IPOD
RADIO
Yes, I'm still alive.
I have only this to say: I don't like the new guy editing Salon's audiofile feature. In a review of the new Nora Jones album (I like that they review stuff I'd never buy, because I'll never hear it either and I'd like to have some idea of what I'm missing from time to time) the guy credits the mood and feel of the album to Jones herself. A quick check of allmusic revealed that she's not the producer, so this reviewer suggesting that she, after 20 million records and a dozen grammies, is actually responsible for her music's one most remarkable asset--its Starbucksian mood--makes me wonder if he's ever set foot inside a recording studio, let alone glimpsed a recording contract.
And in his review of the new Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah album he drops a compound cliché by comparing the band to Talking Heads while noting that the latter is more "anxious and neurotic". Did he crib that from, what, People magazine?
This bellyaching should confirm what is already apparent: I'm not writing these days.
I have only this to say: I don't like the new guy editing Salon's audiofile feature. In a review of the new Nora Jones album (I like that they review stuff I'd never buy, because I'll never hear it either and I'd like to have some idea of what I'm missing from time to time) the guy credits the mood and feel of the album to Jones herself. A quick check of allmusic revealed that she's not the producer, so this reviewer suggesting that she, after 20 million records and a dozen grammies, is actually responsible for her music's one most remarkable asset--its Starbucksian mood--makes me wonder if he's ever set foot inside a recording studio, let alone glimpsed a recording contract.
And in his review of the new Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah album he drops a compound cliché by comparing the band to Talking Heads while noting that the latter is more "anxious and neurotic". Did he crib that from, what, People magazine?
This bellyaching should confirm what is already apparent: I'm not writing these days.
This would be of interest only to the small handful of New Yorkers on my friendlist but I can't figure out how to start friends-only threads and that suggests to me that it's just as hard to read them so I'm posting this here and hoping a week is long enough for everyone who'd be interested to stop by.
I'll be vacationing in NYC next week, Dec 2 - 9. If you'd like to take a couple of hours to familiarize a foreigner with some cherished corner of your fair city (even if it's the place you walk your dog or drink coffee/beer/flavoured lube) message me and we'll see if we can figure out a rendezvous. I've been before so I'm not anxious to see the sights. I'm not going back to that New York, but I'm ready to visit yours if you'll have me.
I'll be vacationing in NYC next week, Dec 2 - 9. If you'd like to take a couple of hours to familiarize a foreigner with some cherished corner of your fair city (even if it's the place you walk your dog or drink coffee/beer/flavoured lube) message me and we'll see if we can figure out a rendezvous. I've been before so I'm not anxious to see the sights. I'm not going back to that New York, but I'm ready to visit yours if you'll have me.
If you happen to see me and my new look on the street in the next couple weeks please don't think me rude if I don't say hi. I did not start wearing contacts; rather, the glasses I've worn daily for the past 5 1/2 years snapped at the elbow today when a dog at the park jumped at me. It's not the worst thing that's happened to those glasses--I was pretty sure they were done for a couple of years ago when I knocked them off my own face with an umbrella in the dark--but this gregarious dog's nose was the thing that finally finished them off.
Armani model 2003 black: 2001-2006
We had some good times...
The quest for the perfect frames begins now.
Armani model 2003 black: 2001-2006
We had some good times...
The quest for the perfect frames begins now.
Statistically speaking, no one buys books. If 10 times as many people read as buy books, then almost nobody reads books either.
A really successful book in Canada sells over 1000 copies per week. If it really catches on it sustains that on average for a year or more. I'm talking The Da Vinci Code here, Life of Pi, The Lovely Bones, A Million Little Pieces, all those books your mom reads and recommends to you because there's a closet-case in her bookclub that reminds her of you. I'm not talking about your run of the mill international award winner. Think bigger than the Booker, exponentially more popular than this year's celebrated Pulitzer winner. People who "don't read books" have read this book.
So 52 000 copies. This is huge. Most "big" books will do a fraction of that business in a normal year. These numbers are freakish. Now this book, adored by moms and bookclubs, soon to be a motion picture, perhaps to be added to high school reading lists if it can stay around for a while longer, at the end of its very successful year, no let's give it 2 years, over 100 000 copies--at the end of this extraordinary run, that's two rounds of Christmas lists and probably the beginnings of buzz about its fruition in light and sound by the most skilled team of producers, actors, screenwriters, marketers, and directors you can shake a golden statue at, it will have been purchased by less than one percent of the population. 0.35%. Fill a room with 300 people and one might have bought the book. Get a hundred and one might have read it.
I'm speaking about a blockbuster of a book here. A behemoth of publishing. Huge. Unparalleled success. By all accounts a scenario north of the "best-case" on every sales projection chart imaginable. Results so rare it's safe to say that statistically speaking, it never happens.
The funny thing is, in spite of all of these broken records and warped sales curves, from the perspective of real mass culture, McDonald's, Tom Hanks, Chrysler, Disney, ketchup, Nike, it never did happen even if it occasionally does.
Reader, you are a minority.
What brought this on? A report on the impact of literary awards on book sales published by Booknet. Books selling a handful of copies per week, literally 1 to 5 copies, are nominated for awards and their sales double. Titles I assume everyone has a passing familiarity with, that should be part of thousands of peoples' lives if only because every year thousands of young adults graduate with degrees in English Literature and surely a sizeable portion of them must continue reading after the grades are in, hobble along with sales figures not unlike what you'd expect for fabergé eggs or exotic European sports cars, and this despite a cost so miniscule that compared to similarly esoteric luxuries books appear to be free, not to mention absurdly wide availability enabled by retailers' right to send back to publishers all unsold copies.
I feel like David St. Hubbins at the grave of Elvis Presley, gaining some perspective.
A really successful book in Canada sells over 1000 copies per week. If it really catches on it sustains that on average for a year or more. I'm talking The Da Vinci Code here, Life of Pi, The Lovely Bones, A Million Little Pieces, all those books your mom reads and recommends to you because there's a closet-case in her bookclub that reminds her of you. I'm not talking about your run of the mill international award winner. Think bigger than the Booker, exponentially more popular than this year's celebrated Pulitzer winner. People who "don't read books" have read this book.
So 52 000 copies. This is huge. Most "big" books will do a fraction of that business in a normal year. These numbers are freakish. Now this book, adored by moms and bookclubs, soon to be a motion picture, perhaps to be added to high school reading lists if it can stay around for a while longer, at the end of its very successful year, no let's give it 2 years, over 100 000 copies--at the end of this extraordinary run, that's two rounds of Christmas lists and probably the beginnings of buzz about its fruition in light and sound by the most skilled team of producers, actors, screenwriters, marketers, and directors you can shake a golden statue at, it will have been purchased by less than one percent of the population. 0.35%. Fill a room with 300 people and one might have bought the book. Get a hundred and one might have read it.
I'm speaking about a blockbuster of a book here. A behemoth of publishing. Huge. Unparalleled success. By all accounts a scenario north of the "best-case" on every sales projection chart imaginable. Results so rare it's safe to say that statistically speaking, it never happens.
The funny thing is, in spite of all of these broken records and warped sales curves, from the perspective of real mass culture, McDonald's, Tom Hanks, Chrysler, Disney, ketchup, Nike, it never did happen even if it occasionally does.
Reader, you are a minority.
What brought this on? A report on the impact of literary awards on book sales published by Booknet. Books selling a handful of copies per week, literally 1 to 5 copies, are nominated for awards and their sales double. Titles I assume everyone has a passing familiarity with, that should be part of thousands of peoples' lives if only because every year thousands of young adults graduate with degrees in English Literature and surely a sizeable portion of them must continue reading after the grades are in, hobble along with sales figures not unlike what you'd expect for fabergé eggs or exotic European sports cars, and this despite a cost so miniscule that compared to similarly esoteric luxuries books appear to be free, not to mention absurdly wide availability enabled by retailers' right to send back to publishers all unsold copies.
I feel like David St. Hubbins at the grave of Elvis Presley, gaining some perspective.
We watched "Dogville" on Sunday and I'm still thinking about how much better it was than I thought it would be.
Today I ensured that many of the most recognizable classics of literature, new and old alike, including The Call of the Wild, The Age of Innocence, The Crying of Lot 49, The Sound and the Fury, Ulysses, All the Pretty Horses, Portrait of a Lady, Snow Falling on Cedars, Midnight's Children etc., will be stocked forevermore in every single one of the 88 Chapters/Indigo stores across the country. I had to play favourites where multiple editions existed so you might not find the version you were assigned for school, but you will easily find a copy of Penguin's edition of Heart of Darkness or the Modern Library paperback edition of The Scarlet Letter.
The actual work on my end consisted of just an hour spent eyeballing a spreadsheet and making some notes, but it was a defining moment in this stopgap post-grad thing that's turned out to be my career so far. Best 4-5 stretch on a Friday afternoon ever.
The actual work on my end consisted of just an hour spent eyeballing a spreadsheet and making some notes, but it was a defining moment in this stopgap post-grad thing that's turned out to be my career so far. Best 4-5 stretch on a Friday afternoon ever.
loading your activity feed...