Guy LeCharles Gonzalez (aka glecharles) (aka loudpoet)

An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Random Reviews: Inkheart, Wanted, Chalk

We’ve been having a lot of Blockbuster nights since we bought the house last summer, while managing to catch whatever kid-friendly movies worth seeing in theaters whenever possible, and I’ve been reviewing a lot of them on Flixster but wanted to round up the most recent batch and post them here, including expanded commentary on a few.

Inkheart: Saw it tonight and loved it! A great cast highlighted by Paul Bettany and Helen Mirren, who lift Brendan Fraser beyond his typically solid leading-man performance, and Andy Serkis as a great villain; plus, an intriguing story combine for what is effectively an entertaining love letter to the power of the written word, writers, and imagination itself. It’s a little dark for some kiddies — India said afterwards that she thought it was rated R! — but I enjoyed it so much that I went and bought the book right afterwards and started reading it in the store.

Side note: This was the first movie I’ve seen Mirren in since those pictures last summer of her in a bikini and it was a little distracting for the first couple of minutes. Zoinks!

Black Snake Moan: Surprisingly poignant and touching; great performances from Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci enable Craig Brewer to fulfill the potential of his risky idea — the DVD extras are must-see — and Justin Timberlake does a solid job of not embarassing himself. The music, too, is amazing and I want the soundtrack which includes Jackson doing “Stack-o-lee”, one of the many songs that inspired the best graphic novel of 2006, Stagger Lee.

Wanted: Imagine, if you can, a mash-up of The Matrix and Fight Club, written by a roomful of monkeys with iPods and directed by the least talented monkey in the room, and you’ll get close to the total wackness that is Wanted. James McAvoy’s character and acting were lame imitations of Ed Norton in Fight Club, and the handful of kewl action moments were overshadowed by the sheer lameness of the script and, pardon the pun, threadbare plot. The comic book it was based on was similarly hacktastic, so it’s no surprise, but I expected a little better from Easy Reader. Morgan Freeman: You’re on notice!

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Spindle Update: We’re Back!

Spindle Magazine: A New York State of Mind
Spindle Magazine: A New York State of Mind

Can you believe Spindle “officially” launched just over a year ago?  Or that it has been 9 long months since we had a full update?!?

Of course you do because you’ve been anxiously refreshing the home page ever since, or triple-checking your favorite RSS reader in a desperate attempt to make some fresh new NYC-flavored literary content appear at spindlezine.com.

Oh, what? That was just me?

Well, anyway, MY wish has finally been granted as Spindle is finally returning with some great new poetry from the likes of Amanda Halkiotis, Lynn Patmalnee and Jon Sands, plus a new photo gallery from David King, and an inspiring (and timely!) essay from Peggy Landsman entitled “The Community Chorus”.
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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Twitter Tips for Writers

I raved about my former Writer’s Digest colleague, Maria Schneider, a couple of weeks back — towards the end of a long rambling post that no one but my wife probably read — because she’s put together one of the best websites for writers out there at editorunleashed.com.

She’s not only producing some great content including tips on writing and getting published and links to great free resources, she’s interviewing writers and agents, hosting a vibrant and active community, and has even started offering workshops on everything from writing an effective query letter to intensive fiction workshops designed to help you finish that novel.

Her post today about Twitter was particularly timely as I’ve started using it a lot lately, both personally and professionally, but I’m not sold yet on its real value. I’m still in the early stage of what she likens to “being at a cocktail party where you know no one”, but her tips on how writers can get the most out of it and 25 Twitterers to follow is a great resource:

There’s a bunch of publishing types using Twitter and following them is tapping into the zeitgeist—a never-ending stream of conversations, random thoughts and links. It gives you access to lots of smart, interesting, connected people.

But if you’re just getting started on Twitter it can be really intimidating, so I’ve made this list of 25 good follows for writers composed of the twitterati, book bloggers, agents, publishers and writers. This is by no means an exhaustive list of twitterati, but it may be a good start for you. Check out who these folks follow to find many more.

There are several people on her list I wasn’t following whom I added, including Bo Sacks (who surprisingly only has 83 followers?!?!) and Ron Hogan, and I was glad to see my old publisher Soft Skull there, as Richard Nash has a very high signal:noise ratio (something many Twitterers, myself included, haven’t quite figured out yet).

I’ll add to her tips that you can also do a version of Google Alerts on Twitter Search, and get an RSS feed for any topic of interest being discussed on Twitter.

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Awkward Class War Humor

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov3bqmSKW28] Part of me appreciates the wry humor, and part of me is totally offended by the young black mailroom guy playing the lottery. I thinks it's really advertising the lottery itself that's bothering me, as it's basically a sucker tax on the poor, "acceptable" because some of the revenue supposedly goes to schools. Of course, not in direct proportion to the neighborhoods where the most tickets are bought. In these tough times, it's like advertising liquor at an AA meeting.

Continue ReadingAwkward Class War Humor
An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Is Print Advertising Dead?

Vintage Baby Ruth Ad by dklimke
Vintage Baby Ruth Ad by dklimke

Check out @themediaisdying on Twitter for a glimpse at the convulsions of an industry that’s either at death’s door or, for the more optimistically inclined, in the midst of a violent but necessary transformation.

I’ve worked in magazine publishing for 15 years now — consumer, B2B and non-profit — and as has been noted pretty much everywhere recently, 2008 was an ugly year.  Mass consumer and B2B brands are getting hit the hardest, but even local and niche brands with strong subscriber bases are getting hammered by this perfect storm, and surprisingly to almost no one with any sense some people, the Internet has turned out to not be the magic bullet it was proclaimed to be.

(In fact, in many cases, online publishing is effectively “trading dollars for pennies“, and the economic fallout that’s affected print advertising is undoubtedly going to affect online advertising, too. ETA: It already has.)

Flip through the most recent issues of your favorite magazines and you’ll probably notice they’re a little bit lighter than they used to be. Less editorial content; thinner paper; deeply discounted, sometimes desperately worded subscription offers.

Almost all of them likely have less ads (and in many cases less relevant ads) than they used to, too.

I was cautiously optimistic that the major damage might be limited to 2008, and 2009 could be a rebuilding year for most brands on flat revenues, with some going under and a few even pulling off a Miami Dolphins-style turnaround, but 13 days into the new year, it looks like things still haven’t quite hit bottom.

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

The Return of Spindle (and a call for help)

Spindle Magazine: A State of Mind
Spindle Magazine: A State of Mind

When it comes to Spindle, I often refer to “we” but the reality is that it’s 99.5% me; I’m a control freak and have no shame admitting it.

Of course, that has a rather extreme down side to it, too.

I have a couple of poetry editors who are more like consultants whom I run poems that I’m on the fence about for a second opinion, but I read every single submission first — poetry, fiction, non-fiction, photography — and reply to every one of them myself. For a while, I was offering critical feedback on the majority of the rejections, but as anyone who has ever been an editor before, that’s a recipe for disaster on so many levels.

[Side note: Badly rhymed poems centered on the page make my eyes bleed and baby Jeebus cry. DO NOT submit such poems.  To me, or to anyone!]

Plus, I’m Spindle‘s sole webmonkey, posting all of the content and optimizing the Joomla platform, the latter of which often takes up more time than it should because I love the technical side as much as the creative side.

I sent out an email yesterday to everyone who’d submitted something last year and hadn’t received a response yet — or in some cases, who’d received acceptances but their work was never posted — explaining that we’d been on “unofficial hiatus since last Spring when I changed jobs and things only got crazier and further delayed when I bought a house, moved to New Jersey, and changed jobs again; plus the election, the crashing economy, blah blah blah. I’m not offering excuses, just context, to explain why you haven’t heard back from me yet.”

I knew I was way behind, but I was stunned to realize some of these submissions went back as far as February 2008! Ridiculous, and quite frankly, a little bit embarassing, regardless of the legitimate circumstances.

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