Day: January 25, 2011

Eh, it was fine. Obama said a bunch of stuff that I find generally reasonable and unobjectionable, and cast it in such a way to imply that it could be done in a manner that would satisfy both Democrats and Republicans, and everyone in the chamber seemed to be on good behavior still, so, yeah. “Comfortably boring” is probably how I would describe it, and in fact just did. But you know, I don’t actually mind the idea of a comfortably boring government getting some basic stuff done.

Your thoughts?

(For those of you who missed it: the full text of the address)

Comes from Daniel Lanois. Enjoy.

My writing day is a little turned upside-down today because the Oscar nominations come out and I have to write my Filmcritic.com column about them before noon, so today I’ll be hiding from the Internets in the afternoon. Which gives me an excellent excuse to show you this right now: The French cover to Agent to the Stars, commissioned by my French publisher from Paul Kidby, who is perhaps best known to readers as the fellow who gives Terry Pratchett such delightfully whimsical covers.

How do I feel about this cover? ZOMG I LOVE IT SO HARD. I think it very well captures the book, and I really appreciate Kidby’s attention to detail. Agent has been fortunate to get a series of pretty damn awesome covers — first by Mike Krahulik for the Subterranean Press edition, then by Pascal Blanchet for the Tor editions — and this one continues the book’s lucky streak of talented cover artists. All books and authors should be so lucky.

Here’s my French publisher’s page on the book, in case you’re French and/or just want a copy of this book with this cover. The book itself will come out on March 24.



“Over the Hillside” from The Blue Nile, off Hats. Man, I love that album.

Good night. See you tomorrow.