As long as we're going to bring up comic books, I'll mention Michael Chabon Presents: The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist, a collection of the comics purportedly created by Sam Clay and Joe Kavalier during their own amazing adventures in another volume penned by the same Chabon. The selections of extremely short stories are written and drawn as if they were published during the various ages of comics from the 1940s through the 1970s. The styles mimic the variety of comic art impressively, ranging from the pulp origins of the Escapist through an impressionist painterly Luna Moth, but the writing is a tad too smart, always managing to comment on society and "current" events in a precocious way that no real comic could before Alan Moore's Watchmen.
I read The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist while on vacation at the beach and quite enjoyed it, though a much dumber comic might have been appreciated while laying in the mind-numbing sun.

I am almost finished with Neil Gaiman's amazing and spectacular American Gods. In a nutshell, it's the story of this paroled convict, Shadow, who mysteriously gets enlisted in this war between old-school American Gods brought by over by immigrants for hundreds of years (like Ibis and Anansi), who hold down American jobs and drive American clunkers and hang out in American cities and towns, and new-school American gods, like media and the Internet and such. I will tell you no more, except that this is the same Neil Gaiman who, as Liam pointed out, has published tons of comic books.

Meanwhile, I suckered poor N into reading Thomas Berger's The Adventures with the Artificial Woman, which I imagine must be like chewing on a Milky Way while I feast on Belgium chocolate (yes, it's that time of the month. So what?!)

Thanks to its helpful subtitle, you know that this book, The Verse by the Side of the Road: The Story of the Burma-Shave Signs and Jingles by Frank Rowsome, Jr., is the story of the Burma-Shave signs and jingles. The signs represent a quaintly amusing bit of nostalgic Americana, and this book follows suit--you could proably read the whole thing as you breezed past a set of Burma-Shave signs, if any were still posted. It's short, anecdotal, and broken up into short sections that don't always flow naturally. There are some nice stories from the company's founders, a sincere introduction from Bob Dole, and a great lack of a cohesive story or any attempt to place the phenomenon of the signs in a larger context. The crowning achievement, of course, is the appendix containing the text of every sign, arranged by year, from 1927 to 1963. As light and breezy as the main text was, getting through all those signs is a real chore, and who wants their fluffy "history-lite" reading interrupted by a chore?
DOES YOUR HUSBAND
MISBEHAVE
GRUNT AND GRUMBLE
RANT AND RAVE
SHOOT THE BRUTE SOME
BURMA-SHAVE

I am in the doghouse at work today, because I approved a mini-booklet of Chicken Soup for the Soul--yup, thousands of them were printed--with instructions on the back cover that read, "Dishwasher Safe." Don't worry. The inspirational stories inside were unharmed by my negligence.

I keep checking my own web page in hopes that somebody else is reading. Me? I'm just having my usual money freakout, that happens when the freelance work slows down and I've got a tour coming up. It sure is a long way to the top when you wanna rocknroll.

As far as reading goes, I'm in the middle of When the Messenger is Hot, though I have to admit that I gave up on an epic fantasy I was trying to get into, whose name will go unmentioned, as I think it was a result of my tempermant, not the book.