In the early days of Amazon they had a category called "I am the author of this book and I want to comment on it." I wrote an explanatory blurb about the post-hypnotic catalog, listing some artists depicted in the book, etc. and captioned it "notes from an artist and essayist in the exhibition." About three years ago, the "i am the author..." category was eliminated, and they moved the blurb to my list of book reviews of other people's books. I thought that was weird, but whatever. A month or two ago, it disappeared from that list. It felt like they thought I'd been scamming, reviewing my own book, and they "caught" me. Amazon is weird, it's like a cult where the rules change every day. Anyway, I've always used my own name, but my "favorite reviewer" was dogmatico, who I see has also been removed from my page.
- tom moody 8-03-2004 6:53 pm [add a comment]

Of course, not all people use Amazon reviews for the same purposes.
- jim 8-03-2004 7:06 pm [add a comment]

• Hello Shakespeare, is anyone home ? Salinger's the real phoney.
  Who needs to make things up? I think I found my place on the web.
  - avant (guest) 8-06-2004 5:31 am [add a comment] [edit]

There's always something wacky going on at Amazon.
- mark 8-03-2004 8:01 pm [add a comment]