-must -put -down Sense and Sensibility

Must Let Sense Win Out Over Sensibility For Now

Ha ha, I did pick up my Sense and Sensibility, just like I said I would. Edward! Engaged to Miss Lucy Steele! Imagine!

I finished volume one during lunch (breakfast, really -- I slept in; it's been a long long long week, particularly Thursday, which was the big Thesis Writing Day).

But really, I have to stop now. I can't go on to volume II just yet. For there is another tragic, cloistered, writing-genius spinster from the 1800s who I must now turn my attention to for the next week:


In particular, this little number right here:

Blazing in Gold and quenching in Purple
Leaping like Leopards to the Sky
Then at the feet of the old Horizon
Laying her spotted Face to die

Stooping as low as the Otter's Window
Touching the Roof and tinting the Barn
Kissing her Bonnet to the Meadow
And the Juggler of Day is gone
Beauty, ain't it?

=sighing=

Still, I wonder how it is that Elinor deals which such news...

Maybe I'll just read one more chapter.

40th anniversary of assassination of MLK

Today is the 40^th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King. I've collected websites and radio stories and documentaries to share with you for the occasion:

King's last speech, "I've Been to the Mountaintop"

The radio documentary on the events and "mood" of King's last year

If you haven' the time for the entire documentary, this story from Weekend America is a good summary and gives you a good feel for what the documentary is like:

or go here if the embed doesn't work

This story, which I had never heard, about how James Brown played at the Gahdin on the night MLK was assassinated, and how that show helped "keep the peace" in Boston, unlike other major cities, which went into turmoil.

James Taylor's tribute song to Martin Luther King "Shed a Little Light"

Love to Love the Loathing

Love to Love the Loathing

I'm super busy today, so no elaborate (or relatively elaborate, compared to other posts...) posts today. Instead, just the first section of Rimbaud's "First Communions" (trans. Wallace Fowlie) , a poem I love for its articulation of all the reasons to loath a place (ha ha-this homepage prominently features Rimbaud!). It reminds me of my reasons for loathing this place.

click to enlarge

Time to Play the Amazon Book Version of Monopoly

Monopoly the Amazon Book Version


Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh. Ugh. Look at this:

Having bought bought second-tier Print-on-Demand (POD) publisher BookSurge, Amazon is now working to shut down its competition. (Full Blog Entry Here)

Here are the things I need to define so that, if you're not up to speed on the lingo, you can get the significance of the story.

• POD is Print On Demand, usually attributed to vanity presses - but as of lately, that is not the case
• Vanity Presses are traditionally attributed to crappy writers who can't get published by a regular publisher so they publish it themselves (note: Jane Austen published Sense and Sensibility at her own cost at a "vanity press"; this leads me to my next point)
• However: in this day of Giant Evil Conglomerate Publishing Houses Whose Bottom Line Means Far More Than the Art of Writing (Especially Niches), POD presses serve many neglected markets, and also allow people far away from the mainstream, but still of interest (like, say, Jane Austen) to be published
• Amazon bought one POD (BookSurge) and is now threatening to remove the "buy buttons" from books not from the POD they now own
  

Yeah. Seriously.

As the Library Thing Thinglogy Blog put it "Amazon has always had a lot of leverage, but they haven't used it. That's clearly changing."

Damn, dude.

Full Library Thing Blog here. Has lots of relevant links to follow for the whole story.

If you don't have time, just basically know that Amazon is getting evil a la WalMart and it's time to focus on AbeBooks, Alibris, Books a Million et al (see all at Fetchbook.info, a compendium of all online booksellers) before the only bookseller online out there is evil old Amazon.

Tax Season and Robert Reich

One of the blogs I have on my RSS feed is Robert Reich's blog. Sometimes it's a little over my financial head, sometimes it's right on the level. And sometimes it's right on the level and far too important not too pass along:

Time to Pay Your Taxes, Support Wall Street, and Take a Licking
http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2008/04/time-to-pay-your-taxes-support-wall.html


Robert Reich was secretary of labor in the first Clinton administration. He also makes appearances on Conan O'Brien, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, as well as regular commentary on Marketplace, public radio's business program.