Stay Low and Keep Firin'

• I don't know what it is, but I haven't been able to think of a new Bird Turds in a couple of weeks now. So, for the moment, you'll have to make do with dumb little pictures like the one above. (Original Flickr page here.) Also: today's post, as per usual, is pretty disjointed.

• So like I was saying, the Mystery Lady got me that book Maps and Legends. I had wanted the book since I first saw it, based on its incredible dust jacket, designed by Jordan Crane. I have, yes, literally judged this book by its cover, because I've never seen anything like it.

{Editorial Note: The following critique isn't an attempt by me to - if you don't mind another cliché - look a gift horse in the mouth. My favorite presents are like these, the ones that provoke examination and critical thought.}

The thing about Maps and Legends is that the essays in it are good. That dude Michael Chabon is no joke. What's more: I agree with him most of the time.

It's just, like. Let's imagine that Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines had been a good movie. It wasn't, really, but whatever. If Terminator 3 had followed The Terminator, it might've worked out, but it didn't. It followed Terminator 2: Judgement Day, an action movie that, in its day, changed the game. So. What I'm saying is is that even if Terminator 3 had been good, it would have had to have been as revolutionary as its immediate predecessor to be a success.

While Terminator 3 was, at least in my opinion, not a good movie, Chabon's writing in Maps and Legends is quite good. But it does sort of suffer from not being as mind-blowingly great as its cover, which, to me, not so much as a reader but as a consumer, immediately precedes the text.

On the other hand: Having read most of the essays in Maps and Legends, I am now aware of their quality. By which I mean, knowing what I know now, I would read the book whether or not Jordan Crane's cover was part of the deal. Initially, though, I would probably have never read any part of Maps and Legends had it not been for the cover. So. Either Jordan Crane has created a promise with his cover that, really, no writer could hope to fulfill for a reader, or he has simply created, like, the most effectively seductive dust jacket ever. Both, probably.

• On the strength of the following paraphrased statement, I think long-time reader B-Rett ought to be the official CFY,K political correspondent:

'I might have to vote for John McCain now so that the stripping teacher from Varsity Blues will be the VP.'

• I remember a while back I was all whiny about - maybe my favorite "sequential artist" - Paul Pope's lack of content. I would like to now take this opportunity to once again tell Past Self to keep it because Pope's photostream is killing shit right now.

• I have always generally sucked at videogames, particularly Goldeneye-style death match joints. So I guess when I went to my dude Will's birthday Blazertag extravaganza, I should have known that my Oddjob-emulating Chuck Berry duckwalk strategy would only leave me miserably defeated. Alas.