Should I ban the commenter ‘Mather Schneider’? Is it worthwhile to have all venues open for commenting, or is sometimes enough enough? Is it possible to be so dense or ‘dense acting’ that you turn discussions in circles simply by continuing to stick snarky comments in every possible hole that you can fill? Is the argument good for a community, or is it sometimes just time to rub out the blah blah? Your thoughts are appreciated.

Seven Stories Press is giving away books on Black Friday. Good deal — their new one, The Old Garden by Hwang Sok-yung is supposed to be great. Anyone read it? [via NewPages]

Dennis Cooper has posted his 1998 interview with Brad Renfro, where he uses his DC powers to get the kid talking about satanism, Stryper, punk, and other. He also drops the title of his next forthcoming book, a collection of nonfiction, Smothered in Hugs: Essays, Interviews, Feedback, Obituaries, forthcoming July 2010 from Harper Perennial.

Mark Baumer is doing a Brown MFA tumblr about his times at Brown. It’s pretty funny. Like this:

When Picasso tried his hand at poetry, Gertrude Stein was livid! She said something like, “Things belong to people, and writing belongs to me.” Do you share this proprietary feeling about writing, or anything else you do or like? What belongs to you and not your friends/family?  If you say the Simpsons or Bob Dylan you’re an a-one moron.

New Brian Evenson story “Windeye” (which he read this year at &Now) is available in the new Pen America, both in print and online. It’s a killer, as usual.

A node has been added to Ander Monson’s site with new corollary info and text for his apparently next forthcoming book Vanishing Point (Graywolf, April 2010). Lots to read and sneak through, I think he is even calling them e-galleys. I now have a new supreme text anticipation.

The magnificent Ninth Letter is running a holiday special for subscriptions, and $5 back issues, bam!

Unfriend is the New Oxford American Dictionary’s Word of the Year: “Novelty words making the shortlist were “deleb,” meaning a dead celebrity, and “tramp stamp,” referring to a tattoo on the lower back, usually on a woman.” [via clusterflock]

Hey, The Rumpus scored an interview with Paul Auster. Way to go, Juliet Linderman!

Also, for ya’ll NYC’ers, The Rumpus is at the Highline Ballroom tonight for their monthly shindig. This round features Starlee Kine, Rick Moody, Jonathan Ames, Todd Barry, Eugene Mirman, Care Bears on Fire (which the website describes as quote kid-core, which I assume is Spanish for “must be seen to be believed”), and special surprise guests TBA–well not TBA actually, I don’t think they’ll be A’d at all, which is why you want to go, so you can find out who they are.

But let’s just pick one of the people we actually know will be there–and we’ll do it random–and talk about what we think of them. Okay, uh, Todd Barry. Have you ever seen Todd Barry? Todd Barry’s a funny dude. I’ve seen Todd Barry. I laughed at Todd Barry, which is just what Todd Barry wanted. He wants it, I whispered to the girl sitting next to me. And she nodded back, because it was true. There was also another time I saw Todd Barry, but I’m pretty sure that time I was sitting next to a guy. Oh, look, here’s Todd Barry now.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc7nnpv0Otw&