For Amber: Has anyone had experiences as a student of the online workshops at Zoetrope or Gotham Writers Workshop? Or any other online writing seminar? Would you recommend, not recommend, etc.?

I like Paul Auster. New one, Invisible, looks weird. Anybody read it?

NYers: this Thursday, 7 PM at Littlefield NYC, the Post Apocalypse Survival Party feat Survival Panelists: Andrew W.K., Tony O’Neill, Matt McCarthy, and a bunch of other craze. The panel is free with electronic RVSP (see website), and afterwards is a party open to the public. Makes me wish I had the NY blood.

No, it’s not the title of Blake Butler’s next book. MESSIANIC URBANISM is discussed over at BLDGBLOG, which I had never heard of until right now and am promptly in love with. Thanks for the link, Alice Townes!

This Second Coming, as it were, or the eagerly awaited return of someone or something that left us long ago, has its own spatial requirements, however—and, Zoellner again points out, “There have also been reports that the president—a doctor of traffic—has studied the layout of Tehran to make sure the city can handle the crush of people who will arrive for the imam’s first procession.”

Also, while you’re over there- THE CITY AND ITS FLOODED DOUBLE.

Nice interviews with Laura van den Berg on the event of her debut What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us live now @lunapark and @thefastertimes.

Antichrist is by far the best and most well made film I’ve seen in at least a couple years.

If you’ve got the balls to be shitting on everything, you should likely have the balls to be doing something magical.

I almost bought China Miéville’s The City in the City last night, but then I put it back and bought Foucault’s History of Madness (5x the book for the same price). It seems hard to know what sci-fi books are actually heavyhitters, and not just things to maybe replace a movie. The Miéville seems a good fit (I’ll wait for the paperback), but I’m wondering what sci-fi labeled books transcend the trappings and are just great books, in both language and idea? I’ve dabbled a good bit but never really found that much and know I’m missing a lot. I tried Dhalgren years ago and wasn’t that killed. Steve Erickson seems to be a transcender, if so much that he’s hardly even in the genre anymore. What you got? Don’t say Dick.

Writing isn’t eating right.