Strippers and Penguins

As leading anthropologists and Garrison Keillor will readily confirm, most Minnesotans don't like to draw attention to themselves– but the good folks at Minneapolis City Pages, our sister publication in the frozen tundra, are not most Minnesotans. And one of the most not-most-Minnesotans of the City Pagers, Diablo Cody, has a new book out: Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper. It chronicles her intriguing career trajectory from cubicle drone to stripper to peep show attraction to phone sex-er to... I'm not sure. Rancher? She has a blog at City Pages called Pussy Ranch, which, despite its name, seems to have precious little to do with ranching. It does, however, have an account of Diablo's recent appearance on Letterman to promote her book ("a full-blown attention-whoregasm"). If you missed it, it's been YouTubed for your viewing convenience.

Like Diablo Cody, he writes under a pseudonym, but unlike her, he doesn't do public appearances in pink fishnet stockings, so no Letterman for him– which is a shame, because Tom Tomorrow is one of our greatest political satirists. His brilliant cartoon, This Modern World, appears in the Weekly, and yesterday his latest book-length collection, Hell in a Handbasket, went on sale.

Think of it as the Protest March of the Penguin. Or not, if you don't like documentary-based puns. Either way, you should buy it. The great man himself, Mr. Tomorrow, will be signing copies at Book Soup in L.A. (8818 Sunset Blvd.) next Tuesday, March 28, at 7 pm. No pink fishnets, but a splendid time is guaranteed for all.