27 November 2004

I'm going to be tied up with family stuff and household chores—not to mention perhaps, just perhaps, if the landlord gets here to fix the toilet (already late), some shopping. For essentials like margarine. And pepperoni pizza (I've never pretended to keep kosher) as an antidote to turkey.

So, in the meantime, and strictly as an exercise for the student of moronic publishing (and moronic reporting on publishing), I offer Rachal Donadio's particularly inane NYTBR essay on what she calls "faith-based publishing." What she really means to say is that it's not a real phenomenon until the NYTBR consistently notes it. And, since her essay constitutes notice… see Reasoning, Circular. I'll leave aside the validity of the sales figures quoted in the article—that would probably result in spraining a few latissimi laughing—and, for that matter, the sales figures not quoted in the article, and just wonder aloud whether sales consignment figures for a type of good that is particularly prone to being borrowed after sale mean a damned thing in determining market-share, market penetration, or damned near anything else.