Well, here we are. Another milestone. One of my buddies is retiring today, which both pleases and shocks me. Pleases me because I am happy that he gets to do something with his time other than Dilbert his life away in a cubicle and shocked because: YOU CAN DO THAT? Yes, sir. If you spend 30 years in the same job, you can do that. Sadly, I am only five years behind him and I will never be able to retire. The artist’s/freelancer’s life. Work until you die. That said, I will spend two hours after this playing a video game that I’ve been waiting two years to play before I move on to editing poetry. Choices were made.

- Canadian publishing hit hard in the nads: publishers report 40% losses;
- Random and Knopf parting ways after 11 years (sounds like a midlife crisis);
- Smart move, Giller: new monthly bookclub featuring longlist;
- Obama is the Wayne Gretzky of politics… just keeps breaking records;
- Kellyanne Conway is releasing a book… 10 bucks says it’s either just blank pages the president can write whatever he wants on or there’s one of those wee electronic gadgets in the gutter so that when you open it, you hear her voice yelling FAKE NEWS over and over and over;
- Books of the Year:
- People;
- Vanity Fair;
- LAT;
- ElectricLit;
- Slate;
- Yeats’ teenaged letters sold at Sotheby’s… imagine… (I shudder);
- Nora Roberts: sex ed instructor;
- Friday fun: GK Chesterton proudly believed in Santa Claus;
- Heard of Gertrude Trevelyan? You would had she been a he;
- Why do we call radicalized authors “raw”? And why we should stop;