The first person

I don't even particularly like zombie movies, not at least beyond Romero's first Night of the Living Dead (1969), which had the Pittsburgh chill of genuine phobia to it. For us the living dead idea was a metaphor factory, in full production. For us the living dead idea was a metaphor factory, in full production. For everyone else, it seems, it's just a first-person-shooter XBox game.

—Michael Atkinson on Babylon Fields, his late lamented almost-TV series

Bonus: Amber Tamblynage!

And double bonus: La Tamblyn posts again at Harriet!

“WHY MUST YOU TAUNT ME WITH YOUR BEAUTY?! WHY DOESN’T US WEEKLY TRY TO DRAG YOU DOWN WITH THEIR WHOLE, “STARS… THEIR JUST LIKE US!” COLUMN AND TALK ABOUT HOW IMPERFECT YOU GUYS ARE!!”

Disambiguations™ for October 1, 2009

I. October Believer is out! A sorta "travel issue": Avi Davis on Dracula and tourism; August Kleinzahler on Alaska; Ginger Strand and James Wallenstein on Cuba; J.C. Hallman on the history of cruise ships...plus Jonathan Ames interviewed, Sheila Heti talking to Agnès Varda, Jack Pendarvis's "Musin's and Thinkin's" Southernish humor column, and more! (Derek Walcott poem... Stephen Burt poetry review...Greil Marcus as always...Regional fast-food chart from Lincoln Michel...still more...including EYE-POPPING interior art by JING WEI!)

II. Amber Tamblyn is blogging at the Poetry Foundation's Harriet?! It's kind of amazing:

"Look at you, spell-checking the word ‘aficionado’ and correcting it. You can’t even spell. You’re a Hollywood actress who can’t spell, who doesn’t even live in Hollywood but none the less that’s what you are, because I am your subconscious and I say so."

III. I'm astonished—or maybe I'm not??—that there's no Nabokov love in the comments at Paper Cuts (vis-à-vis Rosenbaum/Laura/Slate) in fact there's no mention of Nabokov at all.

IV. Thanks to all who came out to the reading last night — that was a lot of fun!