* This is so commonsensical I don’t know why I haven’t seen anyone else put it exactly like this, but here’s Tom Spurgeon on those pesky Bookscan numbers and the innumeracy of attempts to use them against the bookstore market:
Just the fact that a number for a book that came out in January is going to be different than for the same book had it come out in November should discredit these numbers’ use.
* Todd VanDerWerff refers to this week’s episode of Lost as “The Passion of [Character Redacted].” Meanwhile, fun stuff is discussed in the comment thread on my post.
* They’re remaking The Neverending Story and Total Recall. Also, SciFi Wire should really provide links to the trades when it takes stories from them; the fact that the trades never return the favor when stories are broken on the nerd sites is no excuse. And yes, I realize I’m being a fat hypocrite because I was too lazy to use Google News to track down the original articles. I may not get there with you, SciFi Wire, but I’ve been to the mountaintop and I’ve seen the netiquette promised land.
* Jog reviews Supermen!, editor Greg Sadowski’s new collection of Fletcher Hanks-y supercomics from the Golden Age.
* Real-life horror: The New York Times presents a disturbing, heartbreaking video about the misogynist totalitarian barbarian nightmare the Taliban are turning Pakistan’s Swat Valley into. Via Spencer Ackerman, who notes “it’s important to see Swat as a prologue for what the Taliban wish to do with a nuclear-armed country.”
* Finally, I’ve long harbored what I’m sure some would consider a bizarre case of the hots for a young Patti Smith, who I think was basically sex in a t-shirt. Imagine my delight, then, to discover this picture of her emphatically not in a t-shirt. What she’s wearing here’s even better!
(via Johnny Bacardi)
Raw Power, indeed!
Whoa! My college roommate had a blown-up print of that Patti Smith pic on his bedroom door senior year. Hadn’t seen it since.