Put your money where your mind is

I blush to admit that I had no idea this was Love Your Indie Bookstore Month. But writer Joe Hill remembered, and instead of trying to guilt-trip people into parking their dollars at the local non-chain joint, he’s decided to turn it into a contest. With very cool prizes!

Zeitgeist

This cover art is simply genius.

Friday finds

This image of the recent space shuttle launch is just one of a collection of great Twitter images gathered here that show the launch from all kinds of perspectives. The backyard photos have a real Ray Bradbury “Rocket Summer” feel to them. And as long as we’re watching the skies, here’s a nifty slide show on the history of the telescope.

William Zinsser on writing (and rewriting) On Writing Well.

Are you ready to learn the secret of the mother of all funk chords?

“All real narrators are unreliable.  That is a great strength: it is realistic.  Another is that one can hint at things left hidden.  A third is that you can reveal in Chapter 19 something that was hidden in Chapter 9.  Please don’t ask for examples.”

You’ve heard the band, now drink the wine.

I’ve already linked to this post once before but I’m doing it again because I think the writer has really captured something about this band’s greatness.

I’m sorry. I know I should be open-minded about such things, but really . . . this is just so sad.

Alex Ross has heard the upcoming Bob Dylan album and the word is good: “There’s a fantastically chilling, end-of-one’s-rope number called ‘Forgetful Heart,’ which has this Kafkaesque image: ‘The door has closed forevermore / If indeed there ever was a door.’ But the sadness of the scene is lightened by sweet-sounding arrangements (mandolin, accordion, and violin fill out the band) and by flashes of wit (“Down by the river Judge Simpson walking around / Nothing shocks me more than that old clown”). Some up-tempo, old-time rockers also keep the night terrors at bay.” Allan Jones agrees: “Together Through Life gets in your face immediately – with the wallop of the cheerfully-titled ‘Beyond Here Lies Nothin”, which is driven by spectacular drumming and massed horns, a trumpet prominently featured – and over the course of its 10 tracks doesn’t back off, doesn’t appear to even think about doing so, Dylan’s voice throughout an unfettered roar, a splendid growl.” And Bill Vogt is taking a trip down memory lane with the bootlegs in his life.

Are you a wingnut?

Here’s a simple test: If you can get through this Bat Segundo podcast interview without once thinking “Andrea Peyser is a dipshit a tired conservative hack with nothing to offer beyond old whines about Hollywood that were already worn out when Michael Medved and Bernie Goldberg recycled them,” then you’re probably suffering from early onset wingerism. Turn off FoxNoise, go for a walk, get some air.  

And if you’re thrilled by Peyser’s notion that George Clooney has no business getting angry when paparazzi photograph him in a toilet stall, or that the director of Schindler’s List is to be condemned for venturing even the mildest criticism of Israel — in short, that famous people are automatically idiots if they disagree with the political views Andrea Peyser is paid to advance — then you might want to seek medical help.

The Wednesday Westie

Mid-morning I-look-like-I’m-napping-but-I’m-really-watching-everything edition.

The Iffy Channel

It appears the marketing people over at the Sci-Fi Channel didn’t do enough research when they came up with the channel’s new moniker. Oh well. They probably weren’t counting on the Polish market, anyway. But if they decide to soldier on, they’ll simply be joining the already long list of companies and brands with names that don’t travel well.

‘Thousands Are Sailing’

Like the man says, this is one of the great overlooked Pogues songs. “Overlooked” because people tend to credit Shane McGowan with all the best songs, the way many people think “Something” is a Lennon-McCartney tune, but this is one of Phillip Chevron’s finest moments as a songwriter.

The island it is silent now
But the ghosts still haunt the waves
And the torch lights up a famished man
Who fortune could not save

Did you work upon the railroad
Did you rid the streets of crime
Were your dollars from the white house
Were they from the five and dime

Did the old songs taunt or cheer you
And did they still make you cry
Did you count the months and years
Or did your teardrops quickly dry

Ah, no, says he, ’twas not to be
On a coffin ship I came here
And I never even got so far
That they could change my name

Thousands are sailing
Across the western ocean
To a land of opportunity
That some of them will never see
Fortune prevailing
Across the western ocean
Their bellies full
Their spirits free
They’ll break the chains of poverty
And they’ll dance

In Manhattan’s desert twilight
In the death of afternoon
We stepped hand in hand on Broadway
Like the first man on the moon

And “The Blackbird” broke the silence
As you whistled it so sweet
And in Brendan Behan’s footsteps
I danced up and down the street

Then we said goodnight to Broadway
Giving it our best regards
Tipped our hats to Mister Cohan
Dear old Times Square’s favorite bard

Then we raised a glass to JFK
And a dozen more besides
When I got back to my empty room
I suppose I must have cried

Thousands are sailing
Again across the ocean
Where the hand of opportunity
Draws tickets in a lottery
Postcards we’re mailing
Of sky-blue skies and oceans
From rooms the daylight never sees
Where lights don’t glow on Christmas trees
But we dance to the music
And we dance

Thousands are sailing
Across the western ocean
Where the hand of opportunity
Draws tickets in a lottery
Where e’er we go, we celebrate
The land that makes us refugees
From fear of Priests with empty plates
From guilt and weeping effigies
And we dance

Bobbin’ along

I love the things I’m hearing about Together Through Life, the new Bob Dylan disc coming out next month: that its production is simple and spare in the manner of the old Chess records sessions; that the music has a strong border cafe flavor, with David Hidalgo of Los Lobos featured prominently on accordion; and, above all, that it is very different from that snifter of chloroform called Modern Times, the huge success of which is a triumph of marketing savvy over artistic commitment. As Michael Gray notes, the interview posted at Dylan’s official site gives the impression that His Bobness doesn’t think all that highly of the record himself.

What a stroke of good fortune for Gray to be rolling out his lecture tour, Bob Dylan & the Poetry of the Blues: An Evening with Writer Michael Gray, just as a new album is generating fresh excitement around Dylan’s work. Gray has several U.S. engagements scheduled: I’ve got my ticket for the Nyack appearance. Seeing the way his itinerary skips back and forth across the Atlantic, Gray should probably rename it Subterranean Jetlag Blues, or maybe No Sleep Til Hammersmith.

Hellraiser

Harlan Ellison is suing Paramount Pictures for his share of revenues from merchandising spinoffs — everything from a series of Star Trek novels to a Christmas orament — drawn from his teleplay for “City on the Edge of Forever,” arguably the best episode of the original Trek series. He’s also suing the Writers Guild of America for failing to make Paramount live up to its contractual agreements on the issue. In the case of the WGA, he’s only asking for a dollar in damages — the purpose of naming the guild is to get a legal judgment on whether it was living up to its mission of watching writers’ backs in Hollywood.

The press release announcing the suit is vintage Ellison:

“The arrogance, the pompous dismissive imperial manner of those who ‘have more important things to worry about,’ who’ll have their assistant get back to you, who don’t actually read or create, who merely ‘take’ meetings, and shuffle papers – much of which is paper money denied to those who actually did the manual labor of creating those dreams – they refuse even to notice…until you jam a Federal lawsuit in their eye.  To hell with all that obfuscation and phony flag-waving: they got my money.  Pay me and pay off all the other writers from whom you’ve made hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars…from OUR labors…just so you can float your fat asses in warm Bahamian waters. “The Trek fans who know my City screenplay understand just exactly why I’m bare-fangs-of-Adamantium about this.” 

When Mr. Ellison calmed down, he continued, soberly, “They maintain fortresses staffed and insulated with corporate and legal Black Legions whose ability to speak fluent bullshit is the ramadoola of gyrating, gibbering  numbers via which they cling to every dollar.  And when you aren’t getting paid for the marvels you helped bring forth — fine, hard, careful artifacts that are making others pig-rich — at some point any sane person knows he has three, and only three choices: the first is to sit around dinner parties and ceaselessly whine over your sushi about how they screwed you, boo hoo, but you can’t beef about it Out There in the World or they’ll blacklist you; the second is to pick up an Uzi somewhere, crash your SUV through a Studio gate, and just run amok; and the third, last, choice is this one – to act like an adult, to take ‘em on in Federal Court and to make the greedy, amoral bastards blink blood out of their eyes.  What they do is tantamount to common street-thug robbery… just add the pig-rich Madoff-style smoothyguts attorneys.

Talk about a morning tonic.

Don’t fear the e-book

Because he knows a lot about the past, Jeff Sypeck isn’t one to get needlessly hysterical about the future.