 1961. The building, which had previously been a workhouse for homeless adults, was torn down decades ago to make way for new houses.
A 1944 government inspection recorded evidence of malnutrition among some of the 271 children then living in the Tuam orphanage alongside 61 unwed mothers. The death records cite sicknesses, diseases, deformities and premature births as causes. This would reflect an Ireland that, in the first half of the 20th century, had one of the worst infant mortality rates in Europe, with tuberculosis rife.
Ireland
Pushed Back To 2015
'Jupiter Ascending'
Just six weeks ahead of its planned release, the Wachowskis' space thriller "Jupiter Ascending" has been postponed to 2015.
Warner Bros. announced the date change late Tuesday. The movie, with a budget of $150 million or more and starring Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis, will now open Feb. 6 instead of July 18.
It's a stunning and unusual move for a high-profile film so close to release. "Jupiter Ascending," which Warner Bros. co-financed with Village Roadshow, will bounce out of the lucrative but high-pressure summer movie season and into early February, often a dumping ground for troubled movies.
Andy and Lana Wachowski have a checkered box-office track record. Though their "Matrix" trilogy was a huge hit, their "Cloud Atlas" and "Speed Racer" both flopped at the box office.
'Jupiter Ascending'
Former Girlfriend Says...
Jimi Hendrix
An ex-girlfriend of guitar legend Jimi Hendrix has lashed out at a new biopic about his life, claiming some of it was "completely made up".
Kathy Etchingham, Hendrix's girlfriend from 1966-69, said she was not consulted about the movie directed by John Ridley, who won an Oscar in March for writing the "12 Years a Slave" screenplay.
Although yet to see the film, she is particularly incensed about a scene that depicts their relationship as so turbulent that he beats her up.
"It's just completely made up," Etchingham, who lives in Melbourne, told Fairfax Media in a story published Wednesday.
Etchingham, who is widely credited as being the inspiration for many of Hendrix's songs including "The Wind Cries Mary" and "Foxy Lady", will be in the Sydney audience for her first look at the film.
Jimi Hendrix
'Bad Trip' On Marijuana Candy Bar
Maureen Dowd
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd took investigative journalism to a new "high" when she decided to do some of her own research on Colorado's legalized marijuana scene.
While in Colorado, Dowd decided to sample a marijuana candy bar in an attempt to feel the effects of the pot-filled treat. But when she bit off a piece of the candy bar and didn't feel anything for the first hour, she decided to eat some more - all in the name of journalism, of course.
It is unclear how much of the candy bar Dowd actually consumed, because shortly after ingesting some more after the initial bite, Dowd began to feel the effects, which she detailed in her column.
The Twitter backlash that followed spawned a plethora of Internet memes and witty comments as people poked fun at Dowd's experience.
Maureen Dowd
Wandering Wolf Has Pups
OR-7
Oregon's famous wandering wolf has fathered pups with a mate in the southern Cascade Range - the first confirmed wolf pack in those mountains since the 1940s, officials said Wednesday.
Biologists made the determination after traveling Monday to a site on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest east of Medford, where photos and a GPS tracking collar showed the wolf known as OR-7 has been living with a mate.
They saw two pups peering out from a pile of logs and may have heard more, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said.
OR-7 and his mate were nowhere to be seen but could well have been nearby in the dense timber, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist John Stephenson said.
"It was pretty exciting seeing the pups," he said. "OR-7 was probably off getting some food. We saw a couple deer (and elk) legs that had obviously been getting chewed on."
OR-7
In Memory
Chester Nez
The last of 29 Navajo Americans who developed an unbreakable code that helped Allied forces win the second World War died in New Mexico on Wednesday of kidney failure at the age of 93.
Chester Nez was the last remaining survivor of an original group of 29 Navajos recruited by the U.S. Marine Corps to create a code based on their language that the Japanese could not crack.
His son, Michael Nez, said his father died peacefully in his sleep at their home in Albuquerque.
About 400 code talkers would go on to use their unique battlefield cipher to encrypt messages sent from field telephones and radios throughout the Pacific theater during the war.
It was regarded as secure from Japanese military code breakers because the language was spoken only in the U.S. Southwest, was known by fewer than 30 non-Navajo people, and had no written form.
The Navajos' skill, speed and accuracy under fire in ferocious battles from the Marshall Islands to Iwo Jima is credited with saving thousands of U.S. servicemen's lives and helping shorten the war. Their work was celebrated in the 2002 movie "Windtalkers."
Nez and his young fellow recruits were called communications specialists by the Marines and were taught Morse code, semaphore and "blinker," a system using lights to send messages between ships.
The code they developed substituted Navajo words for military terms. CHAY-DA-GAHI, which translates to "turtle," came to mean a tank while a GINI, "chicken hawk" in English, became a dive bomber. America was NE-HE-MAH, "our mother."
The code talkers served in all six Marine divisions and 13 were killed in World War Two.
Nez also volunteered to serve two more years during the Korean War. He retired in 1974 after a 25-year career as a painter at the Veterans Administration hospital in Albuquerque.
Chester Nez
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