Presto! Magic! Old Interview Reappears!

I did a mental double-take when a link at the History of Drugs and Alcohol website took me to this interview. For a millisecond, I thought it was bogus. I had zero recollection of talking to anyone in Fond du Lac, at least not recently. But then my brain dredged up a memory of a radio host named "Silk." The post is a transcript of a radio interview I did about a year ago.

Whew! For a minute, I thought maybe my brain had spun, crashed, and burned. Live, on-air interviews always feel so ephemeral. But here's one embedded in e-print, complete with plenty of the verbal grammatical howlers that are an inevitable part of the thinking-on-your-feet process.

Tip o' the mug to "Silk" Casper and David Fahey.

The Enlightened Bracketologist

Okay, so this new book has come out, The Enlightened Bracketolgist. You can read about it at Amazon. If you know what bracketing is, you've already figured out. If not, take a detour to Amazon (or any other online bookseller). There's a review of it in SI.com (I had to go to the site to figure out what SI means......) Here's a link

Just two points: 1. No, I'm not a beer "expert." 2. I have no idea who David Wells is. I googled and I think he's a baseball player. In any case, the book is a hoot, and I, too, love the Bald Guys category.

This week, you can find me . . . . .

. . . .at Powells.com, where I'm the guest blogger. I know, I know: given how much I hate blogging, it's more than a bit ironic. But I LOVE Powells and simply couldn't say no. Go here to find the blog pieces, starting today, Monday November 13, and running through Friday the 17th. If you've never visited Powells online or in person, you're missing something. The main store in downtown Portland, Oregon, occupies an entire city block and three (or four?) stories. Fabulous. Book heaven. The website is also marvelous! Lots of good "content," and their customer service is superb.

The Page 69 Test

Until last week, I'd never heard of the "page 69 test." According to Marshal McLuhan, if you want to decide whether to read an entire book, turn to page 69. The contents of that page will likely exemplify the whole, and if you like what you read there, you'll probably enjoy the entire book.

Why? Beats me. By page 69, has the writer hit her stride and is spewing endorphins and creativity like crazy? Is page 69 the point at which the novelist gathers all the plot threads and they begin rolling toward their inexorable conclusion? I dunno.

All I know is that it works. I applied the test to 1. books I've already read 2. books I started but didn't finish, and 3. books that I've not yet read. In the first case, page 69 exemplified the book's whole content. In the second case, page 69 provided me with nothing that made me want to keep reading. In the third case, I was completely absorbed and wanted to keep reading.

Okay, so why am I bringing this up? Because Marshal Zeringue, who blogs for the Campaign for the American Reader (his blog is here) has invited writers to submit their works to the Page 69 Test and is posting their comments on the blog. I just wrote my piece for the blog, which I think will show up there next week. Interesting stuff. (Except I added the link above after writing this post.)

And you can bet that next time I'm standing in the library or the bookstore, trying to decide whether to read/buy a book, I'll apply the test. Because I don't know about anyone else, but I am sooooooo tired of picking up books, mostly novels, starting them, and abandoning them after 20 or 30 pages as unreadable. I won't start on my "where have all the good novels gone?" rant, but ....... jeez, where HAVE the good novels gone??????

The Beer Bracketologist

I'm bracketing beer! Don't know what bracketing is? Don't feel bad; until last week, I didn't either.

Think of a sports tournament, the classic example being the NCAA college basketball tournament. It starts with 64 teams, or 32 pairs grouped in BRACKETS. The pairs play. The winner advances to the next bracket, or round. Eventually only four are left, the famous Final Four, and those two pairs play each other and then the winners of that round face off -- and a winner is declared.

So these two guys in New York are writing a book titled The Enlightened Bracketologist: The Final Four of Everything, in which various "experts" will bracket their specialties, with the goal of determing "the best" of whatever it is they're bracketing. Chris Matthews is bracketing famous speeches. Heidi Klum is bracketing lingerie; Arnold Palmer is doing golf swings. Elvis Costello is pondering Beatle songs that were never number one. Someone else is bracketing Elvis Costello. One guy is bracketing red wine, and another one typefaces. [UPDATE: not all of these people made it into the final edition.]

And I -- drumroll please -- am bracketing beer! It's been quite the project, not least because first I had to come up with 32 beers. And then pair them up. And then taste them and pick winners of each round. I know. I know. "Tough job," you say, cackling, "but someone's gotta do it."

So you say, but I'm here to tell you that this has been hard on my poor stomach! I ran the first five rounds over two days, but today I'm still so overdosed on beer that I'm putting off the contest between my Final Two until tomorrow. And no, I'm not gonna tell you which brew comes out on top. I don't think the book's editors would be too happy with me.

But you don't have long to wait: The Enlightened Bracketologist hits the bookstores in March 2007. About the same time as the NCAA men's basketball tourney plays out. Coincidence? Or not? You be the judge!

Jay Brooks -- Human Being Extraordinaire

Also long as I'm praising wonderful people, I've got to say something about Jay Brooks. He's the guy behind the Brookston Beer Bulletin, which I've mentioned more than once in my own blog. I don't have much free time to surf the 'net, plus I spend all day staring at a computer, and don't WANT to spend my free time staring at it then as well. So I'm not one for visiting websites and reading blogs. But I try to read Jay's blog every day. He covers the beer industry and things/ideas/events related to beer and alcohol. And he does a very very good job.

What's amazing is that this isn't his full-time work. He's a stay at home dad, caring for two small kids, and anyone who's ever done that knows how exhausting and time-consuming kids are. Anyway, somehow Jay manages to juggle all this work and responsibility and crank out the best beer blog in the country.

So my hat's off to him for that. But I'm writing about him today because he's also an extraordinarily generous and kind human being. I know that firsthand. In late October, I'll be in San Francisco co-hosting with Fritz Maytag a book party at Maytag's Anchor Brewing Company.

But that meant I needed to come up with a guest list. The problem is that I don't live in SF and know a grand total of four people in the Bay area (most of whom I know because I interviewed them for the beer book).

So I wrote to Jay, with whom I'd exchanged maybe two emails total, and asked him if he could look at my guest list and make some suggestions as to who else I could invite. (As near as I can tell, Jay knows half the population of northern California and 100% of the people living there who are involved in beer.) He said sure! Glad to help!

Now remember, this guy doesn't know me from adam. I'm just some email address out in cyberspace. But he says Sure! Next thing I'm know, I get a lovely email from him apologizing for taking so long (a grand total of what?, eight days has passed since I'd asked for some guest-list input) and a list of 107 names, complete with addresses and broken down by category (eg, brewery owners, bar owners, journalists).

Holy COW! I was speechless and nearly in tears that this stranger would spend so much of his obviously limited free time to help me out. But I've said it before and I'll say it again now: beer people are very very special people. Smart, lively, passionate about their work. And incredibly generous. And Jay Brooks, human being extraordinaire, is yet another example of that truism.

Jay, thank you! And everyone else, please, read Jay's blog!