hydrocarbon Ragnarok

[freckles_and_doubt]

Still homicidally misanthropic, a state not improved by contemplating the need to interview 60 potential orientation leaders in three days next week after spending the weekend writing a report for the Dean. Eek. I console myself with random linkery, hoping thereby to also entertain you, because by gosh and by golly just at the moment in my own right I'm not entertaining at all. I also suspect I'm giving innocent Scrooges and serial killers the world over an undeserved bad name.

• China Miéville does it again, where "it" entails being lyrically strange, wayward, incisively political, sad and haunting. I am completely seduced by this story, it has a beautiful, inscrutable and tragic inevitability, and some really weird literary echoes. Also, China Miéville is one of the few writers I can think of who could make the phrase "hydrocarbon Ragnarok" do so much work. Covehithe. You should read this.
  
  
• Random Heartwarming Moment: Paul Simon makes a simple fan very, very happy by hauling her up on stage to sing and play guitar. She does pretty well, despite the inevitable hyperventilation. It's a sweet enough moment to penetrate even my current homicidal misanthropy.
  
  
• Just for smoczek, chart porn. Many of these are witty and recursive to an extremely pleasing extent.
  
  
• Fafblog, predictably enough, weighs in on bin Laden's death with the proper perspective. The mash-up of the "killed thing" with the royal wedding, while perfectly politically pointed in terms of media spectacle, cracked me up completely.

While I hate everything and everyone, I hope you have a lovely weekend. Please to raise a glass at some stage to my esteemed mother, whose birthday it is today - one she shares, weirdly enough, with the esteemed egadfly. Homicidally misanthropic felicitations to both of them.