got pynched yet?

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

I dunno, gang, is it me or what?  I've had more than ample opportunity to realize how 
*off list* some of my ideas and reactions to things are, but am I the only one who finds 
this *booksmith* marketing blitz of the list absurdly funny and simultaneously 
pathetically depressing?  I mean, looking at those pompous trading cards, with the 
brooding *literary lionheart* Rick Moody or the *luscious, lilting* Anka Radakovich, and 
then the air brushed photo of TRP (did they think the teeth--by far the most interesting 
detail in that photo--made our boy look less lionhearted, or less luscious than a priemier 
*world-class* author should?).  Am I the only one less than impressed by Joel Rose's 
white boy dredlocks (BTW--his--masculine heart *beats too loudly for his own good*).   
Please note that I haven't read Moody, Radakovich or Rose, so for all I know they may be 
really good writers  (somehow I doubt it, but I am willing to be educated).
The evening of pynchonalia could be fun, I guess--any listers attending should let us 
know how it goes--but at the same time, the marketing angle so far outshines the literary 
(assuming there is one), that it might just all be a travesty.  Sheesh.

johnny bummed out

PS  What happens to a culture that can no longer distinguish between the impulse to 
communicate and the impulse to market?  Why do I feel like I need to go read old 
Herman's CONFIDENCE MAN  right about now?