September 2009

September 1, 2009   Who Has Written This Other Book?

Reading Wood  made me really think (yes, how useless criticism can really be) that I don't think anyone has ever adequately tried to explain what the experiences of reading are really like---I suppose it is impossible and any one description of it would be too idiosyncratic--or maybe preachy---or something else.  But some times in reading Wood I just wanted to say, forget the important arguments and distinctions and just go on with your enthusiasms about what reading x is like--for you.

In other words or also---as much as I agree with him about character I guess I would collapse that into voice----the company you decide to keep with the narrative voice---the pleasure a good narrative voice gives you almost no matter what tale is being told or what characters being created---almost, but close----very close.  A good voice talking---only to you---there is the art literature provides.

September 16, 2009            What Was Tarantino Thinking?

Here's what Tarantino was thinking:  Ok, I know, I know, I am not Jewish (hey, I work for Weinstein, so remind me, ok?) and I don't have the right to make a movie about the Nazi's, especially not my kind of movie.  So I'll have Brad Pitt play me and we'll be a southern redneck who larn'd sump'in from his Apache forebearer bears and he'll organize an ur-swat team of Jewish freedom fighters who go undercover behind Nazi lines and --- bingo---I'll get the movie launched and then I can go ahead with it and make a movie about movies and about movieland Nazi undercover agents and Nazi spies and Nazi regalia and Nazi deaths and blowing up all the leading Nazis at once and ending WWII all in one stroke and I'll have a French young Jewish woman who runs a Parisian art cinema theater be the agent of that Finale.  The comic book imagination finds focus, story, imagery, mission and great fun too.

September 25, 2009   Espresso Will End Publishing As We Know It

Friday

We drove north today and later stopped for coffee in the Vermont town of St Johnsbury, probably 10,000 population.

The bookstore there has a poster announcing that they have bought the new Espresso Book Machine.  I was

amazed because I thought that thing would take another five years to show up within driving range.  I talked to

the owner.  Only four machines are out now.  The company has to find a tech support company to build up

a servicing network before they can sell many more.  But the machine due there next week was delayed so

it could spend six weeks in Rochester where a tech company is seeing if they want the support contract.

The machine costs 100k.  Again I would have thought it would be much more.  But now I can see that now at 100k

puts it within the reach of a small bookstore situated in any upscale community--which St J's sort of is.  Easy

to see it going into Stowe, Santa Fe, NM, and every big city of course.  So the owner and I were speculating

on the future of bookstores and publishing.  He said after he announced his purchase he has been flooded

with inquiries.  (Lots of writers hang out or live in northern Vermont).  He thinks the big companies are

very very worried.  Amazon has virtually announced it expects to not be in the book business at all for much

longer---now that it has become a giant for sales in everything else, too.

On that basis alone I might hold off on going with BookSurge and maybe go back to the nearest competitor?

And/or wait to see how this espresso machine thing will take off.

Seems that today's publishers will quickly become tomorrow's public relations agents for writers willing to hire

their services.  Otherwise they really have little or nothing to do.

Except form editorial and taste panels of experts who will choose books and put the power of their Brand on

the choice and the PR.  Which is what they do now----they just will no longer need warehouses or presses etc.

September 17, 2009   First of Virginia's Professor Entwell Stories

Virginia wrote this series of stories over the past few weeks.

1."How I met Professor Entwell"

My first year teaching at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois had been tough.  I had broken up with my college boy friend and fiancé.  and the pickins seemed pretty slim in Decatur.  I was ready to leave until my good friend, confidante and colleague in the Spanish department, Conchita, convinced me that leaving a job after just one year would not look good on my record.  I agreed to let her fix me up one last time with a young man who had been to Europe and had "slides!  After seeing his slides taken from the plane over France and from the plane over Spain, I almost left again, but I stuck it out until the next September. That Fall not one, but six, young, single male professors joined the faculty.  At the time I was rooming with a woman right across the street from the University campus.  She told the young professor who had moved into the apartment  next door to me that I had just returned from Spain and probably had packages to bring back from the post office and would need help since I didn't have a car, so that young man came knocking at my door. When I opened the door I saw Professor Entwell standing there.  Not only was he very good-looking, but the little tuft of back hair showing above the collar of his T-  shirt was endearing to me as someone with a special spot in my heart for teddy bears, so I flung open the door and invited him in for a frozen turkey pot pie which was  the height of my culinary  ability at the time and, the rest, as they say is...

September 29, 2009           Glenn Beck needs a Ghost

Tweelebrity already exists.

So---

squawklebrity, noiselebrity, shrieklebrity, annoylebrity, colbertbrity, talklebrity, showlebrity: Glenn Beck

more about this soon enough

Trying to coin a word here & maybe get a patent on it.  All thoughts sparked by news today from a writer I know.  Seems now that Glenn Beck is ---well, that's just it---what exactly is he?  No one seems to know, but that doesn't matter.  Name recognition, vocal recall, brand---who knows.  All that Pocket Books knows is that his name on a cover might just sell.  Especially on a Holiday book title.  Seems way back before he was GB GB sold a bestsellerish christmas book he wrote along with another writer who did then get his name on the cover along with gb.  So Bech, no Beck, now wants to publish a new holiday warm and fuzzy---or his handlers and managers and agents do.  Who knows.  Just that now that Beck is Louder than ever.  (Loudlebrity--?) Money might be funneled off, siphoned from the gusher.  (Gushlebrity)

So this writer's agent has said -- sub voce, which is now called, dangerous crossover phrasing here, on the downlow, hey, you want to ghost this warm christmas novella Glenn Baby is about to publish?

How much?  No one knows yet.  I may be a whore but I'm not a $2. manuscript slut.  How much?  How much would I do it for?  What say 200k?  300k?  Just what is possible?  No one really knows.

Yet.  But.  Why not?  You are fast and sentimental.

Stay tuned.  Maybe it will be called "Rogue Christmas Warmths and Fuzzies by the Homeland Hearth."

By Glenn Beck.