Nicholas Carr's 'The Shallows' (2011): Take I

Nicholas Carr's The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011 paperback edition).

Well, how's your noodle holding up inside the electronic envelope?  Has the internet made mush of your attention span and ability to think deeply?

These are essential questions raised and explored by Nicholas Carr, using Marshall McLuhan as a jumping off point. 

"The Net has become my all-purpose medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind," Carr notes on page 6.

He cites a study that observed how many people don't read in a traditional way, but rather "skip around, scanning for pertinent information of interest" (page 9).

This is how I seek out "news" and "updates," certainly, though I read books, longer articles and poetry in basically the same "left to right" manner that I've done since childhood, regardless of format (that is, I do this with both printed materials and digitized etexts). Also, I make sure to take plenty of time away from "the madding crowd" -- online or in my actual 3D physical space -- for deep reading, contemplation, writing, connecting, thinking, or zoning out. 

How about you?  How about people born within the digital age?

To be continued: No sense in making this post any longer or heavier: online readers tend to devote only about ten seconds per webpage and read (or skim) only about 18% of content, missing or ignoring 82% of the rest (page 135). Still, thanks for reading even that much.

Today's Rune: Signals. 

Give the People What They Want

Every once in a while I'll take a glance at the analytics for web trafficking re: this site and its spinoff. Mostly to see what draws the most people in with one easy shot.

Following is a list of some of the keywords that elicit interest en masse.

But before I forget, while doing this I came across the basic fact that Google has national versions of its search engine, or maybe they're language versions, or both. Examples:

For Spain, try www.google.es
France: www.google.fr
Russia: www.google.ru

Along the way, I checked out YouTube via Russian Google and what came up right off the bat? The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, the Rolling Stones, Iggy Pop, Marianne Faithfull, Debbie Harry and Jean-Luc Godard. Seems they've got my number. It's like that David Lynch movie, Lost Highway. "Call me -- I'm already there." Yes, indeed, Blondie, I will. "Call me. Dial your number. Go ahead."

Here are the biggest all-time attractions of "Erik's Choice" since its inception in 2006, but not in specific ranking order:

Angelina Jolie as Kleopatra, aka Angelina Jolie as Cleopatra: Kleopatra VII was Greek/Macedonian, and Angelina Jolie has already played the Greek Olympia, mother of Alexander the Great, the person most responsible for Greek/Macedonian rule in Egypt via Alexandria (which he founded) and the Ptolemaic dynasty. Kleopatra died only about thirty years before the "Christian Era" or "Common Era" began -- lots of Greek culture at the time, and lots of overlap. (An accompanying picture didn't exactly hinder coming across this on the internet).

Zooey Deschanel (sometimes "as Janis Joplin").

Charlotte Rampling.

Anna Karina.

Amy Winehouse.

Meg White.

Chan Parker. 

So there you go, isn't that interesting? 

Moral 1: If you want to spike your hits, give the [bulk of interested] People What They Want! 

Moral 2: Write about topics you like that are also of interest to a mass audience.

Moral 3: Or, focus on topics so specific that your site serves as a global magnet for that topic.

Today's Rune: Signals.    

Social

The way people communicate is quite varied. If I wanted to be, I could be live-connected to scores of people. But I prefer some buffer, some boundary most of the time. Live chat to me is like someone getting too near to my person, like some cross-cultural faux pas. A little distance is a good thing -- time to think and respond better. 

What works for me on a regular basis:

Mobile phone/cell phone with caller ID. Yes.
In person, face-to-face: Yes.
Texting (sporadically):  Yes.
Mail (snail mail, physical mail): Yes.
Other physical forms of shipping: Yes.
Email/courriel/Le courrier électronique: Yes.
Blogs/Web logs with interactive comments: Yes.
Facebook: Yes -- with voluntary limits on tagging and personal/family information.
Twitter: Ditto.
Linkedin. Ditto. 
Digital photography. Yes. 

Sporadic-to-rarely:

Landline/fixed line telephone (at work or when visiting only).
Instant Messaging (IM).
Courier dispatches.
Fax/Facsimile/télécopieur/téléfax.

Have used in the past but not in the 21st century:

Overseas cable message.
Telegram.

How about you? 

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.  

Gone Mobile

In the late 1990s they began to percolate around the globe. I first saw the change in Barcelona -- people gabbing on the fly. By 2001, American community college students were flocking outside to chat up little teapot tempests in between classes. Since then, students of all ages have been grasping on to mobile phones like good luck charms -- everywhere. Now we all are, or damned near almost all.

This techno-cultural fact duly noted, how have we changed in our thinking and attitudes, our strategy and our tactics in the past ten or twelve years? And as we wing forward, what's there waiting for us up ahead? 

Mobile phone, cellphone, le téléphone mobile. Spy cameras for everyone!

Holograph, hologram, o recording angel where art thou?

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.
Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds,
many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea,
fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home.*














*The Odyssey, Robert Fagles translation, 1996.

"Almost everyone uses a cellphone, but it is still an object of mystery." -- Guy Klemens, The Cellphone (2010).

Gone mobile, what message do ye bring to your own future?  

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.

Smoking Typewriters

Three books recently acquired by library "X" weave together alternative takes on reality. First up is John McMillan's Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America (Oxford University Press, 2011). As per usual these days with nonfiction books, the full title pretty much sums up the contents. In between the covers (unless you're reading a phantom electronic version -- in which case forget the covers), you get more details.

Mimeograph machines and typewriters. Who reading this has had firsthand experience with these artifacts? I remember teachers and various nonprofits relying on mimeographs to spread the word about just about anything. Mimeographs had their own scent when freshly printed, so you knew when they were coming. And clacking typewriters did what keyboards do now, in a more mechanical way. I still love the sound of "smoking typewriters" (Allen Ginsberg's words, 1981). The idea of smoking typewriters retains currency: think of the Twitter and Facebook revolutions, how contemporary social media work, and you get the idea. The difference is, underground publications were then more likely to be distributed by hand, and were physical artifacts rather than virtual ones.

When I worked at Duke University's Perkins Library in the 1980s, I used to skim through microfilmed collections of these over in the periodicals department, including Thomas Merton's rag-zine, Monk's Pond; at the same time, I was helping put out Dog Food, another underground project; in Philadelphia in the 1990s, I also worked on Quo Modo, a slightly more polished "sporadical." Fun work, and engaging. This blog takes pretty much the same kind of aim at things.

Today's Rune: Gateway. 

The Man in Black Revisited

Here's another selection culled from the first five years of "Erik's Choice." This one was first posted on June 8, 2006:

Johnny Cash (2/26/1932-9/12/2003) was a man of faith, an American, a country and pop icon, a tortured but compassionate singer and songwriter. He sang songs -- partly originals, partly written by others -- that cover the range of human behavior and emotions. I’ve always thought that he was a close spiritual cousin to bluesman John Lee Hooker, coming from another world and yet essentially coming from the same world. And while I admire Johnny’s later work, the resurrection as it were, I can’t help but go back to the ones that grabbed me as a kid, songs like “Folsom Prison Blues,” “I Walk the Line,” “Ring of Fire,” and even “Hey Porter.” Not to mention a zillion others. My parents used to play Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison (1968) quite a bit, and I loved (and still love) every minute of it.

When I was in college, I read a lot of Albert Camus and Fyodor Dostoevsky, and have always wondered whether anyone else has drawn direct comparisons between a song like “Folsom Prison Blues” by the Man in Black and the short novel The Stranger (L'Etranger, 1942) by Camus or Crime and Punishment (1866) by Dostoevsky. It always seemed clear to me, anyway.

But I shot in man in Reno
Just to watch him die. . .

Some people find this chilling, but I find it merely honest – seriously, there but for the grace of God go I or any of us. I’ve certainly had fantasies of blowing away people I detest, and in the fantasies, at least, I’m more than happy to watch them die. Think of Ruth’s fantasies if you’re a Six Feet Under fan, taking out each of her exes, one at a time, with a happy little smile; or any other fantasy sequence like it. Johnny Cash never killed anyone, yet he could obviously understand and empathize with the impulse. So, too, Dostoevsky with the set up of Crime and Punishment, and with even closer alignment, Meursault’s killing of an Arab in Algeria also just to watch him die in Camus' The Stranger.

But I know I had it comin',
I know I can't be free,
But those people keep a-movin',
And that's what tortures me.

Meursault understands that through his exercise of freedom, he’s committed an act that is condemned by the laws of society, and thereby has lost his freedom. He only fully understands the idea of freedom when he is in prison, condemned to death.

In all truth, perhaps the only thing holding back mayhem is civil society, the existence of a legal system and prisons, and religious codes that proscribe killing, leading to haunting feelings of guilt and remorse for those who believe yet kill anyway.

Existentialists, of course, often wore black, as did nihilists, Beatniks, and punks. Johnny gave several reasons for his donning of the black, including that it made choosing outfits a lot simpler. I can go with any and all of his reasons. I also love black, as anyone who knows me well can attest. It may seem a bit funereal sometimes (like on a sunny afternoon), but so what? It’s a tragic world and we should always be thinking of the dead: let the dead bury the dead. Camus won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 while still in his forties, but died in a car accident three years later. Dostoevsky was lined up to be shot in a firing squad in Russia, then given a last-miniute reprieve. Imagine what that does to a person – talk about post-traumatic
stress. . .

If you haven’t picked it up by now, I’m a strong advocate for mixing up genres and art forms, blending, and thinking beyond categories and ratings that have been, when you think about, handed down to us by God knows who. The canon and all – better a loaded cannon than a load of canon. Which is one of the things I love about the internet – it’s a free for all!

p.s. The Cure’s “Killing an Arab” is a short single cover of The Stranger. And since everybody in our immediate Michigan blogland seems to adore Johnny Cash, too, I’ll put in an additional vote for “Cocaine Blues,” as well. Among a zillion others.

I hear that train a'comin' . . . . .

Today's Rune: Joy.

Erik's Choice: Five Years in the Lifeworld

"We've got five years, what a surprise. . ." -- David Bowie (1971/1972).

When I began this blog -- inspired primarily by former co-worker Trent Vanegas -- I had no five year plan, and certainly would have been surprised to know then that I'd still be posting daily five years down the road.

Thanks to everyone who reads this (or reads anything) regularly, comments when they can, or checks in sporadically -- it's all appreciated.  We lived through chaotic times in 2006 and we are living through even more chaotic times in 2011. Like it or not, here we are still in the lifeworld and things keep shifting and somehow, I keep enjoying life to bits.

RIP to the many gone down in the past five years, especially those truly missed. A special shout out also to Bob Sheldon, another true inspiration, who died twenty years ago tomorrow in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, at the very beginning of the ground phase of the (First) Gulf War.   

To the living and the dead, keep on keeping on and see you when I see you . . . Cheers!

Jumble sales are organized and pamphlets have been posted
Even after closing time there's still parties to be hosted
You can be active with the activists
Or sleeping with the sleepers
While you're waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
One leap forwards, two leaps back
Will politics get me the sack?
Well, here comes the future and you can't run from it
If you've got a blacklist I want to be on it
Well, it's a mighty long way down rock 'n roll
From Top of the Pops to drawing the dole
If no one out there understands
You start your own revolution and cut out the middleman
In a perfect world we'd all sing in tune
But this is reality so give me some room
So join the struggle while you may
The Revolution is just a t-shirt away


-- From Billy Bragg's "Waiting for the Great Leap Forward" (1988).



Today's Rune: Partnership.

People Power

The nonviolent (or relatively nonviolent) social revolution in Egypt is unfolding not like a typical coup d'état initiated by one set of elites to replace another. This is more like the People Power Philippines Revolution (1986), but aided and accelerated by cutting edge satellite media coverage, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, wireless technology and all that jazz. Most of the violence seems to have been initiated by the forces of the status quo, and mostly seems to have backfired. 

Today's buzzing synergies are palpable and much more proactive and pragmatic than, say, during the Deepwater Horizon disaster just last year.  They seem to be of a higher and more concentrated human energy level.

What proceeds next we can only guess, but rippling and mirroring effects are already evident.  Glad to be alive to see these developments. No status quo is assured, and everything changes.  (Tags tracked by Google Ngram Reader above: tipping point, synergy, coup d'état, synchronicity).   

Today's Rune: Journey.    

A Tale of Two Times

Record sales* in the USA:
1927 = circa 104 million
1932 = 6 million
94% drop in five years, or near total collapse.

Population of USA in 1930 = circa 123 million (56% urban) 
Population of the USA in 2010 = circa 310 million (81% urban)

Great Depression: Unemployment Peak, 1932 = circa 23.6% (one in four people and change)
Great Recession: Unemployment Peak, 2010 = circa 10%
(one in ten people)

“During late 2008 and early 2009, Facebook doubled in size, growing from 100 million registered users to 200 million in eight months, and topped the 400 million mark in early 2010 . . .  Twitter’s popularity also skyrocked during 2009, jumping from 4.5 million visitors to more than 20 million.”**

1930 Prices:

Record (single, two sides) $0.75

Gas/petrol  $0.10/gallon

Bread $0.09/loaf

Rent $15.00/month

2010 Prices:

Download (single track) $0.99

Gas/petrol  $2.73/gallon

Bread $2.49/loaf

Rent $780.00/month

Whereas record sales collapsed early during The Great Depression, social media soared during The Great Recession. Why the difference?  Probably cost and ease -- given internet access at home or via a public library or workplace, social media in 2010 essentially costs nothing to utilize.  In 1930, one could buy a record, eight loaves of bread or seven and one-half gallons of gasoline for the same chunk of change.  Plus, social media can supplement or even replace telephonic communication.

*Citing Ronald Foreman's 1968 doctoral dissertation: Daphne Duval Harrison, Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the 1920s (Rutgers, 1988), p. 61.

**Deanna Zandt, “Social Media: Peril + Promise” In These Times (Vol. 34, No. 8) August 2010, pages 28-29.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.  

The "Digital Swarm" (Part II)

Snyder discusses the practical usage of embedded sensors (p. 47) and Wireless Sensor Networks (p. 170) galvanizing machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. He gives an example: the system of networked rat traps in Wembley Stadium. But there are sensors everywhere – where I work, motion detectors cut lights on and off, dispense liquid soap and fill coffee pots with fresh water.

Even my new cell phone seems to have ideas of its own – some of them annoying. Snyder observes: “Cell phones have truly become [or will soon become] the 'remote control for your life' though a combination of distributed sensors and applications that can manage key metrics such as energy and water usage, carbon emissions, security, and care of the elderly, children, and pets.” (p. 44) This is especially true for Generation Z, those born since around the time of the Gulf War.  (My question: can someone add a Mute function to shut people up when they're loudly babbling in public spaces?)

Many people I know speak as if they’re anti-technology Luddites, but even they are using technology in new ways – or in old ways more flexibly.

A few other other things I’ll mention here, brought up in The New Age of Wireless. One is how 4G wireless will tend to disrupt and transform the traditionally more rigid hierarchical status quo, creating “flatter” working groups. “Flat organizations allow individuals to easily connect to many networks (enterprise, supplier, customer, professional, personal).”* Google is one prime example of a flatter organization.

Snyder also advocates for the expansion of Mobile ad hoc Mesh networks (MANETS) otherwise known as mesh or peer-to-peer networks. These have mobile devices using other mobile devices as signal transmitters or relays, rather than one having to rely exclusively on cell towers and satellites and other expensive bits of hardware. In real time, this would be useful in traffic, for instance, helping prevent snarls by alerting drivers in advance of problems ahead on the road. Interactive GPS devices, etc.  A secondary benefit would be increasing fuel efficiency.

I’m glad to see some consideration given to where we are headed as a global population. Snyder seeks to rise above the Sturm und Drang of daily life long enough to think beyond the headlines a little. Somebody’s got to do it, or else we might as well be muddling through dark alleys near the edge of a cliff or flying through an ash cloud spewed from a distant volcano. . .

Today's Rune: Partnership.   *(p. 87)

Clara Shih: The Facebook Era

I wonder how many out there reading this are using a traditional Franklin Planner (--dates back to 1984, named after Benjamin Franklin), Filofax (-- dates back to 1921: "file of facts") Rolodex (dates back to 1956: "rolling index") or something similar that doesn't necessarily dovetail with computers and miscellaneous wireless devices?

We are now doing many things that have been adapted from traditional functions, while engaging in wholly new electronically and internet-driven activities.

Paying attention to what's going on, ruminating about the new milieu and making suggestions for how to seize opportunities in it: that's some of what Clara Shih achieves in The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, and Sell More Stuff (Prentice Hall, 2009).

Shih devotes a lot of time to collaborative interaction, indicating one's "level of engagement" by flowing up a pyramid scale: from simple skimming (viewing) through intermediate activities (voting/tagging, commenting) to actively creating and producing.

Shih touches on a number of global networks, many I'd not noticed or heard of until she brought them up. Now I sometimes pick up a new trail in the news like this one, thanks to her: "AOL looking to shut down or sell Bebo this year" (Kevin Spiess - Wednesday, April 7th, 2010); the same article notes that AOL itself is tanking [as badly as, say, Blockbuster], plunging from 25 million plus subscribers in 2002 to a little more than 5 million at the beginning of 2010.)

I was also inspired by Shih to check Alexa, a site that constantly tracks internet volume (See www.alexa.com), and found its www rankings as of today:

1. google.com
2. facebook.com
3. youtube.com
4. yahoo.com
5. live.com
6. wikipedia.org
7. blogger.com
8. baidu.com
9. msn.com
10. qq.com
12. twitter.com
16. wordpress.com
17. myspace.com

Shih also mentions Hi5, Friendster, Tagged, Orkut, Xanga, LinkedIn, Classmates.com, Mixi, Skyrock, Xiaonei, Ning, Netlog and others.  Are there any I missed? 

Today's Rune: Fertility.

Aubade, or Morning Song

I. A songbird woke me up this morning and when I went outside, it was clear that spring is on the way. This little bird triggered another thought: there's a name for what she (or he) is doing -- performing an aubade, or morning song (sounds like oh-baud, or ō-ˈbäd).

Wallace Fowlie taught me this back in the 80s.

Believe it or not, Erik's Choice is moving into its fifth year of existence and I am moving toward my 50th year on Earth. I began this "web log" back in February of 2006, and have posted at least once daily ever since, more than 1600 posts so far.  Not only have I enjoyed ruminating and posting, but more importantly, it's been a great pleasure getting to know other bloggers, readers and commenters from around the globe.  Many thanks for stopping by -- and for those who also write their own stuff, for writing!




















II. My main advice after four years of posting: write about folks 65 or older. Go out and listen to more "seniors." Cherish, treasure, engage and record.

Besides extended family members and students and teachers and librarians and writers who are of all ages, some of my best friends are (or were if they're gone) people I met when they were considerably past 65. For instance, Nishan Baba Toumajan and his younger wife, Louise Toumajan taught me about their lives as Armenians in the Ottoman Empire/Turkey -- and in the USA through most of the 20th century. Baba had been born in the 1800s; Louise had been a professional tennis player after the First World War. Madame Françoise Marcus has taught me about her life growing up in France and is always quick with charm and conversation, the good life. I only met with Wallace Fowlie maybe a dozen times but we also became good friends. Then there were the Germans who'd been captured at Normandy on D-Day (Willy Wiederstein and comrades) and then worked on Scottish, Canadian and American farms during the last year of the Second World War. There was also Doctor Dick Pearse, who'd inspired me and my pal Kenny to walk the eleven miles between Durham and Chapel Hill. And there was an older guy walking along what was left of Hastings Street in Detroit, who remembered the days when John Lee Hooker lived in town playing the Apex Bar and Henry's Swing Club, and the day he saw Jimi Hendrix play.

You see what I'm saying -- seek and ye shall find, and listen well when you do, whether you meet once or a hundred times.

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.

The Revolution, Digitized

A worthwhile experience: PBS' Frontline: Digital Nation: Life On The Virtual Frontier (2010), directed and produced by Rachel Dretzin and walked through by Douglas Rushkoff. It's a sort of episodic adventure into the here and now of cyber reality, hopping like think bubbles from information overload to kids to classrooms to South Korean game addicts to avatar realities to drone pilots to Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome treatment and so on.  The last thirty minutes are worth the virtual price of admission.  The disconnect between drone pilots and their killing machines (via Hellfire Missiles and the like) and physical realities thousands of miles away is truly creepy.  Much like Terry Gilliam's prophetic film Brazil (1985), or Phlip K. Dick in general.

If curious, here's a link to the website and documentary: 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/

From my own experience, teenagers seem more distracted because they actually are -- there are so many more outlets.  They cut corners in every way possible -- because they can.  But they, and those now in their twenties and even thirties, are avid multitaskers. The question is, are they also capable of deep thought?  Is the ability to contemplate compromised by digital multitasking? Is it addictive behavior to such an extent that a whole new reality is being experienced?  Is this the biggest shift in conciousness and new literacies since the printing press?  I think, yes it is.

Today's Rune: Journey.

Memories of a Friend: New York World's Fair, 1965

Among the great pleasures of maintaining this daily web log: connecting with people, learning more about all of us, learning new things on a daily basis, and bearing witness to our lives and times. Just yesterday, I learned that my friend Evan (we've been friends since the early 1970s) visited the World's Fair in 1965, as I had with my family. As a follow-up, here are some of his memories of that occasion (by permission) . . .

I remember a good bit - I was pretty excited about going and spending three days in New York with just my father. I can distinctly recall:

1) Seeing the big Unisphere - the globe that is still there on the site, I think. [It is].

2) The life-size dinosaurs at the Sinclair Oil Company exhibit. That was one of the big draws for me and we went there all three days, I think.

3) Riding the big tire-shaped ferris wheel thing - it had closed gondola-style cars instead of seats. We were in one with another man and his little girl about my age. Every time there was a bump, he'd say "There's another screw coming loose" and his daughter would look scared. . .

4) Going through the Ford Pavilion - we had to stand in line forever but it was cool. You rode through the exhibits about the history of life on earth in a big new Ford convertible.

5) We tried to get up into the New York Pavilion to see the fair from up high, but missed closing time and ended up never getting to do that. Think we ate dinner there instead.


I distinctly recall posing for [this photo] with the big tire and the New York Pavilion towers in the background. Check out my crew-cut...

Thank you, Evan! Now, for Michiganders and anyone traveling I-94 between Metro Airport and Detroit, here's an extra treat. That Big Tire pictured above is the same one! See the gondola on the right side of the tire above?

From Roadside America: This 12-ton, 80-foot-tall behemoth was built to withstand hurricane-force winds, and served as a ferris wheel (and a huge advertisement for Uniroyal) at the 1964-65 New York World's Fair. Twenty-four gondolas circled the tire where the treads are today, carrying nearly two million people. The tire was moved to Allen Park in 1966 . . . (source: http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/8258)

Today's Rune: Fertility.

Keeping the Faith in Writing

Just finished Write with Fire: Thoughts on the Craft of Writing (Borgo Press, 2009; Borgo Literary Guides, Number Eleven) by Charles Allen Gramlich, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Charles' takes on writing are refreshing. Of about twenty to two dozen writing books I've read over the past twenty-five or so years, this is the first one to take into equal consideration writing across genres (and across technologies, too.) It's peppered throughout with a gentle humor, and its drive and ideas are compelling and inspiring.

Write with Fire mixes practical advice with plenty of real-life examples (how to query, how to work on beginnings and endings; how to check grammar; utilizing dreams for ideas); it also deals with philosophy and psychology, even the physical side of writing. Furthermore, Charles provides background and context to his own writing arc; there are chapters and sections about growing up in Arkansas and, in "A Writer on the Run," the personal impact of Hurricane Katrina on his writing and life.

I really enjoy Charles' eclectic perspective, his writing from both inside and outside academia, vibrantly different from the more typical English/Creative Writing pedigree. A basic tenet is: if you want to write, write. But do write. Replace laziness and sporadic work with discipline, and a steady-burning fire. Charles does it all: teaches, reads, researches, writes across genres and styles, blogs and interacts with a wide spectrum of writers of all types on a consistent basis.

Write with Fire will make an excellent gift for anyone who writes, or wants to write. I intend to purchase more copies as gifts for the coming holidays; I know others will enjoy it, and draw inspiration from Charles' work, too. Acquired my first copy from www.amazon.com

Here's a link to Charles' blog. Been enjoying it (and Lana's blog, too) for three years:

http://charlesgramlich.blogspot.com/

Today's Rune: Journey.

Split Decision

It's fun seeing where visitors come from, in profile. Looks like lately half come from the USA and about half come internationally. That's fine by me. All readers and commenters are appreciated.

Busy day today of mostly manual labor, hence this brief post. But more soon, I suspect.

Today's Rune: Defense.

Star Trek

The first Star Trek episode I remember seeing as a kid in real time was "Who Mourns for Adonis?" (either in 1967 or 1968). I was hooked. Not much of a comics fan, at the time and instead I already loved bizarre and campy TV shows ranging from Twilight Zone, One Step Beyond, Outer Limits, Batman, Dark Shadows, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, My Favorite Martian, Lost in Space, Land of the Giants, Time Tunnel, the nightly national news with VC body counts, and just about anything else put before me. My family moved in the middle of all this, from Pennsylvania to Chicago to St. Paul, Minnesota, to Durham, North Carolina.

I never really kept up with all the Star Trek spin offs (unlike my sister Linda and brother Jamie), but the original, I saw every episode by the end of the 1970s, in North Carolina by the time I graduated high school (as did several of my closest friends).

The characters in Star Trek are all appealing, likable, the stories varied and thought-provoking. These are enduring, and I've kept a fond place for them in my mind and heart all these years. And so, though it may not be tomorrow or the day after, I do intend to see the new movie, which looks promising as a "reboot" of the original series; in fact, a prequel to it. Like the James Bond theme, Star Trek terminology like "warp speed," "Full power to the shields," "beam me aboard, Scotty," "arm photon torpedoes" and "phasers" are in my blood. You betcha.

How about y'all in the blogosphere? Any favorite episodes, characters, or themes? I honestly like all the original characters and play no favorites -- it's still a great ensemble with excellent chemistry.

Today's Rune: Partnership.

A Telegram for Mr. Q

1. If the Medium is the Message is the Massage, what does that make the Highs and Lows?

2. If in 1968, as Warhol quipped, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes," is the then-future now or still in the future?

3. If Twitter is the new Beatles, what is the new Rolling Stones?

5. If Prince is fifty, does The Artist Formerly Known as Prince still exist in the woods?

6. If Madonna is fifty, how old is Jesus now?

7. If Michael Jackson is fifty, what does "It" mean by his "This is It" tour?

8. If Elvis was forty-two in 1977, where is he now?

9. If That Revolution was Number Nine, why is Charles Manson still alive, John Lennon dead?

10. Will The Revolution be Live, or another opiate of the messengers?

Actually, a massage sounds pretty good right now.

Today's 2nd Rune: The Gateway.

WorldFocus

I stumbled across a new multi-media news endeavor, Worldfocus. It began broadcasting on October 6, 2008.

From the official website (http://worldfocus.org/), here's a snippet of what Worldfocus is aiming for:

By partnering with international news organizations, Worldfocus fills the void in international news coverage and informs American viewers about the relevance of international events. The nightly news program and Web site report on events from around the world and cover the stories that don’t always make the headlines.

Admittedly, I've always enjoyed seeking different perspectives on the world, soaking up global culture and news and just about anything with a different angle. The only caveat about Worldfocus is that stories come across as very brief, so far. There's broad exposure to a lot of things that anyone interested could then explore more fully via the internet and a little imagination. Anyone else sick of myopic provincialism and xenophobia (aka Palinism) may want to check it out, starting with the website.

Today's Rune: Separation (Reversed).

Accolades: Arte y Pico Awards

I humbly "pass the peas" on to five bloggers with the understanding that we're all busy living in the modern world. No hard feelings if you choose not to accept at this juncture but three extra cheers if you do!

The rules:

1. You have to pick five blogs that you consider deserve this award through creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogger community, no matter of language.

[Johnny Yen generously gave "Erik's Choice" an Arte y Pico Award: "The breadth and depth of Erik's blogging is amazing. Whether it's Iggy Pop, Diane Arbus, the White Stripes or Albert Camus, his posts are illuminating, interesting and entertaining." Shucks. Thanks, Johnny!]: Here Comes Johnny Yen Again at http://johnnyyen.blogspot.com/.

2. Each award should have the name of the author with a link to their blog.

3. Award winners have to post the award with the name and link to the blog of the person who gave them the award (done at the end of Paragraph 1).

4. Please include a link to the “Arte Y Pico” blog so that everyone will know where the award came from: http://arteypico.blogspot.com/ (Arte y pico: El arte es maravilloso, mas aun cuando se puede compartir con otros).

5. Show these rules.

And now (drum roll), my choices for the Arte y Pico Award! What they all share is consistency over time, depth, and seriousness of purpose, with a sometimes funny twist:

Lana Gramlich, The Dreaming Tree http://lucidflora.blogspot.com/

I thoroughly enjoy Lana's focus on photography and artwork, dreams and cultural advocacy. Beautiful, dreamy, but also sobering about our global prospects.

Charles Gramlich, Razored Zen http://charlesgramlich.blogspot.com/

Charles writes a lot about writing, family, place, teaching, and just about anything under the sun, and he does so with exceptionally measured fairness and experientially-derived wisdom.

James R. Tomlinson, JR's Thumbprints http://jrthumbprints.blogspot.com/

Jim's writing draws mostly on his experiences as a prison educator, a dramatic niche with all sorts of possibilities, but let's not forget his colorful posts on fishing, neighbors and family, dogs, landscaping, and some real cool photographs of yesteryear.

Sidney Williams, Sid Is Alive http://www.sidisalive.com/

Sid's eclectic posts embrace cats, writing, technology, culture, and a rich variety of life experiences. He also writes about family and friends and always seems to be able to maintain a very positive disposition.

Mark Durfee aka The Walking Man
http://www.themanwhowalksalonewalksfaster.blogspot.com

Mark regularly exhibits great strength and intensity whether he's articulating thoughts about Detroit, politics, culture, memory or life in general, laying down poetry, or rendering philosophy in action.

It's always a great pleasure to read these blogs and to participate in this freewheeling, virtual -- and vital -- community. Thank you, all.

Today's Rune: Partnership.