Partial magic in the garden

My latest Astral Weeks column, a look at Catherynne M. Valente's In the Cities of Coin and Spice and Tin House's "Fantastic Women" issue, is up at the L.A. Times. This one has all your, I mean my, faves: Borges, Keeler, Cloud Atlas, Samantha Hunt, and so on!

In the company of j'aime

Dizzyhead Bill writes:

Shirley Jackson (who'd be in my J'aime list) did a like/don't like passage in her unfinished novel "Come Along With Me":

"...I like everything about big department stores except shopping in them. I do not like salesgirls and their manners, and having to buy my dresses in a special behemoths department, and I do not like the stupid mockery of people who enjoy keeping you waiting; I do not like credit offices, but I enjoy quarreling over a bill."

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Shirley J. brings to mind Shelley Jackson, who'll be reading with Samantha Hunt, Kelly Link, and Lucy Corin this Friday—what a lineup! It's for Tin House's Fantastic Women issue.

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False Etymology of the Day: the word gem comes from a corruption of j'aime.