I had very rewarding evening of tea and conversation with Jessa (aka chief editor at Bookslut) last night. Hurrah for rambling conversations!

Somewhere in between discussing what exactly is wrong with Michael Moore and how television shows that are any good tend to be either renewed-but-ruined or permanently cancelled after the first season, we got on the subject of the last presidential election, and the next one.

Jessa's dream race for the last election&#8212and I must say I concur&#8212would have pitted John McCain for the Republicans against Bill Bradley for the Democrats. Imagine that&#8212a choice that might have required pausing for more than 2 seconds to think about it!

One can always hold out hope for some future election, I suppose. My dream race for 2004 looks something like this:

Republicans - Bush / Powell
Let's be realistic about 2 things here: Dick Cheney is not long for this world, and there's not a woman's chance with Ian McKellen of anyone wresting the Republican nomination away from Bush. Under the circumstances, Bush / Powell is the best I can hope for.

Democrats - McCain / Feingold
McCain leaves the Republican party, Jeffords-style, and runs a clean, honest, reform campaign with Democrat finance-reform-law buddy Feingold. Lieberman and Gore either have the good sense to stay out of the race, or else get sand kicked in their faces by McCain in the primary.

Greens - Bradley / Nader
Bradley, meanwhile, leaves the Democrats and endorses the Green party platform plank, board and nail. Nader, who I've never liked nearly as much as I like the Greens' platform, comes along for the ride to avoid thoroughly alienating all those who went with him for the Greens in the last 2 elections, but Bradley is in the seat that counts.

Is it wishful thinking? Probably so. But I think these tickets are at least plausible.

Speak up! What does your dream race for 2004 look like? Who would you vote for in your theoretical dream campaign, or in mine?

I've never been a big fan of most of Amazon's so-called features. I've entered some 500+ of my books, 300+ CDs, and a few dozen DVDs into the My Collection feature, with ratings, and still their "My Recommendations" feature generally provides incredibly unhelpful suggestions.

One might think their new "Recommend another book in addition to or instead of this book feature," which allows customers to suggest books to each other, would represent both an awareness of the problem and its brilliant solution.

Think again.

I've been following the development of this so-called feature via the Bookslut blog, but for those of you who haven't, let's sum up:

1. Anyone can post a recommendation of another book to "buy instead", even the author of the other book being recommended.
2. There's a delay in the posting of such recommendations, but no apparent editorial review or automated checking for scamming of the system.
3. Thus, enterprising authors such as this one shoot to the top of the Amazon bestseller list by riding on the coattails of other--established--bestseller books.

There have always been problems with Amazon's existing features anyway: many low-selling books would be scammed with multiple anonymous ("A reader") reviews that were actually foils for the author, and some enterprising (read desperate)authors would even exploit the review feature to recommend their books over other, completely unrelated books.

This, however, takes the whole thing to a new level. When it works, the system does work -- e.g. 2 helpful readers suggest buying Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens in addition to the hardcover edition of Gaiman's American Gods. When it doesn't work, however, it's an abject failure.

For example, 1 reader recommends this completely unrelated CD instead of the paperback edition of House Of Leaves. Another recommends this book, which is also recommended by 3 "people" instead of A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius. There, 5 "people" also recommend Birdseed Cookies instead.

In this New York Times article, Birdseed Cookies author Janis Jaquith confesses: Ms. Jaquith, a 49-year-old commentator on a public radio station in Roanoke, Va., said she was initially put off by the idea of recommending one book over another. "I thought, `That is really mean-spirited,' " she said.

But then she concluded that glomming onto another book was actually a kind of compliment to its commercial success. She recommended her book instead of those by the public radio commentators David Sedaris and Garrison Keillor, and she urged her family and friends to do the same with other books. I must say, this "conclusion" is horse-pucky, tripe, bat guano, and to put it bluntly, overwheening bullshit.

Were it a gentle reader unacquainted with and unmotivated by Ms. Jaquith, that might arguably be a compliment. Were it even someone acting at the behest of Ms. Jaquith, but recommending "in addition" to the book rather than "instead", that might arguably pass for a compliment in some twisted sense.

But in no way can I find it complimentary to suggest one's own novel instead of another's in a place of public commerce. This is akin to hiring a crier to stand in the local bookstore announcing "This book _____ is better than anything by Tom Clancy! Buy this book!" It's simply unethical and unsportsmanlike, especially when Amazon already provides ample designated space on the page for the publisher and author to add comments, synopses, book jacket quotes, or whatever.

Amazon seems to be in no hurry to fix the problem, but I don't see it as even half their fault, anyway. The problem much larger than a broken, unpoliced new feature lies in writers apparently unable to police their own behavior.

Certainly the publishing world is an exceedingly difficult and disheartening milieu in which to work, and clever self-promotion is a powerful tool in achieving literary recognition. There are, however, lines that should not be crossed, and this is one of them.

If it were my book, I wouldn't find it complimentary in the least.

Courtesy of the slumberland.org blog, this eBay auction features a truly entertaining item description. Be sure you read the whole thing, even the fine print.

Could this herald a new genre of "eBay literature"? In any event, it's certainly amusing.