Ebay versus the Canon

Some censorship is just stupid. Take Ugly Feelings by Sianne Ngai (2005/2007). Its blurb promises readers this: "Through readings of Herman Melville, Nella La*sen, Sigmund Freud, Alfred Hitchco*k, Gertrude Stein, Ralph Ellison, John Yau, and Bruce Andrews, among others, Ngai shows how art turns to ugly feelings as a site for interrogating its own suspended agency in the affirmative culture of a market society, where art is tolerated as essentially unthreatening." I haven't read the book; I definitely don't recognise La*sen and Hitchco*k, although I watched Stage Fright by one Alfred Hitchcock just this weekend.

The asterisks presumably come from Buy-It-Now Books, which seems to fret over either bizarre levels of perceived obscenity or worries about the crudity of spam filters and net nanny software. Either way, don't expect this store to relocate to Cockfosters anytime soon.