Cobb on Arts & Entertainment

Furst Last Thing: Paris, spies, women, and an education, what more could you want?

2011-02-11T17:27:00.004-05:00

What's the secret to surviving the long dark nights of Winter? I'm not sure I know the answer; they seem to be getting harder to survive, but I'm fairly certain good fiction has a role to play. So I thought I would share what I've been reading lately: the Alan Furst Night Soldier novels. And I'm loving every precious minute. I am up to Blood of Victory which is #7 of 11. Here's the current list:

Night Soldiers (1988)
Dark Star (1991)
The Polish Officer (1995)
The World at Night (1996)
Red Gold (1999)
Kingdom of Shadows (2000)
Blood of Victory (2003)
Dark Voyage (2004)
The Foreign Correspondent (2006)
The Spies of Warsaw (2008)
Spies of the Balkans (2010)

Of course, I'm hoping that #12 appears before I finish reading Spies of the Balkans. Bear in mind that these days I only allow myself fiction reading when on vacation and last thing at night (the rest of my reading is centered around my day job plus figuring a way out from under all the crushing financial pressures--so fiction reading time is tight and no, there is no vacation).

Which is why I can so heartily recommend Alan Furst's novels: they are as dependable as heck. Okay, so dependable may not be the first word that comes to mind when you think of great fiction. But to me, dependability is critical. I don't want to be lying there on the warm sandy beach of incoming slumber and get jerked out of my reverie by the cold splash of a clumsy sentence, the rude slap of an awkward description, a broken turn of phrase or shard of erroneous data that breaks my reverie.

Now, I'm all in favor in plot twists or the abrupt presentation of uncomfortable realities, just don't make me have to scratch my head figuring out what you're on about. Furst's genius is to unfold his complex tales of anguish and espionage, amour and zeitgeist, without tying the reader in knots. And given the miliuex of these novels this is no mean feat. For a start, they are not set in English speaking countries. Heck, many of the countries in which they are set don't even exist these days; and as the novels unfold we sometimes learn, or are reminded, why these places are no more.

Although I am a big believer in the instructive power of history, historical fiction has never been my favorite genre, possibly because so few writers get it right. I don't think you can get it more right than Furst. And write now he's the last thing I read before I fall asleep.

Ross Noble: Ad Lib Improv Standup as Art

2011-01-03T10:09:00.004-05:00

UK comedian Ross Noble demonstrates his amazing ability to create hilarious content out of thin air. Truly a gift. And a great way to cheer up your day.

Humor for the Holidays: Free comic clips from Ross "Duck Lord of Absurd Lib" Noble

2010-12-26T10:13:00.002-05:00

As a Christmas New Year Hogmanay holiday gift and/or coping mechanism, British comedian Ross Noble has placed a series of clips from his shows in Australia on YouTube. This one is titled "Duck Lord."

Watch Out Wall Street and Central Park, the CEO Wagon is Coming

2010-02-21T18:19:00.002-05:00

Look for Jeremy Dean's rolling artwork, Back to the Futurama, in New York's Central Park next weekend. Pulled by two white horses, it will be hard to miss this statement about corporate greed, consumerism, sustainability, and human pride.

Look for more pictures on Flickr. And at the blog: Back to the Futurama. If you are in the area, check out the details.

Run Dates: March 4th – March 7th 2010
VIP Reception: Thursday, March 4th, 9am-noon.
Location: Pulse New York art fair Booth #C4
Daily: Thursday- Sunday 12-8pm
Directions: 330 West Street @ West Houston
New York, NY 10014

Conceptual Artist Deconstructs Hummer, Video Goes Viral: Art World Take Note!

2010-02-03T11:18:00.004-05:00

The buzz about Brooklyn-based Jeremy Dean's art project "Back to the Futurama" has now gone viral, with coverage in a wide range of online media. As regular readers will recall, Jeremy is converting a GMC Hummer H2 into a horse-drawn carriage to create a symbol of America's perilously unsustainable lifestyle.

Jeremy has bet the farm on this project, so to speak, and exposure of the project will be vital to its chances of success. A big boost came two weeks ago when influential car expert and automotive journalist John Voelcker wrote about Jeremy's project under a headline that is itself an alliterative classic: "Hummer-Hating Artist Hacks H2 Into Horse Cart, Cites Hoover." This article has already racked up 16,000 views and 285 diggs.

The story spread like exhaust fumes through the automotive blogosphere and there are now over 100,000 Google hits for Hummer Hating Artist Jeremy Dean. The video that Jeremy made of the first cut into the Hummer has been viewed over 16,000 times on YouTube (http://tr.im/humvid) and more in Vimeo ( http://vimeo.com/8962281).

Not to be outdone, the equine community has picked up the story, appearing here in Horse Journal. Maybe some cart horse experts can help Jeremy match power source to completed carriage. Of course, this story was destined for mainstream press coverage from the start. We now see the project making its way into the Huffington Post and it may be on Current TV soon (it's on their web site's Upcoming section).

When us social media mavens talk about something "going viral" there really has to be a global element. The story has to be covered far and wide. Well here it is on a forum in Russia. And getting from the East Coast to New Zealand probably counts. The story was covered there in the equine press.

What is really interesting, from an art perspective, is the lack of coverage [so far] in the art press. When assessing the work of Jeremy Dean, the art world would be wise to take a tip from the film world. Conventional wisdom said Jeremy could not, as a first time film maker, make a documentary about race, not one that could be nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Dare Not Walk Alone did not win that award, but it did get a theatrical release, positive reviews in national press, a spot in Walmart's catalog and, on Tuesday night, there was an Oscar-winning actor in the front row for the screening at the Skirball Community Center in L.A. Immediately after the screening the actor walked up to Jeremy, shook his hand, and said: "Great Film!"

Footnote: Jeremy's art has been mentioned on the influential art blog EAGEAGEAG but I confess it was me that did the mentioning. (Who am I to talk about art? Well not that it really matters, but I do have a minor in Fine Art from the University of Leeds. I started a Master's degree thesis on Hegel's Aethestics at McMaster University and a doctoral thesis on William Blake's Notes on Laocoön. However, don't take my word for any of this "what is art?" stuff, check out the New York gallery show in March and decide for yourself.)

Jeremy's New Blog: Back to the Futurama

2010-01-12T13:16:00.005-05:00

Jeremy Dean has started to blog his wild "Back to the Futurama" art project.

This should be fun. Talk about life hacking and culture-hacking. This one is a real mind bender. A horse up front, an audio-video-enabled riding experience in back. BTW, if you're a business that has the skills and equipment to convert a Hummer H2 or Cadillac Escalade into something like the model on the left, and if you want a ton of free publicity, let Jeremy know. This thing is going to happen, and the result will make the news.

There is a Contact link on Jeremy's home page.

Update: February 1 -- Slick's Garage of Florida stepped up to the plate. Thanks guys! You Rock!

Jeremy Dean Goes Back to Futurama: Art you can ride, even if the oil dries up

2009-12-31T11:04:00.005-05:00

I loved my father dearly but there was one question guaranteed to get us arguing:

What is art?

One of the great blessings of my life is that my father and I arrived at an understanding on that question before he died; not exactly an agreement, but an understanding. It went something like this: Art is not art unless there is some skill involved.

For my father, that definition excluded a lot of "modern art" unless I could show him where the artist's skill came into play. Some 35 years have flown by since then, but I think he would agree with me that the latest works by my friend and colleague Jeremy Dean qualify as art. That's because Jeremy is creating art that cannot be realized without skill as well as perception, objects that have the power to make people ask questions and question assumptions, even as they impress with their physical accomplishment. I'm talking about the Hummer-Escalade-Hoovercart, the object at the heart of the Back to the Futurama project. (There are more pictures here.)

I actually wrote a piece about this on my "On the Road" blog because it relates to cars and travel and life's journey. Starting next month, Jeremy is going to take a GMC Hummer or Cadillac Escalade and turn it into a horse drawn vehicle (the image above is just one of many models Jeremy has made to visualize the concept).

Making cars into carts is what people did back in The Great Depression and in the States they called them Hoovercarts as a play on Hoovercrats, a term coined for supporters of Herbert Hoover, the president who presided over the worst of the Depression. In Canada they were called Bennett Buggies, after the prime minister at the time. They arose from a surplus of cars relative to a shortage of affordable fuel. Folks fould that one horse or mule could pull a Model T Ford quite easily if you took out the engine. And there was grass and hay to be had even when money for gasoline dried up.

This project is going to take a lot of energy and expertise. Over the more than five years I have known him, Jeremy has proved to be an endless source of energy (the making and distributing of Dare Not Walk Alone being the most obvious proof). But now he could use some help on the expertise side. Not that Jeremy is a stranger to hands-on-artisan work. I have seen numerous examples of his home remodelling and he is a skilled craftsman, a practical maker of things built to last.

So, if you know of someone who has the skills to chop a car, hitch a horse, or fit out the inside of a vehicle with kick-ass sounds and video systems, why not use the Contact link on Jeremy's home page and let him know. You can also pledge your support of the project (that page features a great video about the project as well as cool gifts you can get in return for your pledge).

When March rolls around Jeremy will ride this creation into a major art event in New York. I'm pretty sure the TV news cameras will be rolling when this happening happens. How many people will "get" what this creation says about the world today, cultural values, lifestyle choices, sustainability and human frailty? I don't know. But this engineered weirdness will get a lot of people thinking. And that's art.
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Zombies, Swine Flu, and Kindling: What a Difference 6 Months Makes

2009-11-19T17:53:00.004-05:00

Wow! I did not realize it was THAT long since I had posted here. I blame the day job, which is often the evening job and weekend job as well. Fortunately that job is going well and I am racking up kudos for my blog posts on marketing. I am also getting quite adept at the social media thing. (Here's a link to a personal post where I rounded up 19 things you should do if you want to promote your company, band, film, book, profile).

A lot of people are somewhat familiar with some of the social media basics, but it is how you employ them all in concert that makes social networking work, from Twitter to Facebook and LinkedIn, to your blog, your pics, your videos, your tr.ims, your stats and your Google Analytics (which reminds me, I need to add these last few to the list, maybe: Hey 19, Part 2, the Remix).

What has this got to do with art? Everything. There may be some artists who seek obscurity (like the Buddhist monks in Shangri-La that were on PBS last night). But most art is intended to be experienced. And that seldom happens without a push from somewhere. Consider Jeremy Dean, the Brooklyn-based artist who created the indie doc Dare Not Walk Alone (that I had the honor of producing). He has been cooking up some cool conceptual art for several years now, but it was connecting with a gallery that gave his private art a push in the public direction. Jeremy will be showing at big art events in December and March and already has some cool art video online.

Speaking of that aspect of pushing art forward which is often referred to as "publication" and/or "distribution," we are seeing the "and/or" converge taking place right now in technology like Amazon's Kindle. You can now read Kindle books on your iPhone and PC as well as on the actual Kindle device.

Which brings me to the book I wanted to review here: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. This is a novel by the first "new" author I have read entirely on the iPhone. The book came out in print a few years ago and sold well. It is currently around #300 on Amazon. But the book is in several top 10 lists on Kindle, which is how I came to see it while using Kindle on my iPhone. I was intrigued enough by the reviews to download the free preview and on reading that I figured I would like the book, so I paid for the full Kindle version.

There were three things that I enjoyed about World War Z. First and foremost I admired the extent to which author, Max Brooks, had thought through all the implications of zombieism (sp?). Then he extrapolated a new reality from a defined set of data: zombies eat flesh, zombies can only be killed by destroying the brain, zombies can survive under water, zombieism spreads through biting and the dead re-animate after infection, and so on. The book explores the logical and logistical end game. By doing so it reveals worrying weaknesses in current technology, science, cultures, and religions. (Hint, this is a global catastrophe of 2012 proportions.)

Second, the narrative structure created by the interview excerpt device was refreshing and very effective. You learn very little about zombies or the war through direct description. You get most of it by inference. And you get a lot of rich characters too, which keeps things fresh. Brooks is skilfull at giving each a unique voice and strong presence, using little more than their recorded words. He also manages some great humor of the dark, battlefield kind.

Third, I found this to be a fascinating book to read against the backdrop of the global H1N1 Swine Flu pandemic. Indeed, I think that may be part of the reason for the book's success, the series of epidemics the world has been seeing, coming from far distant places right into our everyday lives and forcing us to think hard about a lot of things we would rather keep to the back of our minds.

I am not a big fan of horror stories, particularly ones that dabble in the supernatural. The genius of World War Z is that Brooks makes fighting zombies seem very real and anything but a figment of the imagination. Consider this: In talking about the book over dinner one night I found myself saying "If this zombie thing ever happened for real, it would be really bad." Talk about willing suspension of disbelief.

Two Good Books and a Movie: Avoid if you're feeling blue

2009-04-22T10:40:00.020-05:00

The common element in stuff I've been reading and watching lately is this: It could really bring you down. We're talking about the suffering and death of millions of people here. So you've been warned. On the other hand, these are stimulating works, they might make you think a lot, and then you might have some new thoughts about how things could be made better. Then you could act on those thoughts and the world would become a better place. I guess we'll see.

First up is the movie Body of Lies. Great photography and editing. Great casting and acting. And a gripping story without a cheesy ending. To me this film was drenched in authenticity. AFAIK, what you see in this film is very close to how things really are in the field of espionage, as in "espionage in the field" and the people who run it, both locally and remotely.

As Far As I Know, there is this huge gap between remote agent and central office--the controller cheering his kid's suburban soccer game or taking his son to the bathroom, while calling in the kill--which suddenly collapses with a plane flight into the field. Then it zooms back into the clinical and chilling detachment of eye-in-the-sky operational monitoring and direction (with echoes of Patriot Games and The Bourne Supremacy but with great real world moral ambivalence). We are left in no doubt that local assets, people we turn when we pursue humint, are considered expendable, and there's a school of thought that says this is the way it must be. You rarely see that portrayed as bluntly as it is in Body of Lies.

Second up is the novel, Timebomb, which echoes that same theme of the expendable asset, with deeper historical context as to how it arose. The action here is in Europe, from the UK to the eastern Soviet bloc, but present day, so we have disaffected Russians, Jewish mobsters, and Middle Eastern terrorists. Again the operational authenticity is there, but layered into the basic spy v. terrorist story you find the horrific story of a Polish death camp. And this "second" story is not pasted on, it is integral to the picture that Seymour paints of hate and fear breeding more of the same.

The author of this thick but very readable thriller is Gerald Seymour, a former ITN television news reporter, back when that title meant you got a lot of experience reporting in the field (he covered the Munich Olympics massacre and the Great Train Robbery, and spent time reporting from Vietnam and Northern Ireland). Relatively unknown in the States, judged by a dearth of Seymour titles on the shelves of two different Barnes & Nobles I have visited in the last three months, Seymour is a consistent best-seller in the UK and has penned a string of excellent novels.

For me, his The Walking Dead A Thriller is the definitive novel about suicide bombing. One of my guilty pleasures on a trip to the UK is stocking up Gerald Seymour novels (not sure why I said "guilty" because "stupid" is more apt--I have to drag the things home on the plane and you can actually order online in the U.S.).

On a literary note, these books rise above the "thriller" tag for me, much like LeCarré's work. Seymour's style is faster-paced but the depth is there. His trademark technique is weaving multiple points-of-view. There are no "main" characters but rather a half dozen or more people that we follow throughout the book. The fun part is deciding who's POV you're getting at the start of a new section. A rare case of entertainment tastefully blended with substance.
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The last review is 1491 and there's an inverse relationship between the amount of truly fascinating content in this book and the brevity of its title. (Okay, so the full title is 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus but what I'm saying is, this book is stuffed with good stuff.)

This such a good book I am now reading it for the second time. I don't read many books twice, so this is quite the accolade (others so honored in my post-college life include Gibson's Neuromancer and Count Zero, and Doctor Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World, the latter having more than enough ironic content to warrant the long title).

What I'm doing with 1491 right now is dipping into several different sections at once. It is a testament to author Charles C. Mann's superb writing that one can do this. I can flip from the amazing city of Cahokia on the Mississippi to the dozens of feuding Mayan city states. I can read about the vast earthworks of the Beni and the sophisticated aquaculture of the Amazon, then travel via Norte Chico, a Peruvian civilization older than Egypt, to the indigenous forest-scaping of the North Eastern U.S. And all the while I can follow the plot, which is basically this: America was a heavily populated and highly civilized land before contact with the Europeans.

That many millions of people died as a result of European arrival in the Americas, either killed in conflict or killed as a consequence of contact, is now clear. This truth had been slowly emerging in scientific papers and publications for decades, but Mann has pulled all of the data together and the effect is almost overwhelming. I had long suspected that the sophistication and scale of indigenous culture and civilization was being ignored or suppressed.

With a minimum of moralizing and finger-pointing Mann documents the whole sorry story. He leaves others to state the obvious conclusion: Americans of European origin stole this land and we did our best to destroy the civilizations that once thrived here. It took less than 500 years to erase tens of thousands of years of human history, hundreds of languages, scores of magnificent cities, dozens of libraries, and millions of people.

I believe that many of the consequences of this history have yet to be played out. After all, the consequences of ancient conquest in the Middle East are still shaping events today, and our post-imperial ahistorical ineptness in dealing with them is still causing problems, some of which can be seen in a film like Body of Lies or a book like Timebomb. Watch and read, just try not to get too depressed about it.

(Note: In the interests of full disclosure, all the above links are to Amazon through my Associates account. That doesn't add anything to the price but it means that this blog gets a small kickback from Amazon when you buy from these links.)

40th NAACP Image Awards on Fox TV Feb 12 at 8PM

2009-02-08T18:52:00.004-05:00

Since Roger Moore over at the Orlando Sentinel mentioned the NAACP Image Awards being on BET, I thought I would point out they are on Fox TV, 8pm Thursday, Feb 12 (check the schedule here).

And for those who are late joining the party, Dare Not Walk Alone is up for an award: Outstanding Documentary. The competition is stiff: CNN, ESPN, HBO, and an Oscar-nominated indie film, Trouble the Waters. We are hoping that the nomination of DNWA will raise awareness of the film, whether it wins or not.

Underrated Female Soul Singers by Vivrant Thang

2008-12-08T15:19:00.001-05:00

Just found this great list: My Favorite Things: Underrated Female Soul Singers. Complete with links to check them out. Very handy. Much appreciated Vivrant.

Am now adding this to my "Things to do on the net when I have a few spare moments and some decent bandwidth."

Update: Already bought Pleasureville by Lizz Fields. Excellent listening. Good songs, creatively arranged, delivered with way more soul than most highly paid performers can seem to muster these days. Some of the arrangements are unexpected, but in good way. Now have "Daddy's Cadillace" and "The Road to Pleasureville" on my drive time CD.

Doctor Wooreddy Still One of the Best Novels Ever?

2008-11-19T16:01:00.000-05:00

Just a quick reminder for anyone who has not read "Doctor Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World" by Mudrooroo. It is still one of the ten best English language novels of the last one hundred years, IMHO.

You can still order it from Amazon and no, I'm not making any money off that link. I just think it's a pity more people don't know of this book. As one reviewer said: "I can think of no other [twentieth century novel] that tells a tale of such utter tragedy and suffering with such a coherent equanimity of feeling and purity of wit."

Okay, so that reviewer was me. But again, it's not like I have shares in this book.

Dare Not Walk Alone: the film, the DVD, and the debate about race, politics, and equality: Powerful Civil Rights Film Now On DVD

2008-11-11T08:12:00.000-05:00

Dare Not Walk Alone: the film, the DVD, and the debate about race, politics, and equality: Powerful Civil Rights Film Now On DVD

Hackers Are People Too Debuts to Cheers Not Boos

2008-08-14T20:46:00.006-05:00

We're delighted to report that Ashley Schwartau's debut production, Hackers Are People Too, debuted to applause and standing ovation at the DefCon premiere.

Read Ashley's account of the evening here. She really had the whole indie experience with audio issues and first-time nerves, but it all came good by the closing credits. Like Ashley says, DefCon is a tough crowd. But she wowed them. And sold 600 copies of the DVD!

You can buy your copy here.

Way to go Ash!

Dare Not Walk Alone Opening in New York: 24 days from today

2008-07-29T15:14:00.007-05:00

That's right, the award-winning documentary that the Los Angeles Times called a "powerful slice of roiling American history" continues to build momentum with its New York opening at the Pioneer Theatre on August 22 for 7 nights (scroll down page for listing). The Pioneer is located at East 3rd Street in New York, between Avenues A and B (closer to A). Phone number is (212) 591-0434.

The film's director, Jeremy Dean, will be attending the opening night screenings. Why not read what the critics say about Dare Not Walk Alone, take a look at the trailer, and start making plans to attend?

Here's what Variety said: “Dean's ability to explore history through such a local nexus creates a uniquely intimate document.” And Film Journal observed: “The racial politics of the current presidential election make this film all the more significant...[Dare Not Walk Alone]...is more than just another civil-rights history lesson.”

The film critic for the leading weekly in Portland, Oregon, described the film as “A powerhouse of a picture...minutely attuned to disparities of class and race...a triumph of outrage and empathy” (Willamette Weekly). And Boxoffice Magazine declared this film “has great potential to do real good in the world.”

Read more at the official website and the film's blog.

~~posted by Stephen Cobb, Producer, Dare Not Walk Alone.

Hackers Are People Too: Cool new doc sheds fresh light

2008-07-19T16:27:00.008-05:00

Sometimes, just when your faith in "kids today" has been drained so bad your mind feels like a purple slurpee being rudely slurped by an obnoxious kid who is kicking the bottom of your airline seat as you ride the plane to nowhere in ever-widening circles, something comes along to renew your hopes for the future. A case in point? The debut documentary from a talented young director Ashley Schwartau: Hackers are People Too.

(A.k.a. H4CK3RS Are People Too for the folks who are 3Lit3 or HAPT for those who are into the whole brevity thing.)

The "hope renewed" impact of this documentary hit me on two levels. First and most importantly, HAPT delivers a fresh take on what it means to be a hacker. Schwartau eschews traditional media fear-mongering in favor of the classic definition of hacker: people who like to mess with technology, not to mess it up, but to tune it up, to deconstruct, understand, and re-animate everything from phones to computers to radios and doorlocks and robots. Sure, there are people who break computers and the law, but as one of the many articulate interviewees in HAPT asserts, it makes more sense to call those people computer criminals than to appropriate a word which champions of industry like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were once proud to own.

By taking a positive approach, Schwartau is able to give her audience a rare glimpse of the breadth and depth of talent that is part of the hacking community. We can plainly see that hackers come in all shapes and sizes although most seem to share two characteristics: above-average intelligence and above-average tolerance for people who are "different."

Sure, there are some snarky smart-ass remarks--the movie would have been unbelievable without a smattering of those--but on the whole we see hackers for what they are, relatively likable people. And if that observation sounds too simplistic to be a revelation I suggest you a. watch some traditional media portrayals of hackers and see just how distorted they are, b. hang out, as I have, at some hacker gatherings. As I argued many years ago in a debate at a major security conference, these kids are not amoral sociopaths, they have their own set of morals, some of which, such as tolerance, our society could use more of.

The style of Hackers Are People Too is direct and largely un-narrated, with Schwartau letting the subjects speak for themselves (which they sometimes do with considerable flair). She paired some interviewees in ways that prove effective and engaging, offering a break from solo talking heads. I also like that there are no fancy graphics grafted on to the interviews (after all, the world of hacking is historically one of monochrome command line text interfaces). There is a nice real world feel to the interviews and a refreshing lack of window dressing.

The occasional use of on-screen footnotes to explain some terminology was helpful without being condescending; if you're a geek you probably won't need them, but you shouldn't diss them--this is a film that could reach a lot of people who would ordinarily shun a subject as geeky as hackers. Who knows, some minds might even be changed, for the better.

The first public outing for Hackers Are People Too is a premiere event on August 8th at DefCon in Las Vegas. Look for it on DVD shortly thereafter. You can find the trailer on YouTube right here. You can also check the web site.

There Should Be Blood: Oil deserves better

2008-06-19T14:19:00.004-05:00

I finally got round to watching There Will Be Blood and I was terribly disappointed. While Upton Sinclair's Oil! painted a subtle picture of human motives and morals set against a detailed picture of the oil industry, the story told in this film just didn't make sense, at least to me.

It's not that I was expecting a true-to-the-book movie, or even the same basic story as the novel--we are given fair warning that the book merely inspired the film; but what I did expect was a coherent tale full of insights into the oil business.

Instead we get this incredibly intense character, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) driven by heaven-knows-what motives. We wait all movie to learn why he is so angry and bitter and violent. I never found out. It's like a Coen brothers' movie without the humor. Indeed, I would probably have been happier if the film had been introduced as a Coen brothers production set in the early years of the California oil boom and World War I (after all, they made O Brother Where Art Thou? about the Depression in Missippi).

What I don't understand is the need to hook the film to the novel. Elements are shared, like an oil developer with a son in tow and a quail hunt that finds oil and a charismatic preacher whose family sells its land to the oil man. But that's about where the similarities end.

The differences are even more telling. While we see some of the workings of the oil business in There Will Be Blood the film passes up a lot of opportunities to educate, which was part of Sinclair's genius. The difference between leasing land to drill and buying it outright was not made clear--something that a lot of people in today's gas-boom states like Pennsylvania and New York could stand to learn more about.

Also unaddressed were the conflicting emotions experienced by the boy, used by Sinclair to address the age-old conundrum of how well-intentioned acts can produce bad outcomes. Sinclair's oil man is seemingly well-intentioned. He was a simple shop-keeper whose wife left him. He happened into the oil business at 40, got lucky, and wanted to pass along his knowledge and wealth to his son. He is not cynical in his exploitation of resources and people, he believes he is doing the right thing and being fair. The film totally omits the unions, The War, Bolsheviks, and the rise of communism and this misses a great opportunity to highlight major parallels with the world today, and underline how easy it is for well-intentioned men who think they are fair to really screw up the world, politically, economically, and environmentally.

Radio Paradise Rocks (and soothes and cheers)

2008-06-01T15:02:00.004-05:00

When times are tough (and I think we can all agree they are tough right now*) you sometimes need a way to escape, something to take your mind off things, or onto better things. I'm finding Radio Paradise does just that, and it's free as long as you have a broadband connection. Of course, donations are accepted I have been moved to give, it's just such a deliciously eclectic stream of good listening.

Sometimes they throw in some themed sets for fun and these can be quite amusing. Also, I recently found a cool gadget you can place on your Google home page that shows what is currently playing on Radio Paradise, along with album art (just search among the gadgets at Google/ig. You have to believe that this station is boosting CD sales for a lot of artists that people would otherwise not hear.

* Just for the record, on the "tough times" assertion:

Largest collapse of real estate values in recorded history
Real incomes falling, costs rising, budgets squeezed, jobs lost
Potential mega-flation fueled by soaring energy prices
World food shortages (again)
Middle East in crisis (again)
Oppression in far too many countries
Impending environmental disaster
Health care system in disarray

Critical Acclaim? You be the judge

2008-05-10T14:14:00.003-05:00

Wow, that was nerve-wracking, watching the reviews come in after your movie opens in LA. Personally, I took every critical remark personally. But more objective souls pointed out that the primary accomplishment was to open in LA, period. Second level, open without getting panned. Mission accomplished! Third level, garner some praise for the eventual DVD cover. Also a Mission Accomplished! So, here is the cream of the Los Angeles reviews for Dare Not Walk Alone.

"Powerful slice of roiling American history" -- LA Times

"Packs a punch" -- LA Weekly

"Mesmerizing and heart-rending" -- L.A. City Beat

"Dean's ability to explore history through such a local nexus creates a uniquely intimate document." -- Variety

"The racial politics of the current presidential election make this film all the more significant." -- Film Journal

"Clear-eyed look at the adversaries of Martin Luther King Jr.’s utopian “dream”...reminds us that, for far too many Americans of color, “free at last” has meant trading one sociological prison for another." -- LA Weekly

"Has great potential to do real good in the world" -- Boxoffice

"A very strong comment on the capacity of people to ascend from their suffering." -- Boxoffice

For more about the film, check out the official web site.

Dare Not Walk Alone Opens in LA

2008-04-19T14:10:00.000-05:00

Couldn't resist some shameless cross-posting to boost the civil rights doc I've been involved with. Check out the show times here. We open April 25. Wish us luck!

April DVD Releases

2008-04-02T11:22:00.001-05:00

Some interesting fare this month. I am keen to see how Juno treats the subject of teen pregnancy compared to Slam, the excellent book by Nick Hornby that I blogged about last year.

I am also keen to see if There Will Be Blood captures the spirit of Upton Sinclair's Oil, which I read many years ago when I was, briefly, at least on paper, an oil man myself. We all know Daniel Day Lewis can act, but what material has the filmmaker given him to work with.

As for Sweeney Todd, I am not a big fan of musicals, but I enjoyed Hairspray, so I will give it a whirl, if only to see Johnny Depp in action. Of greater import, probably, is Charlie Wilson's War and I am a big fan of Philip Seymour Hoffman who looks very impressive in the trailers.

So, if there are a lot of April showers, there are some good reasons to stay inside and watch movies.

The Art and Science of Perception: Color me deficient

2008-03-18T13:28:00.000-05:00

I have always enjoyed music and the visual arts but at times have felt excluded from these worlds.

First there was the music teacher who told me that should mime the words when singing in the school concert because "You're tone deaf." Some years later I found out that I am "color blind," more technically, "color deficient." That explains a lot about my art education.

You see this rectangle on the left? It looks green to me, a dark green, but green nonetheless. Of course, it is not green, it is gray (or grey). I know this because it is an RGB color, specifically equal parts of Red, Green, and Blue. The way that computers handle colors has been a revelation to me. I used to think other people were arbitrary when they talked about colors like violet or peach. Now I know there is a recipe for every color.

Computers also enables me to work on web pages and other computer graphics without creating a garish mess. For example, when I am building a web site I usually start with a template that someone else has designed. If I make any design changes I make sure, by checking with people who have normal color perception, that the thing still looks okay. Then I use the RGB coding to keep on track.

When my daughter first heard that I was color blind she was fascinated and kept asking me what things looked like. Well, I didn't have any good answers. But now, thanks to pages like this one, I can give her some idea. In fact, if you Google "what color blind people see" you will find some fascinating sites. There is even one that shows you what your web site will look like to people with different types of color blindness. You can also do some basic tests of your color perceptions.

I think my form of color deficiency is a red/green deficiency classified as Deuteranomalia. However, I have not yet met, or read about, anyone who shares my perception that this grey is green.

Fab Feb Movie Watching: No faking

2008-02-18T11:10:00.006-05:00

Just enjoyed a movie that you might not have come across before: Fakers. This is a small budget Brit movie that is a lot of fun, particularly if you like caper-style romantic comedy. There is a snappy sixties feel to the production and a treat for car fans: the first high speed chase in a Smart Car (as far as I know).

And there's plenty here for fans of Matthew Rhys, since he has the male lead (he's the guy we'll soon see playing Dylan Thomas in love with Keira Knightley in The Edge of Love and also seen in Virgin Territory and Love and Other Disasters). And must not forget the strong and amusing female lead, Kate Ashfield, seen in another, better known 2004 Brit comedy, Shaun of the Dead).

Fakers is distributed by Indican Pictures, an indie outfit that seems to be on the rise. Indican also distributes another under-exposed Brit gem, Pure, which, like Fakers, stars a very attractive British actress (although that is possibly a politically incorrect reference these days). Guess who? Keira Knightley.

(Full Disclosure: I'm the producer of Dare Not Walk Alone which is also distributed by Indican Pictures and yes, they gave me a complimentary copy of the film.)

Natural Beauty

2008-01-17T18:22:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I find nature more beautiful than any art.

This is the view down the trail from my house right now. Layla, our Springer Spaniel, is looking back at me, encouraging me to take a walk.

The snow on the branches of the birch trees and maples creates a sort of cathedral over the trail. The silence is wonderful and the air is fresh and clear.

A walk down this trail seldom fails to cheer me up. Layla ventures off to the left and the right, bouncing through snow cover, following deer tracks and turkey tracks, but looking back every fifty feet or so to get my nod to continue or return.

I now have a wider shot of this scene as the wallpaper on my laptop (1280x800). That way I can see it long after the snow melts. If you'd like to try it you can download it here (it is free, licensed under Creative Commons Share Alike 3.0, attribute: Stephen Cobb).

Be of Good Cheer: Maria Bamford is here

2007-12-17T17:34:00.005-05:00

Okay, so there's nothing particularly Christmassy about Maria Bamford, apart from the [maybe] green background in this pic. But I always feel the need for a good laugh over the holidays and this lady makes me laugh, a lot.

I just got her first audio CD, The Burning Bridges Tour, and it's a gas. Who can resist such gems as "Goddess of Little Lake Pequaym" and "The Pterodactyl Song"? The answer, apparently, is quite a few of my friends, who don't seem to find Maria as hilarious as I do. No mind, I can put on my headphones and guffaw insanely at this true original without scaring the dog too much.

I mean, who else could come up with "My father is really just a series of sound effects." And then proceed to do the sound effects, in a way that is frightening real, at least to this old geezer. However, I am prepared to accept that others might not 'get' this gorgeously amusing comic, so I have two links here that will get you to a bunch of video clips from which you can judge for yourself before you splurge on an album. They are Comedy Central and Maria's official site. Enjoy!

Another Dependable Author: Cruz Smith and Stalin's Ghost

2007-11-14T17:15:00.002-05:00

Just got the latest Martin Cruz Smith novel: Stalin's Ghost. This is another in the Arkady Renko series and as good as any of the others, all the way back to Gorky Park. I don't know how Smith does it, but he captures the essence of Russia time and again, over time, as the country has emerged from the Cold War to its current state of nationalist resurgence.

Is the Russia that Smith describes the real Russia? Well, between the previous installment, Wolves Eat Dogs, and Stalin's Ghost, I was fortunate enough to spend about a week in Moscow. Everything I experienced there meshed perfectly with the Moscow that Arkady inhabits in this latest installment. (I only wish I had used the metro while I was there--you'll understand when you read the book).

So my guess is that all the other Arkady Renko novels are equally realistic. Each captures a part of the Russian reality, not the whole story, but enough to give you a lot more insight into the country and its people that many history books and documentaries. And they are enjoyable books, dependably tense, full of surprises, and the persistence of Arkady, a character who seems to survive the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune despite himself and his utter lack of respect for [illegitimate] authority.

Blonde Faith: Why it's good to be able to trust an author

2007-10-18T16:38:00.004-05:00

Just finished reading Walter Mosley's latest, Blonde Faith, and I wish I hadn't--finished that is. There are some authors who are so dependably good you just wish they'd write as fast as you can read, so you'd never be without one of their books. Almost all of my fiction reading is done just before I go to sleep and I look forward to that time as a reward for a hard day's work. If I don't have a dependable author to turn to, I get cranky and have a hard time falling asleep.

For me, Walter Mosley is one of the most dependable. Even though he has tried some very different genres over the years, I have enjoyed them all, from the spacey afro-youth novel "47" through the gritty tales of Socrates Fortlow to the darkness of "The Man in the Basement." For sheer enjoyment, the Paris Minton and Easy Rawlins series are the best and this is where Blonde Faith fits in. I don't want to give anything away, but this one could be a shocker for Easy fans. If you have not read any of the others in the series, don't start here, go for Devil in a Blue Dress. In fact, what I recommend--and literary purists are going to cringe at this--is first watch the movie of Devil in a Blue Dress then read the book. Why? Because then you will see Easy as Denzel Washington when you make your way through the rest of the series, and that really worked for me. Denzel Washington has the same wry smile of an angry soul that is so often an Easy's face.

And remember, with any Easy Rawlins novel you not only get night after night of suspense and intrigue and illicit sex, you also get a first rate education in what it felt like to grow up black in America in the forties and fifties (and probably the sixties through the nineties as well).

Steve Donnelly and the Soaring Seventies Guitar Solo

2007-09-12T10:50:00.004-05:00

Last month's post about guitarist Steve Donnelly [Great Guitarists Never Die--My roomie from uni lives on] was perhaps a little too cryptic even for a blog post. So let me explain, Steve was my first year room mate at the University of Leeds. The day that I arrived at the flat, assigned to me by university housing, Steve was practicing on his Fender Telecaster, feet up on his Marshall amp, surrounded by every cup and mug in the place, all of which contained various amounts of coffee dregs (to his credit, Steve quickly rounded the mugs up and set about washing them).

The point is, he was a dedicated guitarist, even back then, and already very good. He had been playing the pub scene in London for several years and when he told me that Mick Fleetwood had asked him to be in the new line-up it was not hard to believe. But Steve found that being in a band has its downsides, like getting paid in relation to effort. So he does session work, paid for every hour of his time. Over the years he has developed a reputation as the go-to guy for great guitar work, appearing on albums by Bonnie Raitt, Elvis Costello, John Wesley Harding, Nick Lowe, and Sheryl Crow. He was also a member of Suzanne Vega's stage band on the Nine Objects Of Desire tour.

One of Steve's specialties is the soaring seventies guitar solo and so when the late Brian Gibson decided to make a movie that revolves around a mythical seventies super-group, he turned to Steve for the guitar work, and the job of teaching actors to look like they are playing great guitar. The result was Still Crazy, a very enjoyable movie, particularly if you are a fan of Billy Connolly, Jimmy Nail, or the quietly brilliant Bill Nighy. In some reviews I have seen various musicians from Foreigner and Squeeze credited with the music, but there's no doubt Steve created the film's musical centerpiece: Brian's Theme. Check it out on Amazon.

Great Guitarists Never Die? My first year roomie fron uni lives on

2007-08-10T19:26:00.001-05:00

One of the greatest guitarists of our time is someone you've probably never heard of, Steve Donnelly. Here he jams with another excellent player, Elliott Randall. Might seem a little slow to start with, but watch those fingers warm up, until Steve's pick goes flying!

Chey's Xtreme Flowers "Today's Best" on Zazzle

2007-08-07T18:55:00.000-05:00

Chey's amazing image called Extreme Azalea's was selected as one of "Today's Best" on zazzle.com!

In fact, she has been getting a lot of favorable comments on her latest direction in digital imaging, taking her photographs of flowers and 'shredding' them into various levels of abstraction. Like Xtreme Sunflowers:

Freesound: A cool site for people with ears

2007-05-06T19:12:00.000-05:00

If you are fascinated by sounds then check out the freesound home page. This is the home of a project to make sounds available under Creative Commons licensing. What's cool about that? Well there are times when you want a sound, maybe for a movie or a music project. This site is working to make sounds searchable so that you can find the sound you need, then use it under a Creative Commons license.

I used the sound of a film projector from this library in my first video on YouTube. I am in the process of uploading some of my own sounds, things like dogs barking, rain on a tin roof, frogs doing what frogs do, and so on. In fact, I sometimes carry a small digital recorder with me just to capture sounds.

Is it art? Well, there is an art in the use of sounds, as many a motion picture sound track reveals. And there is an art in the capture of sounds. Creating sounds is also an art form. Some of the sounds on this site are generated from chips. Maybe you need to have grown up with radio drama as a major form of entertainment to get same the kick out of sound that some of us old folk do. Few things have sparked my imagination like listening to BBC radio plays on an earpiece under the covers after bedtime using a crystal radio attached to the drain pipe with an alligator clip.

Is This Art:? Coverage of the Virginia Tech Coverage

2007-05-03T00:40:00.000-05:00

For years people have complained that network news and the major news networks have become less about news and more about entertainment. A fad? All about the money? No. It is an emerging phenomenon of considerable significance to human development (both in general terms and in the specific terms of Hegel's Aesthetics, which I happen to believe is the most prescient of his works).

The conclusive proof for me is that the best political journalism on TV today is The Daily Show. No doubt about it. Doubt it? See Jon Stewart's handling of the coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings.

That is art.

Cool Fine Art Posters: Lively up your living space, work space, head space

2007-04-26T12:06:00.000-05:00

A new collection of fine art posters based on the amazing photographic talents of Chey Cobb (yes, we are related) is now online at Zazzle. Take a break and check out the miniature art show below. See something you like, click for a closer look, order the size and frame style you need.

Chey's Cobb's Fine Art Posters at Zazzle

Publish or Be Published: Sixth part

2007-04-17T11:15:00.000-05:00

In talking about self-publishing in the last few parts of this piece I did not intend to give the impression that Amazon is the only way to go. By no means. Plenty of other online outlets exist, as well as other old-fashioned channels like book signings and boot sales. Lets look at one online alternative to get started:

Privacy for Business listed at Atlas Books, operated by Bookmasters.
compare to:
Privacy for Business listed at Amazon.com.
and
Privacy for Business listed at Amazon.co.uk.
and
Privacy for Business on its own site.

The first thing to note is that Atlas sells the book for $18.97 which is a price set by me (in fact, I am about to lower it to try and clear out the last remaining copies of this version). I could have chosen to make Atlas the sole source on the book's web site. but felt like leaving the Amazon option open. The Barnes & Noble option has not been very productive. Amazon sells the book for an attractive $16.47, so the ten bucks or so that I get per copy through them is a good deal. I may try lowering the Atlas price to $15.79 and see if that pulls more sales across to Atlas. What Atlas does not offer is a UK outlet. Amazon does, and it requires no extra work by me. They sell the book for £17.99 which means a decent chunk for me, although I am not aware of any UK sales yet.

So why Bookmasters/Atlas? Well, Bookmasters is the only company I know that is both a regular printer and a bookseller. This can save you a lot of money in shipping. You get a competitive price on the printing of your books, based on a run of 1,000 or more. In other words, this is not the much more expensive print-on-demand pricing you will see at some online operations. Then you escape shipping charges because Bookmasters warehouses the books for you. Buyers can get the book from the Atlas web site and through 7x24 toll-free ordering (some people still like to order by phone instead of the web). Plus, Bookmasters is hooked into one of the big distributors, so bookstores can order direct from them. So can you. They will ship a carton of books to you when you need one, or to a buyer (I sell about 40 books a quarter wholesale to a university book store and they go straight from Bookmasters to the store).

The warehousing is not free. I pay from $50 to $70 per month in charges. And obviously Atlas is not Amazon when it comes to online presence. But this brings us to an interesting question: What is going to drive sales? If you are out on the speaking circuit generating buzz, it may not matter that you are not on Amazon. All you need is a simple way to channel people to the order page. For example, you put a "buy now" link on your web site (hopefully you have already registered your name as a web site) or on the book's web site (hopefully you have already registered the title as a web site). That link can be to Atlas and the price can be whatever you decide.

Of course, neither Amazon nor Atlas are exclusive, so you can go with both, but I am not sure how many people buy books on Amazon just through browsing. In other words, without buzz your Amazon sales are not guaranteed to be anything more than one or two a month. (At some point I will get around to discussing how to perk up your Amazon listing to increase sales).

Lulu.com is an interesting example of print-on-demand. Check it out at lulu.com. You submit your manuscript and cover design, they print copies when people order them from the web site. Their pricing model seems complex at first (check it out here) but if you have read the previous parts of this posting you should be able to grasp what they are getting at. If not, check the example on this page and keep trying, it's a good way to learn the ropes.

You can see that copies sold through retail distribution (e.g. by Barnes & Noble) are going to make you $4.00 per copy. This might not sound like much but it remember you have zero up-front costs, zero shipping costs, zero warehousing costs, and $4.00 is probably twice what you would get with a mainstream publisher. Now look at the Lulu Marketplace price. You could get $10.00 per book sold direct through their web site ($4.00 royalty plus the difference between $13.53 and selling price, e.g. $19.95-$13.53=$6.22). If you are actively marketing your book then telling people to order from lulu.com may work well.

Now, I ended Part V by saying we would talk about how to move a lot of books in a hurry. I don't mean to be crass but one of the best ways is to give them away. Please wait a moment before you ask the perfectly logical question: "Where's the profit in that?" Remember the question I put to you in Part One? Why do you want your book to be published? If you want to "get out the word" or become "renowned author and expert" then giving away some of the first print run can be a smart move.

Think about the cost of your books. If you pick them up from the printer in your car they can be under $2.00 each (that's for the 6x9 240 page glossy covered paperback we have used in previous examples). Now look at the list price on the back (we will deal with pricing and the all important ISBN number and bar code in Part 7).

That list price is more like $22.00 than $2.00. In other words, the perceived value is at least ten times the raw cost. But if you, the author, whose name and photo are on the cover, hand the book to someone, they will feel it is worth even more than the cover price. That's because you, the author, handed it to them, spoke to them about it, maybe even autographed it.

Think about what could happen if you were to take boxes of your books to a trade show where you are promoting the services or products of yourself or your company. You make sure everyone at the show gets handed a copy of your book. With the right book this will seriously boost your credibility AND jump-start sales. And you'll be surprised at how many people will ask you to sign the book. I've had congressmen and CEOs ask me to autograph books I have given them. Never under-estimate the combined value that personal contact + your name and photograph on a book jacket generates (the photograph is particularly important in any professional field where it is helpful for people to know what you look like).

If your book is good—which of course it is, right!—then the chances are it will stick around on the desk or bookshelf of someone to whom you handed a copy for quite a bit longer than other books. Recipients of complimentary copies are likely to recommend the book to others, who will have to buy their own copies. One person who got a free copy of one of my books at a conference ordered 30 copies the next day to hand out to his employees.

I don't mean to belabor the point but think about the traditional tchachkes that companies hand out at trade shows. They cost at least $2.00 each and have a perceived value of what? Rarely as much as $20. Furthermore, their value seldom relates to the features and benefits of the company/service being promoted. I have a nice coffee mug from an encryption company. It reminds me of that company when I use it, but that is not often because I have a lot of other coffee mugs. And a coffee mug adds nothing to my opinion of the company's encryption expertise (except perhaps that they drink a lot of caffeine when they are coding).

In the next part we will look at several practical aspects of the book production process, including the ISBN number, the bar code, and the selection of a printer. We will also discuss getting your book adopted as a textbook.

Publish or be Published: Part V

2007-04-08T09:01:00.001-05:00

So, how do you go about putting out a book? Let's assume you have a manuscript. You need to get it typeset in a form that can be sent to printer and printed. You also need to think about where you are going to put the books once they are printed. At the same time you need to be thinking about the channels you are going to use to sell your book. It might seem backward but we will discuss the last of these items first: Where to sell?

How about "the world's biggest book store" which is amazon.com? There is a fairly simple way for independent publishers--which includes you as an author who has published your own book—to sell through Amazon. It is called the Advantage program and you can read all about it here, but the following is the bit you want to know right now:

There is an annual fee of $29.95 to be a member of Advantage. Your fee includes unlimited title enrollment, access to our Vendor Services team, and access to the Vendor web site to manage your account. The standard terms for Advantage vendors is 55% - you keep 45% of the List Price. That means that Amazon.com is entitled to 55% of the List Price for each unit that sells. You, the vendor, receive 45% of the List Price. You set the List Price, also known as Suggested Retail Price, of your products, and all payments made to you are calculated based on the List Price. If Amazon.com decides to further reduce the sales price to the customer below the List Price, the customer discount comes out of Amazon.com's percentage. For example, if the List Price is $39.95, you will make $17.98 from each copy sold, even if the Customer Price or Our Price on Amazon.com is discounted from the List Price.

Now, I don't know what kind of book you are going to publish, but if you are going to give it a list price of $39.95 it had better be very special. Don't think you can game the Amazon system by listing a high cover price and expecting Amazon to discount it. You don't control their discounting. (I will give you an example in the next posting.)

Let's say you are looking at a 240 page trade paperback in the 6x9 inch size range. You can probably get these printed for $2.00 each. A realistic cover price for this might be $22.95 which gives you $10 and change for your 45% cut, less $2.00 printing costs. But PLEASE don't make the classic mistake of thinking "Great, if I can sell just 2,000 copies through Amazon I will make $16,000, which is twice what I was going to get as an advance from McGraw-Hill."

First of all, the books for which Amazon pays you $10 have got to get to Amazon and won't earn you a dime until they sell. Herein lies perhaps the biggest secret of publishing: books are HEAVY. That means shipping is going to be a big factor in the profitability of your publishing venture. Consider these numbers:

It will cost $4.05 to ship your 240 page 6x9 book via Priority rate for 2 day delivery within the US. Parcel Post runs $3.95 for 5 days but is probably not worth it since Bound Printed Matter rate is $2.15 for about the same speed. Slightly slower but a relative bargain is Media Mail (Book Rate) for $1.59. Compare that to the cost of printing the book. If you do a large print run you can probably get the cost of your book down to around the cost of sending it somewhere via Media Mail.

But surely your customers will pay shipping?

Yes, they will pay to get the book from Amazon, but you have to get the book to Amazon (or another other distribution point—for example, to your garage from the printer, or from your garage to a friend who has a book store that you can't get to by car). For an idea of bulk shipping costs, check this chart of UPS prices.

BTW, I have found UPS is the way to go with books. They are more reliable and do less damage than other carriers I have tried. So, these are current UPS rates for a book of 40. As you can see, 2-day is more than $2 per book. Regular 5-day is about 62 cents per book.

In my experience Amazon is unlikely to give you a chance to ship in bulk. They will order two or three copies at a time. A lightweight mailer for one or two books will cost about 50 cents. So your cost before the book gets to Amazon could be $4.71 (printing cost + shipping to you + shipping to them + mailer to ship in = $2.00, 0.62 + 1.59 + 0.50 = $4.71). That means one sale at Amazon may only net you $5.30 versus the gross figure of $10.00. And that means you have to move more like 2,000 copies to get a return greater than the $10,000 advance you might have received from a mainstream publisher. And you are fronting the costs and taking the risk. Nevertheless, it may be worth it.

Next posting we will talk about some alternatives to Amazon and how to move 2,000 books in a hurry.
.

Publish or be Published: Part Four

2007-04-06T11:12:00.001-05:00

Being a best seller...in perspective:

Technically, I did write a "best-seller" once. It was about how to use a particular piece of software and it sold fast enough to make Number One on the list of record at that time for computer books. So, it was, briefly, the number one selling computer book. I think total sales for that book were 80,000 copies over the first 6 or 7 months. I have had several successful 'literary' writers tell me they have never had a book sell that well. Of course, you can sell screen rights to a literary work a lot easier than you can for a software guide.

Speaking of sales, something to bear in mind, whether you publish yourself or get published, is that books have a somewhat unique place in the retail market because they are shipped to book sellers on a "sale or return" basis. A book store is allowed to return unsold books for full credit. If 10,000 copies of your book ship out in the first six months of publication, 3,000 could come back in the second six months.

While the publisher is going to count initial 'sales' against the advance they may hold some money in reserve in case your books come back. BTW, the publisher will likely want to give you just two statements per year. Insist on quarterly. Even that will mean you won't see any money over and above the advance for some time after publication, IF the book sells well.

How well a book sells is often determined by how many people know the book exists and that is often determined by how much effort the book's publisher--either the publishing company or you if you self-publish—puts behind the book. Publishing operates on small margins and is known for high staff turnover. A not uncommon phenomenon is for the editor who signed up your book to have 'moved on' before it comes to market, or for the publisher to have shifted focus. The enthusiasm you saw when they presented you with the contract has ebbed and although your book is in their catalogue there is nobody 'pushing' it to the big chains and reviewers. Alternatively, the big chains were eager at the outset but now have lost interest.

These are some of the factors that are beyond your control when you sign with a publisher. At least if you know about them you can plan to counter them. Don't bask too long in the glow of signing the contract. Deliver the manuscript as fast as you can and keep in touch with your editor to maintain the buzz.

By now you might be wondering why you would even bother with a major publisher. I know I found myself wondering and I have tried self-publishing. But in fact, there are several very good reasons to publish a book with a major publisher. First is the "authority" factor. Not sure if authority is the best word for it, but what I mean is: You come across as more of an authority, more likely to be accepted as the real deal, if your book is published by a big name publisher or a publisher who is respected in your field, whether it is animal behavior or literary fiction.

Second, publishing with an established publisher, particularly for a first book, is a great way to learn the ropes. What is good copy editing and how cruel does it need to be? What is stacking? What's a galley proof and what can you do with it? So, doing your first book with a big publisher is actually a good fit. You get the credibility and you learn a bunch of stuff that will come in handy if you decide to self-publish later.

Notice I said "good reasons to publish 'a' book with a major publisher." You might find that one is enough with a big publisher. Or you may decide you just want to go ahead and get on with putting out a book.

Publish or be Published: Part Trois

2007-04-06T08:23:00.000-05:00

So, by now you're probably chomping at the bit for some examples of how the numbers work in publisher. A traditional publisher may offer a royalty that is somewhere from 10% to 15% of the net price. The net price is what the publisher gets for the book. The publisher sells the book at a discount to bookstores. This varies and used to be about 40% but domination by just a few big book chains has forced it closer to 50%. That means if the price on the cover is $20 you may get 10% of $10 or $1 per book. You might get as much as 15% of $12, which is $1.80 but I wouldn't count on it. Remember that royalties on foreign sales are likely to be half of domestic and book club sales are often at a special discount (all of these things are technically negotiable but it might be hard to get a publisher to budge from their standard terms).

Now, a publisher may well be happy with a first run of 6,000 to 7,000 copies that sells close to that number. So an advance of around $10,000 is quite common. You may get a check for that on signing the contract or staged over the delivery of the manuscript (one third on sgning, one third at halfway, final third on final mnanuscript approval).

Now, I am pretty sure you can get on the New York Times Best Seller list with one week sales of 10,000 or more [but would be happy of someone could correct me or expand on that]. So a book that is a "best seller" may sell only 30,000 copies and I am under the impression that sales of that level for a literary novel are considered good. In that case the author may earn $40,000 or so. Not bad, but relate that to the time taken. A lawyer or other professional may well bill at $300 an hour or more. Earn $30,000 from a book and you are looking at less than three weeks of billable hours. And the publisher will likely tell you this is a very good outcome.

Publish or Be Published: Second Part of Several

2007-04-05T15:35:00.000-05:00

Fortunately for authors, if a book goes to press and sales do not generate enough royalty to cover the advance, most publishers do not ask you to return the unearned portion. (If your experience has been different, I'd love to hear about it—heave a comment.)

Suppose Madonna gets a $1 million advance on her autobiography but sales are way less than the publisher expected (I know I am not going to buy a copy). Will Madonna have to hand any money back. No.

Bear in mind that I am talking about advances on books that actually go on sale. If you don't deliver a manuscript that meets the publisher's requirements [which are specified in the book contract, which was agreed between you and the publisher] then you may well be asked to return the royalty.

That said, it seems to be a point of honor among publishers not to ask for unearned royalties to be returned if they go through with publication (they figured the sales would be enough to cover it and so asking you for the unearned portion would be a loss of face). I must have written a dozen books that did not earn their advance and never had a request for a refund, so to speak. Some still sit on the publisher's ledger as negative balances.

And here is a lesson: If you are writing a book for money, never count on it earning more than the advance. You simply cannot afford to do that because you are not in charge of the publishing process. This is true however strongly you feel about the book's irresistible appeal to the masses. There is a lot you can do to promote your book. But there is a lot a publisher can neglect to market your book if they lose interest between signing that book contract and printing the first run. Certainly in the field of technical books, publishing houses seem happy to publish a lot of books with mediocre sales, waiting for a break through book to come along. So, write for the advance and the rest is glory or gravy.

To Publish or Be Published: First of several posts on being an author

2007-04-05T15:10:00.000-05:00

A friend recently asked me about the benefits, if any, of self-publishing versus publishing. The scenario goes something like this: You have a book idea, or maybe even a manuscript, and you want the world to read it. What is the best way forward?

It is going to take quite a few posts to answer this, so before I get to it, you might wonder why my friend asked me. I have self-published and been published. I have had twenty-some books published by traditional publishers such as McGraw-Hill (the photo on the left is me as a much younger person, leaning on a stack of books I wrote--each one is a different title, although to be fair, some are foreign translations). These were technical books and most of them were commissioned. In other words, the publisher had already decided that a book about subject X was needed and I was asked to write it (this happens a lot more than many beginning non-fiction writers realize). A few of them were books where I suggested X, but I suggested a lot of X's that were not picked up by the publisher.

My "break-through" book was about a subject that was my idea, but the publisher only agreed reluctantly and really the book only happened through an odd set of circumstances. What do I mean by "break-through"? I don't mean best-seller. Relative to some of my books, sales were dismal. But the book established me as an expert in a field that has been good to me. I was able to leverage my "expert" status to make money and this is an important first lesson for anyone thinking of trying to publish a book: I have made a lot less money from book sales that I have from the status of being a published author. Furthermore, I can generalize this—I have several friends and acquaintances for whom this is also true. And that's okay. I'm not complaining. Although I have learned some harsh realities about publishers along the way.

So this is something for you to think about as we look at book business numbers: Why are you writing the book? Is it because you want/need to make money? Are you planning to make the money from the book sales? The work that being a published author may bring you? The screen rights? Are you writing the book to make a point, change the world, help others? My advice to everyone is to publish at least one book, but don't expect it to earn you a fortune. In fact, be prepared for it to loose money.

Really serious cash flow from book sales alone is unusual. Bear in mind that stories of a "six figure advance" for a book often involve a writer who is famous (or infamous). That advance is a sum of money paid to the author at some point before the book appears in print. It represents an advance on the book's earnings, known as royalties and the book may not actually earn that advance. In fact, some of the most talked about book big money deals don't earn the royalty that the author got in advance. So what happens? Check the next post, coming soon.

Hot Week for Art Events: Starring friends of mine!

2007-03-11T15:16:00.000-05:00

Wow! It's not often that two seriously hot art events featuring personal friends go down in the same week. But that's what's happening this week, and so here they are:

The Photon Ballet, Tuesday, March 13th, Hollywood, California. Featuring numerous pioneering digital artists including our good friends Michael Masucci and Kate Johnson of EZTV Media. In fact, EZTV is co-producing the event with Microsoft and Maxxon. This promises to be an awesome event to mark the 25th Anniversary of the LA branch of SIGGRAPH. Time and ticket info is here.

TELOORIKA: Thursday, March 15, the Embassy of Argentina in Washington, DC cordially invites you to the first art show to be hold simultaneously at the Embassy and in the virtual metaverse Second Life, created by our good friend Socorro Villa. For our Spanish readers, check out this very interesting discussion of the show's origins. Soco is a wonderful and uplifting artist (not surprising since she is also a wonderful and uplifting person).

Enjoy!

Hogfather DVD Draws Near: How American Discworld fans can see Pratchett's masterpiece

2007-02-10T17:47:00.001-05:00

Sadly, so far no American networks have picked up the movie based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel The Hogfather. But the film will be coming out on DVD in April in the UK. This means that us Disc-aholic Yanks can order the DVD through Amazon.co.uk and then play it on a region-hacked DVD player.

I actually have one of these and can attest that it works great. The model that I have is the Toshiba SD3980. I bought it through Amazon about 18 months ago for around $80. I was immediately impressed with how easy it was to install and use. I play it through a Sony Wega widescreen using component connections and the picture is great, regardless of the region or PAL/NTSC coding of the DVD (I also found it is smarter about aspect ratio than some more expensive DVD players--the ones that squish video shot in 4:3).

The big test was the 5 hour German PAL version of Until the End of the World, which is my wife's favorite movie. Played great, all 5 hours of it. However, it appears the 3980 itself is no longer available, replaced by the 3990. Since the price is the same, this would seem to be a good thing. (Note: some reviewers seem to have found the 3890 flimsy and easily broken--all I can say is they must give their DVD players a tougher workout than me, mine has given me no problems.)

So, for around $120, you and your North American Discworld-addicted friends [a phrase I am using in a good way] can have a Hogfather party in April.

(For more on region-hacked DVDs, check this link.)

Hegel's Aesthetics: A handy way of looking at things

2007-01-31T13:06:00.000-05:00

I have long been an admirer of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the German philosopher (1770-1831). Like another German philosopher, Nietzsche, Hegel has tended to suffer by association. This is a pity because Hegal has a lot to teach us about art.

Whereas Nietzsche was [quite unfairly in my opinion] tainted by the admiration of the Nazis, Hegel was over-shadowed by Karl Marx--a much less perceptive thinker, IMHO--who drew on Hegelian concepts to lay the groundwork for the dialectical materialism of Lenin and that whole mess.

So Hegel deserves, I humbly suggest, serious reconsideration. Some of his thoughts and interests were very modern. He was very interested in why people think the way they do, why they hold certain beliefs , which have tended to change over time, and why they behave in certain ways, which also evolve over time (although he died the same year Darwin graduated from Cambridge and so never knew of the latter's theory of evolution).

In short Hegel was interested in explaining observed phenomena, so in some ways he was a very practical philosopher, although you don't really get that when you open up something like Phenomenology of Mind, with its dense prose and page long paragraphs.

One of the most useful concepts that I have drawn from Hegel is that of genuine and ersatz manifestations of the same phenomenon which tend to reinforce, not diminish the importance of the phenomenon. Take the modern obsession with the lives of other people. The latter half of the twentieth century was a golden age of biography. Some truly great biographies were written, genuine works of art. At the same time we saw the rise of People magazine and lower-brow populist knock-offs. In trying to understand what is happening to the human race, some philosophers might ignore populist or crass manifestations of what are, when you scratch the surface, the same yearnings as you find reflect in more serious works of art.

But to Hegel they were both of interest. The existence of the same yearnings in different forms only heightened the importance of spelling out those yearnings, in this case the desire to understand how other people live their lives, something that fascinates us because we somehow sense that the way we live our own lives is a work in progress, but a body of work nonetheless. My own interpretation of Hegel, and my own belief, is that our lives are works of art and we are hungry to know how other artists are doing.

Suicide is Painless? Ads need many changes...

2007-01-28T13:51:00.001-05:00

I am by no means the first blogger to highlight the absurdity of commercial use of popular music out of context or toned town.

Probably the most glaring example is Royal Caribbean Cruise Line's use of Iggy Pop's "Lust For Life". The tune is there, big and bold, but the lyrics skip from "Here comes Johnny Yen again" to "With his lust for life" and thus bypass "With the liquor and drugs, And the flesh machine, He's gonna do another strip-tease...Well I am just a modern guy, Of course I've had it in the ear before, 'Cause of a lust for life." The whole thing is laid out nicely at Dick Mac's blog.

The incongruity has had a lot of people who respect Iggy's music outraged, amused, bewildered, and more (on the other hand it may have turned some folks on to Iggy, which would be a good thing). Still it was hard for some to accept the punk counter-culture subverted by commercial interests. But this is nothing new. The sixties were not over before the free love vibe was subverted by advertisers serving major corporations. Indeed, a lot of the cultural history of America over the last forty years has involved the commercialization ands mainstreaming of what began as anti-commercial, anti-establishment.

Remember how the biting 1970 anti-war movie M.A.S.H. became a TV sitcom and everyone was humming the word-less theme song blissfully unaware [in 99.9% of cases] that the title of the song, and it's refrain, is "Suicide is painless"?

p.s. The lyrcis to "Suicide is Painless" were written by Michael Altman, son of the late great Robert Altman who directed the movie. You can read them here.

Remembering The Love Man: Otis Redding, 1941-1967

2006-12-10T13:54:00.000-05:00

It was 39 years ago today that Otis Redding's plane crashed during a storm en route to a concert in Madison, Wisconsin. He was just 26 when he died, but Otis gave us an enormous body of work, songs that have become part of the soundtrack of our lives, from "Respect" to "Try a Little Tenderness." from "Shake" to "The Dock of the Bay." He gave us dreams to remember and he will always be remembered, with love and respect.

Funniest Radioactive DVD Ever? Ross Noble gets my vote

2006-12-04T22:20:00.000-05:00

Finally got my copy of Ross Noble's "Sonic Waffle" DVD from Amazon UK. Rewarded with belly laughs, giggles, tears of laughter, big grins that last for hours, and generally uplifting after-effects that last for days. Somehow ordinary words like "hilarious" don't do it justice.

And talk about value for money. You get the very tight "Live at the Apollo" show which was screened on cable in the US in 2006. That was my first exposure to this Geordie comic and I was going to try transferring it from my DVR when I thought to check Amazon for a DVD. You also get a full-length unedited show from tsfa. From this show you get a real sense of what it is like to see Noble perform in person. And you realize what you might have suspected from the Apollo show--he makes this stuff up as he goes along. Taking cues from the audience is a fine comic tradition, as is the art of hanging your repertoire of jokes on those cues, but Noble uses audience input to create his show, live and off the top of his head.

Bonus features are the commentaries and the back story short film. The latter is firmly in the Python tradition and leads to the crowning absurdist epiphet: Radio-Active Kung-Fu Refrigerator Boy and Monkey-Slayer Ross Noble. As for the commentaries, I find these rib-ticklingly funny, first the commentary on the ssss show, then the commentary on the commentary--a first to the best of my knowledge ("This is me commenting on the commentary you heard earlier...you might not realize it but that commentary was entirely unscripted" and so on.)

I strongly urge anyone who is a fan of the Pythons and/or Eddy Izzard and/or The Big Lebowski to check out Ross Noble. He is unlike anyone else but those three reference points should be good predictors of your predisposition to find Noble knee-knockingly amusing. Not that everyone will find him equally entertaining. My wife insists she is not interested in seeing his shows a third time and only watched one half of one DVD commentary (she also promises to hit me if I repeat any of the material ever again--that's fair enough because I am content to enjoy a Noble-sque view of things and make up my own absurd banter when the mood strikes me).

But the burning, almost radioactive, question now is this: Why would someone who lives in America order from amazon.co.uk? As of right now, there are no Ross Noble DVDs published in the US. So I ordered one from the UK, having noted that it was not region coded. but so far that's the only way to get this DVD. Why? I don't know. But I do know it plays fine on my Toshiba SD 3980 PAL/NTSC Region Free DVD player.

The Art of Acting Means Being Different People

2006-11-29T10:26:00.000-05:00

Yes, these two people are the same person, my cousin, the actor Nick Tennant. To my mind, that is what great acting is all about, the ability to assume an identity to the point where the audience sees the character and not the person playing the character. Nick has that ability.

Take just a simple example from popular culture: Magneto in the X-Men movies. The character is played by Ian McKellen, but when you are watching the movie you don't sit their thinking "that's Ian McKellen." You're thinking "that's Magneto." And you're not thinking "that's Gandalf" or "that's Richard III" or maybe "that creepy Nazi neighbor in Apt Pupil." The character assumed by the actor is what you see, and IMHO what you should see, not the actor "being someone else."

Another good example would be Hannibal Lecter, engraved on the movie-goers mind by Anthony Hopkins (BTW, young Nick--above--attended the same drama school as Mr. Hopkins). That performance, powerful as it was, does not prevent you believing that Anthony Hopkins is the gritty but harmless New Zealand eccentric Burt Monroe in the must-see sleeper: The World's Fastest Indian (safe Christmas present for anyone interested in motorcycles or engineering feats of any kind).

For the record, the photo on the left is one of Nick's standard "head shots." The picture on the right is Nick duirng his time as Grumio in the Royal Shakespeare Company's 2003 production of the bard's "Taming of the Shrew" and Fletcher's "The Tamer Tamed." It was Nick's idea to play the groom's role in a realistic stage of grubbiness. Hence the look you see.

Hooray for The Hogfather: Sky's Rendtiion of Pratchett Discworld Novel Debuts

2006-11-29T10:23:00.000-05:00

Two days ago, London's Curzon Mayfair hosted the premiere of "The Hogfather," Sky's hi-def film screen adaptation of the Terry Pratchett Discworld novel that will be show on Sky 1 this Christmas (Sky 1 being part of BSkyB, or British Sky Broadcasting, the Murdoch-owned, UK-based satellite broadcaster that operates the Sky Digital network). For more details of the film see IMDB and Sky's TV guide.

Although I live in America and won't see The Hogfather this Christmas, I do expect that one of the hi-def channels in the US will pick it up. But to be honest, I would not know about this movie if my cousin, Nicolas Tennant (a.ka. Nick Tennant and Nicholas Tennant) had not been cast in it (along with Sir David Jason playing Albert, the alluring Michelle Dockery playing Susan, and Ian Richardson as the voice of Death). This led me to venture into Discworld for the first time and read the book, a step I am very glad I took.

Of course, I had seen a steadily growing number of these novels on the bookstore shelves for years, but had always been put off by the fact that a. fantasy fiction is not my favorite genre, b. the covers looked really cartoon-ish and uninviting (the American editions have recently been released with more subdued covers--but the trick to getting the most from these books is to create your own image of what the inhabitants look like rather than accept someone else's). Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Hogfather--the book, finding it to be a delightful mix of whimsy, humor, surprisingly contemporary political satire and comic allusion, and yes, deep thought (or at least deep-thought provoking notions).

And because the character that Nick plays is Corporal Nobby Nobs of The Night Watch, I worked my way through that sub-section of the series. I found these novels to be a fine anti-dote to depression, or at least a reliable escape from the distress of daily life.

BTW, the 'andsome bloke in the photo is Nick, so anyone who sees him as Corporal Nobby Nobs will know what a brilliant actor he is. (Corporal Nobby Nobs is introduced as "a small but irregularly formed figure" whose ears could look suggestive--in a later book we are told "the only reason you couldn't say that Nobby was close to the animal kingdom was that the animal kingdom would get up and walk away.") The following dialogue is just a taste of what Discworld can be like:

Sergeant Fred Colon: War, Nobby. Huh! What is it good for?
Corporal Nobby Nobs: Dunno, Sarge. Freeing slaves, maybe?
Fred: Absol -- well, okay.
Nobby: Defending yourself against a totalitarian aggressor?
Fred: All right, I'll grant you that, but --
Nobby: Saving civilization from a horde of --
Fred: It doesn't do any good in the long run is what I'm saying Nobby, if you'd listen for five seconds together.
Nobby: Yeah, but in the long run, what does Sarge?

Celeb Trivia du Jour: Michelle Dockery appeared in the original stage production of "His Dark Materials" which is currently being filmed with the latest Bond, Daniel Craig, in the role of Lord Asriel, and starring Nicole Kidman.

Cobb on Arts & Entertainment? Yes!

2006-11-17T19:55:00.000-05:00

Yep, this is what's next. A separate blog for thoughts on arts and entertainment.

And let me start with a shameless plug for the current and very hot novel by my favorite novelist/restaurateur: Eat the Document by Dana Spiotta. Definitely worthy of its National Book Award nomination. If you think you are cool, try this book on for size. I'm sorry it didn't win, but I am sure there are many awards in Dana's future. I know she is working on another novel right now, even as she orchestrates the fine dining experience that is known as The Rose and Kettle, one of the many good reasons to check out the gem of upstate New York: Cherry Valley.

Also, an arts and entertainment posting would not be complete without a recommendation for your listening or viewing pleasure. My thanks to Mark (a poet with colour and World's Best House Painter) for turning us on to Lemon Jelly. All kinds of weird elements merge to make beautiful music. Not really lounge, not really house or trance. Not Tubular Bells but not unrelated. Maybe a pinch of Ogden Nut Flake? Have played the Lost Horizons album over and over, like we used to play LP sides back in the day, with the disc stacking arm off to the side to force a repeat. Here is a video to give you some idea (the band does not preview their tracks on Amazon).

Note: Cobb on A&E is firmly opposed to the pirating of copyrighted material and strongly encourages anyone who wants to play a piece of music or a work of video for their own pleasure to purchase a legitimate copy.