This is worth passing on. Whitestone Motion Pictures presents Blood On My Name, a short film musical narrative in the style of Americana folklore. This is a good short story. These are also the people who created the short film, The Candy Shop, which focuses on child exploitation. Though Blood On My Name is described as a bit of a horror story (it’s barely that), The Candy Shop portrays pure evil.
Of diversity and my digestion
The Festival of Nations was mostly four days of sitting around for me, tooling leather bookmarks and wrist bands and occasionally selling someone a book. Nevertheless, I came out of it exhausted. The reasons, I think, are two.
One, it was an overdose of humanity for an introvert. Attendance was smaller this year than last (a mixture of the bad economy and the first nice weather in weeks, we think), but even so there were times when the crowds were insane, the babble overwhelming. Especially when kids were blowing those little ceramic bird whistles they sell, which emit a piercing warble.
I know multicultural festivals are supposed to bring us together and remind us how much we all have in common, but I’m not convinced the final result isn’t to remind us how different we all are, and to make us wonder how we’re ever going to get along with people who dress like that. (But that might just have been my mood.)
A young boy in our group reported speaking to one of the vendors, who was selling a marionette he designed himself. When told people were complaining that his puppet fell apart after two days, he replied that that was indeed a product failure. “It’s supposed to fall apart in one day.”
I hope, for all our sakes, that the bird whistles also fall apart after a day. Otherwise I suspect there will be an uptick in child abuse by parents all around the metropolitan area.
The other reason I was exhausted, it turns out, was that I’m anemic again. I had some tests done, and found out today (to my great relief) that I don’t have celiac disease, and so will not have to give up all breads and grain products. But I’m now scheduled to go in tomorrow for the Test That Dare Not Speak Its Name. Which means I’ll be doing things tonight no guy as tired as I am should have to do. Tomorrow I’ll be flying on Valium (which I like to think of as my reward for getting through tonight), but I’ll post something—possibly something coherent—if I can.
How Kermit the Frog May Save an Author
Jeffrey Overtreet write about finding inspiration in The Muppet Movie and his strong identification with the crisis point in the plot.
You can try to stir the writer’s life and the self-marketer’s life together, but they’re oil and water. Publishers sent me a guide detailing what “successful” authors do: Build websites about themselves. Create their own fan clubs on Facebook. Pursue their own endorsements. Volunteer to blog on “influential” websites. Organize readings, book-signings, and giveaways.
Following instructions, I feel I’m standing on a street corner wearing a sandwich board with my picture on it and shouting, “I’m awesome! Go tell everyone I’m awesome!”
The Bookseller as Publisher and Vice Versa
Amazon is developing an opportunities to publish books, which it has been doing for a couple years, and some major publishers have announced their plan to sell books and e-books directly. Some of this may be reinventing the wheel, but haven’t some people made a lot of money reinventing things? I think they have.
A C.S. Lewis Conversation
Alan Jacobs, ND Wilson, and Doug Wilson in conversation | Full Edition from Canon Wired on Vimeo.
Authors Alan Jacobs (The Narnian: the Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis), N.D. Wilson (100 Cupboards series), and Doug Wilson (Is Christianity Good for the World?) talk about C.S. Lewis.
50 Best Western Literature Blogs
Here’s the makeup of a great blogroll: 50 Best Western Literature Blogs. To leave you with no doubt, these are lit-blogs written by 50 people staying in Best Western hotels throughout the U.S. Essential reading, friends. Next up, 40 Super 8 Films Blogs. (via Books, Inq.)
Spectator review
My review of Hal Colebatch’s Counterstrike is up at The American Spectator Online.
You Know the Guy. Don't Make Me Say His Name.
In other fun press corp news, Craig Silverman has an article on how frequently reporters and announcers around the world said “Obama” when they meant “Osama.” He has a painful video of a Canadian anchor reading the news, saying “Obama” every time she meant “Osama.” Naturally, if it needs to be said, this is all Ted Kennedy’s fault.
Front Page Greatness?
James Fallows calls this weekly world edition of the UK Telegraph the greatest front page ever. I’ve seen this kind of thing before. It’s the absence of cognitive dissonance, a blindness to irony. It’s doing what you’re told without thinking about it or maybe not proofing. Or maybe they thought it was funny.
How Many Authors Have Killing Experience?
Daniel Kalder notes that many writers describe murder in their stories, but few have actual experience with it, or if not murder, then killing on the battlefield. More writers do kill themselves, but that usually diminishes their future creative output. In the U.K. Guardian, Kalder writes:
Writers, by and large, are a boring lot – even more so now that so many are employed by the state (or states in the case of the US) to teach middle-class youth how to tell imaginary stories in prose. Yes, yes, the academy is a fascinating subject and you can’t have enough tales about college politics or balding, paunchy middle-aged lecturers lusting after young girls.
But if you want your work required for undergraduate modern novel classes, college politics is a great topic. Isn’t it? (via Books, Inq.)