Just kidding; I’ve decided we’re going with all book-related links this week, because that’s what’s piling up in my RSS feed.

One year on field study in Africa. What books do you take along? (I’d load up my Kindle, get a solar-charger for it, and spend a lot of time with Middlemarch, I bet.)

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Buy books for Iraq!

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Sell books to a used bookstore! (cash or credit?)

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Busting out the heavy canons!

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A Blowhard reflects on college bookstores.

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The future of publishing is — oh, who the fuck cares? (Bookslut has an opinion on this.)

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What books are on your must-burn list? (I sorta wrote about it in my long-winded, aimless way here.)

But that’s the tradeoff for the money and travel opportunities. I’m not complaining so much as letting you know that you’ll be lucky to get some Unrequired Reading tomorrow.

Don’t blow (your own) fingers off this weekend!

How are you doing today? I am sorry i didn’t inform you about my traveling to Africa for a program called “Empowering Youth to Fight Racism, HIV/AIDS, Poverty and Lack of Education, the program is taking place in three major countries in Africa which is Ghana , South Africa and Nigeria. It as been a very sad and bad moment for me, the present condition that i found myself is very hard for me to explain.

I am really stranded in Nigeria because I forgot my little bag in the Taxi where my money, passport, documents and other valuable things were kept on my way to the Hotel am staying, I am facing a hard time here because i have no money on me. I am now owning a hotel bill of $500.00 and they wanted me to pay the bill soon else they will have to seize my bag and hand me over to the Hotel Management. I need this help from you urgently to help me back home, I need you to help me with the hotel bill and i will also need $600.00 to feed and help myself back home so please can you help me with a sum of $1,100.00 to sort out my problems here? I need this help so much and on time because i am in a terrible and tight situation here, I don’t even have money to feed myself for a day which means i had been starving so please understand how urgent i needed your help.

I am sending you this e-mail from the hotel Library and I only have 2 hours, I will appreciate what so ever you can afford to send me for now and I promise to pay back your money as soon as i return home so please let me know on time so that i can forward you the details you need to transfer the money through Money Gram or Western Union.

Thank you very much for your time.  Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Substitute “Roumanian/Israeli Archie Bunker” for “dad” and you’ll understand just how funny this e-mail is.

Rufus had a pretty good time. I mean, he sniffed tons of dog-butt, which is what passes for a good time in those circles. I think there were more than a dozen greys at the event; they certainly outnumbered the other pet groups that had come to this adoption fair.

I’m convinced they tangle up their leashes just to get their owners to bash into each other.

(Oh, and if you live in/near NJ and you’re interested in adopting a greyhound, contact Greyhound Friends NJ. They did a great job, setting us up with Rufus.)

What I’m listening to: 5:55 by Charlotte Gainsbourg again. And again.

What I’m watching: Yankees-Mets, The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman, and the Roberto Benigni scene from Night on Earth.

What I’m drinking: Harp, at a semi-business get-together Saturday night.

Where I’m going: Nowhere for holiday week. Still more writing and layouts to do!

What I’m happy about: A week from today, this issue will be over. Oh, and yay! Germany loses!

What I’m sad about: Not a lot. I’m too busy to be sad. Which is sad in itself, I admit.

What I’m pondering: When Gillian Welch & David Rawlings are going to put out another album.

Ticks suck.

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“Franco-German friction has never been far below the surface.”

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The Nonist: always with the eerily beautiful.

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Correction: Judas will be set apart from the holy generation, not for the holy generation. Please return to your gnostic misreadings.

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Ya gotta have goals.

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Erika Nanes gauges men by how they relate to used bookstores. I’m betting she doesn’t get laid much.

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Longtime VM pal Mark Feltskog has a neat post on the failures of public education (and Mikhail Bakhtin). (Mark doesn’t post too frequently, but he’s a good writer, a passionate teacher, and is capable of Lewis Black-level rage, which is right up my alley. Check his blog out sometime.)

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Longtime VM pal Tom Spurgeon has a great post on why the X-Men became popular. Just like that Thomas Dolby post I linked to a few weeks ago, I imagine that this isn’t a topic of importance to a great many of you, but a topic of great importance to a few of you. (But that was issue #132 where Wolverine had the great “I’m gonna kill everybody” monologue, not #133, you fool!)