They testify together...

It's absolutely a joke, and I think you know what kind I mean. Wink wink nudge nudge say no more, eh?

I mean.

Bush and Cheney just finished testifying in private. It's practically a set-up for a joke, that.

Why'd they ask for no record of their testimony? A set-up for another joke.

And then there's this text summary from sfgate.com's link to the story: "The president emerges from a 3-hour meeting with 9/11 commissioners, telling reporters he 'enjoyed it,'" which is a ready-made punchline for a joke. Maybe that same joke, even. ("The President and the Vice-President walked into the Oval Office...")

And lordy, this from an AP story: "'There was some laughter from time to time. The president is a bit of a tease,' Thompson said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press." Um. Gosh. Does anyone use "tease" as a noun meaning a joker anymore? Point me to an instance. Because. Um. Lordy.

I finish this pointless post with another quote from Thompson: "There were no tense moments. I thought the president gave a five-star performance. I wish the American people could have seen it."

... wouldn't that be against Ashcroft's renewed war on smut?

(Mostly) Free Books!

It just occurred to me that it's very nearly May and I haven't pimped the ABA/BEA since November!

Attention copperbadge, casira, and ryca13, who previously expressed interest, and of course anyone else who thinks the idea of a giant convention filled with people giving away books for free and talking about books and loving books is a good idea:

They finally got around to posting the autographing schedule for the June 3-6th American Booksellers Association Convention (now BookExpo America! complete with exclamation mark). That's about 500+ authors, and each of them will be giving their books away. Signed to you and everything. In fact, they'll usually give you two. And then they'll thank you for being so kind as to accept a signed free copy. *g*

Sadly, the schedule doesn't look as fun (to me) as last year's, but that's largely because any list of authors isn't as cool without Neil Gaiman's name on it. *g* Still. 500+ authors. Books aplenty.

Plus, most publishers try to get publicity for their new books by ... giving them away. Just stacks of books in the booth, and as you go past you grab a copy or two or three. This year Titan's giving away Neil Gaiman's bio of Douglas Adams, for example. ( Read more... )

ARCs are actually the cheapest thing to give away, so they're cheaper publicity than things stamped with the names of books, but nonetheless there is stuff aplenty. Pens, bags, pins, hats, all that. ( Read more... )

Don't care about the pens and the bookmarks and the posters? Well, for everyone who is still a college student at heart, there's always the Cookbook Pavillion ( Read more... )

This year they're also doing an area for DVDs, which is a first. ( Read more... )

Also, there are the standard sessions and speakers and all that. You can go to many, many diverse things like ( Read more... )

And also there are special events. A few require extra money, but lots are free. Including this year's keynote speech by Bill Clinton (what, we couldn't get someone who'd actually finished his book? geez). (Still better than the year Colin Powell was the keynote speaker.) ( Read more... )

And of course, there's my favorite reason to go: the BEA draws a crowd of about 60,000 people, about 90% of whom care deeply about books of some variety. (The other 10% are either in it for the money -- and deeply deluded -- or are top management.) ( Read more... )

And of course, exhibitors have to pay the teamsters to pack and remove anything left on the floor at the end of the show, so they'll often give things away rather than pay for packing and shipping. Last year, sadly, I had to catch a bus back to the Bay Area before the show ended. Le sigh.

Unfortunately, there's no longer a reduced price for students, but there's still a reduced price for Librarians (if not so reduced as in previous years; 75 whole dollars for librarians!). Christ, has pricing gone up this year. Still, it's a four day event. And if you have editorial status at any news media, or can get a letter from a news publisher designating you as a free-lance journalist covering the BEA, you can get in for free. With some form-filling-out.

My uncle maintains an apartment in Chicago that he only uses occasionally, so I may have a free place to stay for a small number of people. I'll keep you posted.

In order to get the (somewhat) lower prices, you need to register by May 21st, so you've got plenty of time to think about it (and plenty of time to pester me to see if my free housing comes through).