Roy asks if you are a writer or an editor? “Are you more comfortable with writing, or editing? And what are some other ways we can describe our creative DNA?”
Another Spotlight Is On
Perhaps I missed the announcement. I just learned Andrew Breitbart has launched a new website, Big Government, edited by Mike Flynn. They are still talking about ACORN, of course. I hope that organization is thoroughly prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney General and A.G. in various states.
Built as a Private Retreat
The Bavarian King Ludwig II wanted a little place of his own to get away, so he remodeled this old place.
Apology (in haste)
Tonight, no proper post. Just an apology, because I don’t have time to post. Tomorrow I probably won’t write anything, because I’m leaving after work for the great reenactment of the Battle of Teutoberg Forest in New Ulm, which I told you about a few weeks back. That means that on top of my usual Thursday night bill paying, I have to wash clothes.
On top of that, I lost my computer connection for a while. When I finally gave up trying to re-set the modem I called Earthlink customer service, and precisely the same thing happened as happened the last two times I called (for the same reason, by the way). Before I could reach my faithful Indian helper, the connection came back, all on its own. This time it happened before I’d even gotten properly into voice mail. I believe they must have set things up so that an extra-strong signal gets transmitted to your modem when you call in, an automatic fix for the majority of callers. I call that a good thing, too. Saves time and stressful human interaction.
See you Monday.
It’s Coming
Cause nothin’ lasts forever . . . The End: By Matt Zoller Seitz and Richard Seitz
Book Titles, if they were written today
Originally it was called Walden, but had Thoreau written it today, he may have had to call it Camping with Myself: Two Years in American Tuscany. Matthew’s gospel might have been called 40 Days and a Mule: How One Man Quit His Job and Became the Boss. Hamlet? “Grieving: A 5 part study of Danish family dynamics.” Read other silly titles from today and feel free to make up some of your own. (via Frank Wilson)
“Perelandra turned my life upside down”
Jeanne Damoff writes about Lewis’ gift for telling the truth in fiction:
Lewis does a great job of portraying the woman as intelligent but entirely pure. She entertains the Un-man’s ideas because she’s never had a reason not to listen to anything being said to her. Though Ransom tries to counter all the lies, the woman has no reason to trust one of them over the other. She’s never encountered debate, never required discernment. But occasionally the Un-man pushes too far. When he invites her to “make a story” about living on the Fixed Island–to imagine herself doing the forbidden thing–she says, “If I try to make a story about living on the Fixed Island, I do not know how to make it about Maleldil. For if I make it that He has changed His command, that will not do. And if I make it that we are living there against His command, that is like making the sky all black and the water so that we cannot drink it and the air so that we cannot breathe it. But also, I do not see what is the pleasure of trying to make these things.”
She follows up this post with another called “The post I do not want to write.”
Oh, I do like this
By way of Patrick O’Hannigan’s The Paragraph Farmer, the funniest thing I encountered all day (and I heard a recording of Jimmy Carter calling opponents of government health care racists!).
Slate.com presents: The Interactive Dan Brown Sequel Generator!
Just plug in the city of your choice, and the sinister organization of your choice, and build your own blockbuster! Save money! Impress your friends! Write a bestseller of your own!
With Greater Demand Comes a Higher Price
D.J. Taylor asks why Dan Brown’s new book is so heavily discounted when thousands of people are eager to read it. Why not capitalize on all of the hype by asking readers to pay full or slightly-off-full price? The reason is that the hype and discount will get buyers into the store and maybe, just maybe, they will buy something else. How does that figure, Taylor asks. Won’t it drive the price for other books down?
I agree, and as thrifty buyer (more or less) I balk a paying $25 or more for a book. I remember seeing Robinson’s Gilead in the store after much praise, and I wanted to buy it. I was even a little excited. But I think was priced at $28.00, and it was much smaller than I had imagined. I passed it up.
But Brown’s fans are even less hinged on reality than I am, so make them pay $20 or more for the most anticipated novel of the year. Tell them it sells for $35, but they can get it for $22.50 if they give the secret word. They love stuff like that, and some will even pay $35.
Professionals Thinking Like Sheep
“We like to think of professionals as a cut above the man on the street in terms of their fiduciary responsibility and independence of thought, but sadly it’s often the opposite. Professionals tend to be on average very influenced by social trends and fashions, especially if those fashions influence their ability to continue practicing and be a respected member of the community.”
— Jeffrey Satinover, psychiatrist and author of Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth in World magazine interview last month. Dr. Santinover has come under personal attack for arguing that homosexuality is not genetic and can be overcome. In the interview, he says research articles cited as proof of homosexuality’s permanence completely contradict that assertion. He states, “An objective scientific debate would without question be overwhelmingly won by those who say that homosexuality is primarily environmentally determined.”