The year 1988 was kind of a blur for me

Hot of the presses—in the Times, Dizzies Team Member Hua (has the blog stopped?!) listens to Top Shelf 8/8/88, a hip-hop CD of dubious provenance.

Afrika Baby Bam of the Jungle Brothers, who contributed the track “Back in the Jungle,” which he said was recorded in 2003, dismissed concerns about the authenticity of the project. “We still remember the culture and tradition,” he said. “How much more do you need, outside of the actual date, to make a record as authentic as you would have made on Aug. 8, 1988?”

Other Dizzies Newsfeeds™: Vocabulary via Edmund Gosse via Levi: jobation is "a lengthy and tedious rebuke"...quinduncs are "gossips or busybodies"...Levi's also got some delightful posts on Ring Lardner and Proust via Powell...Am excited for these 145 short-shorts from McSweeney's, three books by Dave Eggers, Deb Olin Unferth, and (Psychic E. singer!) Sarah Manguso....I don't play a lot of video/computer games, but this Fancy Pants adventure is simple and cheering...A new New-York Ghost is out, the nearly one-year-anniversary edition...How long will it last?!...Press release/reminder, I'll be at the Brooklyn Book Festival tomorrow—here is the official listing...it's at "Mainstage (Borough Hall Plaza)":

5:00 p.m. EVERYONE'S A (FORMER) CRITIC.
Three music and arts critics known for their humor discuss what it means to be a critic and the art of writing beyond the review. Featuring popular essayist, memoirist, critic and soon-to-be novelist Chuck Klosterman, Rolling Stone music critic and new memoirist Rob Sheffield, and Believer editor and former Village Voice editor/critic Ed Park whose comic novel Personal Days will be released in 2008.