tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41703390370901196392024-03-12T16:09:51.189-07:00TheWritings and Musings of Kent WinwardAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-45000145861159035712013-01-07T06:50:00.000-08:002013-01-07T06:50:51.213-08:00Dear FaceBook Friends: I Do NOT Like 50 Shades of GreyA Digital Book World (DBW) post showed up on my wife’s FaceBook stream with a Photoshopped picture of a book cover for “50 Shades of Hunger Games” -- and my face. “Since when do you like “50 Shades,” she chortled. The best I can figure out, because I had clicked “Like” on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/digitalbookworld">DBW’s Facebook page</a> in get this -- 2010 -- Facebook had allowed DBW to send their post out to all my friends -- as if I had done it. Just because I liked DBW in 2010 on Facebook doesn’t mean I want all my acquaintances with my mug talking about <em>50 Shades of Grey</em> or <em>The Hunger Games</em> -- I’m not the mindless, mass produced book mania kind of guy.
Now if DBW <strong>had asked</strong> and wanted to use me in their advertising campaign on FaceBook, I would have opted in<strong> if</strong> they were going to talk about why so much of traditional publishing’s backlist is unavailable in digital format along with a picture of Milan Kundera’s mug. Otherwise, leave me the hell out of your advertising campaign. It impugns my credibility and independence by co-opting my name and face for your ad.
I’m not sure who to be most angry at -- DBW for an ill-advised ad campaign or FaceBook for making it possible to flood the streams of friends of unknowing FaceBook-ites. I admit I’m somewhat of a FaceBook neophyte judging by the vast unanswered quantities in my various FaceBook icons on the top of my FaceBook page. I did a quick Google search for “facebook ads based on likes”. (Yes, I used Google to find the FaceBook stuff). In case you are wondering, it appears I was a victim of some form of “Connection Targeting.”
<em>When you choose to target friends of connections your ad will be targeted to people whose friends are connected to your Page, app, or event. This is a great way to get more likes and potential customers because people are more inclined to interact with a Page, app, or event knowing that their friends are connected. Friends of connections are also more likely to be interested in what you're advertising because they may share the same interests as their friends.</em>
Uhh, more like a great way to piss off your connections who liked you once upon a time if you are going to put their Face up along with <em>50 Fucking Shades of Grey</em>. So there DBW, be warned about your ill-conceived advertising bullshit. I apologize to any of my friends who seem to think I started smoking anything that is still illegal in Utah. I remain a literary snob.
As for you FaceBook, I get it -- you went public and now you have to figure out some way to make money, but please leave my face out of it.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-41597960712851133542013-01-05T07:29:00.000-08:002013-01-07T06:51:44.088-08:00A Response to Michael Bourne and Reading Fewer Books<b id="internal-source-marker_0.32806184072978795" style="font-weight: normal;"></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.32806184072978795" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I just got through reading </span><a href="http://www.themillions.com/2013/01/my-new-years-resolution-read-fewer-books.html"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Michael Bourne’s article</span></a><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> over on The Millions:</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010101; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My New Year’s Resolution: Read Fewer Books. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010101; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> My initial reaction was how stupid a New Year’s Resolution is that? Then I read the 24 comments after and realized that it was as inane and condescending as my initial repugnance suggested, only much more so. People are lazy asses and don’t want to read -- fine, but it isn’t something to be lauded.</span></b></h3>
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.32806184072978795" style="font-weight: normal;"><b id="internal-source-marker_0.32806184072978795" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Writers are self-indulgent. Let’s face it, we type something out with our word processor in the hopes that everyone will read our golden prose and tell us how phenomenally gifted we are. Even the purists writing in longhand before their precious words are ever defaced by a mechanical act such as typing crave for nothing more than having those words they’ve written out illegibly, typeset and mass produced and stuck on the shelf at Wal-Mart and ogled endlessly by the adoring masses. Most of the words we write are nuggets, but not of the gold variety.</span></b></b></h3>
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.32806184072978795" style="font-weight: normal;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b></b></div>
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.32806184072978795" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Bourne unfortunately carries the same surname as the girl that I crushed on from first grade to sometime when I gave up the futile pursuit in high school, so I can’t be assured that my response to his article is completely sane, given my history with the name. Yet, as I read the article, my initial reaction was maybe my New Year’s Resolution should be to read less articles on the Internet. (Yeah, I know usage says ‘fewer’, I was just seeing if you were paying attention and you still knew what I meant.)</span></b><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bourne starts out the article telling us how many books he has read since he started keeping track on January 1, 2000 in some kind of millennial resolution and has read 776 books in the last twelve years, roughly half fiction and half non-fiction. He then states how happy he was when he hit 720 books for a 60 a year average. </span></b></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is when the article got weird. As a compulsive list-maker of the books I consume, tracking the books you read isn’t weird to me. My millennial book list hit 760 on May 23, 2009. Not weird in the least. What was weird is that after reading three paragraphs about his compulsive list taking, Bourne writes this: “No one even knows I write lists.” Uhh, yes we do.</span></b></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Look, I read 204 books last year -- yeah, I’m fucking competitive too. And I have close family members who questions my voracious consumption of books. And I have a day job that consumes vast quantities of my time and I have a young son in elementary school, not to mention four daughters in college. And this all has what to do with my reading and list making? Absolutely jack squat.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The fact that in 2012 I broke the 200 barrier for the first time since first grade (a 44 year drought) was not a perverse form of satisfaction. I relished it, cherished it and yes, I wanted to brag, but the accomplishment and internal satisfaction isn’t perverse. Part of the human condition is to strive for improvement and growth and growth feels good -- unless you are content being a couch potato, in which case I suggest less television viewing for a New Year’s Resolution, accompanied by reading more books. </span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The desire to track progress isn’t a bad thing either. I like going back to 2002 and see the books I was reading and compare that to where I was at in my life. Re-reading becomes more meaningful when the book is juxtaposed against your own life’s timeline. And reading carnivorously does not a genius make. A simple number of books read speaks nothing of aptitude and genius, but merely one measure of quantity -- page numbers being another. The weight and gravity of the books read also carry significance. "I read all of Kundera’s oeuvre in 2012" is more meaningful than any number. </span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Reading voraciously doesn’t mean that good writing isn’t appreciated and the books aren't savored. Think of reading like sex. Would you ever have a New Year’s Resolution to have less sex in the New Year because I really need to learn to savor the essence of sexuality and come at it sideways? That's nuts and so is reading less as some sort of sacrifice to the Gods of Writing and Art. If you have sex a lot, some of it will be mind blowing, swinging from the chandeliers, split you open and some will be nothing more than a feel-good romp. It's the same with reading.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And like sex, reading transforms you in ways that you can’t predict or fathom. Participating in an exchange with another human mind through the page alters your own sense of self, incorporates another person’s thoughts into your head and makes the world a more empathetic place. You can’t read a broad spectrum of literature, non-fiction, essays, short stories and poetry and not alter how you see the world. Each book, even if through its slipshod language it shows you how you don’t want things to be, focuses the world through a new lens and you will never be able to write or read exactly the same way again. </span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Each of us is given a limited amount of time on this planet. The limited resource requires us to make choices on where to spend our time. For those of us who love words, narratives and other people and want to write and communicate with the broader world, the cacophony of voices and constant harangue for our attention means that our New Year’s Resolution should not be to read less or fewer, but to read more and to read with more intent and direction. Who knows Mr. Bourne, if I took your advice and read fewer books, that book I don’t read might be yours.</span></b>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-3335785257376459862011-08-14T13:00:00.001-07:002011-08-14T13:01:06.477-07:0030 Years in 30 Seconds<br />
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<span id="internal-source-marker_0.007334025343880057" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thirty seconds or possibly a minute was about how long I had. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hello.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I remember you and no, I didn’t have to look at your name tag to cheat (or I did).</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wow, haven’t seen you in a long time.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Where are you living now? </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What are you doing? </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s nice. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How many kids? Grandkids? I have one.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It really has been a long time.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Very nice to see you.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Time to move on. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It wasn’t so much as a reunion as it was a perverse form of sincere speed dating. You really had a connection with these people many years ago and the thrill of being remembered, acknowledged and smiled at, created an immediate and pleasurable sense of belonging. It was surprisingly powerful and it was the hope for these types of experiences that brought me back to the unfamiliar halls of what is now known as Davis High School. The evening provided countless such experiences.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The pleasurable was countered with the realization that for whatever reason one or two of my classmates had de-friended me on FaceBook for -- I’m supposing -- my perceived offenses in expressing my ambivalence towards the reunion. If meeting people I hadn’t seen in 30 years for 30 seconds made me briefly feel really good, the rejection on FaceBook, was the equivalent negative reaction.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The rejection pain makes me realize that I have undoubtedly committed countless acts of hypocrisy. I rejected people throughout the evening. I recognized it as soon as the evening was done and it was too late to do anything about it. If I didn’t engage you, didn’t talk to you, didn’t acknowledge you and it hurt your feelings, I’m sorry. You really want to talk to me send me an email and I won’t bite. This is my version of a plea for forgiveness for both the knowing and the unknowing assaults I’ve committed on social connection.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Acceptance into a social group is critical for human survival and we are all hard wired to want to belong. The desire to belong is so strong and the negative emotional responses of not belonging are so painful, that we do whatever we can to eliminate the potentiality of rejection. This can take the form of rejecting first, avoidance or collapsing into the clique we remember as “safe”. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I watched as people I knew fell back into the same groups as high school. Maybe they’ve maintained those relationships, probably not, but those social connections, even after 30 years, have weathered time. Think about who you spent most of your time with during the reunion. It was with those former friends who provided you with the most safety and comfort. Maybe the reunion was a nice reminder of a time when you had a group of friends who kept you safe from outside social rejection. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The desire to create a social group in which there was perceived safety manifest itself in the oddly placed prayer that launched dinner. The retreat to the predominant religious culture surely felt safe and comforting to the majority believers. But religion of this sort may comfort the majority, but when bringing back together a secular high school class, the prayer ran counter to its intended purpose, a divisive, rather than inclusive act. For something whose purported goal is to create a community of one heart, one mind and one soul, religion is a poor tool. Compassion and empathy are much better tools if they are employed.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Aging was another theme of the evening, which is probably inevitable, since all of us are being faced with the specter of mortality, at the very least in our parents. Bringing up mortality creates all sorts of unanticipated emotional responses. Yet, we will all die. All we have is our current lives, less 48 years.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of those 48 years, each person carries memories that are as unique to them as the person themselves. Throughout the night I was reminded of events, circumstances and classmates of which I had no recollection. Did those things really happen? Probably. I had the reverse thing happen to me when I would recall something about another person and they had no recollection of the event. These memory gaps were the more subtle rejections of the evening, “This was important to me, but not to you -- ouch.” And I daresay they were prevalent. Given the lapse of time, they were probably more prevalent than having two memories collide head-on on the same event.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So none of us remember anything the same from 30 years ago. We cling to the groups that make us feel the safest against the onslaught of time. We overdose on the saccharine sweet reconnection and acceptance, trying our best to ignore the aftertaste that lets you know that everything is just a little off kilter. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The act of reconnecting ironically turned into a reminder of how disconnected we have all become. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, Myron Casdorph told me that I was -- and this was last night, and I’ve already forgotten, just imagine what 30 years did to me -- grumpy, crabby or some similar epithet. He was joking and I was laughing and in a way it was true -- I am a little darker than most in my outlook. The dark outlook for me illuminates those things that are truly giving off light. Myron exuded the light and life of someone doing what they love and completely comfortable in his own skin. I saw a lot of that last night. Those were the people who inspired me the most because they seemed to have their life figured out. They were real, genuine and most importantly, themselves. To all of you who gave me that glimpse -- thank you. Makes me a little less crabby and a little less grumpy and a lot less dark.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A life has a trajectory and it is propulsive force. Like the space shuttle, we launched into our adult lives in 1981. Several have experienced spectacular explosions and screw ups, while others have headed straight, never wavering, laser guided towards an intended goal. My life, as with many others I’m sure, has felt more like a Lagoon ride gone off the rails.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ultimately, the best thing the reunion gave to me was perspective on my current life, causing me to examine where I am heading and what is driving me. Having my wife with me at the reunion provided that connection and base to my real world existence, throughout the fantastical, brief and surreal reunions. The reunion came to a crashing close for me when real life text messages from children began pouring in. I walked out of the halls of Davis High and remembered the feeling 30 years ago after graduation when I walked out of the school in the same general geographic vicinity, wondering where my life was going. I had no idea, I felt scared, lost and giddy with the excitement of the unknown. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last night, I walked out the high school doors again, but my step was more sure. My wife sat waiting for me on a concrete abutment in the light of the full moon. I took her hand and we walked to our car. I realized that I know what drives my life. I realized that about the best you can do with life’s controls is point them in a general direction and (to utilize a cliche because it works) hang on for dear life. No longer, lost, scared or directionless, I was again giddy with excitement of heading into the unknown as I walked out the doors of my high school.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-23899257172646642472011-07-06T12:57:00.000-07:002011-07-06T12:57:08.468-07:00The Digital Tipping Point: Why 12% is more like 80%Statistics can be such a misleading thing -- take the latest: <a href="http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/E-readers-and-tablets/Report.aspx">12% of the United States has eReaders.</a> Not very many is it -- only 12%. Yet, something nags at my mathematical brain -- a stat I remembered hearing. I found a lot of reference to it, but could never verify it, yet it has that ring of truth -- namely, <a href="http://www.humorwriters.org/startlingstats.html">80% of American households</a> didn't buy a book in the last year (could never find the original source, so it may be apocryphal, but it smacks of relevance <a href="http://gothamist.com/2011/07/01/one_in_four_americans_dont_know_whe.php">when 30%</a> don't know who the US declared independence from in 1776) . Now, that 80% chunk of the population is not going to buy an eReader and even assuming the other 20% buy an equal number of books, eReaders have tipped and most books are now bought in digital format. Amazon's <a href="http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/14429/Amazon-s-Ebook-Sales-Now-Exceed-Printed-Book-Sales.aspx">public announcements</a> also mirror this.<br />
<br />
Bottom line -- the relevant stat is not what percentage own an eReader, but what percentage of book buyers buy digital books -- and I know that is much higher than 12% . If you want to sell a book these days, you better get it in digital format.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-91809594741255973862011-07-06T10:35:00.000-07:002011-07-06T10:35:45.067-07:00Digital GenresWhat are the new digital genres? New lingo is springing up — “cross-platform” or in the phrase that shows up no where in Google, so that must mean I coined it (not saying I did, just that Google can’t find it — “re-sourcing digital content”, by resourcing digital content, I mean that when an artist or author creates digital content, how do you use that resource. Each digital publisher needs a Digital Resource Department that operates like a Human Resource Department — assigning the digital content out to its numerous potential incarnations. Digital genres aren’t so much new genres as new genres that have the potential to be monetized.<br />
<br />
Some Potential Digital Generes:<br />
<br />
Interactive fiction: A merging of the gaming genre with the literary world. Many forms of game have long contained a form of interactive story telling — for my generation, Dungeons and Dragons.<br />
<br />
Non-linear fiction: Using hyperlinks to create a non-linear narrative. This genre could easily split into multiple genres — romance, mystery, erotic, literary. Traditional publishing has gone down the non-linear rabbit hole. A memorable non-linear text for me was The House of Leaves. James Joyce at least feels non-linear to me and almost anything by David Foster Wallace proves that footnotes are the print version of hyperlinks. Poetry is replete with non-linear type images and narratives (thus the success of T.S. Eliot “The Wasteland” App on iTunes) .<br />
<br />
Multi-media Fiction: This seems to be the genre that gets the most attention, but also the one that I think in a way is a little overblown. Is the 2011 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad, multi-media fiction because it contains a chapter that is a PowerPoint presentation? What about DVD extras that include text? Audio books? The written or spoken word changed into digital form moves seamlessly across media, that isn’t genre, that is flexibility.<br />
<br />
The difference between the artist and the publisher is the publisher’s concern over how to monetize a new digital genre. The digital world only seems to exacerbate the century old conflict of cash and artistic purity. Yet, the potential for profitably monetizing artistic efforts in the digital realm that expands your potential market into the millions and billions, you only need a micro-percentage, a relatively small tribe of followers to patronize the artist to artistic freedom.<br />
<br />
The palate of digital expression is larger than any artists or writers have had at their disposal in the history of the earth. The critical question is how do you sell what you do digitally. Where is your audience going to read it — a phone app, on their iPad, Kindle, Nook or computer screen? How are you going to get them to pay for it? I want exciting digital genres, but like any artist, you need to pay attention to your canvas and the gallery where you can sell your wares.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-7927437170695182512011-06-12T11:43:00.000-07:002011-06-12T12:00:31.615-07:00Sex, Politics, Gender, Morality and the Publication of the Private(s)<div id="header" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f0f0f0; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 10px;">Sex, Politics, Morality, Gender and the Publication of the Private(s)</div><div id="contents" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 6px; margin-top: 6px;"><div class="c4 c1" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 2; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> Sex and politics have always been strange bedfellows where the trysts and couplings of political ideology and sexual mores end up resembling either Dr. Doolitle’s Push-me-Pull-you or a Caligulan orgy, neither of which allow delineation of what belongs to whom. Unfortunately for Anthony Weiner, he tweeted on to the zeitgeist’s resonant frequency.<sup><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1-U8yaYfAlxeQZPm0pFrYJ-7f1fxHsqoJ14gzLtGOXGY#ftnt1" name="ftnt_ref1">[1]</a></sup></div><div class="c4 c1" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 2; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> Politics has a constant right/left shift. Sex oscillates between the male and the female. Our social ambivalence to technology veers between (betweet?) analog and digital. Gender issues battle over power and weakness. Religion, at least among the monotheists, is a three way tug-of-war between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Race and ethnic biases still pulse with the historical tension throughout our society -- <span class="c7 c5" style="color: #000099; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;"><a class="c2" href="http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1966/1966_395" style="color: inherit; text-decoration: inherit;">Loving v. Virginia</a></span><sup class="c5" style="font-style: italic;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1-U8yaYfAlxeQZPm0pFrYJ-7f1fxHsqoJ14gzLtGOXGY#ftnt2" name="ftnt_ref2">[2]</a></sup> is not as old as I am and the election of a black president has only illuminated the strong racist undercurrent that still exists in this country<sup><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1-U8yaYfAlxeQZPm0pFrYJ-7f1fxHsqoJ14gzLtGOXGY#ftnt3" name="ftnt_ref3">[3]</a></sup>. We shut our blinds to watch reality TV, as the public and private battle it out. </div><div class="c1 c4" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 2; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> The easy jumping off point for most people was the punny -- Weiner’s weiner and the slew of puns that are, uh, hard to pass up. The first phase however was political. Politicians and politicos have long used the sexual proclivities of their political opponents to try and gain a political advantage. Andrew Breitbart is only the most recent in a long line of *uckrakers<sup><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1-U8yaYfAlxeQZPm0pFrYJ-7f1fxHsqoJ14gzLtGOXGY#ftnt4" name="ftnt_ref4">[4]</a></sup>, beginning with James T. Callendar, who went after none other than the drafter of the Declaration of Independence. Did Thomas Jefferson’s fathering of children by Sally Hemming impinge on the morality of the truths that we hold to be self-evident? I don’t think so. Apparently all men are created equally in the struggling with sexuality department, too. <sup><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1-U8yaYfAlxeQZPm0pFrYJ-7f1fxHsqoJ14gzLtGOXGY#ftnt5" name="ftnt_ref5">[5]</a></sup> </div><div class="c3 c1" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 2; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36pt;">Politics and sex have been over exposed so I’ll move on to a more important question: Are women turned on by the site of a man’s junk or is women porn really a guy vacuuming? I would say inquiring minds want to know, but the discussion digresses into a slew of jokes about which head is doing the thinking and devolves into flat condemnation of men’s brutish sexual flashing. <br />
I’m more interested in the flip side, which is the defusing of female sexuality. Sexual imagery is arousing to both sexes, yet in a <span class="c7" style="color: #000099; text-decoration: underline;"><a class="c2" href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/kinsey/sfeature/sf_response_female.html" style="color: inherit; text-decoration: inherit;">Kinsey-ian flashback</a></span>,<sup><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1-U8yaYfAlxeQZPm0pFrYJ-7f1fxHsqoJ14gzLtGOXGY#ftnt6" name="ftnt_ref6">[6]</a></sup> our culture seems unprepared or unwilling to acknowledge that, yes, women too are sexual beings. Sexism is the attribution of a supposed negative aspects to a specific gender. Saying women are not as bright as men is clearly a sexist comment, but so is saying men are more sexual than women. Not to belabor a biological point - but you are reading this and that means your mother did it. </div><div class="c3 c1" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 2; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36pt;">The ambivalence to female sexuality (most of Weiner’s texts/chats/pictures) were sent in the context of mutual sexual cyber-play with women, who presumably have the ability and wherewith-all to locate the send, enter and power buttons on their computers. Yet there is an undercurrent on the Weiner story of his “attack” on these women. Nothing overt, just a sense of a Weiner attack. More horrific than Weiner’s picture seems to be the fear that any of these women were sexually complicit.</div><div class="c3 c1" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 2; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36pt;">Enter race and stereotype -- Philip Roth’s lascivious Jew, Portnoy complaining as he defiles the family dinner. A horny, dirty swarthy Jew is sending dirty pictures to middle America white, wholesome, pure, virginal girls! Look at that nose. Pretty damning stuff, so how do you hide racist motivations?</div><div class="c3 c1" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 2; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36pt;">Marriage is what brings the racists together.<sup><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1-U8yaYfAlxeQZPm0pFrYJ-7f1fxHsqoJ14gzLtGOXGY#ftnt7" name="ftnt_ref7">[7]</a></sup> The Jew was married -- and his wife is pregnant! Not only is he defiling wholesome mid-western porn stars, but traditional American institutions as well -- marriage and motherhood. He probably Portnoy-ed the apple pie in a Chevy, too. </div><div class="c3 c1" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 2; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36pt;"> However, in post 9-11 America, nothing is so simple. The paragon of motherhood and virtue -- a powerful woman of Saudi Arabian (Is she Muslim?) descent, Huma Aberdin, right hand “man?” to Hilary Clinton. Huma is the embodiment of political and traditional male power, marriage and motherhood all rolled into one neat and ethnically diverse and confusing package.<sup><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1-U8yaYfAlxeQZPm0pFrYJ-7f1fxHsqoJ14gzLtGOXGY#ftnt8" name="ftnt_ref8">[8]</a></sup> Her husband? A name subjected to adolescent sophomoric humor that he will now never escape -- <span class="c5 c7" style="color: #000099; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;"><a class="c2" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portnoy's_Complaint" style="color: inherit; text-decoration: inherit;">Portnoy’s Complaint</a></span> made flesh.</div><div class="c1 c3" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 2; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36pt;">Amidst all of the political and sexual machinations, a question begs to be asked. What of the personal should be exposed? The compulsion to seek approval of one’s male virility makes men’s sexual actions often seem foolish and non-thinking. Should that be subjected to public scorn, ridicule and judgment?</div><div class="c3 c1" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 2; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36pt;">Regardless of one’s thoughts on sexual morality, the public-ization of the private is a balance that the law and society has constantly struggled to maintain. A common euphemism for genitalia is “privates” and if you ask the Congressman, I’m sure he would tell you that he would have liked for his private purveying of his private private pictures to remain private. Yet, technology has made the private more public and if anything, the Weiner incident (scandal is overblown) illustrates the rapidity with which the private can go public and viral. And as with any virus, those most infected will experience the crushing emotion of ostracization and societal scorn, while the observers can rest in the ease of knowing their private shame and privates remain private. No need for compassion when it is not your life being ridiculed.</div><div class="c3 c1" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 2; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36pt;">I’ve seen and heard a lot of commentary, but not once did I hear anyone suggest that Weiner, should have simply said when asked if it was his photo -- “None, of your damn business.” Of course, everyone would have taken that as an admission, which ultimately came anyway, but it would have drawn a line between the private and the public. No tearful, Breitbart co-opted press conference required. </div><div class="c3 c1" style="direction: ltr; line-height: 2; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36pt;">Weiner’s waggle in the public eye combined sex, politics, gender and morality, but most overlooked, it held up a mirror to our uneasiness with technology and social media, where the private can become the public with a push of the button. And as the private personal fantasy enters public reality, the consummation gives birth to the surreal. </div><div class="c1 c8" style="direction: ltr; height: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div><div class="c1" style="direction: ltr; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </div><div class="c1" style="direction: ltr; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </div><hr class="c6" style="height: 1px; width: 412px;" /><div><div class="c1" style="direction: ltr; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1-U8yaYfAlxeQZPm0pFrYJ-7f1fxHsqoJ14gzLtGOXGY#ftnt_ref1" name="ftnt1">[1]</a>“Resonant frequency” is the physics term describing the frequency at which a system oscillates at larger amplitudes than the normal frequencies. It is the reason your car will shake at certain speeds, but will smooth out if you go a little bit faster or a little bit slower. </div></div><div><div class="c1" style="direction: ltr; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1-U8yaYfAlxeQZPm0pFrYJ-7f1fxHsqoJ14gzLtGOXGY#ftnt_ref2" name="ftnt2">[2]</a><span class="c5" style="font-style: italic;">Loving v. Virgina </span>is the 1967 anti-State’s right, 14th Amendment case in which the Supreme Court outlawed the type of marriage that allowed current Justice, Clarence Thomas, to marry his right wing, tea partying wife. Insert irony here.</div></div><div><div class="c1" style="direction: ltr; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1-U8yaYfAlxeQZPm0pFrYJ-7f1fxHsqoJ14gzLtGOXGY#ftnt_ref3" name="ftnt3">[3]</a>And the racism crosses cultural boundaries, from the notorious New Yorker cover to the birthers.</div></div><div><div class="c1" style="direction: ltr; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1-U8yaYfAlxeQZPm0pFrYJ-7f1fxHsqoJ14gzLtGOXGY#ftnt_ref4" name="ftnt4">[4]</a>F or M, you decide.</div></div><div><div class="c1" style="direction: ltr; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1-U8yaYfAlxeQZPm0pFrYJ-7f1fxHsqoJ14gzLtGOXGY#ftnt_ref5" name="ftnt5">[5]</a>Footnotes appear to be in my ironic blood today. Judging from the treatment of David Vitter by the Republican power network, including Utah’s own hymn writing senator Orrin Hatch, Weiner would have been better off getting his sex the oldest fashioned way -- paying for it.</div></div><div><div class="c1" style="direction: ltr; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1-U8yaYfAlxeQZPm0pFrYJ-7f1fxHsqoJ14gzLtGOXGY#ftnt_ref6" name="ftnt6">[6]</a>Congressional inquiries were made into whether Kinsey or the Rockefeller Foundation were Communists. The sexualization of women had to be a Communist plot. Newspapers and editorials lambasted Kinsey for his attack on “American womanhood”, all while he was telling them to pay more attention to the American woman’s hood.</div></div><div><div class="c1" style="direction: ltr; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1-U8yaYfAlxeQZPm0pFrYJ-7f1fxHsqoJ14gzLtGOXGY#ftnt_ref7" name="ftnt7">[7]</a>My apologies to <span class="c5" style="font-style: italic;">A Princess Bride</span>.</div></div><div><div class="c1" style="direction: ltr; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1-U8yaYfAlxeQZPm0pFrYJ-7f1fxHsqoJ14gzLtGOXGY#ftnt_ref8" name="ftnt8">[8]</a>And she didn’t literally “stand by” her man.</div></div></div><div id="footer" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f0f0f0; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 10px;">Published by <a href="https://docs.google.com/" target="_blank" title="Learn more about Google Docs">Google Docs</a><span class="dash" style="padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-top: 0px;">–</span><a href="https://docs.google.com/abuse?id=1-U8yaYfAlxeQZPm0pFrYJ-7f1fxHsqoJ14gzLtGOXGY">Report Abuse</a><span class="dash" style="padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-top: 0px;">–</span>Updated automatically every 5 minutes</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-5510879009594967192010-11-04T05:16:00.000-07:002010-11-04T05:16:11.893-07:00Dear VotersDear Voters,<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> I</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">f you are as anti-deficit as you say you are and as fiscally conservative as you say you are, then you should have no problem raising revenues on the richest 2% of the country. They don't pay those taxes now, but boy are they crea</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">ting lots of jobs. (That is sarcasm for the literal minded.)<br />
<br />
It isn't Entitlement that I want from my government, it is Protection. Regulation that protects Wall Street from creating risky financial instruments that suck all the money off of Main Street, out of employer's pockets and puts it into Goldman Sachs bonuses. I want protection from predators trying to take away my hard earned money. We were so worried about the terrorist wolves abroad that you have allowed the economic terrorists at home to take your jobs, your money and your retirement funds. </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Now those recently elected are promising us <i>less </i>government. Let me spell it out for you simply -- less government, equals less protection for you, the citizens.<br />
<br />
I don't know about you, but I work with people employed by the government every day. It is the individuals working for the government that make my life much easier and much happier. Our local economy here would be devastated if you eliminated municipal workers, Hill Air Force Base, IRS employees, teachers, police officers, firefighters, court personnel, public defenders, prosecutors and the local university. If you eliminated all of those great people, who I guess you could say are on the government dole, the whole system would collapse and three quarters of the population wouldn't have a job.<br />
<br />
What exactly are you railing against? If you are an independent business person, where are the wages coming that are buying your goods and paying your services? This isn't a pyramid scheme, this is society and civilization.<br />
<br />
Most economists I've read feel that given the great economic engine that is the United States, the debt is fixable. The biggest problem we face and why we look at huge budget deficits is because for the past ten years we've been spending our money on blowing things up and pissing people around the world off, rather than building productive things.<br />
<br />
Everyone seemed to have such glee watching Tomahawk missiles spray down on Baghdad, but we all seem to forget that each one of those missiles cost $1.4 million dollars. And when you spend that $1.4 million all you have left is a pile of rubble. What could your community do with just say, one Tomahawk missile? Granted the folks in Tuscon that make them see some of that benefit, but it is still $1.4 million gone in 60 seconds. What if you had used it to build a community center or park? The income would still have gone to Tuscon workers, but you'ld still have the community center. Or even better, loan the $1.4 million at little or no interest to local entrepreneurs to build a new business in the community, then you get the money back and have a new business.<br />
<br />
And what would this argument be without all the health care scare tactics. The health care reform bill is an imperfect piece of legislation because that is what our system is designed to create. The compromise isn't creating bigger government. Apparently you are OK with large private insurance company bureaucracies that are designed to make money and deny you health care. That is the free market economy at work, but make damn sure you never get sick or have a chronic condition -- or at least make a lot of money so you can pay for your health care. I don't see why we should differentiate between police and fire protection and health care protection. These are necessary for all of us. The health care reform was a small step in eliminating some of the corporate bureaucratic costs associated with health care.<br />
<br />
Here is the best argument I can see for heavily government regulated health care system (like you can't be denied for pre-existing conditions and rates are subject to government review, like we got in the new legislation) -- I can't vote for a new Insurance Company. I can vote for legislators to refine the health care system to make it even more equitable and affordable.<br />
<br />
Do not forget, while propounding the Founding Fathers, that this is a government <i>by</i> the people and <i>for</i> the people.<br />
<br />
We are the government and we have it to do things for us.</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I say that we have it do some nice things for us (and to borrow a two year old phrase) for a change.</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-15118462881510740172010-10-23T06:34:00.000-07:002010-10-23T06:34:25.132-07:00Saul Bellow to Philip Roth<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">An interesting missive on why author's write. I give much thanks to my brother Dave for sending me the letter. I'm going to go get the book of all of Bellow's letters.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">To Philip Roth:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">January 7, 1984</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Chicago</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Dear Philip:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I thought to do something good by giving an interview to People, which was</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">exceedingly foolish of me. I asked Aaron [Asher] to tell you that the Good</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Intentions Paving Company had fucked up again. The young interviewer turned my</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">opinions inside out, cut out the praises and made it all sound like disavowal,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">denunciation and excommunication. Well, we're both used to this kind of thing,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">and beyond shock. In agreeing to take the call, and make a statement I was</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">simply muddle-headed. But if I had been interviewed by an angel for</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">the Seraphim and Cherubim Weekly I'd have said, as I actually did say to the</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">crooked little slut, that you were one of our very best and most interesting</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">writers. I would have added that I was greatly stimulated and entertained by</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">your last novel, and that of course after three decades I understood perfectly</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">well what you were saying about the writer's trade - how could I not understand,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">or miss suffering the same pains. Still our diagrams are different, and the</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">briefest description of the differences would be that you seem to have accepted</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">the Freudian explanation: A writer is motivated by his desire for fame, money</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">and sexual opportunities. Whereas I have never taken this trinity of motives</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">seriously. But this is an explanatory note and I don't intend to make a</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">rabbinic occasion of it. Please accept my regrets and apologies, also my best</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">wishes. I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about the journalists; we can only</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">hope that they will die off as the deerflies do towards the end of August.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">- Saul Bellow, Letters</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">So what are your trinity of motives for writing?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-91800638586153104592010-10-19T05:51:00.001-07:002010-10-19T06:06:53.333-07:00Packing BooksI'm moving my physical library. I'm at 30 boxes and not even half done. I've read countless articles on digital books and I love my 350+ digital library that is with me all the time, but I've never once read anything about whether an important metaphor will be lost with the digital flood.<br />
<br />
Words are so heavy.<br />
<br />
Words overwhelm me, press down on me. I pick up a box of books and the muscles strain and my breathing quickens. I hold in my arms the lives of people -- authors, actors, translators, editors, typesetters, booksellers. Their words are heavy. <br />
<br />
Dust has accumulated on the shelf were they sat. No book burning ash, but they have returned to dust. I could start reading my library today and if I did nothing else, I would be dust before I finished.<br />
<br />
Tomes are tombs where we bury our dead. And the tombs are made of heavy granite.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-25130320592174248482010-10-18T06:09:00.001-07:002010-10-18T06:09:46.343-07:00Everyone Has Ink By the BarrelNow everyone has ink by the barrel, the power will go to those who can hold our attention.<br />
<br />
The changes in publishing are exciting, but how do you get past the narcissism of an audience of one? The CEO of Border's stated, " “Everyone has a story to tell, pictures to share or advice to give." Yes, we want to hear other people's stories, but even more so, we want our story heard, often to the exclusion of everyone else. The paradox is we want connectivity and individuality.<br />
<br />
Facebook quickly turns into numbing sameness. Everyone may have pictures to share and advice to give -- and most of it is bad or mediocre at best.<br />
<br />
Places like Borders, Amazon, B&N, Apple that allow us to self-publish are cashing in on our narcissism -- post your stuff for people to buy. Maybe only 3 people will buy it, but hey, that is OK, because we publish everyone and 3 times everyone is a lot of money for us. This is vanity publishing exploded into tiny little profitable bits.<br />
<br />
I am in the race, but not the publish everything race. I'm in the filter race. Even the filter world will be fractioned, but the filter pie is the pie I want to eat -- not the crumbs of self-publishing.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-78135885017693699572010-10-15T07:18:00.000-07:002010-10-15T07:18:50.909-07:00The Problem with RetailI wanted to buy something, so I went to Best Buy, Staples, Office Max, and Target.<br />
<br />
Every response was the same: " This is only available on-line. I could order it for you."<br />
<br />
Uh, I can do that myself. I wanted it today, not tomorrow. Retail needs to be re-thunk.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-19230098734576238912010-10-11T06:13:00.000-07:002010-10-11T06:13:43.846-07:00The Publishing PendulumTraditional publishing is restrictive. The restriction comes from economic constraints on the publisher. Publishing has always been a few hits to lots of misses and the only way to eliminate the economic risk was an extreme conservative approach. Yes, many authors are feeling the liberation of not having to answer to those conservative publishing enclaves, but economics still govern. <br />
<br />
The problem isn't being "branded" as a self published author, but rather the author never gets a brand. JA Konrath has a brand, "the self-publish" brand, which he has been cultivating for a couple of years quite successfully. This is why his books sell. Everyone knows who he is, even people who don't read his type of books. <br />
<br />
Somewhere there is a happy in-between, a sweet spot where the author has freedom, the publisher allows it and readers get what they want and a lot of books get sold as everyone plays off each other's strengths and needs. I think that is the future and that the self-publishing pendulum will swing back until it is resting somewhere in the middle -- which is good news for the middleman.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-45285048879409232832010-10-07T06:54:00.001-07:002010-10-07T06:54:29.596-07:00Content, Content, ContentWhat makes a book last? <br />
To play off the old real estate adage -- content, content, content.<br />
<br />
I can't even keep up with the stuff I write, let alone anyone else, and I read -- a lot. As a publisher, I hope I can direct my readers to the types of content they desire. Desired content is as varied as humanity, so directing the reader to what they may be interested in feels like an overwhelming task.<br />
<br />
I feel the tension as I've begun the publishing company in a whole new way. Immediate gratification seems to drive the human compulsion to buy. And motivating the compulsion to buy is what a business is all about. Content, however, is what gives the book legs. A great book is not like a great feast. A great book can sit on the shelf for decades and it will still be a great book. A great feast can sit on the table for about four hours before it starts to go bad. The battle between immediacy and longevity is just one paradox the writer and the publisher must face, but it is a biggie.<br />
<br />
As a publisher, I hope I can provide great books and great feasts.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-90929860409127245602010-10-06T08:55:00.000-07:002010-10-06T08:55:29.599-07:00The Flood of WordsAuthors and writers are finding themselves in a similar position to musicians, except that is hard to go on tour and play to large crowds. The entire blog tour idea is somewhat analogous, but no T-shirts and beer. <br />
<br />
I'm not so sure how it will all work out either. It is a great time to be a reader is a little bit like saying it is a great time to be swimmer during a flood. I'm not sure what the landscape is going to look like after the flood, but everybody needs to be finding an ark.<br />
<br />
I think the easiest way around the pandering of self-promotion is a straightforward, outright declaration of what your self-interest is. I just got finished reading Christopher Hitchen's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hitch-22-A-Memoir-ebook/dp/B00351DSAU/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&qid=1286380474&sr=8-1">memoir</a> and his friendship and relationship with Martin Amis and Salaman Rushdie didn't stop him from commenting fully on those authors or praising their work.<br />
<br />
Taste is taste. If you like someone's taste, odds are someone with similar taste will like yours too. Think staff recommendations at the indie book stores. It won't matter if it is a book written by them or a friend or relative. Influence comes from the reader's taste and finding other reader's with similar taste. Think of it as the log you grab as the Titanics of publishing sink.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-81247955458134201732010-10-06T06:53:00.000-07:002010-10-06T07:01:02.522-07:00So What Does It Take To Be Officially a Publisher?I'd say <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=binary+press+publications&x=0&y=0">four books</a> is a start.<br />
<br />
<img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Iz70PJjCL._SL500_AA266_PIkin3,BottomRight,-17,34_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg" alt="TDTM " /><br />
<img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51MBqAvjxGL._SL500_AA266_PIkin3,BottomRight,-17,34_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg" alt="Falling Back To Earth" /><br />
<img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/512T6c-UgsL._SL500_AA266_PIkin3,BottomRight,-22,34_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg" alt="The Fourth World" /><br />
<img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/512RXf9v42L._SL500_AA266_PIkin3,BottomRight,-16,34_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg" alt="Twisted Sister" /><br />
<br />
The crazy thing -- this is going to be over ten within the next week or so. I will also be adding four or five more authors. <br />
<br />
I love my new job (and I still have that attorney day job).Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-52817458508607020262010-10-02T07:10:00.000-07:002010-10-02T07:10:41.168-07:00Books v. eBooks: A Non-ArgumentToo much time is wasted on the argument over books versus eBooks. Formatting has always changed. The fact that Shakespeare may have wrote with a quill and his plays were originally preserved in folios doesn't much matter today. The only thing that mattered is the words that dripped off his pen -- and the word's impact on audiences, culture and the language.<br />
<br />
What matters today is the same as the 1600s -- whether the words will last. Any real writer will strive to have words that impact. The only real discussion about formatting should be about how to reach the widest possible audience for words that truly need a wide audience.<br />
<br />
This comment brought to you by my sponsor: Binary Press Publications<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"></span><br />
<div style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">You can buy the first two publications: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/TDTM-Talk-Dirty-Me-ebook/dp/B0045JL5OC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1286018645&sr=1-1" style="color: #2244bb;" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Falling-Back-to-Earth-ebook/dp/B00452V8QO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1286028576&sr=1-1">here</a>.</div><div style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">No Kindle? Free reading apps <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_352814002_3?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-6&pf_rd_r=1R3SY7JT0VPQ5ZNRXNT7&pf_rd_t=1401&pf_rd_p=1268267022&pf_rd_i=1000426311" style="color: #2244bb;" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-88552926414052926552010-09-26T09:04:00.001-07:002010-09-26T09:05:47.438-07:00A Classic from The Trial<object width="480" height="390"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/SXA7RtM_GFY&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/SXA7RtM_GFY&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="480" height="390"></embed></object>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-59033889122271679792010-09-26T07:38:00.001-07:002010-09-26T07:38:36.230-07:00Defining Publishing<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22px;">From a purely utilitarian standpoint, the attempt to label a publisher is an attempt to categorize quality for marketing purposes. The more accurate the label, the better indication of the quality of the product.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22px;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22px;">The problem isn’t with the vocabulary. The problem is that publishing is an industry in flux. At one stage in publishing history pamphleteer was a pejorative, but pamphleteers also produced classics, ie Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense.” Recently, so called traditional publishing applies as much to celebrity drek as to quality literature, so this isn’t really about quality either.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22px;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22px;">The identification by the public of the publisher “type” is the duty of the publisher. The publisher has to communicate to its audience who they are and what they do. A good publisher will be able to do that. A poor one won’t.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22px;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22px;">Publishing is about providing words to the public. The hope remains that despite the categorization of the publisher, in the flood of words, quality will still float.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-30979352976660445252010-09-21T05:31:00.000-07:002010-09-21T05:44:41.013-07:00How To Read And Drive Safely -- At The Same TimeThe bus driver caught in Portland reading his Kindle while driving his bus originally peaked my interest, because I read my Kindle all the time when I'm driving. I didn't see what the big deal was until he turned the page. This was a dead giveaway that the bus driver didn't have a clue how to use his Kindle. If you are going to drive and read, let the Kindle read to you with its text to speech function, then when you are done driving, you can just start reading where the text to speech voice left off. It turns the pages for you, so you can drive.<br />
<br />
<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hRbYOUfFMuM&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hRbYOUfFMuM&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br />
<br />
Maybe Amazon can do that for the next commercial -- How To Safely Read Your Kindle and Drive At the Same Time.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-57337472880648580462010-09-20T05:01:00.000-07:002010-09-20T05:01:23.080-07:005 Benefits of the Kindle over the NookI bought a Nook this weekend so I could compare it to a Kindle and so I could review the books we will be publishing in both formats. All in all, I still prefer the Kindle.<br />
<br />
<br />
<ol><li><b>Touchy Touch Screen. </b>My biggest beef with the Nook is the touch screen. Oddly enough, when I was buying the Nook, the sales person at B&N tried to convince me that the Kindle had all these buttons that were easily pushed and made stuff disappear. I've used the Kindle now for two years and haven't had a problem, ever. The touch screen on the Nook was so touchy that I lost an entire Sudoku game, just as I was about to finish it. My fingers were too big/clumsy to type as quickly as I can on the Kindle, plus I had to keep changing the keyboard to access numbers, which made typing in my WiFi password a monumental pain.</li>
<li><b>The Digital Toggle v. A Real Toggle. </b>The other thing the sales rep told me was it didn't have Kindle's annoying toggle switch. Yet, I had to push about four buttons on the touch screen just to get to a touch screen toggle on the Nook. </li>
<li><b>Ease of Purchase. </b>I guess if you are trying to conserve your book purchasing dollars, the Nook might be better for you, because it takes a bunch of clicks to find and buy a book. I'm into click conservation and the Nook is click heavy. Amazon is evilly brilliant in its ease of purchase.</li>
<li><b>Color Touch Screen. </b>I'm offended by the Nook's implication that I need color. As a reader, color isn't high up on my need list. The clarity of print is in the black and white, I'll go to the meaning of the words for color, ambiguity and depth. I'm a reader and I have an imagination. If I want color and computer graphics, I'll buy an iPad. I don't need the smell of a book, I just don't need distractions on my reader. I guess that makes me a traditionalists out of the eBookers.</li>
<li><b>Selection.</b> The selection of Amazon <a href="http://www.labnol.org/internet/online-ebook-stores-compare/17507/">blows</a> B&N away. I know they say they have a million books, but that is only thanks to Google Books which gives everyone a million books, including the Kindle. I ran a few quick searches and for what I was looking for I was glad I had the Amazon store.</li>
</ol><div>On the plus side for the Nook, it is a functional electronic reader and a great Sudoku game (when the touch screen works).</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-60892213042277168442010-09-18T07:56:00.000-07:002010-09-18T07:56:51.538-07:00The Future of the Book -- And It Is Now<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22px;">I read an interesting article by Hugh McGuire in<a href="http://www.forbes.com/2010/09/14/amazon-internet-evolution-technology-ebooks.html" style="color: #5b211a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"> Forbes</a> about the future of the book. In the article, he mentioned numerous things you can’t do with a book that you can do with a web page on the internet. McGuire muses that books must merge with the Internet and in so doing will become even more valuable.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22px;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22px;">Much of what he posited as needing to take place is happening. I can easily cut and paste anything I’m reading digitally and post the quote to Twitter and Facebook. Amazon is more than happy to direct anyone clicking on my quote right to the page to buy the book. This is cut and paste. This is deep linking to the book. And it maintains an economic novel that rewards the individual author.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22px;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22px;">McGuire gets lost in his own argument however when he writes: –You cannot query across, say, all books about Montreal written in 1942–even if they are from the same publisher. Wait a minute, I thought books and the Internet would be interchangeable. What McGuire is actually arguing for here is a more refined search, not the merging of books and the Internet. These are two different things. The digitization of books will merge books with the Internet. Accessibility will be the duty of the author and publishers.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22px;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 22px;">The new job of a publisher is SEO. As McGuire pointed out, API’s are applications to make sure that people access your data and not someone else’s data. The future of books is incorporation into the digital mass of information. In an age were anyone can publish anything and have it remain forever, the future of publishing is search engine optimization.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-36910134580568992232010-09-16T06:48:00.000-07:002010-09-16T06:48:35.618-07:00Publishing 0101<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font: normal normal normal 13px/19px Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.6em; padding-left: 0.6em; padding-right: 0.6em; padding-top: 0.6em;">One month ago I began an adventure. All my life I've loved books. I'm not even sure how many books are in my personal collection. I know I haven't even come close to reading them all. When people ask me how many I've read, I say "About a third." But I really have no idea.<br />
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I do know one thing. Reading has changed me in a fundamental way. At one point in my life, something like five minutes ago, I would have said that the changes were "metaphysical", but I've read too much neuroscience to say that it is metaphysical. Reading has created me in a physical way, carving out my neural pathways in a way that is unique. The authors who have influenced me have allowed my brain to run down their neural paths, so I'm part Aristophanes, part Chaucer, part Shakespeare, part Philip Roth, part Henry Miller, part Jack Kerouac, part Dostoyevsky, part Tolstoy, part Camus -- well, you get the idea. I would be remiss if I didn't mention my wife, JulieAnn, the author that I met because of her book and writing -- talk about positive and passionate changes in my neural pathways.<br />
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So as an attorney and lifelong bibliophile, I decided to do something. I decided to start a digital press. In a way it was my response to the problem I saw that was addressed in <a href="http://frontmatters.com/2010/09/15/tweetstreams-alongside-most-media-except-books/comment-page-1/#comment-294" mce_href="http://frontmatters.com/2010/09/15/tweetstreams-alongside-most-media-except-books/comment-page-1/#comment-294" target="_blank" title="Tweetstreams">Book Glutton</a> this morning. How do you write and read in the age of Facebook and Twitter? The interplay of ideas and thoughts are what make us and I wanted to pass out the building block of deep, rather than superficial ideas. My press is barely a month old and we will begin publishing within the week. (Website, a week or two away) I have the rights to publish over 40 books, all by authors who have been previously published.<br />
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I feel the weight of trying to wrestle even a small portion of the unruly stream of words into a channel that can be used to irrigate the thoughts, feelings and lives of potential readers.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-45484724063628143472010-09-06T07:39:00.000-07:002010-09-06T07:39:57.954-07:00Writing for Money<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">Question and Answer with Christopher Hitchens in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/magazine/06fob-q4-t.html">New York Time Magazine</a>:</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><strong><br />
</strong></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><strong><i>Did you write the book for money?</i></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><i> </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><i><br />
</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><i>Of course, I do everything for money. Dr. Johnson is correct when he says that only a fool writes for anything but money. It would be useful to keep a diary, but I don’t like writing unpaid. I don’t like writing checks without getting paid.</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><i><br />
</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; line-height: 16px;">I'm reading Hitchen's memoir, <i>Hitch-22</i> and found the above quote about why he wrote the book. Now, if writing for money means I get to hang out and play word games with Salman Rushdie and Martin Amis, then definitely, I need to make sure that I write for money. </span></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; line-height: 16px;">For an author, money can be a motivating force to improve your craft. In our society is also the economic indicator of how many people the writing reaches. More money = bigger audience. Hitchens the journalist understands this well.<br />
<br />
Yet, I personally like David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Franzen's<a href="http://fivedials.com/files/fivedials_no10.pdf"> reason</a> for writing fiction, because I think they are correct. </span></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><i><b>[Fiction is the] ‘neutral middle ground on which to make a deep connection with another human being’: this, we decided, was what fiction was for. ‘A way out of loneliness’ was the formulation we agreed to agree on.</b></i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; line-height: 16px;">Writing is about creating a connection with other people. No writer I've ever met is content with their words being stuffed in a drawer or a hard drive (although they often end up there). Pleas to artistic desire or writing compulsion are nothing more than screams for connection. No artists writes a book so no one else can read it. </span></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; line-height: 16px;">No audience, no art. </span></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; line-height: 16px;">No audience and it is artistic masturbation, while possibly pleasurable, much more productive and fun if shared. So in an indirect way Hitchens is correct, money means more connection and that is what writing is all about.</span></i></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-28241768207742666772010-08-22T09:32:00.000-07:002010-08-23T07:10:24.419-07:00HellI finished a book this week -- <i>Hell </i>by Rob Olen Butler. I don't write much about the books I read, probably because I read more than I write<i>. </i>My brother (who is also reading it, as is my wife) described the book as Dante's <i>Inferno</i> for the 21st Century -- a more accurate description after finishing the book would be Dante's <i>Divine Comedy</i> for the 21st Century without the <i>terza rima</i>. <br />
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A theme throughout <i>Hell</i> is the inability to actually get inside someone else's subjective, interior thoughts. Satan in all his anticipatory sadistic power can't do it. The denizens of Hell certainly can't do it, but with Butler's post modern irony, the reader of <i>Hell</i> gets to spend a lot of time in everyone else's head -- well at least Butler's head.<br />
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This isn't the first time Butler has played around with the concept of what is going on in someone else's noggin. An earlier foray takes the phrase "in someone else's head" quite literally in <i>Severance, </i>a compilation of short 240 word epigraphic epitaphs of the last words going through the minds of the beheaded (apparently you have enough oxygen after being beheaded to get through 240 words before it is lights out.). Butler goes a step further in <i>Intercourse</i> giving the reader the internal monologue of participants in the sex act.<br />
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Writing itself is an act of disclosure, an act of placing at least a portion of one's thoughts on the screen or page. Imagine your last 240 words after the knife slices through your neck. Remember your last internal monologue in the throes of passion. Imagine what your own hell and your own redemption would be like. Remember the darkest or scariest thought you don't dare speak. <br />
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The writer's hell is the rejection of the interior. The writing gets thrown out in a desperate attempt for readers to accept the internal and often fractured offerings of the author. Every time I type a word, I want someone to read it and even more importantly, understand me, but somehow writing and reading is more transformative. Intaking the words through reading alters the words into a new subjective reality that is far beyond the author's control or ability to anticipate.<br />
<br />
My wife is a <a href="http://ravingsii.blogspot.com/">writer</a>. She's married to me because she is a writer, because she put her words out there for me to read. For a bookish soul like me, maybe that was the only way to change me, by getting her thoughts inside my head in a form I was used to. This week she finished her latest novel, <i>TDTM</i>. The book has been created from out of the mist of our daily life together and those pieces are scattered throughout. Our discussions about the book have influenced the plot. When I read it, my internal thoughts will register something different because of that experience, but it will connect me to other readers as we share the communal aspect of having heard the same story. <br />
<br />
A book is the closest a human can come to entering someone else's mind. <br />
<br />
Great writing organizes the subjective thoughts of the author, but remains true to the interior mind as the thoughts are edited on to the page. The trick of great writing is to create enough flow with the reader that you hijack their thoughts. The writer also wants to create a parallel thought pattern in the reader -- <i>See, here I am writing, you are reading, we think similarly and you know where this can go and you know what it means and you listen to what I write, knowing this isn't your thought, but mine, but you understand because you think like this too at times. </i>Pulling it off with one stream of conscious sentence if easy. Maintaining it for the length of a book is hard.<br />
<br />
JulieAnn's friend, <a href="http://dancingwithcrazy.blogspot.com/">Emily Pearson</a>, has written a memoir, <i>Dancing With Crazy. </i>Of all the writing, a memoir is by its nature the most personal. Every word in the memoir has impact and meaning for the author, because the author knows what every word represents -- an entire interior reality is constructed around each word, each paragraph, each incident. The problem is that the reader doesn't have access to all of that interiority. As the three of us discussed her memoir, there was agreement for the need for an edit from the right editor to give her work its full impact. The editor would help bring her distinctive voice to a much wider audience.<br />
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I'm nearly 50 years old and for the first time I think I finally understood why an editor is so important for a book. The great editor, like the great writer, helps organize the words so the interior thoughts of the author come through on the page. The editor points out the author's own internal blind spots and brings to the book something the author doesn't have -- an external point of view. The combination of the editor's external and the author's internal is the bridge from the writer's mind to the reader's interior.<br />
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Again, with a writer for a wife, I get to see this editor/writer dance. JulieAnn recently finished line edits on her book that is about to published, <i>Falling Back to Earth</i>. The editor's comments and changes at this juncture are the fine tuning on the book's ability to connect to the reader. The occasional editorial aside that a scene is suspenseful or moving makes me realize that something magical is taking place with JulieAnn's words, someone else is seeing the beauty, depth and struggle that I have become so familiar with in our marriage.<br />
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Which brings me back to <i>Hell</i>. All week long a phrase that I have uttered often and with heartfelt meaning has been transformed by another human being. Robert Olen Butler has taken up occupancy in my head. He appropriated a word and amplified it for me, so that I hear nuances I was deaf to before. I don't know that this is what he intended or even if it is what he meant, but it is what he did to me. For a writer and for a reader, this type of <i>Hell</i> is heavenly.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170339037090119639.post-11704088389639067862010-06-06T07:05:00.000-07:002010-06-06T08:04:35.822-07:00The Bankruptcy of Publishing<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Ok, I'll admit that the title of the blog is for one primary reason -- I'm testing out how Google works. I really do want to talk about how I perceive the publishing industry is changing from my perspective in Ogden, Utah, but I also want to see how titles and labels effected Google's search engines. Which actually is a great segue way into what this post, inspired by a <a href="http://ravingsii.blogspot.com/2010/06/nod.html">blog post</a> by my lovely and talented writer/wife, is actually about --- How does a writer get heard in the digital age?<div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>When I was growing up (a long, long time ago in a county pretty dang close), musical taste was dictated by two things -- Kasey Kasem's American Top 40 (the morbid <i>Seasons in the Sun </i>at the top of the charts week after week<i>) </i>and the Friday Night Battle of the Records which lead to the perennial champions -- <i>Goodbye Yellowbrick Road, Cherokee People </i>and much to my adult chagrin and childish delight, The Bay City Roller's <i>Saturday Night</i>. It frightens me that I remember that. </div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Musical tastes were spun out of the mass media, record label machine into my head through the only radio station that played anything remotely young and pop-ish in the early 70s. If you wanted to make it big in the record biz, you were going to need to sign with a big label. Today, we have <a href="http://www.pandora.com/">Pandora</a> and the record industry is a lot like a very nice vase that got dropped on a very hard floor from a very high height. Forget labels, American Top 40 and Friday Night Battle of the Records and think DRM (Digital Rights Management), iPod, indie and bit torrent.</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>From what I can see, the publishing industry is also a vase that is hitting the floor and it is as if I'm watching the pieces scatter in slow motion. Terminology has not caught up. The Wall Street Journal just this week called digital publishing "<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704912004575253132121412028.html">Vanity Publishing</a>." Digital publishing is the same as regular publishing at least to the extent that it has vanity and non-vanity versions. J.A. Konrath sells some self-published books, but authors have often self-published and that is technically different from vanity publishing. Konrath is also published by -- and this is a very important point -- Amazon Encore. </div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>What did traditional publisher's do? They prepared the product for mass marketing. They mass marketed the product through the current media -- TV, print and radio. They sold the book to libraries. Libraries were the repositories for the community's books. We shared books as a community. The books we read were determined by teachers, friends and word of mouth.</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Amazon is acting just like a traditional publisher. Only a couple of things have changed. The cost of distribution has shrunk to pennies if it is digital. The mass market is disappearing. Traditional advertising has diminished and fractured. Libraries have shrunk. Amazon steps in and is not only the publisher, but the book warehouse, the delivery truck, the book store and the promotional advertising media promoting the books and even a really massive pay as you go library -- all rolled into one digital company. Amazon also changes the community so that you can connect with a community of your very own idiosyncratic tastes. Your friends and word of mouth aren't relegated to a quiet little rural town in Utah. The writer's reviews and Amazon rankings and referrals carry more weight than the publishing equivalent of American's Top 40 -- The New York Time's Bestseller List.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>The rules of the game have changed, but the ultimate game for the writer has not. The writer must write. The writer must write words that other people want to read -- and other people need to talk about it so that the writer gets read. The task of writing (and reading) is as David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Franzen concluded -- an act to assuage loneliness and separateness of being human and provide connection with someone else, somewhere at sometime who felt the same way. </div><div><br /></div><div> The words are the only salve for mortality.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09193356052072012193noreply@blogger.com0