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Recent Posts
- “The A.I. Doc”: Dumb & Dumber Meets the Digital Overlords
- “Normal” Movie Review: Bob Odenkirk Blows Up the Fonz
- Jonathan Kennedy’s “Pathogenesis”: Mystery of the Neanderthal Extinction Solved!
- The Finale of “DTF St. Louis”: Sad Coda to Great Character
- Keanu Reeve’s New Movie “Outcome”: Schizophrenic Comedy/Drama on Fame and Goodness
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Author Archives: williamjcobb
J. D. Salinger Bio Sounds Good, and a Writers Party in Austin, circa 2006
So back in 2006 I was at an opulent writers’ party, a post-event thing at the Texas Book Festival, standing next to Frank McCourt and Maureen Down, Richard Ford and Jay McInerny, who today is reviewing a new biography of … Continue reading
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Hype Aversion to Facebook & Twitter, Nod to Evgeny Morozov's "The Net Delusion"
Leave it to the folks at the Urban Dictionary (who sometimes seem to have too much time on their hands: check out the P-words and you’ll get an idea of what I mean) to come up with a term for … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
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In the Footsteps of Richard Alley: Mark Hertsgaard's "Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth"
So today’s NY Times Sunday Book Review has a review of what sounds like a good book in the climate change library, HOT: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth, by Mark Hertsgaard, here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/books/review/Stephenson-t.html?_r=1&ref=books I asked Richard Alley, in our … Continue reading
Posted in books, Climate Change
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Climate Change Expert Richard Alley in the Parking Lot, Obama in the House
So yesterday President Obama visited Penn State and I wasn’t able to go, having to teach a class at that time, but the whole town (and my students) were atwitter with excitement, and irritation, because the traffic was all screwed … Continue reading
Posted in Climate Change, Politics
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On Neil Genzlinger's "The Problem With Memoirs," a Witty Look at Bogus Memoirs in NY Times, or a Book Review With Balls, plus a ShoutOut to Karen Russell's "Swamplandia!"
I haven’t been blogging much lately because I’m caught in a vortex of Academic Hell, coping with various problems brought on by our sickly economy, and here’s to hoping it will end soon: the bad economy, that is. Academic Hell … Continue reading
Posted in books, writing
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"My Father's Guns," an essay remembered in response to the Tucson Shooting
Tim Egan had another good piece in the NY Times about the Tucson shooting and the gun control debate, here: He mentions his family as gun owners and users. I have a similar history, though with more tragedy than I … Continue reading
Posted in books, Politics, The West
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Sarah Palin Anthem: Sad or Funny?
A friend of mine (Thanks, Morris!) sent me this link, and I can’t decide whether it’s funny, or just sad. You decide. http://www.buzzfeed.com/ashleybaccam/sarah-palin-battle-hymn
Posted in Politics
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The Classic Library v. Kindle Disposability of eBooks
Over the holidays something struck me (as all wrong) about the rise of ebooks and “Kindle editions”: In Colorado I have a kind of classic library, not a zillion crappy paperbacks, but a good number (around a thousand, I would … Continue reading
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A Star Is Corn: "Country Strong" & the Gwyneth Paltrow Gagfest
There needs to be some complicated noun (perhaps the Urban Dictionary can get on this, better than “hiberdating” or “internet coma”) to express the rather long-winded “feeling of revulsion when seeing overexposed celebrities in internet-news headlines that you’ve just become … Continue reading
Posted in Film
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Prisons, Poverty, & Pickups: The Other West
So I’ve just driven 1720 miles from Colorado to Pennsylvania . . . . . . and the contrast between Western and Eastern U.S. is on my mind. One thing I notice is the discrepancy between the media myth of … Continue reading
Posted in The West
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