My girlfriend, originally being from the South, has the weird ability to talk to the vegetables and fruits to learn when they are ripe and ready for eating. Being from New Jersey, I do not possess this ability.

I never thought Gore Vidal could be funny. Then I read this from the New York Times:

“As a literary showdown, Mario Vargas Llosa vs. Gabriel García Márquez ranks with some of the most famous feuds, including Lillian Hellman vs. Mary McCarthy, Vladimir Nabokov vs. Edmund Wilson, and Norman Mailer vs. Gore Vidal. (When the encounter between Mr. Mailer and Mr. Vidal turned physical, if not bloody, Mr. Vidal is said to have responded from the floor, ‘Words fail Norman Mailer yet again.’)”

I’ve been playing around on Issuu.com, a great new site where magazines, artists, photographers and even authors can digitize their printed work for viewing. People have posted portfolios, back issues, handmade books, and one industrious author has posted the entire text of The Love Book for people to read for free. The best part is that the documents, once uploaded, are embeddable so people can post them to their own blogs or sites.

But I did want to give a shout out to a few of the cooler Issuu docs I’ve found.

The first is Stephanie Wright’s “Six Sixes,” a collection of six six-sentence short stories. It’s part of Six Sentences ongoing series of pieces by various writers all agreeing to this very strict submission guideline. Being a good short story writer is tough enough without forcing a six-sentence limit on your work. But often the best art comes out of the severest limitations. Stephanie Wright shows great skill at crafting fully-formed characters and perfectly minimalist stories that are at turns romantic, sappy (in a good way), disturbing, and hilarious.

Also a nice find was literary magazine Keyhole now making its back issues available. Issue #1 is live, go check it out as its a good mix of new fiction and poetry.

And finally, you may have forgotten about ZZ Top, you may hate ZZ Top, but your band could never top ZZ Top as a live band.