the wonder box

And THAT is all she wrote. It is now 11:25 am PT. I'll be back.

I can't believe this: Newly minted Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Chabon wrote me back yesterday. This guy, who I bet is receiving more email than ever in his life (since he was just awarded an incredible prize), managed to write me back in ONE DAY. Whew. And he said nice things (though very short things).

Today I've been thinking about writing a letter to Joss Whedon (creator, occasional writer/director of the WB's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") because his show is still the most amazing fun huge thrilling television event ever. For me, anyway. *shrugs*

Speaking of writing letters to people cooler than me, I wrote a little morsel of fan mail to SFGate columnist Mark Morford. He makes so much FUN of the news, and the world, especially things like President Bush and all, that I thought I owed him a "right-o." Sometimes he responds to his emails, and in this column, he mentions (way down on the page) little Leanne M. (Uh, that's me.)

Who should I e-mail stalk now? Bill Gates, perhaps?

Right now I'm reading the short story that was the basis for "Memento." I am reading this on my computer screen in my boring little office-with-a-door because 1) I am bored and tired 2) someone made the page very printer-UNfriendly, requiring us to strain the already strained eyeballs even more 3) I want to go home and not do work, so I surf the Net 4) I can't listen to any more streaming music stations, don't try and make me 5) I've lost most of my inspiration for creative output, so I turn to the work of others, hoping it will push me into action.

I'm sure there are more reasons, but you don't really care. Me neither.

If you're not suckered into that other story, why not read Bill Werde's little Madonna-centered piece in the "Village Voice"? Apparently the M.Girl's "What It Feels Like for a Girl" video was _banned_ from MTV because it stars a kickass woman (Madonna, natch) driving cars into things. This makes me shake my head in disappointment, wondering how MTV got so LAME. Like, what?? Like, Madonna (or Thelma & Louise for that matter) would warp young minds? I was going to go on about this topic at length, but I decided Werde did a fine fine job on his own and, anyway, remember how tired I am? Must get back to that story. Thanks for your time.

I really have nothing more to share with you. Just be assured that I do, I DO!, have bigger, broader Web site plans in the works and I do, I DO, miss you very much. I love, adore, worship California . . . but without you, it can never mean enough.

Do the funky chicken. Please.

Can I also say I am severely disappointed in my weblogging of late? Extensive web site re-building and re-organizing will commence soon. If I ever get a little bit of peace in my life. Example of no peace in my life: in just a few short hours I will be driving to the mountains of Yosemite. There will be camp fires, waterfalls, hikes, bears (I hope!) and me on a cot in a tent. *sigh* where are the eggs hand-scrambled and delivered to me in bed on a saturday morn? where oh where.

requisite links: Beck. Beck! So I finally got to see him, and we stood real close, and all the kids smooshed us and there was sweat. Sweet, sweet Beck. I attempted to write down a setlist on my readily available note pad, but the kids gave me looks (yeah, those looks) so I stopped. He did everything he should (except Hot Wax, dammit). But. Here and here are some high-praise reviews of the concert and, oh, here is a great photo. Look at those skinny little arms!

Happy Cinco de Mayo, margaritas downstairs . . .

This is not my Web site: www.leanne.com.

TONIGHT I WILL SEE BECK.

East Coast's favorite son Bill Werde writes about hip-hop for Salon.

Just read the first couple of paragraphs here. Now THAT's a cool wedding surprise.

Bible-beating mom reports on the evil messages that 'N Sync, the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears are sending your innocent children. She uses bible passages and magazine pictures of the culprits to back up her entirely valid (yeah, right!) claims. [golf claps for Will T.]

Everyone! Send Catherine your bouncer stories! She's giving out prizes (I know b/c I was one of the first winners!) Don't think about it, just do it! Nunnally . . . Dowd . . . I know you've got some good ones. Don't let me down.

Too many exclamation points in that paragraph. And I'm NOT GOING TO FIX IT. !

Which reminds me: I meant to link to "Elian! the Musical" earlier, but really, I don't think it's that funny. So.

Want a movie script? Any movie script? You can probably find it here.

Biblical action figures. African-American style or good ol' whitey.

Catherine had this, but if you didn't read it yet, and you care at all about people and the rats they eat for the sake of prime-time tv, do it now.

Have you ever worried that you were an obsessive fan of a television show? I would say you're in a safety zone of normalcy UNLESS you've started to pen your own "stories" about what should happen with Buffy and Angel, Scully and Mulder, or Mr. T, or Spock or, god, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. Even if you're not at that state yet, tons of people are. Slate plunges into the depths of fanfic (or, fan fiction). Especially illuminating is the whole sub-genre of Slash fanfic, which probes unspoken homosexual feelings between characters (Spock and Capt. Kirk!). Some of my favorites: The Lesson, in which Oz tries to teach Willow the guitar. (Even better: NC-17 scene between Oz and Willow after the graduation day defeat! Yeow!) Or how about the One Night in Hellmouth musical. And, look! 21 Jump Street lives!

Here's everything you wanted to know about cheese. Mmmmm, cheese.

Today I found Half.com, where you can buy and sell all kinds of used things, I suppose at half the price. Whatever the deal is, I bought three books for under $12 (if you're a new member, first-time shipping is free). Oh, I got to Half.com from EvenBetter.com, which is another one of those comparison sites. Say what you want, it helped me get three books for $12 and that's always a good thing. Woo.

There were all kinds of ineffectual protests in Washington, you know. I only link to it out of respect for my D.C. cohorts. They're in the middle of the carnage! Jake Tapper, who now reports for Salon, includes pictures of blood on the sidewalks (if that's your kind of thing). I have a lot of respect for Mr. Tapper, you see, because back during the heyday of such things, he published a Washington City Paper cover story called "I Dated Monica Lewinsky." No joke. Read it.

In other "Goonies" nonsense, did you know that the cast was not premitted to see the pirate ship until it came time to film the find-the-ship scene? And you thought they were just really good actors.

I enjoyed "Erin Brockovich." I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But FEED mag argues that Julia & Co., and all that Hollywood money, and the disappearance of definable culture, are propelling us all to hell in a hand basket. "As the common ground of geography, community, and family disappears, we're forced more and more to connect through contexts that are pre-established for us, and find ourselves with less and less to talk about . . . ."

Back to childhood: Online Lite Brite! Click "play now" and light up your life, if you're bored. [via Strange Brew]

I still haven't done my taxes. What do you have to say about that?

Hee!: I am a trailer-trash housewife". [via Fresh Hell]

I haven't found time to read this yet, but I will: The Washington Post's Pulitzer Prize-winning series on the stunning abuse of D.C.'s mentally retarded. I also want to read the Denver Post's winning Columbine coverage. We should never forget this.

Yes, I used to work for them: The Onion offers a preview of the upcoming USA Today redesign. [brought to you by Mike Dowd. yippee!]

Does anyone still care about the McSweeneys.net fiasco? Why does Dave Eggers strive for the masses to hate him? Anyway, yes, I did send a letter into the web site protesting the so-called "merge" with McSweeneys.com. You can read this letter here (and tons more), but it's buried more than halfway down the page (how could they?). Suck.com thinks Eggers sucks, really, for this "caddish" publicity stunt. But Suck actually "talks" to Gerry McSweeney and looks at all kinds of recent Internet/media "hoaxes." Some of them I, uh, fell for.

Do you see? I just can't stop using the "ironical" quotation marks!

Just read it: I recently finished Bret Easton Ellis' "Less Than Zero" and my god, it's great. It may be filled with stream-of-consciousness prattle, but this novel is powered by such a thrilling forward motion -- it builds at a furious pace, you don't even know how it's grabbing you and you're just swept in and sucked dry and spit out . . . Now, some of you might be thinking of the 1987 film of the same name, which stars Andrew McCarthy, Robert Downey Jr., and crew. But that has to be all wrong, I won't even believe it, let alone see it. Mr. Ebert thought the flick was 4-star great, but everyone else hated it. Info on the book itself is a lot harder to find, but Salon nails it (you have to scroll down to find the sauce, but there's a nice critique in there) AND can you believe it? The Onion interviews the author.

Life update, and how this information may relate to you: My new job is overwhelming me in exciting ways, so please don't get too sad about infrequent updates. My goal is to get my at-home computer station hooked up and functional in the near (foggy) future (do you realize that summertime in san fran means lots of thick, wet fog? no joke) and THEN life in the box will bloom again. But thanks for reading, please keep reading and don't hesitate to send me a note to say hello.

*waves good night*

Check out the winners of the SXSW web competition. Lots and lots of interesting (pointless) sites (time waste!) out there.

Those of us on the Heartbreaking/McSweeney's/Eggers beat should turn an educated ear to "House of Leaves" buzz. Here's another young, post-postmodernist writer, "at his most playful," telling the story of a story of a story of a house with one of those "black holes" in it. Or something like that. Apparently different narrators unravel the tale, and you can only tell who's who by the change in font. What a trickster! Really, though, the book sounds v.cool. Hey, the NYTimes Book Review loved it. And FEED mag has something to say about it too.

My use of "quotes" is really starting to bug me.

Oh! Test out Mean magazine, only in its 7th issue. (The mag is not available online, except for a table of contents). This month there's an uber-informative article on Figgis' "Time Code 2000" project, with all kinds of juice the movie web site neglects to let loose. You know, of course, that this film will be shown in four quadrants on one screen, and it was shot in one take (the cast practiced the 93-minute "script" twice a day for two weeks), and everyone had to synchronize their watches and hit their marks and big name stars appear and Figgis has an extensive background in an improv/video group called The People Show and the "script" was written entirely on MUSIC paper -- you know, the stuff with staffs and clefs on it? Right.

Ah, MEAN.

www.hotbar.com. You can put sharks, bubbles, pyramids and so much more on your browser window. I'm enjoying some peacefully grazing cows RIGHT NOW.

Pop torture: University of Toronto Campus Police are blaring the Backstreet Boys in an attempt to stop a six-day-old student sit-in. How excellent! [via Fresh Hell]

Oh, how we need this: The Ultimate Build Your Own Cow Page. Right. [via memepool]

Last week, I found an interesting interview/dialogue with author Lewis Nordan, a guy I had never heard of before. He writes "Southern tragicomic folk-cult novels" and in this particular piece, he reveals the myth of the tortured artist as it relates to "Wonder Boys," the Michael-Douglas-as-burnt-out-writer flick. Apparently, it's not uncommon for "real" authors to take over seven years between literary achievements. (Editor's note: I loved Michael Chabon's book, for its beautiful language & wit. The film however, lacks . . . uh, shall we say . . . pace.)

Anyway, this guy Lewis Nordan sounds like one to check out. The NYTimes reviewer of his coming-of-age novel "Lightning Song" waxes poetic: "I must confess that I love this boy. I also love the excesses of this novel's language; I love the lightning striking at regular intervals; I love the llamas singing in the fields. . ." and on and on and on.

Something to Read on the Public Trans: Somehow I happened upon New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell's site. Here you can find all of his (really good) articles. Last night I read "Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg" and it was a fascinating look at a.) this one Chicago grandmother who seems to know everyone b.) where the "six degrees of separation" term came from and how this relates to Kevin Bacon, other actors, and you c.) how people who are "connectors" like Lois rule the world. Great, great stuff. Tonight I might just read "Listening to Khakis" so I can find out "what America's most popular pants tell us about the way guys think." Hoo boy!

A bit old, but quite thrilling nonetheless: "I made $14 selling my used panties on Ebay."

Just plain ridiculous: UBUBU.com (you be you be you?). It, ah, makes the Internet more fun, with little planets and such. Patrick Stewart is involved.

Compared to other countries, our game shows suck.

Oh. My. God. The words Beck David Hansen can be arranged into: "Eh! Acid bank vends." Or "Behaved snack din." Believe it or not, I did not come up with this on my own. Some chick has TONS of Beck anagrams. You can also read her Beck Dream Journals. You've got to give it a try. It's almost as good as the time I dreamed Beck and I switched bodies, and I (as Beck) was in the high school auditorium, in a cowboy hat, listening to a motivational speaker. It gets a lot juicier & twisted, but I'm just not prepared to reveal that much about myself. Thank you. [via Catwoman]

Still talking about Dave Eggers, I am. So today I was looking for some book-type information on Amazon, and accidentally ended up checking on the customer reviews for Eggers' memoir. See, they had been running a contest on the McSweeney's site to see who could write the best utterly fake & crazy review of A.H.W.O.S.G. When I last checked a few weeks back, there were 50-some entries. TODAY I looked, and there are only 22 reviews! And they are all heartbreakingly boring & real! I want my surreality.

Here's an insightful email interview with the talented Mr. Dave Eggers. Why oh why can't I stop obsessing about this guy? (Did you hear how I MET him in a bar/reading? And was too nervous to approach?? Such is my life.) Thanks, Whit, for the link! Just stop being scared of the airport baggage checkers.

Oh I have fallen in love with new NYTimes film reviewer Elvis Mitchell (as I had predicted I would). He brings Carson Daly, "aerodynamic hair detailing" and Cahiers du Cinema together in his rousing slam on Roman Polanski's "The Ninth Gate" (starring Johnny Depp, oh boy). I mean, Elvis talks about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, sock-puppet "Blair Witch" and "wizened decadence" . . . . Janet Maslin, who?

Well, now we know: Third Eye Blind's Stephan Jenkins "likes to destroy things" and he's pretty sure you can sense this in his music. Right-o, buddy. Anyway, my neighbor (no joke! he lives 2 blocks away!) is going to be in an upcoming Mark Wahlberg film and he thinks having so many white fans is "a drag." Such a semi-depressing kind of life. The poor guy.

The Muppet Show is coming back!

Has anyone watched "Freaks and Geeks"? I know, I know, it used to run on Saturday nights and what loser was home to watch that (uh, me)? But it's a "My So-Called Life" style program, with a little more pot and a little less Claire Danes. Anyway, it's taking another stab at the unforgiving prime-time audiences and we should all watch it.

More about Napster, which is a cool thing. Though it occasionally blows up my computer. I've also recently started "beaming" all my cds into my MP3.com, because it will compress them, store them, play them, and let you pick your own private playlist. What's life without a little bit o' music?

Companys can monitor your keystrokes, reports the Wall Street Journal. This is so not good.

Catherine's Pita
Kempa.com
Saturn.org
Wisdom
Apathy
Riothero
Strange Brew
Obscure Store
Memepool
ThisIsNews
Metascene
Weblog Nation
Robot Wisdom
The Bradlands
Rbcc's Pocket
Saranwarp
Lake Effect
The Review

Please address your comments and queries to: the wonderbox. Thank you.