First off, a test. Two girls, aged 10 and 12, become trapped in a storm drain in Adelaide, Australia. Fortunately, they have their phones with them. Do they… (A) Call the emergency services? (B) Call their parents? (C) Use their phones to update their status pages on Facebook? Astonishingly, the two girls in question did [...]

With just over a month to go before the publication date of my sixth book, The Devil’s Company, I still have no idea how I am going to understand the experience of a new novel without the traditional ritual of the book tour. My publisher decided to skip the tour this time around, in part [...]

Or, Tweetin’. I’m still not sure which. However, in the interests of keeping up with the cool kids who smoke Salems each afternoon down by the 7-11 and make fun of my early baldness, I’ve set up a Tweet for the CN. It can be found here: http://twitter.com/contempnomad You’ll notice that the whole name didn’t [...]

Over at Flickr, someone named “dov” posted some wonderful French Ministry of Tourism PR shots. From 1934 towards the end of the sixties, the French Ministry for Tourism employed full-time PR photographers to snap “celebrities” traveling by Air France. I’ve found a pack of these press photos at the flea market of Clignancourt, and bought [...]

Those were the words on the front of that fictional e-book prototype, The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and I think it’s a pretty good message for people looking with trepidation at the emergence of Kindle and other e-book readers. I haven’t bought one yet (notice the “yet” – I’m sure I will in [...]

…or, at least, Ten Quick Questions for Kevin Wignall, very well formulated and asked by Kevin Holtsberry. Check it out.

Today I ran across Doris Lessing‘s Nobel-acceptance speech, and it’s nice to read someone who’s sticking to her rather critical view of the contemporary world: We are in a fragmenting culture, where our certainties of even a few decades ago are questioned and where it is common for young men and women, who have had [...]

His head was a large pounding tub of phrases, Whence men would pick delites as boys pick daisies… Admired learning took his heads possession, And turned his wit a wandering in progression The poet, John Taylor, no fan, on Thomas Coryat, traveller, writer and wit: 1611. Next weekend my shameful inactivity on the Nomad should [...]

I don’t usually include links like this, but this site allows you to build your own e-fit. Please don’t ask why I needed this service, I just did. Of course, I tried to do my own and it looked nothing like me, yet it looked surprisingly like my author photos… Enjoy. Sarah’s link, hopefully, is [...]

I just came across the news that there’s some free literature up on the web in the form of Chicago Tribune reviewer Dick Adler’s Men’s Adventure, which is being serialized over at the Rap Sheet. He’s not the first to do this, and it’s something I’ve considered doing myself at some point. With the first [...]

There has been many discussions on the Iraq war between readers and bloggers on the Nomad. Reasonable people may disagree on whether there was justification to go to war, but few people agree that the U.S. media (of whom I am a working member) did its job in properly vetting the issue for the American [...]

Over the last 4 days, I’ve been computerless. I still am (I’m writing this on my girlfriend’s Mini), but since the sudden failure of my hard drive was clearly a terrorist-related event (what else but the global Jihad could be responsible?), I thought I’d link to an interesting site, MEMRI: The Middle-East Media Research Institute. [...]

My Yahoo! bulk folder seldom gives me much more than suggestions that I should “enhance” various things, and pieces of remarkable insider stock information. Today I was surprised to find that the fine people at the unreachable address “paperbagwomen.info” had sent me some cut & paste Dadaist poetry. Keep called been may different our because [...]

How did Mama Cass die?  Or anyone else for that matter.  The place to find out is http://www.findadeath.com/ Ghoulish, irreverent, occasionally very funny, Find a Death also has a hugely informative directory.  Under the M-O section you’ll find interesting posts about Jack Nance (of Eraserhead fame) and Jim Morrison, both of which have been augmented [...]

If only I would remember next year what I know now… How many times have we said this to ourselves? Well, now there’s a new way to make sure you don’t forget a thing. It’s called Future Me, an extremely simple site where you can write an email to yourself (or someone else) to be [...]