So Misguided

A lot of interesting things happened in the literary sphere this week, but the commentary was relatively quiet or perhaps I was distracted by my birthday celebrations. This post is also lacking commentary because I’m cleaning up the pad for my pending birthday guests.

Raincoast Books launched a literary podcast series.

The Literary Review of Canada listed the 100 most influential Canadian books, which included 6 royal commission reports and the 1863 Geological Survey of Canada. Atwood, Cohen and Findley are listed, as is Dennis Lee’s Alligator Pie.

David Bergen’s book sales have, according to a CBC report on The National, increased by 2000%

Imagine a Day, one of the most beautiful illustrated books I’ve seen in a long time, won the 2005 Governor General’s Literary Award for Children’s Literature, Illustration. Don’t judge it just on the cover, which I think is the weakest part.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire premiered this weekend with apparently 9750 engagements in North America. I attended a 10 pm showing at the Dunbar Theatre in Vancouver. There was full-on audience participation. Wooing when the main characters first appeared on screen. Clapping. Gasps of breath. Snickering and tsk tsking over Ron and Harry’s pissing match. It was great.

Posted by Monique at 04:30 PM. Filed under: Books • News •

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Get 20% at Chapters/Indigo this Sunday (Nov 20)—- just print out this coupon (link below)—apparently, you don’t have to be an iRewards member.

http://images.chapters.indigo.ca/images/Email/20051114_cad/CAD_irBrowser.html?sssdmh=dm1.169211

Posted by Monique at 05:04 PM. Filed under: Books • News •

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My birthday is tomorrow. I was never one to wish for a puppy, but yesterday I got a dog. Not a real dog, but an invite to the phenomenal Blogs n Dogs workshop in Banff. Nice present for sure. I’ve always wanted to go to the Banff Centre.

Raincity Studios in partnership with the Banff New Media Institute is producing a 3 day workshop on blogging and social networking at the Banff Centre, Alberta from December 4th-7th 2005, and I am attending.

Yesterday I received an email from Robert Scales of Raincity Studios announcing that I was the winner of their scholarship (workshop fee, activity fee—DOG SLEDDING—accommodation and meals, and airport transfer fees to and from the airport to Banff). I swivelled around in my office chair many times and the grin has yet to leave my face.

Here’s the post announcing the winner and the 5 other finalists.

Want to come? The registration closes Friday, November 25.
Register. Do it now. Don’t delay.

There’s dog sledding, and I think in my submission I may have promised to bring my tap shoes.

Posted by Monique at 07:43 PM. Filed under: Blogging • News • Personal • Technology •

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Vancouver Comicon is this Sunday from 11 AM to 5 PM at Heritage Hall, 3102 Main Street, Vancouver.

Vancouver Comicon Information Page

I am envious of anyone who gets to go. My dancecard is full that day and I doubt I’ll be able to get down.

Admission is $3, please, someone go on my behalf.

Posted by Monique at 07:54 PM. Filed under: Books • News •

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David Bergen’s novel The Time In Between just won the Scotiabank Giller Prize. He’s got the prize, the glitzy TV spot, a $40,000 cheque, way to go David! The Giller is Canada’s richest fiction award.

David Bergen is a Winnipeg writer whose novel is about an American man who fought in the Vietnam War then returned many years later only to disappear. I’m a huge fan of the book and have made a couple of postings about The Time in Between already:

David Bergen Hits It Big with The Time In Between

Quill and Quire is reporting that Random House U.S. will publish the book on Dec. 6. It will be interesting to compare the McClelland & Stewart marketing campaign with the Random House U.S. campaign.

Congratulations to David Bergen.

Posted by Monique at 10:09 PM. Filed under: Books • News •

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Google launched the Library Print project on Thursday and Amazon.com announced that it would offer online access to any page or section of a book, as well as the entire book. There is quite a bit of confusion, even in the publishing industry, about what these programs are so here’s my cheatsheet.

Google Print and the Google Print Library Project are two different programs.

Google Print is like Amazon’s Search Inside the Book. Publishers sign on to the program and provide a copy of their books so that Google/Amazon can scan and index the work. Google and Amazon offer users limited access to the book based on the user’s search terms—a limited number of pages forward or backward and a limited percentage of the total book. With Google, publishers are able to access site statistics on the number of times the title was viewed, the click-throughs on the Buy the Book links, and other goodies I’m sure. As a publisher you could use that information to optimize your own website pages and the descriptions of the book you provide to Amazon, Indigo, Barnes & Noble, etc. There is no fee to sign on to the program, however, publishers incur the cost of shipping titles to be scanned.

Google Print Library Project is the one caught up in US courtcases. In this program, Google has partnered with key US libraries to scan their entire collections (New York Public Library and the university libraries at Stanford, Harvard, Michigan and Oxford). The portion of the book made available to the user is dependent on the copyright. If the book is in the public domain then the whole book is accessible online. If the book is protected by copyright only the bibliographic data (title, author, publisher, etc.) is accessible plus a small except to provide context to the search term used.

Amazon Pages program allows users to “un-bundle” any of the books in the program. (It’s unclear to me how they determine which books are part of the program or which publishers Amazon is partnering with—maybe they haven’t worked out the details, the services are not yet available.) In the Amazon Pages program the user can choose to buy just the pages or sections needed and read them online.

Amazon Upgrade allows customers buying a physical copy of the book to also have the book available online for reading.

I’m interested in how the Amazon programs pan out because it seems they will run into publishers who have problems with how digital rights were assigned in author contracts and/or publishers who already provide ebook versions, again a rights conflict. The difference in approach will also be interesting to observe. Will Amazon engage with publishers in a different way than Google? For publishers, Amazon is another customer, they are a bookseller and there is an existing financial arrangement in place based on selling books. Not the case with Google. Google is making its money by increasing the number of pages it has indexed so that it can generate revenue off the ads it places on those pages. The unsung point so far in the Google discussions is that publishers in the Google Print program share in the ad revenue.

Posted by Monique at 09:56 AM. Filed under: Books • News • Technology •

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Hello Outdoor Lovers! I am very excited to announce that my buddy Craig’s website LoveYourRock.com is now online.

What is LoveYourRock.com? It is a website about appreciating and understanding the natural world that is humanity’s home.  It’s a site for everyone who wishes they could spend more time outside!

So help Craig out: Have read through the site and comment here on what you think. He’s open to all sorts of feedback.

Congrats Crazy, now you need to get a blog going.

Posted by Monique at 11:05 AM. Filed under: News • Personal •

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Are you coming to Northern Voice 2006?

Northern Voice 2006 (http://www.northernvoice.ca) is a two day conference on Friday, February 10 and Saturday, February 11. Location: UBC Robson Square, downtown Vancouver.

Northern Voice is currently accepting speaker submissions, registrations and sponsorship proposals. For all the details, check out the Northern Voice site.

Last year this was the only Canadian conference I attended. It was also the best priced.

The Moose is Loose.

Posted by Monique at 08:42 AM. Filed under: Blogging • News • Technology •

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Congrats to Shawna and Patricia who will be receiving a subscription to the best magazine in the world.

Posted by Monique at 06:22 PM. Filed under: News •

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I’ve only just stopped drooling. The latest edition of Geist magazine has landed on the doorstep and I love it. Check out the Geist website. Geist is my favourite literary magazine of ideas and culture. Every issue spends a long time in my hands. And recently, the mag has been arriving with a short note from the editor. This is no regular note. This issue it starts “Welcome (again) to the other side of this piece of paper ...”

A couple of issues ago the note went on to explain and apologize for the lateness of the issue. The personal note is very much like a blog post and the humanity of the Geist team is plainly evident.

The note this issue continues with an invitation for readers to think of Geist during the gift-giving season. The Geist Gift Pack included with the issue also includes an opportunity for the gift-giver to receive an archival print from the mag. Here’s the pitch:

“The idea of giving you a gift in exchange for you giving a gift came about after our accountant, whose name is Mindy, demonstrated on a spreadsheet what we had long suspected: that the cost of gaining a new reader for Geist by the conventional methods of direct mail had reached the astronomical proportion of two and even three times the price of a subscription. At the same time, the cost of acquiring gift subscriptions had remained at the level of only a few bucks each.”

Every subscription also draws three times its value in advertising and subsidy revenue. This whole pitch is effective for me because I like when companies explain the cost of their products, the business model; it makes me a better-informed consumer. One of the things I find frustrating is people who think $30-40 hardcover books are too expensive. Someone in publishing should explain the economic factors that contribute to that cost. Maybe I will ... but not today.

So do you love new ideas and new writing made in Canada? Do you enjoy a quirky look at the world? Do you live in Canada? Have you always wanted a Geist subscription?

I want to support Geist, and I want to give you a subscription to the magazine.

I’m offering 2 subscriptions. If you would like to be Geisted, send me an email, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with the subject line “Geist Me”.

Posted by Monique at 06:57 PM. Filed under: News •

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Today was the memorial service for “Smokey” Smith. The procession made its way through my neighbourhood and across the bridge to St-Andrew’s-Wesley Church. The roar of the CF-18s is stuck in my mind.

“Smokey” died on Wednesday, August 3, in Vancouver. The friends and dignitaries at the memorial service spoke of him as a card, as a man who liked a laugh and a good scotch, and most of all as a man who will be remembered as a hero.

The passing of “Smokey” Smith marks the passing of living history into oral and written history. As the last living recipient of the Victoria Cross “Smokey” had the remaining first-hand stories of what happened that night in Italy on October 21, 1944. It was his duty in accepting the Victoria Cross to represent bravery and to continue acting as a public figure and spokesperson long after the war. As a Canadian and a citizen of the world, I do not want those stories to die with him.

I did my English thesis research on wartime stories and although I don’t want to live in the past, I spent a lot of time thinking about it then, and again today.

The Victoria Cross is awarded for bravery, valour, self-sacrifice or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy. The cross is 1.375 inches across and is made from cannons captured from the Russians during the Crimean War.

There have been 1,351 Victoria Crosses awarded, 94 to Canadians.

The last living recipient of the Victoria Cross will have his ashes scattered at sea tomorrow. Sergeant Ernest Alvia “Smokey” Smith, VC, CM, OBC, CD. 1914-2005.

Posted by Monique at 03:02 PM. Filed under: News •

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Yesterday was a big day for the sponsorship scandal. Its first convicted criminal. 18 counts of fraud, 3 withdrawn. Ottawa defrauded of $1.5-million.

The interesting thing is that the Globe and Mail notes “making financial amends won’t necessarily mean that he [Coffin] will stay out of jail.” I’m particularly curious about the “necessarily”. Is that an option? You can buy your way out of criminal status these days?

Here’s a list of conveniently appropriate Latin phrases for yesterday’s political news:
caveat emptor: let the buyer beware
in flagrante delicto: in the act of commiting a crime
persona non grata: an unwelcome person
post mortem: after death
pro bono: done without charge
quid pro quo: something for something
vox populi: the voice of the people

Reclaim your Latin. Try out a phrase.

Posted by Monique at 04:54 PM. Filed under: News •

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What an interesting, bombshell of a day for Canadian politics. Belinda Stronach just announced that she has crossed the floor to the Liberals. I guess it’s like BC’s referendum for the STV, single-transferrable vote. You make your first pick and if that doesn’t work, you can vote for your second preferred party. The press conference was less exciting than the TV show Crossing Over with John Edward, but there were still some laughs and pale faces, the essence of good reality TV.

And the Queen arrives today, so should the government lose the budget vote despite Crossing Over with Belinda Stronach, the Queen will be on hand to dissolve parliament. Nifty twist to the itinerary. (CBC says Clarkson would still do the job, but it looks like it could be an interesting week in politics nonetheless.) And if the federal political mess isn’t enough, today is BC Elections day.

Bill Mountain gets my vote. He’s not on the ballot but he was by far the most tenacious solicitor of my vote.

UPDATE: CBC reported May 18 that the referendum result on electoral reform was 57% Yes and 43% no. In order to go ahead with STV, the Yes side needed 60% of all ballots cast as well as a majority in 60% of the ridings. So the political parties are saying it is a strong enough Yes that they’ll keep looking at it. I suppose that means if the collective memory of the citizens is strong enough and the pestering continues, so will the “looking at it”.

Posted by Monique at 07:12 AM. Filed under: News •

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What’s the deal with this single transferable vote? Well I think it is probably the only exciting thing about the upcoming election.

The May 17 provincial election ballot in British Columbia will contain a referendum question about whether the province should switch to a new method of voting, called the single transferable vote.

The Citizens Assembly, which proposed the concept, shows how the proposed system works.

Here’s the link to the Citizensassembly.bc.ca Resource page with a flash animation on how it works.

Posted by Monique at 07:31 PM. Filed under: News •

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Below is an abbreviated message from THE CORPORATION Producer/Director Mark Achbar and Campaign Strategist Katherine Dodds. They’ve started a movement against corporate misrule and are encouraging people to mark May 7 as THE CORPORATION DVD House Party and live online debate.

Check out TheCorporation.com/debate for details.

There are 8 hours of extra features on the 2-DVD set. It includes a “toolkit” called “What to do?” in the Q’s & A’s section of Disc 1, and the “Topical Paradise” on Disc 2 offers a road map to the extra info on the issues, including a wide-ranging one-hour section on “Strategies For Change.” As well, there are many more weblinks listed and a DVD ROM feature that works in PCs and Macs to make those links live and clickable. —Mark Achbar

It’s party time:

If we can generate 1000 house parties across North America, and they have on average 10 people attending, then we have 10,000 people brainstorming about what we can do to effect change. If each of those 10,000 people forward the email about our campaign to 10 more, well you get the picture!

Katherine wants to create a “Framework For Action” document, leading to a campaign to reduce corporate harm. She is collecting online feedback from partygoers and is working on an online grassroots network through HelloCoolWorld.com.

MAY 7, 2005 is the day to party!

INFO ABOUT THE DVD HOUSE PARTY CAMPAIGN & DEBATE AT:
http://www.TheCorporation.com/DEBATE

Posted by Monique at 03:21 PM. Filed under: News •

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