Every so often, you come across a site that's much like your own, so much so that it makes you laugh out loud as you click through its pages. All Inkblots fans should be sure to visit Bookslut, an Austin-based literary webzine that's doing more or less exactly what we were when we got started way back in 1995. The writing is razor-sharp and opinionated and down-to-earth, the subjects are fascinating, and the whole thing is chock-full of character. Congratulations to the proprietor, Jessa Crispin, and her crew – keep up the good work!

My favorite line, found in Ms. Crispin's weblog:

There are a thousand 'Best of the year' lists online, but I'm trying really hard not to link to them. (I cannot, in good conscience, link to anything that continues the extended blowjob that the literary community has been giving to Jonathan Safran Foer.)

More recently, Ms. Crispin groused that the good Mr. Foer's Everything is Illuminated won the Guardian First Book Award over Hari Kunzru's The Impressionist. Now, I haven't read Illuminated, but I've been working on a review of The Impressionist for a while now, and I can't seem to get past how blatant Mr. Kunzru's glossy influences are – he is (or was) the music editor at Wallpaper*, one of the most grotesque fashion glossies on the market today. (I know, I know, it started out as a joke and was meant to be taken ironically, but it sure seems to me that it's lost all its irony since then.) Almost all glossies can be boiled down to one simple thing: sex sells. And so, apparently, can The Impressionist: Kunzru examines both personal and national identities in an interesting, well-written book, but every time Kunzru wants to do some metaphor-wrangling, he always turns to sex. I'm no prude, but the whole thing felt to me like the old saying, "When all you have is a hammer..."

Looks like I may have to go pick up the Foer just to have a nice argument with a fellow editor.