Hell freezes over

Punk legend Richard Hell tears into interviewer Adam Travis over at Bookslut (http://www.bookslut.com/features/2005_03_004703.php). Travis interviewed Hell for the literary blog, and then foolishly sent the singer-now-poet a transcription.

To put it mildly, Hell was less than impressed.

"You're a callow kid with a job reading slush for a pretentious, irrelevant 'poetry' magazine,'' Hell writes in one of his gentler annotations to the interview.

Hell rose to fame in the mid-1970s when his band the Voidoids had a hit with Love Hurts (not to be confused with the Nazareth song of the same title). These days Hell writes poetry and takes exception to writers who don't immediately recognize his talent.

At any rate, Bookslut is onto something: they should run their interview transcripts past all their subjects, and then gather the outraged responses and publish them. The blog could become like the Paris Review with teeth.

Meanwhile, over at The Elegant Variation, (http://marksarvas.blogs.com/elegvar/), Mark Sarvas is "into heavy road bike buying mode." We approve.

That's a pretty - and pricey - Pinarello bike frame he's thinking about. I hope he can ride the darn thing.

Previously in his blog, Sarvas has tried to impress with the macho spinning workouts he participates in, complaining about sore muscles, etc.

Hey, Mark, why don't you come over to PEI and check out one of our spin classes? They're so tough that people bleed. No kidding. Last week, during the class, one woman suddenly developed a nose bleed.

Maybe someone needs to organize a blogger's bike race....