The Boys Check Out the Bestseller Lists / Also, What Are Our Local Anarchists Up To These Days?

Sure, the bestseller lists are mostly full of vampire and werewolf genre fiction, but are there other (more literary?) novels that are selling well?

Yes. A recent best-selling trend is to riff on established literary classics. Currently at #5 on the NY-Times list is Christopher Moore's Fool, a "comic, bawdy" retelling of King Lear from the jester's perspective. Dan Simmon's Drood, #18, is a mystery about Charles Dickens, narrated by Wilkie Collins. And the doggie-version of Hamlet, Edgar Sawtelle, an Oprah pick, rides high at #8 (on the list for 37 straight weeks).

What do the boys make of this trend?

Chip: "Fascinating, really. If I were to go up to a lady reading Fool and sipping latte in a Barnes and Noble, would she be able to hold an intelligent conversation with me about Lear, or is this just kind of a hipster-chick way of seeming smart without actually having any real knowledge of the source material? At any rate, it does seem like a good converation starter in bookstores and I predict it will get me laid."

Richard: "I originally wanted Harry Lupus to be a riff on a classic literary werewolf tale, but I quickly realized that there wasn't any famous literary werewolf tale. Yet."

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The center of local anarchy is, of course, downtown's Solidarity! Revolutionary Center and Radical Library (Chip: "It's arguably the scariest place in town besides the Replay and I cross the street to avoid it."). And at the LC, we like to keep tabs on their actions, which mainly seem to consist of watching documentary films about people who may or may not be falsely imprisoned.

Tonight is a bit different, however. The Center is hosting a special viewing of John Carpenter's 1988 classic They Live, the story of "Rowdy" Roddy Piper finding a pair of magical sunglasses which allow him to see the subliminal messages being forced upon the masses by the alien-led government and media.

Chip: "I guarantee that four out of the five of the fuckers watching this film tonight believe that it's a true story."

Richard: " 'I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum.' Best. Roddy. Piper. Line. Ever."