The Bwog Book Club invites you to join our discussion of the first segment of Denis
Johnson's serial noir, Nobody Move. If you missed July's issue of Playboy, feel free to read the plot summary provided here and join us next time for a discussion of second segment published in this month's magazine.

Here are the main events from section one:

Jimmy Luntz, who starts off in a barbershop chorus, receives a ride from a man named Gambol. After they talk in the car and pull over at a rest stop, he realizes Gambol has been hired to hurt him because of a debt Luntz owes to a man named Juarez. Luntz shoots Gambol, calls an ambulance, and goes after Juarez. Meanwhile, Anita Desilvera, a woman about to divorce her husband, drinks heavily, and is good with guns, sees Luntz disposing of his weapon. Predictably, they end up sleeping together (after having sex in case you aren't familiar with that euphemism.) Meanwhile Gambol rehabilitates with an unnamed woman, and plans to come back at Luntz.

1. For starters, Nobody Move is, of course, published as a serial in a magazine. How much of Johnson's writing and narrative structure do you think is determined by this?

A while back we introduced readers to the next Bwog Book Club book, Denis Johnson's Nobody Move, a serial noir novel published in Playboy magazine. There's been a slight change of plans: we're reviewing the first two sections at once, starting early next week. That means you should find the nearest newsstand to pick up the August issue of Playboy if you want to join in.

This particular series is being run by first-time book-clubbers. We're thinking up some questions, but if you have any good suggestions, e-mail bwog with your words.

For the next Bwog book club, you'll have to acquire a Playboy magazine - just like the old days. (If they don't have it in your local corner store or gas station, you can pick it up at Border's). You may be buying it for the breasts, but for the purpose of the book club we'll be discussing the Johnson that's inserted between them - all 263 inches of it. That's the length of the first sec tion of Nobody Move, the new Denis Johnson novel, which will run in the July, August, September, and October issues of the magazine. This book club is a pretty good deal - for about $20, you get a wide array of articles as well as a full novel, and an intellectually stimulating conversation as well as some visually stimulating imagery.

Just when you thought that this year's oratorical cavalcade couldn't possibly get any weirder, Friendly Fire has invited world-renowned pornographer free speech activist Larry Flynt to speak here on Thursday at 5 PM in the Lerner Party Space (the email says to get there early). No announcement yet on whether there'll be an afterparty at the Hustler Club, but Bwog is holding out hope.

One event whose after party certainly won't be held at the Hustler Club (like that transition?) is the College Republican's candlelight vigil to "remember and acknowledge the untold millions who unduly suffer under the tyranny of state-enforced Islamic extremism." In today's Spec, awesomely-named CUGOP board member Diana Lawless called the event a chance for people to "put aside their politics and differences."

And such opportunities for communal harmony abound during Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. David Horowtiz, C '59 is speaking Friday afternoon (register here), and if that isn't enough to satisfy your curiosity/raging Islamophobia/hatred of Islamofascism, there's an "oppression panel" with speakers from CUNY and the American Enterprise institute on Wednesday at 8 in Math 203.

You can bet that the Progressive Jewish Alliance won't be attendance. Their Facebook group petitioning Hillel to officially condemn the week's events currently has 99 members.

And if you still want to see Natalie Portman talk about poverty reduction tomorrow at 1 in Lerner 555, Bwog recommends you email ec2454@columbia.edu as soon as possible.

-ARR

Watch out, the nerds are gettin' it on! And writing about it! Here comes Outlet, Columbia's "new erotic review." In light of New York magazine's blog post about the new online sex rag, Bwog staff member Sara Vogel picked the brain of editor-in-chief Kimi Traube, CC '08, about fonts and porn.

How do you respond to New York magazine's blog observation that Outlet is composed of "vaguely intellectual undergraduate musings" and doesn't show enough skin? Why does Columbia need a magazine that talks about sex, but doesn't show it?

I'd hardly say we "don't show sex." The primary purpose of the magazine is to provide a forum for open discussion of sex and sexuality to the students of Columbia's campus, but we are quite delighted to display student submissions of erotica. We are just starting to get noticed, however, and as such we're just starting to get said graphic submissions. If you want to see more or different erotica in Outlet, submit some! Have your friends
submit some. Photographs, drawings, whatever, we're interested.

Why'd you choose Courier as your font? You have to agree that New York's blog is right about it being "decidedly unsexy."

I like Courier, personally. We were kind of in a crunch to put the layout together, so I just happened to pick it. This is only our first issue, and we're planning to revamp our layout to something sexier and less obvious as time goes on, so that may change. Although I have to admit, I've never really thought about the sexiness factor of fonts.What would be the "sexy" font?

Porn shots after the jump...

While Bwog was browsing the Earth Institute's Environmental Programs fair this afternoon--at which earthy professors explained how eager students could save the world, including through a new undergraduate sustainable development major which may or may not exist--we heard one upside to the otherwise disturbing trend of climate change:

"I don't think I've heard anyone make the connection between global warming and pornography before. Because people will be wearing less clothing..."