Category Archives: Politics and Culture

Nobody Knows Anything (About Publishing)

Politics and Culture, Things that Piss Me off from The NY Times, writing/blogging/publishing related, , , , ,

The title phrase was of course coined by screenwriter William Goldman and refers to the entertainment industry. It is most applicable now to publishing though I thought of calling this blog, There’s Something Happening Here, but then got afraid that ASCAP would come after me.

I’m just an interested bystander, and my theories aren’t worth the paper they aren’t printed on, but I’ve been doing some reading and have listed below some interesting pieces. What’s it mean? Draw your own conclusions and by all means, feel free to drop by and spout off your opinion and relevant links.

Here goes:

Publish or Perish from The New Yorker in which Ken Auletta explains how big publishing is hoping the IPad will break Kindle’s hold on the ebook market and allow publishers to charge print prices for ebooks because of course we all know that that will save the book business. (If you go to The New Yorker’s website you’ll also see lots of blogs, letters and articles on related topics.)

The Rise of Self-Publishing in which The New York Times not only discovers self-publishing, but declares it respectable!  (which means that it’s now officially over.)

Man Bites Dog, no that’s not the name of it, but here’s an article from Publisher’s Weekly explaining why award winning writer John Edgar Wideman decided to publish a story collection on Lulu.

There’s More to Publishing Than Meets the Screen by Jonathan Galassi. The head of Farrar, Strauss & Giroux makes a not so subtle case for why publishers should hold digital rights FOREVER. This was as the youts say a pretty lulz-worthy piece of work and led to many responses including one of my own, though my favorite was by Heather Michon in Open Salon who boiled Galassi’s point down to “There is no “I” in book.”

You could also do worse than check out The Militant Writer blog in which Mary Walters takes a hard look at the industry. One of my favorites from that site is a piece where she blames literary agents for the mess. Some of the more blogactive agents posted replies making the discussion uh spirited.

Happy reading!

(Update:  Not too many comments at this obscure website, but there is an ongoing discussion over on a thread on Authonomy.  Anyone can “listen” in, though you’d need to register on the site to participate.)

The Federal Welfare State of Arizona Can Go F**k Itself

Politics and Culture, , , , ,

The governor of Arizona just signed the new law that will allow the police to pick up anyone anywhere  for suspicion of being Mexican or harboring  Mexicans.

Could I just remind Arizona that it is a federal welfare state in the middle of a freaking desert? Most of their water comes from the Hoover dam thanks to federal tax dollars paid by the rest of us. Much of what is grown there needs more water than they have, so the rest of us pay for it every April 15th. Plus there’s also farm subsidies making agriculture viable IN A DESERT. A lot of ranchers use federal land which if it were owned privately would revert to desert because of overgrazing. These whiners complain about the feds restricting their use of this land as another example of the government infringing on their freedoms. It’s a car dependent state so our federal highway dollars go to support their roads.

In return for all of this generosity, the people of Arizona hate us and our government. They hate foreigners too, but if all the Mexicans disappeared there’d be no one to pick their supplemented crops which would rot and then they’d ask for a bailout. They think they are taxed enough already and would like to elect someone even more conservative than John McCain. They think the President is a foreigner and want him off the ballot in 2012.

So can we please just let them go? Federal welfare does nothing but make them (and us) resentful.  We’ve been taxed enough (on many levels) and they deserve a chance to develop on their own. They’d be happier without the rest of us. They wouldn’t be forced to celebrate federal holidays they don’t approve of like Martin Luther King day or as they call it, well never mind.  You know damn well what they call it.  Maybe they could elect Ron Paul and Sarah Palin king and queen. Once their land dries up the “illegals” they hate so much will go somewhere else. (Maybe they’ll go home where without having to compete with America’s socialized agriculture they’ll be able to sell their crops at market prices.)

Who knows?  Arizona might thrive without federal interference.  They  can use their ingenuity to make the desert bloom  because they are chosen by God or through the unseen hand of the market or the ghost of Ayn Rand or something. They can make The Turner Diaries the official state book and live out their post-apocalyptic fantasies.

But What can I Get for a Kidney?

Politics and Culture, Uncategorized, , ,

Republican cream puff Sue Lowden who’s running against Harry Reid in Nevada has suggested that a simple solution to the health care crisis.  No need for socialized “Obamacare.”  Let’s go back to the “olden days” when you could bring your doctor a chicken or paint his house.

She really said this.

I’m so thrilled that the Republicans are finally offering real ideas instead of simply going negative.  What brilliance this woman has!  Only someone from the true heartland of America, a place known for openness to new ideas about revenue streams like gambling and prostitution could look backwards to the future and come up with something like this.

The only problem is that I live in an urban area where most people don’t keep livestock (except for ritualistic purposes).  So without a chicken, is my medical goose cooked?  She also suggests housepainting, but that could take out my back which would just lead to more need for medical care.

I suppose if I were going in for surgery, I could simply allow the doctor to take out any extra parts — like say a kidney or slice of liver for exchange.  Women under 35 could offer their eggs which go for a lot on the open market and could probably cover a healthy family for a year. I suppose if we’re going to look for models in  the “olden days” — the days before credit cards, bankruptcy and insurance, we could go back to the ultimate barter item — oneself.   Yes, if faced with a serious illness and no other option, one could opt for indentured servitude and/or giving away one’s first born.  (If you can’t afford to pay the doctor, you probably shouldn’t be raising a child anyway.)

Proud Independents — Five Books You Won’t Find in Chains

book reviews, Politics and Culture, Uncategorized, writing/blogging/publishing related, , , , , , ,

A trip to any indistinguishable chain bookstore will tell you what you need to know about the current crisis in publishing — glossy-covered bestsellers by the usual suspects, characters from classics transformed into “vampyres” and zombie-killers, second-rate celebrities eager to tell all. But where are the fresh new writers? Where are the strong stories and original voices?

Sadly, the big publishing houses are taking fewer chances and more emerging authors are self-publishing. It’s easy to create your own micro-imprint, and on-line nobody knows you’re a POD (print-on-demand). While getting onto store shelves is difficult, the web has made it simple for authors to market themselves, and e-books offer a great way to break in. For a writer, uploading a book on Kindle is as easy as sending an e-mail, and companies like Smashwords offer free e-publishing in ALL digital formats.

While this creates opportunities for writers, it creates confusion for readers. With so many books, what’s to read? Without the traditional gatekeepers — agents and publishers — how do you find books that are high quality, original and well-written?

Fortunately, e-books can usually be “sampled” before purchase, and most online booksellers allow you to “browse” print versions electronically. If you are an e-book aficionado or ready to take the plunge into print-on-demand, here are five great picks.

1) Dorkismo — The Macho of the Dork , by Maria Bustillos (2009) — available in paperback and on Kindle.

In a series of brilliant, accessible and funny essays, LA-based cultural critique, Maria Bustillos posits that the dorks are saving civilization. Her revolutionary manifesto celebrates true self-expression. In a world where hipness has become a commodity signified by the proper attire and technology, a world of branding, where children refuse to go to school without designer clothing, Dorkismo is the antidote. All the important creative thinkers and innovators are dorks, she tells us. They/we/us are the true iconoclasts. This is more than simple cultural critique. It’s self-help that’s nothing short of inspirational.

Bustillos, by offering her examples of authentic coolness, urges readers to be proud of who they are and their intellectual pursuits and obsessions — even if they involve fluency in one or more fictional languages. Her motto, “to thine own self be cool,” redefines hip making it clear that creativity, art and even happiness come from following your own path, enjoying yourself, and learning to embrace your dork-nature.

2) Babylon, Daisy Anne Gree (2009) — available in paperback and as a FREE e-book in all digital formats.

Gree published this novel in association with Year Zero a writers’ collective dedicated to “restoring the direct conversation between reader and writer.” Babylon, barely more than novella length, is a stunning debut.

Fired from a restaurant job in San Francisco, schizophrenic Daniel attempts suicide and winds up back in his parent’s old house in his small Texas hometown of Babylon. Voice is everything in fiction and Gree has it. Daniel’s head is not a comfortable or pleasant place to be, but Gree brings us there in a way that’s true and sharp. She teaches us more about the mind of a schizophrenic than anyone is likely to get from a medical or psychiatric textbook. Gree goes beyond the writing workshop adage, “Show don’t tell.” Her descriptions are simple yet visceral, and they hit like a shot of mescaline straight to the heart.

Chapter one begins in the restaurant where Daniel is working:

“I counted my breath in and out, rough and ragged. A fractious rhythm among the others, the slamming oven doors and the clanking plates, that surrounded me. The air inside was so thick and heavy that breathing felt like drowning. As the seconds wore on, one noise began to swell and smother the rest: the slow and steady buzzing of the fluorescent bulb above my head. It was feverish and nauseating, as jarring as a jackhammer on asphalt.”

By the time Daniel comes home and slashes his wrist, we’ve seen the shadows jumping from the walls and heard the voices calling his name. We understand the desperation that drives his actions.

While this all sounds bleak, and it is, there’s also a deadpan humor that shows itself in snatches of dialogue and imagery that is achingly beautiful throughout.

3) Harbour, by Paul House (2009) — available in hardcover, paperback and coming to Kindle.

Harbour, a historical novel set against the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong, was initially published by the author through Lulu as a POD. It was recently picked up by Dragon International Arts, a small publisher in the UK.

At over 400 pages and with several story-lines, Harbour, is better suited to print than digital. Its characters include an elderly drug-lord, his beautiful young wife, a mixed-race girl, a British doctor, a Japanese barber with a secret, an embittered invalid and assorted others. None are especially heroic which is both the novel’s strength and probably the reason it wasn’t picked up by a major publisher. If you’re a fan of formulaic historical fiction — the Michener model, this isn’t for you. It’s character-driven even as history unfolds. Which is not to say, that there isn’t plenty of attention to historical detail.

As we read, patterns begin to emerge within the tapestry before us. We understand more of the connections between characters and the focus shifts to two couples — Tung Nien, the drug-lord’s wife and her lover Dr. Laughton — a married, British ex-pat, and Molly a mixed-race girl taken in by Tung Nien and Molly’s friend, Wu.

Laughton and Tung Nien are in an impossible situation. They’ve gone from having an affair to being truly, deeply, passionately in love with each other. Their story of longing and compromise becomes one with which any reader can identify. Molly, our young heroine, has ideals and innocence. She’s probably the most heroic of the bunch — the least cynical and sullied, while her beau, Wu on the precipice of manhood, may make the wrong choice. When the chaos of the invasion finally arrives, these are the four we hope will emerge not only alive but somehow, against the odds, with each other.

Without giving anything away, one can report that the ending was deeply satisfying.

4) Songs from the Other Side of the Wall, by Dan Holloway — available in paperwork and FREE in all e-book formats.

This is a book truly made for the digital age — hip, sensuous, smart and very up to date. Holloway is the founder of the Year 0 collective and believes that making books available for free digitally is one way to grow readership. Songs has become the number one most downloaded literary novel on the e-book publishing site, Smashwords.

Szandrine was born in Hungary shortly after the Berlin Wall fell. Abandoned by her British mother, she was raised by her father on a family-owned vineyard. Szandrine is part of the Budapest art scene and lives with her girlfriend, Yang — a sculptor.

Set in 2006-2007, besides it’s exotic setting, what sets this novel apart is the invention of a truly contemporary character. Szandrine, at seventeen, is post-Wall Europe, at ease with the non-issue of her sexuality, and more at home in certain corners of the Internet than anywhere else.

New Year’s Eve 2006, Szandi witnesses a tragedy during riots in Budapest. What she sees impels her to explore her past and brings her to an understanding of her future. The story unfolds in real time, flashbacks, letters and in chat-rooms.

It’s a complicated tale involving the recall of an online friendship with a dead man, a mysterious letter, and an unsatisfactory reunion between Szandrine and her mother. Holloway, never loses control and the strands are woven together with the connections becoming clear. As Szandrine explores her recent and more distant history, she comes into her own with knowledge and wisdom.

With flashbacks, and switches in time and location, this may not be the easiest narrative to follow, but it captures the rhythms and nuisance of how we live now in a way that has rarely been done better.

5) Glimpses of a Floating World, by Larry Harrison, (2009) — available in paperbook and FREE in all e-book formats.

Larry Harrison’s dark and dazzling first novel, Glimpses-of-a-Floating-World takes its title from the phrase used to describe the red-light district of 18th century Edo, now known as Tokyo. Edo’s floating world was a haven of pleasure and illusion, filled with kabuki actors, geishas and courtesans. Harrison’s work is set in London’s Soho, 1963, its denizens — anarchists, mods, rockers, beats, and others, among them our protagonist, seventeen year-old, heroin addict, Ronnie “Fizz” Jarvis who loves feeling that he is part of “the scene.”

Harrison skillfully allows the reader to identify with Ronnie despite the character’s being vain, selfish and occasionally cowardly. He is, after all, an adolescent trying to understand the world and his place in it. Ronnie reminds us of other young, unreliable characters reaching adulthood in an imperfect world. The reader is immediately aware that no matter what else happens, Ronnie will either grow and change, or he will not. We root for Ronnie’s potential, hoping he will live to tell the tale.

Glimpses is well-plotted, taut and suspenseful. Ronnie becomes a reluctant police informant and tensions rise as we head towards a likely bloody conclusion.

Harrison who has written nonfiction books on alcohol and drug issues, seamlessly weaves in the growing panic over narcotics. Britain — influenced by the US — was changing its policies, moving from treating addiction as a public health issue to criminalizing addicts. Ronnie is as much a victim of these changes as he is of his abusive father and his own romanticized self-destruction.

Glimpses of a Floating World is described on its back cover as “a lyrical and triumphant elegy to a seedy, vice-ridden London of the 1960’s. ” It is that, but also a tale of familial tragedy, a history lesson, a novel that offers much more than simple glimpses. It reads like a lost classic.

(This posting originally appeared as a guest blog at can also be found as a guest blog at LA Books Examiner.)

That Sweet Kiss — Ugly Betty’s Breakthrough Moment

Kay Gardella Memorial TV Review Blog, Politics and Culture, telenovelas, , , ,

A major television event occurred last night on Ugly Betty. Two teenage boys sharing their first sweet kiss! Too bad America stopped watching the show years ago. Then again, if people were watching, they wouldn’t have done it.

Ugly Betty began on a high note. An American remake of the groundbreaking, and oft-copied, Columbian telenovela, Yo Soy Betty La Fea (I am Betty, The Ugly One) — the show focused on an aesthetically-challenged Latina from Queens making good at a snooty Manhattan fashion magazine. It featured “Dame” Judith Light a veteran of American soaps and made-for-TV movies who always manages to make the make the most ridiculous situations totally real. But its combination of sit-com and soap never really jelled. Both the comedy and the outrageousness of the drama distanced the viewers from the characters. Betty’s deranged-child wardrobe and the character’s lack of growth didn’t help.

But last night, I happened to catch the episode and while I started out only half watching, I could see something was brewing. The storyline we’ve all been waiting for is finally unfolding in the final episodes, Betty’s fabulous, nephew, fourteen year old, Justin — an acting, dancing, fashionista is coming to terms with his sexuality. We’ve seen Justin as the target of bullies. We’ve seen his mother’s pride, love and acceptance of her son for who he is. We’ve seen Justin reach out and develop an appropriate friendship with Mark, Betty’s gay coworker. Last night’s show went further.

Justin who has lately been insisting that he’s not actually gay, became friends with a boy and a girl in his acting class. The boy shared many of Justin’s interests and obsessions. Justin claimed to “like” the girl and had the opportunity to kiss her in a scene onstage. After the show, he was going to talk to her when he saw her kissing the other boy. Later the two boys confront each other. The other one admits he didn’t really like her and did it because Justin had on stage. Soon what we thought would happen, happens and the boys kiss each other.

Justin goes home upset by this, but overhears his mother telling his Aunt Betty that self-acceptance and knowing you are loved and lovable for who you are is the most important thing. The next day he braves his acting class, only to find that the boy he kissed has quit.
Could we have another season, please?