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Archive for April 18th, 2007

And The Ghostwriter IS…!

Posted by scott on April 18th, 2007

Well, Jonah’s little red button has popped up:

I’m “Done”   []

Just thought I’d let folks know that the publisher (Random House/Doubleday) has formally accepted the manuscript for my book. This means the official writing phase is over and the unofficial rewriting phase has begun. I’m sending off  chapters to a few friends and other trusted folks for feedback. Though a few folks have seen discrete parts (Ramesh, JPod and a few others) now’s the time when I get to find out how far off my rocker I am — at least in the eyes of people I trust. I remember Derb chastising Rich in the Corner a long time ago, telling him a book isn’t done until it’s done. I’ve still got all sorts of production schedule hurdles ahead. Some I’m not done. But I am “done.” And I can finally see light at the end of the tunnel.

Unfortunately, I stuck a toothpick in Jonah, and he’s still gooey in the center.  Still, congratulations are in order for the grit and determination he displayed in dumping a suspicious brown sack on his publisher’s porch, ringing the doorbell, and wheezing away to hide in the bushes and snigger.

To celebrate this auspicious occasion, we’re announcing the winner of the Pantload For A Day contest!  Jonah’s distinctive style proved to be quite the inspiration for our contestants, much like the annual Imitation Hemingway Contest, resulting in entries that were so eerily Goldbergian that only a DNA analysis of the Cheeto dust on the manuscript could reliably determine authorship.  Each seemed to illuminate a different facet of Jonah, which seemed particularly apt, given that he’s shaped like an 8-sided die, but alas, there can be only one, and the populi have voxed:  Matthew Garth, for his trendsetting (and bar-raising) glimpse at Liberal Fascism’s exhaustively footnoted text.  For posterity, here’s Matthew’s page of Jonah’s book in its entirety:

PAGE 14
…Carl Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political [footnote 1123] was to Nazi Germany what the monorail episode of The Simpsons [fn 1124] was to my adolescence: a theory I didn’t quite understand but that made me chortle even when I was sitting alone, in my room, at night, with a flashlight, under the covers, looking at my drawing of Troy McClure [fn 1125] on the cover of my Trapper Keeper [fn 1126]. Or maybe it wasn’t like the monorail episode at all. Maybe it was like “Time and Punishment” from Treehouse of Horror V [fn 1127]. Yeah, that’s it. Homer goes back in time and keeps screwing up the future except for this one time when everything seems to be perfect but it turns out that no one has heard of donuts [fn 1128]. Homer’s crushed, but what he doesn’t know is that in this alternative universe donuts now fall from the sky [fn 1129]. It’s better than perfect! Ironic.[fn 1130] Anyway, Schmitt argued that parliamentary democracy was bound to be paralyzed by opposing interest groups lobbying the state for handouts [fn 1131], and he and Hitler and Hitlery Clinton [tm] all seem to think that’s just horrible. You see, they all want the government to be able to get things done [fn 1132]. But legislative paralysis isn’t horrible at all. It’s donuts from the sky, man [fn 1133]. The parliamentary logjam [fn 1134] is exactly what we need to keep the fascists at bay [fn 1135]. The real threat comes from a united [fn 1136] government; that’s just a hop-skip-and-a-jump [fn 1137] away from a fascist nanny state [fn 1138]. (Unless the Republicans are the ones uniting it. We can trust them not to overstep the proper bounds of state power. They promise. [fn 1139])

1123: Schmitt, Carl, The Concept of the Political, pub info TK.
1124: www.snpp.com: The Simpson’s archive
1125: Ibid.
1126: A remarkably useful product produced by pulp and paper producer Mead from the years TK to TK. MeadWestvaco was formed in January 2002 as the result of a merger between Mead Paper of Dayton, Ohio, and Westvaco (originally the Piedmont Pulp and Paper Company and then The West Virginia Paper Company). The original Westvaco Plant was sold with its Paper business coated paper operations to investment firm Cerberus Capital Management for about $2.3 billion. The new company is called NewPage Corporation.
The company owns large tracts of land in northern Greenbrier County, West Virginia. The company is relatively lenient regarding recreational land use by private citizens, including hunting, fishing, and the digging of ramps, and unimproved roads can be used to access the area from Anjean and Richwood. Westvaco, however, does not tolerate destruction of property or the use of ATVs. [Note to staff: can we paraphrase this Wikipedia entry without citing it? I don’t want to hurt my quality researching cred.]
1127: www.snpp.com, as above.
1128: The use of the colloquial spelling “donut” in no way implies an endorsement of Dunkin Donuts. I fucking hate those liberal bastards with their totally gay “Boston Cream” donut without even a fucking hole in it. Massachusetts liberals.
1129: Just to interject: that would be fucking awesome! And if it snowed cheetos…
1130: This is really ironic, not like those bullshit non-ironic things in that Alanis Morriset [SP? Staff, get on this.] song. Also, this note is totally prosopopoeia up in your face!
1131: Schmitt, op. cit. p. TK.
1132: This fascist idea is also totally queer. Cf. Bowie, David: “Some times I want to go out./Some times I want to stay in./And get things done,” “Modern Love.”
1133: “Man” here is not used in that bullshit liberal sarcastic way, but in a truly heartfelt way…………….Psych!
1134: The use of the term “logjam” in no way implies that political stalemate is gay.
1135: Cf. Reagan, Ronald, “On the nature and purposes of divided government.” Also, find some Leo Strauss for me, ’kay?
1136: No reference to the British soccer team is implied. Citizen of the world, yo! Ha, just kidding.
1137: See? Fascists: totally gay. See also chapter 4 of this book, “On the nature and purposes of Hitlerian rhetoric,” for an analysis of Hitler’s very gay hands-on-hips speaking style and comparisons with liberal icons.
1138: I’d like to thank my mother for all she’s done for me over the years.
1139: See Norquist, Grover, “On the nature and purposes of limited government” Cherokee National Enquirer, June 2003.

Congratulations, Matthew.  According to Price Waterhouse, you’re entitled to your choice of a Wo’C mug, a copy of , or a guest post at World O’ Crap on the topic of your choice.  Send me an email and let me know which you prefer.

And thanks to all our beautiful contestants.  The swimsuit competiton was a little rough going in spots, but the talent portion was an unalloyed delight.  When Jonah’s book is finally published, I’ll have my great-grandchildren page through it and see how close your predictions proved to be.