Fun look back at a classic 'Simpsons' episode.

"It’s a deeply strange artifact: an A4-sized, full color glossy affair, abundantly illustrated with captioned photographs, screen shots, and lavish illustrations of exploding space ships and lunar landscapes. It boasts a perfunctory introduction by Steven Spielberg ('read this book and learn from young Martin’s horrific odyssey round the world’s arcades before you too become a video-junkie'), complete with full-page portrait of the Hollywood Boy Wonder leaning awkwardly against an arcade machine like some sort of geeky, high-waisted Fonz. We’re not even into the text proper, and already its cup runneth over with 100-proof WTF." READ MORE

"Upon completing [David Lodge's] A Man of Parts and Girl Land, the new offering from Caitlin Flanagan, I know that our young girls are in extreme peril: if they are not succored by their families, they will wind up in nude animal ecstasy with H.G. Wells." READ MORE

"This diffidence never left him: when he was preparing his last book for the press, Leibowitz writes, Williams grew so anguished that he 'tore the manuscript to pieces and dumped them in the trash.' His wife had to fish out the fragments and mail them to his publisher, James Laughlin of New Directions, 'who put them together like a jigsaw puzzle.' READ MORE

This interview with David Schneider of Chris Morris and Armando Iannucci's brilliant "The Day Today" is worth reading in its own right, but is even better because it has some terrific clips from what is one of the greatest shows of all time. Do click over. [Via]

Can Italy change? Tim Parks addresses the question here. Meanwhile, guess who this passage is describing: "When he is perorating about the inadequacies of the Italian constitution, he leans back in his yellow silk sofa, right ankle on his left knee, and runs his hand through his hair, like an emperor surveying his slaves. But when he has a meatier point to make, a defense of his sex life, for example, he leans forward and thrusts his hands up and down between his legs as if potting a large plant."

"The poetry has this sort of free-floating world view and I love his use of image and turns of phrase, the meaning and the paradoxes that go along with being alive. Of course, central to this, was his use of the first-person singular. It’s not egotistical. It’s plaintive — he’s always crying." READ MORE

Here you will find the origin story of one our of greatest salted snacks. When you're done with that, here are 11 thoughts about Boar's Head deli meats.