Ultimate Geekery

It's Tournament of Books time again! Well, it has been for a week or two now, which I realize is pretty much the equivalent of the internet Paleozoic. But I'm guessing if you're reading this, it's not for hyper-connectivity or insta-blogging (apparently this is what Twitter is for. I'm trying to Twitter. I've avoided it for almost a year, and then curiosity got the better of me. That or the fact that it provides another reason to avoid grading essays.)

Boy, do I love the ToB. Mostly because it's ridiculous and mostly because it being ridiculous makes it amazing. For example: today's final judgment came down in the form of a dialogue between the judge and his therapist. Example 2: the winner wins this:

That's right. A rooster. What writer wouldn't want a rooster as a prize? It's not like there's money in this business anyway, unless your last name begins with "Rowling."

Last year, Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life... won The Rooster, and I was over the moon. I haven't read many of this year's contenders, but I think I will be majorly put out if 2666 wins. Because then I will attempt to read it and probably hate every second.

I wonder what the poetry version of ToB would look like? Maybe the winner could receive a brick stolen from Tintern Abbey, or a lead daffodil. Of course, Zachary Schomburg would stomp all over Billy Collins in the Zombie Round...

(image via The Morning News)