1) “If someone were to come along, dig a moderately deep hole in my garden, give me a metal box and tell me I had half an hour to put together a 2006 time-capsule, Jonathan Raban’s new novel is the first thing I’d grab.” (Note: while reading this super review of Raban’s new novel, do not for a instant let it out of your mind that he received this year’s Genius Award for literature.)

2) “Žižek has a penchant for telling dirty jokes, quoting Hegel, and exclaiming that everything you think is wrong.”

3) “It’s this country’s favorite form of public interaction and, along with watching television, of recreation. It claims more workers, and fills more space, than any other pursuit—considerably more nonresidential construction is devoted exclusively to it, though you can also do it in museums, houses of worship, airports, and hospitals. It wards off depression, emotional and economic. It reflects and promotes subtle and seismic shifts in societal attitudes, so it’s at once an unstoppable engine of change and among the most fickle, unpredictable, and vulnerable of human activities. It’s the emblem of modernity. Shopping.”

4) `I am a true Lynch fan. Fuck “Blue Velvet”, everyone loves it. The real Lynch is not “Twin Peaks” the series, but “Fire Walk with Me”, and “Dune”, of course.’

5) “Despite his film’s simplified overdetermination and tidy wrap-ups, Mitchell manages to do something that many filmmakers find surprisingly difficult: make sex sexy. Compare any one of Winterbottom’s drab fucks with the delicate turn-on of the scene in which the boyish Ceth serenades James and Jamie with his guitar before engaging in a riotous, tender three-way, and it becomes clear — it’s the gradual accruing of character traits, rather than the anonymity of flesh, that sets “Shortbus” apart.”

SUGGEST FOR FRIDAY OCTOBER 6

Porn-Star Pajama Party
(CLUB NIGHT) Move over foam party, it’s pajama-jammie time! That’s right, a real, live pajama party hosted by none other than Ron “I get more ass than a toilet seat!” Jeremy. Not only do you get to meet the world-famous Hedgehog, but there’s some sort of “best evening wear” contest and a chance to win 500 bucks. Something tells me it’s better to show up in some barely there lingerie versus that Sylvester the Cat souvenir “Theattle” nightshirt your mom bought at the Pike Place Market. (Trinity, 111 Yesler Way, 447-4140. 9 pm, $10.) KELLY O