Saturday, October 16, 2004
ADVENTURES IN GOOGLING: From time to time, I share the wonders of search engine desperation with my loyal followers (both of you), and thanks to this cheerful little feature I've anchored to my sidebar, I can find out just what draws in the traffic, to exploit your whims for my bid for world domination. Imagine my horror, then, when the greatest influx of outside traffic (read: people I don't already know) comes from folks looking for porn. The crux of the whole situation is that if you don't tell them you're hunting for a phrase, web spiders pin down individual words scattered throughout a page. So if on one part of the page, I mention "tits" (and yes, I meant TATER TITS, bub), another part talks about teens, and the two are naturally mixed with the title of the blog, the search result returns TINY TEEN TITS. And in spite of not having ANY pictures of the above to offer, I've been getting multiple hits from people apparently looking for pictures of topless women.
Now don't get me wrong, I have as much of an eye for the jiggly bits as the next hetero guy, but come ON, what the hell do you people expect to find on Blogger? Coming to a site looking for porn and finding a guy talking about books and TV has to be an instant erection killer.
So for those who were dopey enough to come here anyway looking for barely-legal girly flesh, I cordially invite you to bite me. Then again, maybe I better take that back...don't want butt-biting fetishists to get the wrong idea.
And speaking of awkward transitions...
JUST FINISHED: The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley. The follow-up to Parnassus On Wheels finds Roger Mifflin, travelling bookseller, holding down a storefront in post-WW1 Brooklyn, holding forth on his favorite topic (his passion for reading) to anyone who will listen. Apparently a few people actually agree with him, as a friend sends his daughter to do a bit of apprenticeship to "get some of the 'finishing school' nonsense out of her head". While she gets accustomed to the way things are done in her new trade, a book of Oliver Cromwell's speeches keeps popping in and out of its assigned place on the shelf, and after somebody almost pitches ad man Aubrey Gilbert off the Brooklyn Bridge in a burlap sack for being too nosy, he starts to suspect something sinister going on at the bookshop.
I do have to give you fair warning on a few points, especially if you go into this book without reading Parnassus first (which isn't completely necessary). Morley has the good grace to apologize up front the romantic subplot running away with the book at certain points when his original goal was to give us more Mifflin. If you can't get into the literary lifestyle, you might take issue with the chapters dedicated to the importance of books, complete with reading lists, then-current publishing trends, and the philosophies of various book sellers. However, if you're the type who gets into kicking around musty covers in secondhand stores, these may be the most interesting parts. Morely has a wonderfully descriptive style, which gives you a real sense of the place and the times. As was mentioned above, he throws in a decent dollop of adventure and (naturally) some digs at the ad game.
Once again, you can pick up the e-text at Gutenberg, but Barnes and Noble's in-store imprint was kind enough to put into print a new illustrated hardcover edition which is well worth your time.
Now don't get me wrong, I have as much of an eye for the jiggly bits as the next hetero guy, but come ON, what the hell do you people expect to find on Blogger? Coming to a site looking for porn and finding a guy talking about books and TV has to be an instant erection killer.
So for those who were dopey enough to come here anyway looking for barely-legal girly flesh, I cordially invite you to bite me. Then again, maybe I better take that back...don't want butt-biting fetishists to get the wrong idea.
And speaking of awkward transitions...
JUST FINISHED: The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley. The follow-up to Parnassus On Wheels finds Roger Mifflin, travelling bookseller, holding down a storefront in post-WW1 Brooklyn, holding forth on his favorite topic (his passion for reading) to anyone who will listen. Apparently a few people actually agree with him, as a friend sends his daughter to do a bit of apprenticeship to "get some of the 'finishing school' nonsense out of her head". While she gets accustomed to the way things are done in her new trade, a book of Oliver Cromwell's speeches keeps popping in and out of its assigned place on the shelf, and after somebody almost pitches ad man Aubrey Gilbert off the Brooklyn Bridge in a burlap sack for being too nosy, he starts to suspect something sinister going on at the bookshop.
I do have to give you fair warning on a few points, especially if you go into this book without reading Parnassus first (which isn't completely necessary). Morley has the good grace to apologize up front the romantic subplot running away with the book at certain points when his original goal was to give us more Mifflin. If you can't get into the literary lifestyle, you might take issue with the chapters dedicated to the importance of books, complete with reading lists, then-current publishing trends, and the philosophies of various book sellers. However, if you're the type who gets into kicking around musty covers in secondhand stores, these may be the most interesting parts. Morely has a wonderfully descriptive style, which gives you a real sense of the place and the times. As was mentioned above, he throws in a decent dollop of adventure and (naturally) some digs at the ad game.
Once again, you can pick up the e-text at Gutenberg, but Barnes and Noble's in-store imprint was kind enough to put into print a new illustrated hardcover edition which is well worth your time.
|| Eric 1:02 PM#
