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…currently touring in Ireland submits its list of “bands and their corresponding authors.” Nirvana paired up with Wm. Burroughs is appropriate, since Cobain and Burroughs collaborated on a spoken-word CD single. Public Enemy/Langston Hughes and The Doors/Jack Kerouac also seem right, even though Kerouac was more of a jazz fan. Some of the other pairings, though, seem a bit odd, such as AC/DC with Julia Child and Tori Amos with Alice Walker.
In the first day it’s been available, by new electronic book Take Control of Digital TV has sold a whopping 141 copies.
It’s all thanks to the well-crafted niche marketing operations at TidBITS Electronic Publishing. And it just goes to show you: Create a product that fulfills a consumer need, showcase it effectively, and watch the proceeds roll in. I’ll have to remember this lesson the next time I decide to devote a half year of my life to an artsy literary endeavor.
My latest verbal opus is finally available, and it’s a beauty. It’s Take Control of Digital TV, a beezy read telling you just about everything you need to know to join the high-definition video age. The book’s sold exclusively online, through my ex-Seattlite friends at TidBITS Electronic Publishing. Go on their site, buy it, download it instantly, and get started on the road to greater televisual splendor in your home.
…instead of writing to this Web site:
Congrats to local boy Neal Stephenson and my personal idol David Foster Wallace for making Time‘s list of the “All-Time 100 Novels.” Still undeservedly missing: Edward Bulwar-Lytton, Jackie Collins.
…by yrs. truly in the SeaTimes today. It’s about The Great American Jobs Scam, a sprightly little collection of anecdotes about corporate welfare gone wild.
…in the Seattle Times by yrs. truly concerns My Life in CIA by Harry Mathews, a deft little novella that blurs the line between fact and fiction.
I should’ve come to Harry Potter Midnite Madness last night with a mom and kid, so I could take digipix of the scene whilst pretending to take digipix only of my own party.
The Potter events, at both Borders and B&N, were just what I’d expected and more. Both stores did their best to keep the way-past-their-bedtime girls n’ boys awake and entertained.
B&N had a children’s choral group, storytellers, and costumed employees cavorting with wands. They even gave away plastic Potter eyeglass frames. They also had an elaborate purchasing system, reminiscent of Southwest Airlines’ boarding routine. You reserved your place in “line” by pre-registering and getting a wristband. At midnight, as the colorfully-printed cardboard cases of books were wheeled out to behind the counter on hand trucks, a clerk called all-points bulletins on the PA for numbers 1-50, etc.
The Borders fete was simpler. No wristbands or numbers; simply a line. The line included at least two teens who sat on the floor and stared into laptop computers. There was a crafts table where kids could make and decorate their own conic construction-paper wizard hats. There was a Potter trivia quiz, and Harry and Hermione lookalike contests, all with Potter-merchandise prizes. And, thankfully for the way-past-their-own-bedtime parents, there were vats of coffee (which, alas, ran out around 11:35).
A clerk on the PA system counted down each of the last five minutes until midnight. As the hand trucks wheeled in the cases of books from a back storeroom, the clerk counted down the seconds, while other employees unpacked the books and stacked them to be plopped into customers’ anxious hands. Finally, at the stroke of midnight, the customers at the front of the line were prompted to stand up and single-file their way toward the sales counter, where all transactions were handled promptly and efficiently.
Along the walk back to B&N, the streets were still boistrous and joyous. When I’d first spied on B&N at 10:30, ACT and the Paramount had let out their audiences, who’d spilled onto Pine. This, my friends, is what big-city life is all about–happy upeat total strangers in crowds, milling about and sharing each other’s auras. After midnight, the scene was still busy, with diners/drinkers from Von’s and the Cheesecake Factory, lingering Cineplex Oedipus theatergoers, and Potter purchasers ranging from post-collegiate fantasy geeks to tots barely big enough to hold the weighty tome (which, at 650-some pages, is actually shorter than the previous sequel volume).
Overheard quotes: Outside B&N, a fantasy-dude in a beard and Utilikilt said he was “just happy to see all these kids waiting in line for A BOOK.” I tried to convince him that reading had not become an unpopular activity in general, as evinced by the size and prominence of big-box chains such as B&N. I don’t think I succeeded. Oh well–some people like to fantasize about themselves as the only magicians in a world of “muggles;” other people like to fantasize about themselves as the only literates in a world of hicks. As the Potter books prove, myth is a powerful thing.
On the escalator down from B&N’s small street-level storefront in Pacific Place, toward the basement-level bulk of the store, I was in front of two high-school dudes as anxious as anybody else to grab the novel. But once they caught their first glimpse of the wristbanded preteen hordes already down there, anticipation turned to frustration: “I just wanted the fucking book! I don’t give a fuck about fuckin’ little kids in costumes!” I didn’t stick around to see if the teens stuck around, but I’m sure they have their copies now.
It’s a quiet Saturday morning as I write this. Throughout the English-speaking world, happy parents are waking to stillness and serenity. No shrieking, no sibling-fighting, no running indoors, no video-game explosions. In millions of households, peace reigns today.
For some grownups, that alone qualifies as magic.
Our surprise added co-feature is The Genius Factory, the poignant/hilarious saga of a failed sperm bank.
…by yrs. truly covers Truth, a Brit academic’s guided tour through the ideological minefields of what we can or cannot ever really, truly know.
…already the subject of some sketchy “alternative guidebooks,” now have to face the “creative” advice contained in some guy’s “Dirt Cheap Guide to Portland.” (Sample entry: “Motorized vehicles are illegal in Portland. Perpetrators are stoned to death…”)
…I can heartily endorse: Guys Read, a literacy and reading-promo program aimed at the young male mind. (Yes, males do have minds!)
…my ongoing effort to get back to some of my dozen or so unfinished book ideas, I’m taking on yet another.
This would be a straightforward how-to title, for folks buying their first digital TV set. In the next few years, millions are expected to go through the same ordeal of tech-terminology and salesperson-doublespeak I recently faced (see a few entries below). If I can help just a few thousand consumers past this potential purchasing minefield, I can pay for my own recent DTV set.
Thus, I’m asking all loyal MISCmedia readers who’ve gone through this ordeal yourselves for advice on what should be in the book. As always, email your thoughts.
…sooner, but I’ve got another Seattle Times book review online now. It’s about Finding Betty Crocker, depicting a Minneapolis women’s-history expert’s search for the legend, and the reality, behind the brand name.
…Seattle Times book review today. It’s about Love’s Confusions, a delightful little academic treatise comparing how various thinkers have thought about desire and devotion over the centuries.
