Nice! EPIC gets a mention on must-read gay blog Towleroad. Robin, Aaron, we have truly arrived.

“There is a sea of horror lapping at the edges of the everyday world … “

When I read the transcript of today’s White House press briefing with Scott McClellan, I knew someone was going to pull this “McClellan’s a rhetorical genius” bit. Nonsense. People did the same thing with Ari F., and I call foul. Dogged question avoidance does not make one the second coming of Cicero.

In fact, from The New Republic last March (subscription required):

Fleischer was in this sense the perfect Bush press secretary. His ability to prevaricate and dodge, without betraying himself through physical or verbal tics, represented a kind of genius. Alas, what came so easily to Fleischer utterly eludes McClellan. If the two of them ever sat down at a poker table, Fleischer would probably walk away with all of McClellan’s money and the shirt off his back.

Again, nonsense. In many of Fleischer’s most heated press exchanges, he reverted to the exact same rote repetition thing McClellan does here. Both men do a perfectly functional and transparent job of stonewalling the White House press corps. Wouldn’t a true rhetorical genius be so slick and insinuating about his point that you wouldn’t even recognize it was just the same thing with different wrapping paper?

Read more…

Google Blogoscoped brings us a mock-up of “Paul’s” personalized Google News home page. Methinks Paul would quickly get bored with this arrangement.

I tried to reform. After leaving college, I had to confront the fact that my activities during those four years were not socially acceptable. I assiduously removed all references to that lifestyle, reforming some of those dead-giveaway behavioral tics, brushing up on new conversation topics, even tweaking my music collection.

It was hard. It had been a wild four years, and I was still in the thrall of college a cappella. I had to move on.

But last week, my former a cappella group’s CD was released, it arrived in my mailbox on Thursday, and folks, I have backslid completely. I have not stopped listening to this thing since I got it. I am absolutely swimming in six-part harmony cover versions of contemporary pop songs, and I’m no longer going to hide it. Call me a degenerate. I don’t care anymore.

In fact, I’m posting three snippets of the album, three of my favorite parts. How I love this stuff.

• Sample 1 – Change the World
• Sample 2 – Song for Holly
• Sample 3 – Don’t Change Your Plans

He’s awesome. Can’t say I was the most inspired interviewer, but this was fun to do.

Update (7.14.2011): I’m updating this post 6 years later because Tim Carmody pointed out that the Fresno Bee link no longer works. Try this one.

The interactive short story Fa

It was really nice to see the President showing us the meaning of freedom on Independence Day. (Via.)

—ooooooooooooo…

This is kind of awesome. The website for Wedding Crashers (the upcoming movie with Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn) is allowing anyone to digitally insert herself into the movie trailer. Thus ensuring that new pseudo-movie-stars like my friend Ryan McGee become the viral marketing brigade for the film.