MARIE MUNDACA
Hipster Book Club
TOP 5 THINGS I WONDERED ABOUT WHILE WATCHING LOST SEASON 1, DVDS 1-4, IN DEC 2009
1. Why do all these guys partially shave? The partial shave is more difficult than the full shave or the no-shave.
2. Doctor Jack is a douchebag.
3. Why do Kate and Shannon wear so much blush?
4. Why aren’t they tanner? How come no one got sun poisoning?
5. There should be more wombats and vegemite in the flashbacks! For example, when Claire tells Charlie she likes peanut butter, that could have been vegemite. When Michael flashes back to going to pick up his son Walt after his mother dies, there could have been a wombat looking in the window. The writers missed some opportunities here.
BONUS THING: Is Hurley the only major character who doesn’t get a flashback in season 1? Do the writers hate fat people?
 MARIA BUSTILLOS
Author, Dorkismo
dorkismo.blogspot.com
Five Favorite Bookish Phenomena of 2009
1. I finally read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Whoa is right. It's the best immigrant novel I've ever read. Funny, brilliant, and sad. Particularly recommended for Latins of the Caribbean stripe; Junot Díaz has utterly perfect pitch for our bizarre patois. And calling all dorks! Where else are you going to see a Dominican thug compared to the Witch-king of Angmar? (If you know of anywhere, please contact me.)
2. The Awl
Alex Balk and Choire Sicha, by far the most talented writers ever to write for Gawker, have started their own publication, and it's terrific. So funny, so perceptive, and casts its net far and wide. Tom Scocca and Luke Mazur are awesome, too. You'll recognize many of the wittiest commenters from the old days of Gawker on there. Fun!
3. Booksquawk
Booksquawk is
a book review site run by authors rather than reviewers, launched to wild fanfare just two months ago. I helped start this thing, and I had no idea it was going to be this cool.
4. Infinite Summer
This
was just awe-inspiring. Matthew Baldwin managed to get thousands of people to read Infinite Jest! My own score so far = one. (I don't count my husband, because he refused to read the footnotes, which still makes me want to pound my head against the wall.) So hats into the air for Mr. Baldwin. I even got to write a guest blog post for this, which was so neat! Next up, apparently, Mr. Baldwin plans to host a giant reading group for Roberto Bolaño's 2666.
5. My own books, Dorkismo and Act Like a Gentleman, Think Like a Woman, are doing surprisingly well! Hooray.
Very best wishes to all for a wonderful literary 2010.
 BOB POWERS
Author, The Terrible Horrible Temp-To-Perm Debacle
bobpowersonline.com
5. Entertainment I enjoyed in 2009
Future of the Left, Bat For Lashes, the Best Show on WMFU, living in Clinton Hill, How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely, new Lorrie Moore, new Raekwon, Dodos, and Built To Spill. Zach Galifianakis becoming a well-deserved superstar in the hilarious The Hangover. Also I finally got into Fleetwood Mac. Heard of that album Rumours? Worth a listen.
4. Why 2009 can blow me
My perfect and sweet cat Scoopy died and yes, I blame the entire year for that.
3. Holy crap in 2009 I...
Went to five destination weddings in two months, went to Mexico, went to Hollywood, learned how to cook for a vegetarian diabetic, and missed about a dozen close friends who all left town at once, the little shits.
2. When in 2009 did I stop caring about politics again...
January 21st or so.
1. 2009 was the most...
Turbulent, anxiety-inducing, terrifying, sleepless, exhilarating, life-affirming, soul-crushing, fucking-awful-with-some-really-great-parts year since at least 2007.
PS: Next year is already going to be awesome because we get to call it "2KX." Can't go wrong with that.
YENNIE CHEUNG
Hipster Book Club
TOP FIVE THINGS WRITERS/PUBLICISTS SAID TO GET THEIR BOOKS REJECTED BY THE HBC
1. “My book is self-published.”
We don’t review self-published books.
2. “The book got rave reviews on Amazon.com!”
This usually means that the writer's friends wrote in and gave the (usually self-published) book five stars.
3. “I don’t read other people’s books.”
A.K.A. “I don’t have respect or love for literature.” A.K.A. You have no business writing books.
4. “Your review of my book should appear on your blog by this date.”
I’m sorry, I thought Kyle and I were the editors here. Also, this is not a blog.
5. “I sent you an e-mail last week/last month/a few months ago. What’s a guy/gal gotta do to get a response?”
Oh, you’ll get a response, all right. You just won't like it.
 ELIZABETH CRANE
Author, You Must Be This Happy to Enter
elizabethcrane.com
TOP FIVE TRAVEL HELL RIDES
1. The flight to Las Vegas that got cancelled while we were on it. We arrived in our hotel room, after four hours in O’Hare and nine hours in the Phoenix airport, at 3 in the morning. It’s also critical to note that we missed our original flight because due to traffic, we arrived at O’Hare three minutes too late (according to the all-powerful, never-failing and un-budging based on any kind of human logic “computer”) to check our bags, even though we were actually there an hour before the departure time. Which is to say that in addition to the flight that was cancelled that we were already on, we were also unable to catch a plane we were, in reality, on time for.
2. The train to Iowa that froze. Or maybe it was the tracks that froze. I also froze, as the heating was also unworking, while waiting for the frozen train. I arrived in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa from Chicago, what is normally a four-hour trip that arrives at 6:30 pm, at 2 in the morning.
3. The time I missed my connecting flight at O’Hare and got so upset that a Malibu Ken (orange tan, blonde mustache) ticket agent threatened to call security.
4. The cross-country trip in the $50 Honda with no rear view mirror and the guy from the sandwich shop who didn’t believe in electricity.
5. The Christmas Eve plane to Iowa that sat waiting to be de-iced for two hours and 50 minutes that got sent back to the gate, mid-de-icing, because of the new you-can’t-stay-on-the-plane-for-more-than-three-hours rule, which was then cancelled. It is important to note some other details on this trip, which are thus: This de-icing fiasco took place in DALLAS, TEXAS, where a traveler from Chicago checking for cancellations does not concern herself with snowstorms, where a traveler from Chicago who now lives in Austin thinks only to concern herself with snowstorms in Iowa, and where, apparently, Dallas-ans also do not concern themselves much with snow and ice storms, because they only have like two de-icers that are from, like, the ‘70s, only one of which works, otherwise we might not have been thirtieth in line for de-icing. But wait, that’s not all! Said weary travelers, after getting rebooked for a Christmas morning flight they were not at all certain was going to even depart, one of whom was extremely tired and cranky and sobbing and unwilling to sleep in the airport (that would be the writer of this list, and not her patient husband), walked a good mile or more through the Dallas Fort Worth airport to a different terminal, with their carry-on bags, due to a frozen tram, to get to a connecting gate, to wait for five hours for a flight back to Austin, which was also delayed, and eventually cancelled, before finally deciding to rent a car to go back to Austin, at approximately five times the usual daily rate. Oh but no no, though, kids, this story is not done yet! Weary travelers then proceed to the car rental place (via the shuttle bus, with Marge from PeeWee’s Big Adventure at the helm, in her Texas accent, telling us we’d just get there when we got there, and Merry Christmas, and excuse her for cursing at some jackass in her way, and she wasn’t lying, because not only was it far, she averaged about ten miles an hour), picking up their rental car, relieved to be in a vehicle that was moving, that they were able to actually control, only to discover that the roads really were quite icy, that no one was going more than 20 miles an hour anywhere, and decided to check into the first motel in sight. Woke up to a beautiful sunny morning, still icy roads, but don’t think this story is over yet, because it isn’t. After trashing the suck coffee in the hotel, with the Waco Starbucks in their sight, the travelers were stopped by a state trooper, visiting from a Robert Rodriguez movie, notifying them in his Texas accent, “Well, you know the speed limit’s sixty-five over here,” and then handing over a hundred-and-ninety-dollar speeding ticket. Total hours round-trip Austin to Austin: about 28.
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