They’ve been filling my mind tummy full of good reads. (Ha! Bet you thought I was gonna complain, huh? Ha!) First it reveals enough skeletons and strangeness to move the McGreevey situation clearly into a Peyton Place zone. Which, for me, serves as the cut-off point for following such news. (I’ve got daytime soaps for that.)

Then it tracks the trials and tribulations of getting backers for a movie that’ll be rife with real life sex. Note to Hollywood backers: I go to see as many unrated or NC-17 movies as possible. Last seen: Young Adam. And the movie theater was packed. There’s a market out there but you, dear backer, need to get some balls.

And then Zane comes out. Well, sort of. She’s finally doing a book tour now that she’s published well over a half-dozen novels. I understand her need for domestic privacy — it can be tricky, navigating the waters between the big ocean of being totally out and protecting the shore of family when you write sexually explicit stuff — but I’m glad to see her profile. Or head shot. Or whatever. But honestly? I haven’t bought or read a Zane novel. I don’t need to to admire her. She knew where the publishing industry wasn’t serving the African American woman and she single-handedly created what was lacking.

Finally — and saving the best for last — sex is finally getting noticed as all the publishing rage. It’s been building for some time, what with Zane, chic lit, general erotica of the post-feminist kind, but it took Jenna Jameson and the impending release of Melissa P’s autobiographical work to blow the lid off the steaming pot. Good. Maybe now more agents will move erotica from their “not interested in handling” list to their “hot for” list. Me, I just hope Melissa P’s work doesn’t read like every other European smut work I’ve tackled in the last few years.

Bugmenot for the NYTimes: iwethey.

Tomorrow: A few words about Dick Cheney’s few words.