Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Fictional account of Hitler's conception wins award

The conception of Adolf Hitler was never going to make for easy reading. But the late American novelist Norman Mailer's explicit rendition of the incestuous encounter between the genocidal German dictator's parents has won the writer one of the world's most dubious literary prizes.

Mailer, who died of renal failure last month at 84, was one of several candidates for the annual "Bad Sex in Fiction Award," which aims to highlight crude and tasteless descriptions of sex in modern novels.

In a ceremony at the In & Out Club in central London, the judges paid homage to a "great American man of letters," adding: "We are sure that he would have taken the prize in good humour."

The excerpt is taken from one of Mailer's last works, "The Castle in the Forest," a fictionalized exploration of Hitler's family, narrated by a demon. In the passage, the demon describes the moment Adolf is conceived, as Klara Hitler embraces her husband Alois, a man the novel says was also her uncle, "with an avidity that could come only from the Evil One."

That passage, and others like it, were chosen by the Literary Review magazine, which has been embarrassing authors with the award for the past 15 years.

Those shortlisted for this year's prize included Christopher Rush, whose book "Will" offers a firsthand account of sex between William Shakespeare and his wife, Anne Hathaway. The bard praises his wife's anatomy in excruciating detail.

Jeannette Winterson was picked for her awkward love scene in "The Stone Gods," involving a woman and a robot. Richard Milward's "Apples" was chosen for its description of a sex scene between an adolescent boy and a woman the teen said "smelt a bit like an armpit."

Actor David Thewlis, who appears in the Harry Potter movies as Harry's teacher Remus Lupin, was selected for a sex scene in his novel "The Late Hector Kipling," where a man has his nipple drenched in lighter fluid, set on fire, and then doused in beer.

Earlier this year Thewlis was nominated for a "Razzie" - a prize handed out for awfulness in show business - for worst supporting actor in both "The Omen" and "Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction."

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Bill Conlin: Gas the bloggers

Pardon my ignorance here, but I don't follow sports and have no idea who Bill Conlin is. Apparently he's not to fond of the blogospere though:
"The only positive thing I can think of about Hitler's time on earth-I'm sure he would have eliminated all bloggers. In Colonial times, bloggers were called "Pamphleteers." They hung on street corners handing them out to passersby. Now, they hang out on electronic street corners, hoping somebody mouses on to their pretentious sites. Different medium, same MO. Shakespeare accidentally summed up the genre best with these words from a MacBeth soliloquy: ". . .a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. . .""
I'm pretty sure he's right though. I just don't see Hitler as a BoingBoing type of fellow.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Hitler invades Poland the Wii

"As I was raiding strangers' Miis today, picking up lookalike avatars of Chuck Norris, Jack Black and Mr. Burns to supplement my own woefully thin Mii population, I noticed a curious trend. For all the wildly diverse Miis you find while doing a "grab bag" search on the Posting Plaza, at least every other page has a Mii version of Adolf Hitler. Some pages I skimmed through had three different Hitlers out of a group of 50 Miis. The Miis on the Posting Plaza are only identified by initials, but when it's a guy with a parted haircut, tiny mustache, soulless stare and the the initials A.H., it's a bit of a giveaway."
Via Load This

Golden Girls Gone Wild - Betty White

Monday, November 12, 2007

Bombay's Hitler Restaurant

The owner of a restaurant named after Adolf Hitler said Thursday he will change its name because it angered so many people.

Puneet Sablok said he would remove Hitler's name and the Nazi swastika from billboards and the menu. He had said the restaurant's name — "Hitler's Cross" — and symbols were only meant to attract attention.

Sablok made the decision after meeting with members of Bombay's small Jewish community.

"Once they told me how upset they were with the name, I decided to change it," he said. "I don't want to do business by hurting people."

Sablok said he had not yet decided on a new name.

Hitler's Cross opened five days ago and serves pizza, salad and pastries in Navi Mumbai, a suburb of Bombay, also known as Mumbai.

On Thursday, Bombay's Jewish community welcomed Sablok's decision to rename his restaurant.

"He realized he made a mistake and listened to reason," said Elijah Jacob, a community leader. "Some people have wrong conceptions of history and he realized it was not appropriate."

Bombay's Jews had called the theme of the restaurant offensive and demanded a name change. There are about 5,500 Jews in India, with about 4,500 of them living in Bombay.

"I never wanted to hurt people's feelings," said Sablok.

Some Indians regard Hitler as just another historical figure and have little knowledge about the Holocaust, in which 6 million European Jews were systematically killed during World War II.

The swastika symbol, which was appropriated by the Nazis, was originally an ancient Hindu symbol and it is displayed all over India to bring luck.