A few odds and ends seen on Twitter recently

I've been swamped with working two new jobs, buying a new car, and Holy Week observations, so some of these items may already be known by several.  But just in case, here's a few odds and ends over the past few weeks that have caught my attention.

Lost in the uproar over yet another underwhelming Hugo Award shortlist for Best Novel was the announcement that at the general meeting at the upcoming WorldCon there would be a motion to add Best Genre Poetry to the upcoming 2014 London WorldCon as a trial category.  UK-based critics such as Cheryl Morgan and Jonathan McCalmont had different reactions to this possible development, with McCalmont saying on Twitter that it was nigh hopeless to complain about the inevitability of this motion passing:

I guess complaining about Hugo poetry category is a bit like standing in the Amazon rainforest and complaining about the shitty begonias.
— Jonathan McCalmont (@RuthlessCult) March 31, 2013

Elsewhere, the ever-provocative blogger at Requires Only That You Hate announced Sunday that she would be changing the focus of her reviewing ire from self-published YA fantasies to the more sophisticated reviewing of My Little Pony episode and their deleterious effect on the so-called "bronies."  On Twitter, she gleefully said this after her announcement:

@esedia oh this will be fun
— Misandry Shrugs (@requireshate) March 31, 2013

As many of you know, Paul Smith and I have been posting substantive reviews over at Gogol's Overcoat.  Recently, Paul has decided that he cannot take my word for it and that he is going to sample the works of one of the greatest comedians/Continental philosophers of our generation.  On Twitter, he seems pretty sanguine about this potentially revolutionary writer:

I don't think the world is ready for a comedian with a routine consisting entirely of terrible Continental Philosophy jokes.
— Paul Smith (@Paul_C_Smith) March 25, 2013

And finally, Indian lit critic Aishwarya Subramanian announced on her blog this weekend that she was disappointed with Congolese writer Alain Mabanckou's recently-translated Black Bazaar (a shame, since I think it is one of the best translated books to come out in the past year or so) for its lack of development of the main character's "Buttologist" proclamation.  As she said sadly on Twitter:

"nothing to do with buttocks"
— Aisha(@ActuallyAisha) March 31, 2013

Hopefully Aisha will give Mabanckou another chance in the future despite the seeming misnomer.

Finally, a bit of non-Twitter-related news:  After three years of delays, Serbian illustrator Dunja Branovački (she designed the present blog header) and I will begin work this summer on a Kickstarter project for the previously-announced Squirrelpunk anthology of Squirrelist fictions.  We are uncertain what the goals or prizes will be, but we are thinking that perhaps the entry-level prize might be an autographed picture of a rabid squirrel leaping toward the camera as its picture was taken (sadly, the photographer succumbed to rabies a few days later) and perhaps there would be a rabid squirrel rave party for those who donate over $1000.  Feel free to suggest category prizes in the comments.