sunday short stack

"One swallow does not make a summer, neither does one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy." - Aristotle

• I'm always tempted to read the Penguin Great Ideas series books when I'm trying to reach 52 at the end of the year. Jeff Vandermeer is reading one a day and blogging about it (via Readerville).
• F*ck You, Penguin
• What would a map of the world look like if it was not organized by land mass?
• Ranking America also offers unusual quantification.
• What's the most unusual thing you've ever found in a used record?
• John Hodgman on Rick Warren
• Jello Biafra to Barack Obama
• This piano prodigy is too cute. Listen to the whole 7 minutes.
• I also love this monkey at MOMA.
• A.O. Scott on Seven Pounds: "Eggplant parmesan. Printing press. Lung. Bone marrow. Eye transplant. Rosario Dawson. Great Dane. Banana peel. Jellyfish (but you knew that already). Car accident. Congestive heart failure."
• Please don't divorce us.
• Very sad news: The Knitting Factory is no more (in Manhattan, at least).
• Read an excerpt from Maud Newton's forthcoming novel at Narrative. My novel is very different, but also features a preacher-mother. I predict 2009 is the year preacher-mothers catch fire.