This took me a sec, even though I'd seen it before.  It's nice forgetting a punchline.  Makes it a new joke all over again. 

Anyway, click the link.  It's awesome. 

__ NaNoWriMo
A Play in One Act

Dramatis Personæ:

• STEVE
• MIKE

SCENE—a bar; early December, 2011.  America has just wrapped up another NaNoWriMo, aka National Novel Writing Month.  Two guys—STEVE and MIKE, both, mid-20s—are drinking beers, doing shots, and totally partying.

MIKE:
So, Steve, you do NaNoWriMo this year?

I very much enjoyed Pankaj Mishra's review of Niall Ferguson's Civilization: The West and the Rest.  By 'review,' I mean 'a thorough and relentless intellectual ass-kicking.'

Well, Ferguson did not like the article quite as much as I did.  He wrote in to the London Review of Books to demand an apology.  His specific beef was the charge of racism-- not said outright but pretty much implied by Mishra's review.  Ferguson's letter seems to return a few good blows, but Mishra's reply is just as thorough and hostile as his review (and is also contained in the link in this paragraph).

Their exhange did not smooth things over.  Ferguson wrote back and was like, "David Daokui Li is hardly an ‘obscure scholar’. He is one of China’s leading economists."  SNAP.  Point Ferguson!  Mishra took a drag off his cigarette [assumed] and quipped, "Yeah buddy, some readers of Civilisation {sic, English spelling} may still want to see the actual paper that apparently singlehandedly discredits a major work of scholarship."  OH NO HE DIDN'T.  (Full disclosure:  oh no, he didn't say "Yeah buddy." I added that for fun's sake.  And again, both Ferguson's letter and Mishra's response are in the link in this paragraph.)

And now?  Ferguson is threatening to sue for libel.

I don't have a dog in the fight, I should admit.  I've never read any Ferguson books, so, despite the vibe I have that I would not like them, I can't really say who is right about the book.  Though I have a guess... 

The Shame of College Sports, by Taylor Branch.

Football High, a documentary from Frontline.

_ Have you ever lit a single candle on a birthday cupcake all by yourself and blown it out seconds later in complete silence?  It is impossible to pull it off and not seem like the most depressed person alive.   Before I tell that story, here is a fried chicken review and the provenance of the cupcake.

On Saturday November 5th I turned 37.  Yo: I look 35, so it’s not like I’m sweating it.  An ex-girl of mine invited me out to dinner for my birthday.  It’s cool, our relationship is completely de-militarized.  Knowing my obsession with fried chicken, she suggested Lillie’s Q in Chicago.  She claimed it was the best fried chicken she ever had.  I can’t ignore bold claims like that, so consented.   We went this past Tuesday night.