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Boring Airport Book Contract Better Than No Book Contract
Laura Bush's Memoir Worth a Paltry Sum
House Full Of Bloggers Exactly As Cool As You Would Think

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Smitros
08/19/09

In reply to Boring Airport Book Contract Better Than No Book Contract
And this is the guy who wanted to tell us not to be worried about status. Right.
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Carol Gardens
08/19/09

In reply to Boring Airport Book Contract Better Than No Book Contract
May favorite Alain de Botton quote: "I will hate you till the day I die and wish you nothing but ill will in every career move you make. I will be watching with interest and schadenfreude."

[www.steamthing.com]
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SultanaEleusis
08/19/09

In reply to Boring Airport Book Contract Better Than No Book Contract
I think they stole the idea from a guy who once spent 24 hours in WalMart and wrote about it. 24 hours in WalMart=one week in Heathrow.
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Carol Gardens
08/19/09

@SultanaEleusis: Well, there was also a Nickelodeon Magazine article where the writer spent 24 hours in The Mall of America.
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snugbug
08/19/09

@Carol Gardens: Originality = the most overrated virtue in the po-mo age.
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Gabriel Snyder
08/19/09

In reply to Boring Airport Book Contract Better Than No Book Contract
Somewhere this morning Greg Lindsay is pissed.
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Edited by Gabriel Snyder at 08/19/09 11:27 AM Gabriel Snyder was starred Gabriel Snyder was unstarred

Greg Lindsay
08/19/09

@Gabriel Snyder: Actually, this is exactly the book I didn't want to write (and didn't). Anyone thinking of buying this book should read Walter Kirn's "Up in the Air" instead.
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snugbug
08/19/09

@Greg Lindsay: Hi, a bit off-thread, but I hope you can indulge me. "Now Boarding" for €500: "The breakout James Joyce-ian novel of this European author unfolds over the course of 24 hours spent entirely in the Air France L`Espace Première Lounge at the Paris Charles de Gaulle International Airport." (No Googling!)
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Edited by snugbug at 08/19/09 12:15 PM snugbug was starred snugbug was unstarred

Greg Lindsay
08/19/09

@snugbug: The book on my shelf fitting that description is Brigid Brophy's "In Transit," which is so Joyce-ian I can't even read it. But she never had a breakout of any kind, so that probably isn't it.
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snugbug
08/19/09

@Greg Lindsay: Correct answer is "What is question stuffed with totally made-up facts."

I thought I was being clever making it up, but your erudition, which is nothing short of inspiring, brought me to my knees and now I feel like a bit of a jerk. PS: I'm going to buy Brigid Brophy's "In Transit" now.
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snugbug
08/19/09

In reply to Boring Airport Book Contract Better Than No Book Contract
Oh, I think this is a wonderful project. I'd completely buy the book. The Heathrow marketing people hit on a genius idea, and I bet de Botton had oodles of fun interviewing people. Plus, he provided a public service to those bored out of their minds waiting. (Heathrow truly has the WORST lines--I once read an entire paper, all the sections, including "Sports," which I'd normally skip, while waiting my turn for security check there.)
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Swifter
08/19/09

In reply to Boring Airport Book Contract Better Than No Book Contract
The real question is, could I get Julia Allison to live in a glass coffin on the upper deck of my houseboat for a 12-day Blueprint Cleanse and four dozen cupcakes?
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pufflehuff
08/19/09

In reply to Boring Airport Book Contract Better Than No Book Contract
He's not really all that respected over here, please see Charlie Brooker on the subject: [www.guardian.co.uk]

Divine.

Continuing on the Bottonymorons / Chabonorons theme: Philip Roth appearing as himself under a different name in your easily-shocked grandma's conservatory.

(Can't wait to finish my novel! LOL)
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hypocriteoath
08/19/09

In reply to Boring Airport Book Contract Better Than No Book Contract
rich people commissioning art for their own purposes? YOU DON'T SAY! not like this has been happening... oh... say.... FOREVER.
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Cheruth
08/19/09

In reply to Boring Airport Book Contract Better Than No Book Contract
In A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll never do again, David Foster Wallace talks about a highly respected writer who wrote a puff piece on the cruise industry. The cruise line published it in their magazine but didn't label it as advertising and made it look like an excerpt from a stand alone book or article.

That writer also said that his condition was that the cruise industry had no say over what he wrote.

So this isn't exactly a new idea. But that guy got to go on a free cruise everything included. This guy gets to sit in Heathrow.
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snugbug promoted this comment Cheruth was starred Cheruth was unstarred

snugbug
08/19/09

@Cheruth: Hey, was this nugget in one of those incredible footnotes? How could I have missed it, I love that piece.. Or are you referring to the piece itself, which DFW himself wrote for Harper's about a 7-day Caribbean cruise aboard the Zenith? (Harper's paid for the cruise, $3,000--if I recall, he makes kind of a big deal about the cost and how he got to sail the high seas on Harper's dime..)

In any case, time to revisit "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again."
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Edited by snugbug at 08/19/09 11:11 AM snugbug was starred snugbug was unstarred

Carol Gardens
08/19/09

In reply to Boring Airport Book Contract Better Than No Book Contract
I'll read it. The Architecture of Happiness is a great book. If anyone can come up with an interesting commentary on airports, he can. I find them quite fascinating, myself.
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Dagrolord
01/07/09

In reply to Laura Bush's Memoir Worth a Paltry Sum
I'm hearing good buzz about Laura Bush's memoir, and a friend who's on the Inside tells me that not only are the memoirs to be titled 'the Stepford Life', but that it's chockablock with grimly ironic ruminations told from a vast royal blue abyss of solarium sorrow.
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HurtsSoGood
01/06/09

In reply to Laura Bush's Memoir Worth a Paltry Sum
You have to at least be an interesting person to command Hillary cash. While $1.6 mil is pretty good jack for a book full of Xanax-influenced babbling, it probably represents what conservative media (the same people who publish Ann Coulter's trash) expects to get out of it, more or less. My guess is it will make the NYT best-seller list for exactly one week on the strength of massive bulk orders by the likes of World Nut Daily, and be handed out for free to new subscribers.
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thatblackgirl
01/06/09

In reply to Laura Bush's Memoir Worth a Paltry Sum
Has she had work done? Her eyes look bery pulled back.
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thatblackgirl
01/06/09

@thatblackgirl: *very

Sorry, I'm hungry.
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i'm a bottle
01/06/09

In reply to Laura Bush's Memoir Worth a Paltry Sum
That's still enough money to keep her in cigarettes and booze.
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scroll_lock
01/06/09

In reply to Laura Bush's Memoir Worth a Paltry Sum
Head for the hills if that faceplate ever falls off and her ears start emitting sparks.
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DevilsAvocado
01/06/09

@scroll_lock:

Or if she farts (see: South Park: Awesome-o robot episode).
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scroll_lock
01/06/09

@DevilsAvocado: I didn't think she had the anatomical equipment necessary to pass anything other than moonbeams and magnolias!
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DevilsAvocado
01/06/09

@scroll_lock:

In response to your reparte, all I can come up with (tee hee) are 'butt plugs'. I'm retiring hurt. 'Tis 3.20 am here. But it's been fun, and fab to bump into you in the increasingly obtuse Gawker universe. Be well, Scrolly.
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scroll_lock
01/06/09

@DevilsAvocado: Great as always to see you! Love the jammies, too! XOXO DA
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