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U P D A T E S
3
January 2005 to Present
The earliest Updates from March 1997 to October 2001
are archived here.
The next Updates from January 2002 to December 2004 are archived
here.
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Additions - Changes - Latest
Information
For the latest entry (October 24), click here.
1 January 2005
- Even though I've been keeping interviews to a minimum for the past 20 years or
so, a few new interviews and a film featuring Uncle Maledictus have appeared or will
appear soon. More details and links are on my "News
- Reviews - Interviews" page.
- On 13 December 2004, Tom Scocca interviewed me about the meaning of "blow"
for The New York Observer. An excerpt and the URL are
here.
- Vito Tartamella, editor-in-chief of the Italian magazine Focus, interviewed
me for his long article on insults, curses, and other maledicta, which will appear
shortly. I'll list here the link and excerpt once it's in print.
- Jeffrey Weiss, reporter for the "Religion" section of The Dallas
Morning News, interviewed me about blasphemies. His article "What
the *^&%$#@!" appeared on January 7, 2005. It can be read at that newspaper's
Web site after an intrusive pain-in-the-ass registration. See
February entry below for another site. I have also archived it here.
- Journalists for The Boston Globe and The Wall Street Journal want
to interview me when Maledicta 13 appears. That's a good reason to get MAL
13 published soon (but I'm still lacking the funds...).
- Elke Michel, a cute and smart redhead from Hamburg, Germany, also has been nagging
me about a long interview for a German magazine.
- Steve Anderson, a Los-Angeles-based producer, director, and filmmaker, is currently
producing a full-length feature film about the F-word (called FUCK). Several
weeks ago he and his crew visited me and filmed a two-hour interview about anything
related to "fuck." Because many famous folks were interviewed for this
documentary, all but five to ten minutes of this filmed interview will end up on
the cutting room floor. This movie will be released in late summer 2005. More info
about it later at:
- http://www.fworddoc.com/
See Update at 20 October.
- The most important and wisest decision I've made since 1997 is leaving all those
interesting but goddamn time-wasting newsgroups about English, German, Linguistics,
and other language-related topics. I composed more than 9,000 messages for these
newsgroups -- most of them instructive, entertaining, witty, or sarcastic, but also
many savagely aggressive ones combatting the morons, assholes, bitches, and bastards
infesting newsgroups.
- Even though participating in those groups was great fun, instructive, and cheap
anti-depression therapy, it was essentially a waste of time, as the production of
Maledicta didn't get the attention it deserves and few of my cheap-ass "fans"
bought books. So today I'm saying "Adieu!" to my electronic friends and
"Get stuffed!" to my foes. All my posts are archived in the Google Groups
under "aman@sonic.net" as the author.
- Wishing a Happy New Year to all my friends and to those
smart and kind souls who buy my books!
3 February 2005
- The article about blasphemy is currently still available at the Web site of The
Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, Utah) http://www.sltrib.com/faith/ci_2526177.
Once it's expired, you can read the original, uncut text here.
- On 16 Jan 2005, The
Times-News (Twin Falls, Idaho) reprinted the story, deleted some "offensive"
paragraphs, and stupidly censored the writer's "Holy crap!" to "Holy
----!" -- which every reader will, of course, mistakenly interpret as "Holy
shit!" That's one of the evils of trying to protect "sensible" readers:
they will fill in words and phrases that are more offensive than the original ones
were, just as in Nixon's Watergate transcript with its many silly "expletive
deleted."
19 February 2005
8 April 2005
- Maledicta 13 is progressing well. I've added a few more articles. It should
be available in a few months, but please don't order it yet.
24 April 2005
- It was a big and pleasant surprise to see Maledicta mentioned and shown
in an award-winning documentary. In "Word Wars: Tiles and Tribulations on
the SCRABBLE Circuit," Eric Chaikin's
fascinating 2004 film following the lives of four word- and SCRABBLE-obsessed
fellows, Matt Graham (one of the four) shows his book-filled apartment and then holds
up Maledicta I/1, "The International Journal of Verbal Aggression."
27 May 2005
- Maledicta 13 is finally done! It's at the
printers and will be available July 15, 2005. See complete Table of Contents and
order information here (a 150k .jpg).
9 June 2005
2 July 2005
- Two more weeks until Maledicta 13 will be shipped! See complete Table
of Contents here (a 150K .jpg). It's time to whip out
your wallets, guys!
- I've added a long excerpt from my article "'Jew Motherfucker' and 'Nigger':
The Foulmouthed & Lying Clintons" here.
- If you've never noticed Maledicta's small sister, Maledicta Monitor,
click here.
18 July 2005
- Happy Days Are Here Again! On Friday, July 15, the truck loaded with boxes of
Maledicta 13 arrived. Today at 9:45 a.m., I
mailed the last batch of all prepaid copies of this book -- 842 pounds total. So,
if you live in the USA, MAL 13
should arrive in a week or two, and if you live in one of the 38 other countries,
in 4-6 weeks.
- Got Milk? Got MAL? There are only 643 copies left
of the first printing. Get MAL!
29 July 2005
- To provide a public service, I have decided to put the complete article about
the Foulmouthed and Lying Clintons on this site. Read my 10-page article here.
23 September 2005
2 October 2005
- David Hawley's excellent review of Maledicta 13 in the St.
Paul Pioneer Press (St. Paul / Minneapolis, Minnesota) of 21 August 2005 was
also distributed nationally on the Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Service
wire and reprinted in The Contra Costa Times (Calif.), The Milwaukee Sun
(Wisconsin), The Wichita Eagle (Kansas), and The Bradenton Herald (Florida)
on or about 24 Aug. 2005. Mr. Hawley's review is archived here:
http://www.sonic.net/maledicta/Hawley-MN.html
- One of the most intelligent reviews of Maledicta I've seen appeared in
The Orange County Weekly (Calif.) on 5 Aug. 2005. Unlike superficial journalists,
the reviewer, perceptive Gustavo Arellano, recognizes the importance
of Maledicta. His review is archived here:
http://www.sonic.net/maledicta/OCWeekly.html
- "Tussen pestpokken en tyfuskankertering: Maledicta, jaarboek van internationale
scheldwoorden, is weer uit" by Ed Schilders in the Dutch national daily de
Volkskrant of 18 Aug. 2005 is a long and excellent essay about Maledicta
and its editor's tribulations. It can be read at these two Dutch-language sites:
http://www.cubra.nl/edschildersboekencolumn/200805maledicta13.htm
http://let.kub.nl/literair/edschildersboekencolumn/200805maledicta13.htm
- Liesbeth Koenen's brief review of Maledicta in the Dutch magazine Quest
(Oct. 2005, p. 116) is now archived here: http://www.peptalks.nl/index.jsp?linkart=526.
Then click on "U volgde een link naar dit article."
- The Times Literary Supplement (London) of 29 July 2005 (p. 14) ran a good
review of Maledicta 13, even though its anonymous writer didn't like my "Maledictorial"
about the cheap-ass American professors. My Letter to the Editor is archived here:
http://www.sonic.net/maledicta/TLS.html
- Harper's Magazine reprinted a lengthy selection from Ken Pontac's "'Please
Delete the Following...' Censoring a Saturday Morning Cartoon Show" in Maledicta
13 in its October 2005 issue, pp. 23-25, under the heading "Drawing the
Line."
- Arthur Salm's "Ask him and he'll tell you: He's a man of his words,"
in The San Diego Union-Tribune of 14 Aug. 2005 alerts his readers to the return
of Maledicta.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050814/news_1v14salm.html
- Michael Booth interviewed me for his movie review of "The Aristocrats"
in The Denver Post of 12 Aug. 2005 (distributed nationally; republished in
The Arizona Republic of 17 Aug. 2005 and elsewhere.
http://www.denverpost.com/movies/ci_2934924
- Radio Bremen (Germany) ran a series of short features about verbal aggression
in various cultures, e.g., "Verdammte Flucherei! Wie Europa schimpft,"
quoting R. Aman. Other German-language audio files at its site include 3-to-5-minute
reports about insults and swearing in Italian, Russian, Polish, and Turkish.
http://www.radiobremen.de/magazin/gesellschaft/fluchen.html
- Reviews and mentions of Maledicta 13 coming up in:
- -- Word Ways (Fall 2005)
-- Verbatim (no date yet)
-- A major essay about MAL & moi will appear soon in a
renowned American business magazine. More info after it has been published.
20 October 2005
- F*CK ("The Movie That Dare Not Speak Its Name") will have its
world première on Nov. 7, 2005 at the American Film Institute festival in
Los Angeles. Among other goodies, this 91-minute documentary features interviews
with all sorts of (in)famous people, including Uncle Maledictus. For a listing of
the interviews click on the link with that name. See and hear excerpts and more from
this film at:
http://www.fourletterfilm.com/
[854K]
24 October 2005
- An excellent report about Maledicta 13 appeared in today's Chicago
Tribune. The story is archived here, with the
source URL.
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