Culture

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

On Inception, The Passage, and Writing in The Obama Era

Inception

The weakness of “It’s all a dream” — why we hate that, why we feel cheated when narratively anything is revealed to be all a dream — is that you’ve just asked me to spend so much time and emotional capital investing in the stakes of this, and you’ve now swept it away with the most anti-narrative structuralism that doesn’t have anything to substitute in its place. It’s laughing at you for even taking it seriously. You don’t want to feel like a victim of the narrative, and I don’t think Christopher Nolan would do that.

Inception’s Dileep Rao Answers All Your Questions About Inception

Nuanced, brainy and thought-provoking, Christopher Nolan’s provocative sci-fi masterpiece (yeah, I said it) isn’t your typical formulaic summer blockbuster. Even its car chases, gun fights, explosions and special effects wizardry exist on a whole ‘nother level, raised by the sheer audacity of Nolan’s demanding that moviegoers sit still, pay close attention and think hard about what they’re seeing for 2.5 hours rather than be spoon-fed the usual red/blue pablum Hollywood spews out like clockwork from their “me, too” factories.

There’s no filler, no empty calories, no short cuts, no opportune pee breaks; Nolan packs something worthwhile into every second of screen time, and you blink at your own risk. It’s an action movie for intelligent adults who are tired of being treated like teenagers, and it will stick with you long after, whether you loved it or not.

It’s also a call-to-action of sorts for writers and publishers. Or could be, if they’re listening.

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

Shout-Outs: Lanier, Wendig and the Robots

"The combination of hive mind and advertising has resulted in a new kind of social contract. The basic idea of this contract is that authors, journalists, musicians, and artists are encouraged to treat the fruits of their intellects and imaginations as fragments to be given without pay to the hive mind. Reciprocity takes the form of self-promotion. Culture is to become precisely nothing but advertising." Jaron Lanier, You Are Not a Gadget I'm knee-deep in final preparations for Digital Book World next week (look for the new website to relaunch by Tuesday, built by me!), but I wanted to give…

Continue ReadingShout-Outs: Lanier, Wendig and the Robots
An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Hanging with the Estefans on Ellis Island

Ellis Island 096 by glecharles
Ellis Island 096 by glecharles

One of the best things about working for a publisher based out in the Midwest is that I sometimes get to play Peter Parker at events in New York City when no one from a particular magazine can attend. A few weeks back, it was the NY Round Table Writers Conference thanks to Writer’s Digest, and yesterday, I went to the 2009 Ellis Island Family Heritage Awards on behalf of Family Tree Magazine, and took a bunch of photos and wrote up a brief post for them that’s now on their blog:

Ellis Island Hosts Stars, Expands Museum

Emilio and Gloria Estefan accepted the inaugural B.C. Forbes Peopling of America Award in a star-studded 8th Annual Ellis Island Family Heritage Awards ceremony yesterday, hosted by actress Candice Bergen in the historic Great Hall on Ellis Island.

The awards celebrate the lives and work of individuals who immigrated to America and their descendants; with the Forbes honor going to those who arrived through a port other than Ellis Island. It reminds us that America continues to be the destination for those seeking freedom, hope and opportunity.

I’ve never had any particular connection to Ellis Island since none of my ancestors came through there — and despite growing up here in New York, I had never visited, and still haven’t been to the Statue of Liberty — so I was a bit perplexed when I saw the Estefans were being honored considering their very non-Ellis Cuban heritage.

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

History of the Bronx, For Kids

Bronx River Parkway Overpass-1 by kptyson
Bronx River Parkway Overpass-1 by kptyson

I have very mixed emotions about the Bronx, where I grew up for the first 12 years of my life (1969-1980), and which remains the closest thing I have to a place I consider home, in a cultural sense. Being able to live there again while my kids were still young was very important to me, even though I knew we’d have to move at some point soon after they started school, and the five years we did were a great experience, positive and negative, allowing me simultaneously reconnect and disconnect before taking the inevitable next step of homeownership.

When my son, Isaac, came home with the assignment to put together a family cultural project — Where Are You From? — I wasn’t sure how to approach it from my side of the family, especially in contrast to my wife’s much more specific and rich Cuban heritage. I’m a mutt without a home, the epitome of a melting pot kid (or is that salad bowl?), with connections to many cultures but no firm roots in any.

Focusing on the Bronx was an interesting and enlightening challenge, especially when trying to boil it all down to a 3rd grade level, and by the end, I was left with the same mixed emotions, a combination of pride and disappointment, hope and disdain. I emphasized the positive, of course, but I’d be lying if I denied the bitter taste of the negative wasn’t still on my tongue, things like the new Yankee Stadium, the miserable public school system and the general feeling of it being a second-class citizen in New York City, on par with or sometimes behind Staten Island.

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

Everything’s amazing, nobody’s happy

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoGYx35ypus] "We live in an amazing, amazing world, and it's wasted on the crappiest generation of spoiled idiots that don't care." [1:30] I've never seen Louis CK in action before, but my favorite humor is the insightful observational kind and this clip is hilarious, primarily because it's all so true. I say burn it all down and start over. (h/t @torrento)

Continue ReadingEverything’s amazing, nobody’s happy
An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

On Twitter: Always Add Value

My flock of Twittersheep

I find it hard to believe that as recently as six months ago, I was dismissing Twitter as a pointless ripoff of Facebook’s status update, without any of the extras that make Facebook a “real” social network. From what I’d seen, it lived up to its negative reputation of mindless updates about eating lunch, waiting in traffic and unimaginative opinions on the pop culture distraction of the moment.

(Note: I’ve certainly been guilty of the latter, though in relative moderation; I vow to NEVER live-tweet a whole episode of American Idol!)

When I decided to start using Twitter for more than updating my Facebook status, and began to actively seek out quality tweeters in the publishing and media world to follow, I had a revelation.

The image above is from Twittersheep, “a word cloud generated from the bios” of the 200+ people currently following me on Twitter. The emphasis on “writer”, “media”, “book” and “marketing” tells me that I’ve tapped into the niche I was looking for and am, theoretically, adding value to that niche as the majority of my own tweets match up with those keywords. In fact, the number of people following me spiked dramatically a few weeks back during the Tools of Change conference, largely as a result of my following along on Twitter and adding my two cents to the conversation.

I’ll often throw in a little something about politics (check out @nprpolitics), pop culture (@Latinoreview), sports (@matthewcerrone), or how much I want to stab someone on any given day, but I expect the same additional personal spice from those I follow, too, as long as their primary focus remains on publishing, or in some cases, my peripheral interests.

Twitter is not for everyone, but I find the precision required to get your point across in only 140 characters without resorting to “text speak” a particularly inspiring endeavor that’s useful in many other forms of communication, from email to poetry. I’m actually rather surprised at the number of poets I know who dismiss it, especially slam poets, instead of rising to the challenge and turning it into a new creative form.

Beyond poetry, though, there are niches were it is an invaluable social networking tool, a perfect complement to blogging, an in-the-moment StumbleUpon, and absolutely nothing like Facebook or LinkedIn.

Publishing is definitely one such niche.

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