James Ellroy's description of noir:

"You're fucked."

Well, he's right.  And I wouldn't have my noir any other way.  It isn't supposed to be pretty.  It's supposed to be dark and shadowed and desperate.

Whether his writing is or isn't your taste, you can't argue that as a writer, Ellroy knows his stuff.  There's a reason he's Ellroy and you and I are not.

This exists

Byyyyyeeeee!!!

Blessed are the weird

H/T to Sun Gazing.

It's been two years...

My Dad passed away two years ago today.

I swear if they have one of these in Southern Cal, I'm going

Oakland hosts Internet Cat Video Festival.

OMG!!!

...Teddy was among several cats who accompanied their owners to what could be easily described as a feline lovefest. On Saturday afternoon, thousands of people turned out for a block party featuring local bands dressed up as cats, comedians telling cat jokes and even a troupe of cat-themed dancers...

...But the real attraction came just after sundown, when a 70-minute reel of the most popular cat videos on the Internet was beamed onto the side of a 10-story building here in the city’s historic downtown district. The clips, compiled by Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center for its inaugural cat video film festival last summer, featured everything from cats behaving badly to a feline cast as a depressed French existentialist...

BTW, I have to say that I think the article's author was a little lazy, at least as far as identifying these famous cats.  The depressed French existentialist is the world famous Henri, le Chat Noir, while the cat in the accompanying picture is obviously OMG Cat.  On the other hand, it's Yahoo "News", so I guess should know to lower my expectations by now.

We seriously need a Cat Video Fest in L.A.  I'm leaving Sophie home, though.  Her continued failure to become an internet sensation means no extracurricular activities for her.  Not that I think she cares.

Six-Word Memoirs

Found this on Writer's Digest's annual list of top websites for writers: Six-Word Memoirs.

You can also do six words on a variety of other topics.

Here are the ones I submitted:
On life (memoir): Almost a late bloomer.  Almost there...
Advice: Common sense.  Not that common actually.

I'll be going back to that one for more.

And the day started off so well...

I'm not familiar with TSN's The Panel, nor was I ever the target audience for the Hangover movies, but this vid that was unleashed on the hockey faithful this morning cracked my shit up nevertheless:

Two observations: I love to think that Kopi answers his phone like this in real life ("Anze Kopitar here. Stanley Cup champion.") and coach at the end is just utterly priceless ("That's what you get for picking the Canucks last year.")

Then the shit that was Game 1 of the Kings Stanley Cup playoffs happened.

And then I had the following Twitter convo:

I may have tempted fate there.  Having said that...

The postseason is young.  GO KINGS GO!!!

Greenlight this now. NOW. PLEASE.

James Ellroy shopping L.A. Confidental sequel series.

Yes, please.  OH PLEEEEEEEASE!!!

The shortest short-story contest ever

Via Gotham Writers Workshop, it's the Very Short Story Contest!

It may be apocryphal, but the story goes that Ernest Hemingway won a bet by writing a short story that ran fewer than ten words. One version of the story places the bet at the famed Algonquin round table. Whether true or not, there is an actual bet-winning short story attributed to Hemingway:

For sale. Baby Shoes. Never worn.

You have to admit its pretty good. It builds, and theres a whole world of background and emotion lurking beneath those words.

We would like to make a similar bet with you. Write a great short story in ten words or fewer. (You may use a title, but that goes into the word count.) Submit it to our contest. Entry is free. Winner of the bet gets a free Gotham ten-week workshop.

You also have a very short time to enter - the deadline is tomorrow!!!

Here comes the Festival of Books

The L.A. Times Festival of Books takes place tomorrow and Sunday at USC.  I've got my schedule and tickets ready to go.

I went to the FOB last year for the first time and had a blast, and also came home with a truckload of books.  Really looking forward to going again.  It will be interesting to see how many more books I own by Sunday night compared to right now.