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The 150-year old Peabody Hotel in Memphis calls itself the city's only "5 Duck Hotel." Everyday at 11 AM, the hotel's Duckmaster (a fulltime employee) rolls out a red carpet and the hotel's ducks march down the carpet to the hotel fountain in the center of the lobby. They swim in the fountain until 5 PM and then retire to their home on the hotel roof.
According to legend, it's been going on since the 1930s when the hotel general manager thought it would be funny to toss live ducks into the hotel fountain. When the original Duckmaster retired after nearly 50 years of service in 2003, the hotel conducted a worldwide search for his replacement. The winner was Daniel Fox, who now is responsible for training and care of the ducks. The ducks are rotated every 90 days as when they grow up, they develop an independent streak and start wandering around the lobby.
I found out about all this when my father was in Memphis recently on business and stayed at the Peabody specifically to see the Duck March. I love that guy.
Does anyone else find it strange that the Protcer & Gamble/Gillette merger is being framed as P&G (which makes Ivory Soap, Pringles Chips, Iams Cat Food and Hawaiian Punch among others) getting into the "Man" business? Sure we all know Gillette razors but they also make Oral B toothbrushes and Duracell batteries which, last I looked, were free of gender. If I were to rewrite the lead, it would say something like this...
Proctor & Gamble, one of the world's leading manufacturers of household goods, recently beset by declining stock price and eroding brand loyalty, has agreed to acquire Gillette, another giant of consumer hygiene products recently beset by declining stock price and eroding brand loyalty.
Isn't that the business story here? That consumer products is a mature industry, wracked by Wal-Mart, bulk purchasing, generic products and declining brand loyalty and that merger is a natural if panicked response to that (see the major record labels)? Leave gender out of it. It bespeaks a lack of imagination.
On my mind and in the reading queue this week. The "In The Evening" edition.
*I've been reading Soul City, a neat little fable by Toure' about a fictional municipality where the streets (Cornbread Boulevard, Satchmo Stret), buildings (Negritude Univeristy, Cool Street Library) and districts (Honeypot Hill) are all named after famous African-American icons. In Soul City, the mayor is a DJ whose mix pipes through speakers embedded under the sidewalks and the citizens dance and strut as they walk. I'm lovin' it.
*In honor of the 21st birthday of the Apple Macintosh, a video of the original mac's announcement and debut (January 24, 1984) at Apple's Cupertino HQ, has been circulating around. Steve Jobs is dressed like a member of the Billionaire Boys Club and the computer today looks laughably squat and boxy. Nonetheless, when the theme from Chariots of Fire begins and the crowd erupts into a standing ovation, I had tears in my eyes. Over a friggin' computer announcement. Damn that Jobs guy knows how to put on a show.
*Salon has a related article called "Hallelujah, the Mac is Back."
*The 2005 Bloggies have been written up in the Washington Post (via Large Hearted Boy).
*I get asked all the time by my clients how to appropriate pitch their books to bloggers. Now I've got somewhere to point them.
*The New PR is a resource for public relations professionals to discuss the changes blogs and nanomarkets are briging to their business. There's also talk of creating a wiki of editors, columnists and media contacts, which would remove such information from the proprietary clutches of companys like Bacon's and make it freely available on the web ala Wikipedia. Exciting stuff.
*Sogudi is a tiny add-on to the Safari Browser which allows you to abreviate searches on your favorite web sites. Sounds minor but has saved me a bundle of time. Or at least it feels that way (via 43 Folders).
*I spent the afternoon today purging my office and processing outstanding things to do according to the principles of David Allen's Getting Things Done. Though I only got part way done and there's a huge pile of files and action items on my floor, I feel oddly clensed. Must. Press. On.
*Coachella's lineup is announced tomorrow. I'm going to try to go this year. Wahoo!
I've committed myself to purging old junk from my office today so no Sunday Morning Shards unless I get to it this evening. Just wanted to let you know.
The Hebrew Hammer (2003): "If you can pull off a Jewish Shaft, please have the courage not to stop there."
Suzan took a really good picture of me last night while we were at dinner. Which if you know me is pretty damn near impossible. I even look rather dignified.
Now go outside and duck as pigs fly by.
Is good enough for my friend Wendy. She's got a book coming out in a few months and has taken it upon herself to invent a robot to do her signings. F*ckin hilairous.
TypePad allows me to assign multiple categories to posts. Faboo.
Also, there's a new version of Delicious Library. Anybody know how it's an improvement? Or if it is?
Also Redux: Ive been messing around with Feedmarker which claims to be Del.icio.us and RSS Readers combined. I don't quite get it yet but the creator was nice enough to respond to my questions. I'll keep you posted on that one.
Hey there. So I'm back from LA, well rested and ready to shake life awake again. I don't leave townn again until March when I head to New York to meet my publicist, then down to Austin for South by Southwest then up to Virginia to speak at the Virginia Festival of the Book then home to San Francisco to release my sanity from its lockbox.
Worth mentioning: SXSW Baby, the conference's community-driven weblog, is back up and running thanks to the mad skillz of Brad Graham. There you'll find everything you need to know about attending and meeting up with your favorite geeks.
Also worth mentioning: I'm not much of a shopper but I had to make one purchase down south. The 20th Anniversary of Live Aid is this summer and in anticipation, the whole damn concert, over ten hours worth of music plus the original Band Aid and USA for Africa videos, has been released on DVD. I bought it immediately. Because nothing stops me and 80s nostalgia from gettin' down.
Brief round-up from my goings on here in the Southland:
*The Book Promotion 101 Workshop went beautifully: 8 smart, committed authors, great speakers and a ton of enthusiasm and ideas being launched into the air. My speech was at the end of the day so I had to cut it a little short. But the consensus seemed to be that I hit all the major topics and the author left feeling like online identity and publicity is an essential component of the publicity process. I may even be consulting with some of them in the future.
Mad props to Bella Stander who puts the whole thing together. I'd say if you're an author with a book coming out, it's damn near indispensible.
*Had a great time at a salon hosted by Lynn Isenberg, whom I met at Book Expo America last year. She had me delivering a talk called "The 21st Century Audience" where I covered topics like blogs, rss readers, and other ways to release media from its box. Exchanged vicious ideas and enthusiasm with guests from Rhino Films, "humble strategic advisor" Carl Bressler and director Mark Travis. Your average really really smart people in one room chucking the crap around. Which is my absolute favorite kind of evening.
*Brunch with Mark Sarvas of The Elegant Variation on Sunday was nonstop book chatter, business and gossip for 2 hours. I felt like cat let loose in a yarn store.
*Visited with my younger brother Dan and my sister-in-law Beth (who had me over for Shabbat dinner), cousins Rhoda, Riley and Lawrence (who just got a job at CAA doing music contracts and turned me on to the Kings of Leon) who all ate together at Pace' in Laurel Canyon. Laurel Canyon is the Haight-Ashbury of Los Angeles, with trees and hills instead of Victorians. It's still 1968 in both places though.
Learned what the word "Prolix" meant.
Not bad for three days. I'm home tomorrow.
So I'm in L.A. And I'm so tired I can barely see. I need to go to bed. I have two talks to give tomorrow and I don't feel ready. Not at all.
But I had to write something, just a little something. Because I miss it. I feel emptier when I don't do it, feel like I've missed a meal or not stretched a muscle that groans from tightness and atrophy.
So this is my little something: I just wanted to say hello and that I wish I had more time to talk to you. I'mc going to try and carve some out before I leave on Tuesday but I can't promise anything. Not with the way it's looking. So for now, let me just say that I miss you all a lot and I've got a lot I want to share. I hope you'll hang loose for a few days until I can come back.
I'm visiting my parents in Florida, jetting home to celebrate 4 years with Suzan and then jetting off again to give a talk in L.A. I'm home on the 25th. Expect posts to be a bit sparse until then.
I'm not doing 'Sunday Morning Shards' this week. I've got something else I want to talk about.
Come tomorrow, my friend Roman Mars, creator of the Invisible Ink radio show that I've been honored to contribute to, will board a plane bound for Chicago, where he'll be stepping into a new job as a producer at WBEZ public radio. His wife Mae and their soon-to-be first child joins them next month.
This means, among other things, that Invisible Ink is no more. The show will end in March and we will all be the worse for it. I highly recommend giving them a listen. It's some of the most consistently entertaining, compelling radio I've ever heard.
Beyond that though, Suzan and I are losing two of our closest friends to the Windy City. We agreed to host a going away party for them last night. Come 2 AM, Roman and Mae were still there, talking and laughing through yawns. He's been working 12 hours a day before he leaves. She's 4 months pregnant. They still shut the place down, as they have done just about everytime we've had them over in the last two years.
Suzan and I have cried a bunch this weekend. Not only will we miss Roman and Mae terribly but we are both realizing as time goes on, that it is very hard for our friends to stay in San Francisco. It's simply too expensive a place for many to plan for for a house, for children, for something resembling a financial future. That combined with a lopsided economy, still gasping for recovery, keeps them from thinking of this place as anything other than temporary.
Which wouldn't matter if we thought of it the same way. But we don't. We love this city almost as much as we love each other. Unlike any place we've lived before, it both supports and challenges us, urges us to be better and yet always welcomes us back. We've committed ourselves to staying as long as we can, beyond that if needs be. We can't imagine living anywhere else.
We also recognize that this is a luxury. I own my home. Suzan is a student on full scholarship. We are not living under the same conditions as most of our friends. Over half of the friends I had when I moved here 5 years ago are gone. Suzan's older sister has lived her nearly 20 years and is on her 4th complete set of friends. 4. That's brand new friends every 5 years. Looks like I'm right on target.
We don't begrudge Roman and Mae or anyone who decides to leave for a moment. We only want what is best for them, their careers, family, their lives. The bright side is that those who stay here have made the choice to live here, despite hardship, accepting the sacrifice. We have that powerful thing in common with them. The ones who live set up their radio towers elsewhere and beam the signal back to California. It means I have friends all over the world now. I could do worse.
Still, I have trouble explaining how hard this is, to look at your friends, the people who matter most to you and to not be able to take for granted that they will always be there, that their immediate presence in your life is a shifting fragile thing like a handful of beads. There's nothing you can do about it. It breaks your heart.
So we're both very sad. I'm home alone now (Suzan's at work), trying to see this sort sort of learning experience. I'm trying to get to the place where I can appreciate the people in my live even more because I don't know how long I will have with any of them.
I'm not there yet. Soon I hope.
ArtsJournal Publishing featured no less than four articles this week about the creekier institutions of the business and how they plan to modernize themselves for the 21st century. The New York Times reported that the Book of the Month Club has been losing members steadily over the last decade and is taking steps to compete in the age of Amazon. Earlier they reported extensively on Sara Nelson appointment to editor-in-chief at Publisher's Weekly (locked behind a members only firewall so I'm passing on this other link) , which is largely being seen as an attempt to bring the magazine into the age of the book blog, the email newsletter and the rss feed. Finally two pieces, one hilarious, one narrow-minded, discuss both the economics of publishing and how that has changed the author's role from artist to pitchman, to guerilla marketer, to a hybrid of all three.
I'm taking this examples as evidence that the publishing business is finally starting to wake up. Max Perkins and his three martini lunches are dead. When Thomas Pynchon and JD Salinger pass on, the myth of the reclusive author will go with them. The idea that technology and books can't mix tastefully is seeming stupid rather than charming. Concerted, smart, professional marketing is beginning to seem like an everyday necessity rather than an occassional stroke of genius. Beating beneath it all is the very real notion that books are just one offering at the vast cultural salad bar now available to everyone. In order to compete, they can't assume they are special or even unique. They have to prove it by showing their reader why the reader should bother, when so many choices abound. Assuming they should is now a fatal mistake, not just a harmless shot of snobbery.
It's a very tall order but one I think everyone in our business will be better for in the long run. It's the reader's world now. Illustrating why we matter will keep us honest. Or as least keep us from assuming it has been and thus will always be.
Profile of Jessa Crisipin, founder of Book Slut. She used to hang out at the Central Booking forums. I knew her when.
I've been a fan Newfoundland-based Great Big Sea since my friend Ken introduced me to them in college. Since celtic rock fans under 50 are hard to find, imagine my delight when my friend Tara not only confessed a similar love for the Canadian-quintet but gave me their latest album Something Beautiful for Channukah. Although it's not a huge departure from their normal celtic-infused pop, bittersweat songcraft and killer harmonies, the album is 13 strong dependable tracks. My favorite though is Summer, a gorgeous acoustic ballad as gentle as a sigh and as pure as a ray of sun. Listen once and tell me if you don't feeling like walking barefoot in the grass then stretching long in salute of the sky.
Silver City (2004): Thanks to Smokler-sponsored bill #SSB14278, it is now illegal to advertise a movie about political corruption with the tagline "Vote Early. Vote Often."
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch
Backstory: I caught the trailer to Hotel Rwanda and decided that I had to see it. I also decided I wanted to know a bit more about the Rwandan genocide before I saw it. I did a search on "Rwandan Genocide" and came up with this book. I had heard about it on This American Life many moons ago.
Notes: As a reporter, Gourevitch is second to none. Voluminously researched, expertly focused on people rather than politics, his book hasso much good material that 350 pages barely seems to contain it. Gourevitch also chooses to finish up the events of the genocide by around page 100 and leaves the remainder to explore the racist ineptitude of the international community's response. It's a wise decision which seems to argue that horror, now matter how black, is by definition, brief. What truly tests our humanity are our responses in the aftermath.
Sadly though, this isn't where book shines. Gourevitch's look at the power plays between the UN, neighboring countries and a still bitterly divided Rwanda, is well-reported to a fault. Meticulous instead of passionate, careful rather than headstrong, it reads like a well-compiled case study instead of the indictment he had build up over the earlier chapters. The lack of vigor would have also been helped had acknowledged the complexity of the situation though a single cogent arguement (i.e. The international community messed up big time) and then built out from there. Instead he pauses akwardly for macro views that sometimes work but often fall flat.
Verdict: A great learning experience rather that a great read. There isn't a book out there that will teach you more about Rwanda and the abject failings of the West than this one. But Gourevitch runs out of gas before he delivers on the promise of first 100 pages. Lord, would this book benefit from a second edition. Ten years after perhaps?
Wierd. I'm watching the Critic's Choice Awards on the west coast three hours after Dave has blogged them on the east coast. I've also got them delayed on TiVo which I think has seized the space time continuum all together and landed me in this neverworld where the present has already happened and I'm delaying the past by pressing pause.
Huh?
Anyway, here are a few of my observations:
1) Eric McCormack can wear the hell out of a silk tie but can't host a show to save his life. Bring on Chris Rock! He'll be the only thing that saves the Oscars.
2) Since AFI decided to give 46 year old Tom Hanks a "lifetime" achievement award, I have ignored anything going by this name. Therefore Tom Cruise getting one is off my radar too. He'll be 43 in July. That's "a lifetime?"
3) Regina King got to present an award! Someone give this woman a ton of money, a few awards and my phone number. I can't believe I left her off the "When All Else Fails" list of actors who made a movie better simply their presence in it. I point you to Jerry Maguire, How Stella Got Her Grove Back and Enemy of the State to name only a few. Man, I love me some Regina King.
4) Andy Garcia presented Best Picture? Gravitas sure but how about a little pizazz?
5) I'd be fine with Sideways winning the Best Picture Oscar if this awards ceremy is any indication of future events. Although I'd really like Martin Scorcese to win a Best Director nod like he did this time. Ain't he due?
On my mind and in the reading queue this week. The "Back to Work" Edition:
MacWorld is this week in San Francisco. I have never been able to filch a pass. I will however be attending the 43 Folders Meetup on Wed. in hopes of filching a Moleskine notebook or an OS X productivity tip.
The simply awesome play The Bright River begins the last two weeks of its run at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts in Berkeley. Point blank: You cannot afford to miss this play. So don't. It's that good.
Does anyone know how to transfer contact information from a Palm Desktop to the Mac OS X Address Book? I tried to use the Missing Sync program by Markspace and got nowhere.
Great Business Week cover story "The Future of the New York Times."
A Lazyweb request: Some needs to design Del.ici.ous for RSS feeds. In other words, lets say I want to know what feeds my favorite weblogger subscribes to. Would it be cool if a widget would allow them to place their feed list, blogroll style, on their blog and then allow a passerby to drag and drop the feed links into their own rss reader?
Lots of neat people have died in the past week or so. Shirley Chisholm, Will Eisner and Danny Sugarman.
Digital Web profiles the Top 10 Web Companies to Work For.
The AMPEX cassette tape company has filed for bankrupcy and closed down its last factory. There are no other cassette tape factories in the U.S (via Scott Andrew).
The Original Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive is a giant database of tracks and their rhymes.
Musicplasma lets you type in your favorite artist and presents a dots-and-nodes diagram of other artists that sound similar to them (via Del.icio.us/popular).
Who knew rooting out bad grammar could be so much fun?
I finished reading two books this morning. Which felt great.
My cousin was visiting last week and asked "Now that your book is done, what are you writing?" I got very nervous when he asked me because I didn't have a ready answer. I hadn't started on the proposal for my second book and no editor was holding a deadline over my head. What was I writing? You have to say something. Or at least I felt like I had to say something. That is what I tell my clients and what I say when I speak to groups. Always be writing something. It's the only way to keep yourself honest.
In that spirit and because I promised in the last 'Shards' that my writing here would more closely tie to my writing in the real world. I'm going to use WTS to keep tabs on writing ideas and projects. By posting about them every so often, I'm hoping it'll keep me straight about working my way through them.
What I'm Writing
1) An essay called "Why I Don't See Live Music"
Where it could go: San Francisco Bay Guardian, SF Weekly.
2) A reported piece on MP3 blogs
Where it could go: Paste Magazine
3) A reported piece on author blogs
Location: Poets & Writers
4) An essay on unconventional book groups
Location: Pages Magazine
5) A series on the history of the streets of San Francisco
Location: SFist has asked for it. I need to do it.
6) Another 'Light' or 'Tool' piece for The Believer
Location: The Believer
7) Book and movie reviews:
Location: San Francisco Chronicle, SF Station.
I know it's an ambitious list. Trying to aim big.
Because way back in the long forgotten days of 2002, I approached a young designer who was also a friend named Mena Trott to spice things up here at Where There's Smoke. She was smart, talented and I liked her aesthetic. At the time, she and her husband Ben had designed and were marketing a weblog tool named MovableType. I had agreed to shift over to it from Blogger as part of Mena giving me a serious bargain on the design. We settled on that and the Gone with the Wind Deluxe Box Set as payment.
I read today that Mena and Ben and the other 70 employees on three continents in their company Six Apart have acquired LiveJournal, the third largest weblog tool provider. In this space, it's the equivalent of Ford buying Chrysler.
Someday in the not to distant future, I predict a large media company like Yahoo or Apple will swoop in and buy Six Apart. Ben and Mena will be millionaires, then march off, design something else, and have the same kind of success. I'm still amazed that, when I met with Mena at their apartment to talk about the design, Six Apart was being run out of their spare bedroom.
So I can't move things around here too much. The design is like a historical relic of the weblog's teenage years. It's got one of the giants of the medium's finger prints all over it.
Suzan and I were fortunate enough to see an advanced screening (yay Balboa mailing list!) of In Good Company, an intelligent, sensitive comedy about life prioirities, particularly for men. Both of were sold after seeing the trailer but when the opportunity came to see it early and for free, we jumped. Afterwards, we determined we would pay to see it again.
We also talked afterwards about how few movies exist that ask, with some thoughtfulness, what it means to be a man, what your values and priorities are, and what emotions are yoked to those issues. So I'm asking you...Can you name any?
Shirley Chisholm, a seven-term Congresswoman from Brooklyn, New York, the first black woman to both serve in Congress and run for president, died on Monday from a stroke. She was 80. Congresswoman Chisholm had been retired since 1991 and living what she called "a quiet life" in Florida.
A former Brooklyn schoolteacher, Congresswoman Chisholm was elected to the New York State Legislature in 1964 and the House of Representatives in 1968. Running for the Democratic nomination for President in 1972 under the slogan "unbought and unbossed", Congresswoman Chisholm was an opponent of the war in Vietnam and a vocal supporter of woman and gay rights. As a legislator, she was a key player in the passage of minimum wage law. Bucking the silly orthodoxy of the Democratic party, she visited noted segregationist George Wallace in the hospital after his attempted assasination.
I was fortunate enough to see Shola Lynch's excellent documentary Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbossed at the San Francisco International Film Festival and wasn't aware of Congresswoman Chisholm. She struck me as a person of integrity, courage and patriotism, a rarity in politics today. She served 7 terms in Congress, was a role model to politicians like Barbara Lee (who worked on her president campeign as a college student), Carol Mosley Braun and Barak Obama. She was a gifted orator in the tradition old fashioned street-corner soapboxing. I would love to see a CD of her speeches released.
Although I only knew about Congresswoman Chisholm for a short time, I will miss her. I am moved beyond measure that politicians like Chisholm, like Senator Barbara Jordan who have every demographic reason in the world to believe that the American political process is closed to them have not only claimed their place but have done so with more pride and integrity than those who wear their patriotism on their sleeve. In Congresswoman Chisholm's own words...
"I ran for the Presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo...
The next time a woman runs, or a black, a Jew or anyone from a group that the country is ‘not ready’ to elect to its highest office, I believe that he or she will be taken seriously from the start...
I ran because somebody had to do it first."
On my mind and in the reading queue this week. The "Happy New Year" edition
Hey look, it's 2005. Here's what I've been thinking about...
*The death toll from the tsunami which has reached 150,000. Officials have pretty much given up hope of finding any more survivors. President Bush has enlisted former presidents Clinton, Carter and Bush Sr. to lead fundraising efforts. Here's a list of charities that could use your support.
*A round-up of 2004's major trends in journalism. Courtesy of the Online Journalism Review.
*Cluesome. Played at a New Years Day game party (hosted by my friend, Austin). Wonderfully fun yet sadly requires like 18 friends to play properly.
*My favorite 80s band Glass Tiger is apparently still touring and playing in their native Canada. They just released a DVD called "No Turning Back" which I must purchase immediately.
*'39. An against-type little 19th century-sounding folk number on Queen's "Night at the Opera." It's the first track on my Ipod, alphabetical and all.
*The Hebrew Hammer. Sounds like my kinda movie. Netflix has got it on the way.
Re: Josh's post on writing, I couldn't agree more. It's one thing to stay informed, to be in a continuous state of learning. But a raging river of input with little output leads to a soggy mind, a waterlogged consciousness. It's something I've felt for a long time but couldn't vocalize.
Which means that I need to be doing more non-blog writing. Apologies to the dozen or so of you who read Where's There's Smoke regularly. But I think I've been using my jotterings here as rationale for not expending more effort on more substaintial pieces for publication.
So as my single concrete New year's Resolution, I plan to write a little each day, not just on my blog but with an eye towards something bigger.
Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times edited by Kevin Smokler
