Yes – this is the sorry state of the Internet. What you are about to read is a blog entry based on a Twitter tweet from the host of a Canadian radio show that’s only accessible to us through an unofficial Feedburner podcast. Yep. Anyway:

J_Goldstein: In SF with the real live Gregor Ehrlich! He’s actually mean in real life… just like on the radio! He just told me to shut up! Cool!

So there’s that. But if you are really interested in reading something from the real Gregor Ehrlich, check out Guilt and Pleasure. This issue has David Rakoff and Mireille Silcoff in it too. And this one has Shalom Auslander in it and a story from Gregor about Chickens.

Hello, just posted the summary for “The Dinner Party.”

In this episode, Jonathan references his M.A. thesis, with hilarious results. I knew that Jonathan earned his M.A. in English from Concordia in 1999, but I never considered what it was on. Nerd confession: I looked it up, and in spite of what he confesses in this episode, it appears that his thesis was merely the beginnings of his book, Lenny Bruce is Dead.

Look at the listing! Here’s what it  says:

TITLE: I found your address in a fortune cookie.

ABSTRACT:

I Found Your Address in a Fortune Cookie is a short novel documenting a man’s life from childhood to death-bed. It is structured as a series of fragments that, while not strictly chronological, play off one another to create an emotional landscape. The narrative voice shifts between the first and third person. Although going about his life with the semblance of routine, Joshua, the protagonist, is thirsting for something unnamable. His desire runs from mundane, sensual pleasures like lying in bed or drinking coffee to desires for which there are no easy names, like the desire to escape the body. The novel is composed of a series of romantic relationships that span Joshua’s early adolescence to his middle age. Approaching death, he withdraws into a dream world in which the messiah has arrived; but even salvation offers little in the way of providing a bottom line to existence. The messianic age proves only to be a continuance of the mundane.

 

Groovy to the max. You can buy a pdf of the thing for $39, which I’m not sure I’m going to do, since you can buy the book for something like $10.

Hello,

This week’s episode is a holiday special: The Two Marys, originally aired last December and also appearing on This American Life’s Holiday Spectular the year before. I also imagine that the first bit of this will appear in Goldstein’s forthcoming (exciting!) book: Ladies and Gentleman, the Bible!

You can also visit the oft-linked Wiretap Holiday Special feat. Howard and Desmond Chackowicz.

Also, the National Post article somewhat alludes to the end of last week’s episode, Meet the New Boss (finally have the summary up) and definitely discusses Cookie Crisp and clamping colons. Enjoy it: “Like the say in Plattsburg: Crapola in a box.”

Whoa! I wish I could’ve said that I called it, but I didn’t really call it. I’m more excited to know that there is The Books song with Jonathan Goldstein in it.

Anyway, today’s episode was quite hilarious, with a high degree of hate porn coming from all sides, including the CBC Toronto brass, Mary Clode Palatte (can someone find out how this woman’s name is spelled? I’m pretty sure I get it wrong each time), Gregor and even Jonathan’s own mother.

If you enjoy Mary’s brand of hate, I suggest giving the This American Life episode “What I Should’ve Said” and the Wiretap episode “The Big Shot” a listen. She appears in a couple other episodes, too, but these are the ones that come off the top of my dome, so to speak.

For now, you can hear the episode here. But I’ll update the link in the episode summary when the eminent SupernintendoChalmers uploads.

Oh, also be sure to check out the new ringtone by Tristan True Giallini of DownloadHipHopBeats.com.

Good day.

In this rerun from April 15, 2007, the theme is “Which animal would you be?” Mireille Silcoff reveals her “talent” for identifying which animal a person most resembles, which leads Jonathan to prompt the question to others.

In a monologue, he determines he’d be a leopard, but a mostly vegetarian one who preferred coriander tofu. Jonathan’s monologue continues, musing upon “learned incompetence,” and what our furniture says about us (if anything) while trying to find a hypothetical situation in which Sam Shalabi would agree to be Jonathan’s cuddly kitten.

The episode finishes off with an eavesdropped conversation amongst the regulars at Damico’s Coffee Shop in Brooklyn (home of NYC’s #1 coffee) regarding which animal they’d be.

You may remember Mireille Silcoff from other Wiretap episodes (i.e. Private Life; Public Performance) and as editor of Guilt and Pleasure Magazine. Sam Shalabi is also a regular guest, and an accomplished Oud player, as demonstrated in “Old Scores,” broadcast on November 6, 2004.

We also hear “Swinging on a Star” by Bing Crosby:

Would you like to swing on a star

Carry moonbeams home in a jar

And be better off than you are

Or would you rather be a mule?

A mule is an animal with long funny ears

Kicks up at anything he hears

His back is brawny but his brain is weak

He’s just plain stupid with a stubborn streak

And by the way, if you hate to go to school

You may grow up to be a mule

Or would you like to swing on a star

Carry moonbeams home in a jar

And be better off than you are

Or would you rather be a pig?

A pig is an animal with dirt on his face

His shoes are a terrible disgrace

He has no manners when he eats his food

He’s fat and lazy and extremely rude

But if you don’t care a feather or a fig

You may grow up to be a pig

Or would you like to swing on a star

Carry moonbeams home in a jar

And be better off than you are

Or would you rather be a fish?

A fish won’t do anything, but swim in a brook

He can’t write his name or read a book

To fool the people is his only thought

And though he’s slippery, he still gets caught

But then if that sort of life is what you wish

You may grow up to be a fish

A new kind of jumped-up slippery fish

And all the monkeys aren’t in the zoo

Every day you meet quite a few

So you see it’s all up to you

You can be better than you are

You could be swingin’ on a star

At the end of Private Life; Public Performance JG mentions that the first act was a collaboration between him and Mireille Silcoff and appears in Guilt and Pleasure. For the life of me, I can’t find it but I did find some other delectable goodies:

• Gregor Ehrlich essay: A Life in Chickens
• Jonathan Goldstein: Messiah in a Bottle (print version of the episode Messiah ‘83)
• Jonathan Goldstein: Man Not Superman (as read by Rob Corddry in We Are Not Supermen, also heard on This American Life)
• David Rakoff: Oh The Trouble I’ve Heard
• Shalom Auslander: Plagued
• Gregor Ehrlich: To Life
• Shalom Auslander: Mahmoud, Mom; Mom, Mahmoud
• Mireille Silcoff: Chez l’arabe

Oh and pictures:

I think you should all go to Guilt and Pleasure and read/buy every issue. David Rakoff has a piece in the newest issue, too.

I think this is an all-Jewish publication. Though it doesn’t mention that any where in its about. Maybe it just so happens that all my favorite authors are Canadian Jews.

Guilt & Pleasure is a quarterly magazine that’s making you talk more . Guilt & Pleasure is based on the belief that a good argument – especially on issues of community and identity in America – has become too rare a thing. We hope our magazine and the DIY section of this website will be used as raw material to spark conversation – be it around the dinner table, a coffee shop, or a bar. Guilt & Pleasure encourages you to talk amongst yourselves.

UPDATE: I emailed the magazine seeking the piece, and apparently it doesn’t exist?:

I’m not sure which article you are referring to. Jonathan and Mireille have both written for the magazine (and Mireille was the editor-in-chief) but I don’t believe they ever did an article together. And the hypnotist doesn’t sound familiar to me although I wasn’t working here for the first four issues so I could be wrong. It sounds like it would be in the Magic issue- there is an article about Hitler’s psychic/hypnotist by Mel Gordon in there- could that be what they were talking about?

Hmm, Guess I’ll ask CBC.