Uncategorized

A side order of pictures

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Photobucket works for me tonight, so I can share some photos from Nordic Fest in Decorah, Iowa.

Here’s an eager crowd learning all about Vikings from the Skjaldborg guys.

Decorah 1

Here’s the Vikings extracting much-needed sustenance from pork chops, the national cuisine of Iowa.

Decorah 2

And here’s my friend, under my own awning, showing off the mail shirt he’s making.

Decorah 3

The big thing that kept occupying my mind all weekend (and my friend got pretty sick of hearing about it too) was the fact that when I attended Luther College, which is also in Decorah, it was forty blankety-blank years ago. Forty years.

When I consider that fact, I’m not surprised by how much has changed. I’m amazed anything remains the same. The fact that some of the same buildings yet stand in Decorah, and that a few of them even serve the functions they did back in my time, seems somehow against nature. When I think that forty years have passed, I imagine that the very hills should have been brought low, and the river should have o’erflowed its banks and found a fresh course. Everybody should have flying cars, and we should all be taking our sustenance in tablet form.

Well, that last part did sort of come true. I do not lack for pills in my diet in this strange old world.

The Press

Can We Ever Believe Them Again?

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Ed Morrissey of Hot Air describes more of the coverage of the JournoList revelation, talking about the few reporters who stood up for honesty on occasion:

James Surowiecki offered a longer exposition on the same theme after Journolisters started debating whether the media should report on Fort Hood terrorist Nidal Hasan’s ties to radical Islamist terrorists. When Luke Mitchell of Harper’s argued that reporting on the ties would lead to something “alarmingly dangerous, such as the idea that there is a large conspiracy of Islamists at work in the United States,” Surowiecki reminded Mitchell and others of the entire purpose of journalism, emphasis mine:

“I find it bizarre that anyone would argue that an accurate description of what happened is somehow pointless,” Surowiecki said. “That is, that it’s not useful to offer up an accurate picture of Hasan’s actions because nothing obvious follows from it. We want, as much as possible, to have a clear picture of what’s actually going on in the world. Describing Hasan as a violent Islamist terrorist is much closer to the truth than describing him as a disturbed individual.”

One has to wonder why a journalist from Harper’s — and other publications — would need that reminder, especially about terrorism.

Uncategorized

A weekend in exotic Iowa

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I meant to share some pictures of my weekend in Decorah, Iowa, but I can’t seem to upload anything to Photobucket today. Not sure if it’s their fault or mine. I’ll try again tomorrow.

I rode down with one of the other Vikings, who has relatives in the area with whom we bunked. The festival actually starts on Thursday, but we only took Friday off, and arrived a little after noon. Viking Sam was there with his Viking boat, and a small contingent from the Skjaldborg group from Omaha.

Friday was an amazing day for me. It was stinking hot—tropical hot, southeast Asian hot and humid, as it so often is in Decorah at the end of July, most especially in the little hollow behind the Norwegian immigration museum where the Viking camp has been located for the last few years.

First of all a couple ladies, sisters as it turned out, came into the camp and talked about a Viking festival they’d attended in Norway. Turned out it was Vikingfestivalen Karmøy, which I’ve been trying to get to for the last decade or so. It further developed that they were descendents of Karmøy, home of my great-grandfather, and their family had come from a neighboring farm.

Later, when I went up to Main Street to scrounge up some lunch, a total stranger stopped me and asked, “Are you Lars Walker, the author?”

I expect that’s the only time that’ll ever happen to me in my life, so thanks, whoever you are, for making me feel like a big shot.

Finally, a couple from Illinois wandered into the camp. She was, as it turned out, the president of the organization devoted to saving and preserving The Viking, the replica Viking ship that was sailed from Norway to America for the Columbian Exposition in 1893. It’s been gradually allowed to deteriorate ever since.

As an added bonus, they’re Christians. He’s a retired employee of Moody Broadcasting.

Saturday was OK, the weather actually pleasant (following thunderstorms which soaked my stuff) but my normal insecurities returned, and—oddly—although traffic was heavier, I sold fewer books.

But you can’t have everything.

Thanks to Sam and Skjaldborg for making it possible for me to be there.

Authors, Blogs, Socials

Grading Websites

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Michael Hyatt has some interesting thoughts on author websites and points to a tool for grading your site. I thought BwB would rank fairly low, and I could see how we could improve our grade, but our website grade is 95. I wish that meant something. Maybe it means more than I know. Perhaps a more realistic score comes from the blog-specific grader, which gave us a 68. And the grader did not find our Twitter account, so I wonder if that put us down a notch.

Anyway, I’m a little encouraged by our 95 grade. That’s a solid A, and we have room to improve. Our traffic could be much better. Our images could have alt tags, and our pages meta tags. We could allow Sissel to guest blog. Anyway, I’m encouraged.

Bookselling, Publishing

Speaking of the End: Xclusive eBooks

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NEW YORK - MAY 06: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos holds the new Kindle DX, which he unveiled at a press conference at the Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts at Pace University May 6, 2009 in New York City. Bezos was joined by Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., publisher of The New York Times and chairman of The New York Times Company. The Kindle DX, a new purpose-built reading device, features a larger 9.7-inch electronic paper display, built-in PDF reader, auto-rotate capability, and storage for up to 3,500 books. Amazon has also partnered with select major newspapers to offer readers discounts on the DX in return for long-term subscriptions. The Kindle DX is available for pre-order starting today for $489.00 USD and will ship this summer. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light!” Publishers Random House and Macmillan are criticizing an eBook deal by one of America’s leading literary agents.

Home to 700 authors and estates, from Philip Roth to John Updike, Jorge Luis Borges and Saul Bellow, the Wylie Agency shocked the publishing world yesterday when it announced the launch of Odyssey Editions. The new initiative is selling ebook editions of modern classics, including Lolita, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Updike’s Rabbit tetralogy, exclusively via Amazon.com’s Kindle store, leaving conventional publishers out of the picture.

Publishers are citing active contracts on these works and Amazon’s dominance in the market as reasons against this deal. Agent Andrew Wylie doesn’t know how to respond, according to the NY Times.

Religion

I am neither a prophet, nor the son of a prophet

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The Angel with the Book. Bible Revelation 10:1-6. Wood engraving c1860

It was one of those rare, perfect moments in preaching.

While living in Florida some years back, due to limited choices I was attending a church of a different denomination than my own. It was a large, growing, dynamic congregation. The pastor announced a series of sermons on Revelation. But when he started preaching, it quickly became clear he was not teaching the Dispensational Premillenial (i.e., Left Behind) interpretation that’s so popular in our day. He was an amillennialist.

Many congregation members were not happy about this, and made their opinion known.

After a few weeks of controversy, the pastor got into the pulpit one Sunday morning and announced that, for the sake of peace, he was discontinuing the sermon series on the End Times. Instead, he would take up a topic that would trouble people less.

“I’m going to preach on Hell,” he said. Continue reading I am neither a prophet, nor the son of a prophet →

Goofing, Publishing

Everyone's Talking Minotaurs!

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A publishing executive trying to get ahead of the next big wave says minotaurs are the new vampires, according to this Onion News report. I’m thinking librarians are about ready for their due.