Lord, help this poor film

I found I had more to say about The Raven than my usual Facebook movie review capsule could contain.

Having started this post, I discovered that more legitimate reviewers and scholars than myself had already made many of the points I would have made, so I will direct you to them below and save my breath for how I received the film.

I enjoy the little scuffles that arrive in the space of an FB review, often over the stars themselves, which I always have to clarify are not an expression of how "good" the film is (or skilled, or important, or what have you).  They are Netflix stars, which have always been a measuring of "liking" the film, and if Facebook understands anything, isn't it LIKING? 

So, in Netflix parlance, 3 is "liked it," 4 is "really liked it" (no, really) and 5 is "loved it."  (in case you are curious, 2 is "didn't like it" and 1 is...)

And I can Really Like/Love a terrible film (see everything in the juvenile delinquent genre, and most of the Jodie Foster oeuvre).  And I can just hate things that I recognize are the best of their kind (Harry Potter, I assume, though I really wouldn't know...)

The Raven... I'm going to go with 4 Netflix stars.  I did "really like" it, though there was a lot just...not good about it.

I will not quibble with historical facts.  This is fan fiction, and it is entitled to its full fantasy.  You want the facts, explore below.

Reel Facts
The Reynolds Legend
Unrequited Lurv

What the opening titles report is true:  we don't not know why Poe was in Baltimore in October of 1849, how he came to be in the condition he was found, or even what condition that was.  There are not even enough medical notes to take a modern review of vital signs and symptoms.  (oh...for an EHR... don't click that; it's boring.)  So have at, America.  Here is one speculation.

John Cusack is younger than I am, and we are both too old to play Poe, but that doesn't bother me either because... it's John Cusack.  I actually enjoyed him -- intense, but not morose, a little flirty, a little bitchy, a lot drunk... He could get his mouth around the language without sounding like Maurice Evans, and he still made me want to spend the summer with him and learn the sport of kickboxing.

When the language isn't working, it is distracting.  Watch the Internet forums soon for the complaints of linguistic anachronism (just for the fun of saying it) as "serial killer," "gun-toting" and "OK," are bandied about.  I looked into "OK," which is older than we ever think, but not likely in the vernacular of a society maiden, even when she is trying to keep it together buried inside a box.

I never say SPOILER ALERT.

What I am tired of, I realize, is this notion that madmen have all the time and energy in the world (in between baiting and disemboweling the passersby) to leave clues all over the place like it's Christmas morning at Pee Wee's Playhouse.  But that is the nature of these stories, so have patience through the numerous climaxes, the red herrings, the solving of Sudokus and Rebuses, and (no, seriously) longitudinal charts just to get to the next clue station.  The lat/long clue sequence is the stupidest nonsense in any detective story -- any time, any author.  Stop it.  that was dumb.  I won't write it all down for you, but after you see the film, try to backtrack from the clue outcome to its origin, and tell me if you don't take a tincture of your own just now.

But it is scary.  And bloody.  And gloomy.  The sets are crammed full of antebellum sootiness and everyone has cravat and muttonchops and whalebone just so.  Which I enjoy.  The murders are crazier than Se7en -- you won't believe them for a second -- but then, if you have ever read any Poe, you don't expect to.  If a film like this is expected to revive Poe in the mass-market, let me give you a hint:

This process, however, afforded me no means of ascertaining the dimensions of my dungeon; as I might make its circuit, and return to the point whence I set out, without being aware of the fact, so perfectly uniform seemed the wall. I therefore sought the knife which had been in my pocket when led into the inquisitorial chamber, but it was gone; my clothes had been exchanged for a wrapper of coarse serge.

No it won't.

But if you do like your Poe references, and the stories more than the poetry -- and if you like a wild ride even if it brings you right back to the starting line -- and if you are not too claustrophobic or squeamish -- and if you like your Poe taller and less Boothy --- you might agree to 3 or 4 stars.

The narrative makes no sense, and the closing credits belong to a completely different film.  But you may get shut out of The Avengers this week, so consider it a fallback.

Instant Cure

If you wait long enough, the DSM will simply edit you out.

Miss Bender is not a clinician, or medically trained to any degree.  She is simply an enthusiastic spinster with literary training and an obsession for deconstructing text...

Like new sports in the Olympics, and slang in the American Heritage Dictionary, society awaits the generational sweep-up of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders .  Version 5 is upon us!
Oooh, it feels like Christmas.

Who's Out:  It's the social register you are glad excludes you, and with Version 5 the following Disorders are being redefined.

Mental Retardation.  Well, what do you know about that.  Intellectual Developmental Disorder will no longer be coded mild, moderate, severe, profound by IQ range.

Autism Spectrum Disorders will be more specifically identified, over DSM-IV, including the simple, but key description: "Symptoms together limit and impair everyday functioning."  Limit and impair, which means you high functioning austistic types just became less autistic.  On the other hand, you might now be obsessive/compulsive, so stick with the devil you know, I say....

My favorite sentence from the APA might be that the current "criteria [for austism] were equivalent to trying to “cleave meatloaf at the joints”.

Body Dysmorphic Disorder :  no longer limited to body fat or weight.  This is not specified in Version IV, but apparently assumed, since Version 5 stipulates, "appearance preoccupations are not restricted to concerns with body fat or weight in an eating disorder."  

Blanket Narcissism (what I call the Ass-tism Spectrum, or.. no more meds for being a general jerk).  Version 5 puts the screws to narcissists just where they want them, but making it more about them.  To appreciate the big change to our friend T-05, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, you can study the current diagnosis, which emphasizes a "pattern of behavior,"  against the proposed revision, which emphasizes the results of those patterns, to self and interpersonal relationships.  Says the APA, "Impairments in the self and interpersonal domains were deemed by the Work Group to be most characteristic of personality disorders."

Gender Identity Disorder is renamed Gender Dysphoria, and for an interesting look into identity, read the Rationale for the change, which was originally proposed as "Gender Incongruence" until a consult from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.

 "disorder" has a specific clinical definition, which is,

A clinically significant  behavioral or psychological syndrome or pattern that occurs in an individual [which is] associated with present distress...[and is not]  merely an expectable and culturally sanctioned response to a particular event...

In the case of Gender Dysmorphia,  also note that the Sexual and Identity Disorders Workgroup stated

We also debated and discussed the merit of placing this condition in a special category apart from...psychiatric diagnoses to reflect its unusual status as a mental condition treated with cross-sex hormones, gender reassignment surgery, and social and legal transition to the desired gender.... We chose not to make any decision between its categorization as a psychiatric or a medical condition and wished to avoid jeopardizing either insurance coverage or treatment access (Drescher, 2010).  (emphasis is again mine.  None else italicizes quite this much.)

Childhood Gender Identity Disorder  is severely specified as a mental illness as 6 of 8 traits must now be present to classify as Gender Dysphoria in Children, where DSM-IV requires only 4 of 5 traits, and does not include the statement "clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning, or with a significantly increased risk of suffering, such as distress or disability."

 (those italics were actually already there)

DSM-5 may revive the definition of "disorder" as well, thanks to the worst-named workteam in the world of corporate bureaucracy, the Anxiety, Obsessive-Compulsive, Posttraumatic, and Dissociative Disorders Work Group.

I hope they ordered mugs.

Next time you think your little mission statement task force spends too much time arguing over its acronym, you might just let them take their time.

The committee of the sad would like to tweak this language somewhat; for example "reflects an underlying psychobiological dysfunction" rather than "is a manifestation of..."    That sort of thing.

So....What's In:

Obsessive-Compulsives, this is your time! Skin-Picking Disorder and Hoarding -- now rate their own entries!

Exhibitionists, you've become so diversified that we need Types for you:   

Sexually Attracted to Exposing Genitals to Pubescent or Prepubescent Individuals (Generally Younger Than Age 15)
Sexually Attracted to Exposing Genitals to Physically Mature Individuals (Generally Age 15 or Older)
Equally Sexually Attracted to Exposing Genitals to Both Age Groups

You must be so proud...

Unspecified Depressive Disorder - still under review, but on the table for Version 5.  In case Big Pharma can not reach you on one of the 8 other categories (including Premenstrual Dysphoria, so watch your "edginess."  That's also a clinical term), they may soon have a catch-all bucket for you.

Medical codes for Agoraphobia!  It's all about the coding for you and your IN'sharns company.  In exchange, you must now be agoraphobic for more than 6 months, it must impair your functioning (WoW does not qualify),  and you have to test out of 5 other disorders first (which is true today).

Back to Body Dysmorphia, proposed revision would include repetitive behaviors in response to the dysmorphia, which at a stretch could include cosmetic surgeries.

Dyslexia - was always in there, but called "Reading Disorder."  In addition to its new name, it aligns better with IDEA regulations, which address achievement potential in people with learning disabilities, a potential DSM-IV does not recognize. And for those of us in the adaptive technologies and access game, the removal of "comprehension" as one of the reading difficulties associated with dyslexia is a major win.  With the right access to the written word, people with dyslexia comprehend just fine.

As for the switch to Arabic numerals, the APA has gone digital with the rest of American Medicine -- this allows them to make point revisions like 5.2 and 5.3, which translate better than IV-TR did.  Because no one could figure out what number TR was.

Out of print clothing

Did I already write about this?  I realize it is easy enough to find out, but if I distract myself with that little task, it's another night gone without posting, and after all...
It's National Poetry Month

No one wants Miss Bender to overstep herself into the realm of poetry.  I don't even know good from bad; I just know that  when it is over, you are supposed to go "hm."  Not "hhhmmmm..." which sounds sarcastic.  Just one .. diphthong?  No, diphthongs are vowels.  I remember that because when you see that many consonants crashed together, it is about vowels.   Does any other English word have "phth" next to itself like that?

Do you have any idea where this post is going?  Do you think I do?

It is headed here. 
Vintage book covers on clothing.
[:02 OOH-AAH]
After a long stretch of distressed clothing featuring cartoon characters and 1970s candy (which believe me, I do love) fashion goes nerd-highbrow in sizes for men, women, and children.

If you want to drive your mother-in-law bats, put your toddler in this Aldous Huxley original.  Then name her Hillary Rodman. 

Out of Print Clothing is not just about hipster nostalgia.  Every shirt equals a book donated to Books for Africa as well. 

If your book covers are more of the comic variety, I'll direct you to zazzle, where you can browse for hours on such winners as this style.

CafePress is your source for the pulpier stuff

I seriously spent half an hour choosing one.  It is way past my bedtime.

Not into t-shirts?  Get this meta-whimsy:  literary covers for your e-reader.  It's a book cover for the thing that replaced your book.  These are stocked on outofprint, but are sold by M-Edge, makers of "fashionable and protective accessories for eReaders."  Most of the same designs, so don't wear your shirt on the day you carry your reader.  And at $40 each, you want to pick a keeper that goes anywhere you do.  I learned this lesson while trying to read Memoirs of an Anti-Semite on the T.

Finally, if you would prefer to cover books with t'shirts, than t-shirts with books... click here.

Go write this

I can't remember if I made this up, or if Nicholas Sparks already did.   I am pretty sure I stole the idea from The Notebook, so I would have to change the Alzheimer's angle to something else, like a stroke or Parkinson's.  I also think I stole this idea from Nora Ephron's weirdly popular Heartburn,  into which she wove recipes, long before that became a "thing."  Or anyone had the money to travel around the world eating and praying and Tuscany-ing.

If you want to turn me off of a movie, put "bride" or "wedding" in the title.  Turn me off of a book by putting anything foodie in the title.

But I remember being at a reading.... somewhere... I can picture the room, but I don't know where it was who who I am with.  If you were there, don't be hurt.  Maybe it is my memory that is going.  But the idea I had, listening to this reading of foodie books by foodie people (starting to narrow down how I might have happened to be there) was of a character who has Alzheimer's (or some other reason for not being able to communicate) and what opens her "window" is looking at her old recipe pages.  Her daughters (or granddaughters or whatever) realize that the ones with the most food stains are the ones she used the most, so they will have the most memories.  Then it turns into 1001 Nights.  Or The English Patient.  Or How to Make an American Quilt.  I am starting to also remember why I didn't write  it.

When I was in grad school, I spent some time trying to figure out what "sold."  It seemed like there was plenty of money to be made --  if one could figure out the formula.  I went to a lot of readings (a. they are free, and b. I lived in Boston, so c. they were everywhere) I read a lot of first novels, and I actually tried to pay attention to the Lists and the Revenues.

This memory drove me just now to pull an NYT list from 1989, just to see what it was.   I chose April 16, and am fascinated to see it is a true microcosm of what sells, none of it I have ever been able to figure out how to write, and general can't stand to read.
1 controversial global must-read book club contender
1 same, but less risky
2 pot-boiler franchises
1 hot new sensation - in this case, it was Amy Tan
1 old-school literary mainstay
1 edgy alt-lit of limited, but devoted followers
2 mystery/murder/mayhem
2 grand dames of modern womyn's perspective
1 short story collection from a guy on the radio
2 ill-fated  romances
1 espionage

May I also point out that The Non-Fiction #1 that week was Everything I Needed to Know....  When you start romanticizing American culture as one that used to be well-read, you can prove yourself wrong pretty quickly.

List of people who might be syndicates.  Add Jodi Picoult.

The perfectly engineered best-seller today might involve an autistic pathologist/medical examiner, who solves horrific sexual murders by day and belongs to a secret religious society/vampire coven by night.  And he has an adorable golden retriever puppy he brought back with him from his tour in Khandahar.

This is today's hardcover fiction list.  The NYT has so many lists now, you can hardly trust the numbers.  They've turned into the Grammys.
1 controversial global must-read book club contender
1 for mainstream ladies bookclubs
4  mystery/murder/mayhem
2 espionage
1 grand dame of modern women's perspective, who also has the fortune of being the Picoult factory
1 wartime operations
1 pot-boiler franchise which is also known for its murder and mayhem
1 ill-fated romance, against a backdrop of murder and mayhem
1 fictionalized account of a literary mainstay

1 fantasy/lost manuscript DaVinci type affair
1 fan-lit of limited, but devoted followers

Its plot is, true story, and emphasis mine...
The second novel set in the Old Republic era and based on the “Star Wars” videogame from BioWare and LucasArts.

David Foster Wallace (which at least 1 website thinks I write like) is about to have a posthumous novel.
Which just proves the first theorem in the formula for success at writing.  You have to actually do it.  And probably read more fiction.

Short-sightedness alienates patrons and risks revenue

a cautionary tale for civic leaders 

From the home page of the Williamsburg Regional Library, Williamsburg, VA:

Beginning February 1, 2011 only residents of the City of Williamsburg, James City County and York County will be issued WRL library cards.
As of that date the library will stop honoring all cards previously issued to those not residing in the above locations.

And so they have.

Crying resource-poor and overwhelmed by demand, the WRL announced late last year that they could no longer accommodate patrons from outside their funding area -- 6000 free-loading patrons by some estimates.

Imagine a library that had too much usage.  As the execs like to say, "that's a good problem to have."

Here in the people's republic, nearly every town has a library.  Though some collections are small and hours limited, they are just as likely to be the nicest building in town.  When I lived in Chelsea-by-the-Sea, the city itself was in receivership, but the library had a McArthur Grant.  The Minuteman system covers greater Boston and Metro West (where I work), while C M/MARS is for the central part of the state (where I live).  I belong to both.  No one minds.

I feel very strongly about libraries, and will evangelize about them at the slightest provocation.  One of the best in our state is nearly 40 miles from where I live, yet I would make that trek whenever it was needed -- that is, until I found the Lexington, which is not better but closer and quite good.  I expect to be there this week.

I understand how libraries are funded, and I respect the arrangement we make together: I'm going to borrow this for a few weeks, and pay a penalty if I am late.  I respect the limit rules that these small libraries (especially) have to make; once you've watched someone step up to the counter with 10 DVDs, you will mutter "you are ruining it for everyone, you know."  It is sad to watch a child try to pick out her 6 (and only 6) books to take home with her, but we all have to share.

My beef with the WRL is not that they thought they couldn't serve the 6000 intruders (but we'll examine that in a minute).  It is that they missed the opportunity to explore just how much those intruders were willing to pay for their share of the services.  One 25-year borrower I know personally blurted out "$100 a year."  $100 a year for the full services she enjoys now.  Imagine 6000 x $100.  How you like them now, eh?

WRL claims to have lost $150K of their materials budget -- that's acquisitions -- a reduction that was planned at least a year ago, according to a memo written that year.  That's a 150K loss on about $4 M, by the way.

The strategic plan that brought them up to 2010 does acknowledge that growth in the county and shifts in demographics were key factors in defining their strategic goals, but even then there is a whiff of making sure "the right people" are being served.

* WRL should focus on what it does well rather than trying to be all things to all people.
* The library should reach out to teens with space and services but should proceed cautiously and engage teens in the planning process.
* Although the community regards the library as an important community center, most users are not aware of the programs in its facilities.

 So... there are or there aren't enough materials to go around?  "The library has a collection of nearly 290,000 items, [and] a circulation of 919,000 items," says their press.  My beloved Newton Free requests, "The total number of items you may have checked out is 150."  But I guess it has twice the collection size and proudly " loans out more items than any other library building in Massachusetts."

WRL, I am not the first to suggest this:  Charge a guest fee.  This is nothing but profit for you.  You don't even need to make new cards -- a roll of stickers will do.  $100 annual for full rights of resident membership.  Make the sticker red, white, and blue.  We know you love that.  $50 for lower limits on borrowed materials, $25 for books only.  And that's price per residence, not per card.  Don't get greedy.  We have already found this statement on your website:

The library director may authorize the issuance of special recognition cards to reach key audiences in a city or county that funds the Williamsburg Regional Library.

and it sounds gross.  

You only need 1500 families to agree this is a worthy expense to make up your materials budget shortfall.  With Borders closing, this is your time.  You're blowing it.

Bookfinder

When you are around your Thanksgiving table trying to deflect conversation onto something less... provocative... try this.

Do you know the most often searched out of print title, according to Bookfinder.com?

Bookfinder is a search engine for the books you can't find elsewhere.  Really, it just conglomerates...or aggregates... or whichever is correct-erates the other book dealer sites so you don't have to, and that is certainly convenient.

Just like DrawingIn.

Who's behind Bookfinder?  "BookFinder.com is an independent subsidiary of AbeBooks, which is based in Victoria, Canada."  so says their "About" page.  Which mostly made me wonder.... what the heck is an "independent subsidiary"?  Then I remembered what I was doing.

Is it free?  Free to search -- search away.  It's a search engine's search engine.

How does it make money?  Beats the hell out of me.

Can I search foreign titles?  You can.  You can also search dealers in foreign lands, lucky you.  Bookfinder is based in Berkeley, CA, and Justbooks, the European wing, comes out of Dusseldorf, Germany.

Why is "Dusseldorf" such a funny word?  Beats the hell out of me.

So how's the usability?  Pretty good.  Search by title, author, keyword, ISBN and get a list of titles as a result.  Click titles to see dealers.  This makes for a clean search result set you can truly browse. 

Prices?  Odd - most of these book dealers with give the book away for a dollar or less, but the shipping can be about $5.  The price you see is a total, so no secrets.  Hover to see the item price vs s/h.  Dealers provide a statement of the book's condition, but you can't see it.  After that, all rules for buying used crap online are in effect.  Big win -- you can buy the 3rd edition of a text book for about 60% less than the current 4th edition and often get a new copy.

On the other hand, economics are economics, and the rarer and more sought-after the title, the higher the price.

What does it lack?
Amazon is still best at the "look inside!" feature (and the most enthusiastic).  I found it necessary to cross-check the sites to see if the book I was buying had the content I was looking for.  There is no "cart," because this is a search engine.  So you may create multiple orders (even from a single dealer) from all your searching.  So keep that orientation in mind and make your own spreadsheet or word doc off to the side if you want to minimize your orders.

Are you going to answer Cliff's trivia question?  I am.

 Recognize it?  $200 resale value - MIP -- $600 autographed.  Origional cover price $49.95 1992.

That's Sex by Madonna, and I have just upped the search count to get that graphic.

Other top draws in the past year, according to Bookfinder.com
Promise me Tomorrow, by Nora Roberts.  There's a Nora Roberts book out of print?  How can that be?  Your goal as a writer should be to become so prolific you can tell your publisher to stop printing the books you yourself don't like, even though you are a big cash cow.  The Principles of Knitting - because we are poor and it is cold.  A Treasury of Great Recipes, by Mary and Vincent Price.  Damn, now I want this too.

Through the booking glass

I Write Like is a goofy little app/game that analyzes an excerpt of your writing and offers up… who you write like.  It doesn’t explain it at all, or give you any insight into who that person is, if you have never heard of them.

But it made me try an experiment of the kind you may remember from my hyperlinking through the Internet until I linked Liberals and Conservatives at their common interest.

If you do remember that, you have been reading this publication far too long.

I pasted a few hundred words into the IWL app – actual fiction, not bloggy stuff – and it determined that I write like David Foster Wallace.

right. exactly.

If you follow the publishing world, especially as reported by the   New York Times Book Review, you’ll begin notice that the best-seller lists, like the Box Office Blockbusters, are dominated by a few names, and often all at the same time (Gladwell, Rowling, Larsson, Palin…. Beck… ) and then there is everyone else.  The truth is that you haven’t heard of most of the people who are published.  (More for the list of Things that do Not Change Whether I Submit Material for Publication or Not).  I’ll write that entry someday.  Or I won’t.  And it won’t matter either way.  harharhar

This essay is going off on a direction I didn’t intend.  It happens every once in a while when someone asks me, “where did you get your MBA?” and I say, “I don’t have an MBA.  I actually have a degree in publishing.”

Pause – curious expression as if checking the ID of the person they thought they were talking to.  Gently: “really?”

Here’s what I did – if I write like Wallace, who does IWL say Wallace writes like?  I pasted in Amazon’s excerpt from Girl With the Curious Hair (tattoo) and clicked enter;

Wallace writes like Stephen King, it says.

Stephen King writes like…Stephen King.  I couldn’t fool it.  So I chose Richard Bachman, the  pseudonym King uses so he can further dominate the NYT List.

“Richard Bachman” writes like Daniel Defoe .  I start to think we have little chance of circling back to Wallace, much less to me.

 

 

yes.

 

 

Daniel Defoe writes like Daniel Defoe, and this game is not as fun as I had hoped it would be.   I suppose if you have written Moll Flanders, you are in a class by yourself

There are some academics among our Readership who will know who Wallace is – who may have even read him.  They know a lot of things we don’t.  They may know he was briefly a member of the Emerson family; they certainly know he committed suicide -- at my age even – because we watch these things in each other.

“I thought all writers drank to excess and beat their wives.”  ~~ CK Dexter Haven

I have not read David Foster Wallace (this post is now climbing higher in the search results).  What if an anonymous website with a conceptual search engine is write right? 

Short stories filed under Fiction.  enjoy.

The rise of self-publishing

From Crains: "E-book giant flies in a dozen top NYC book agents to Seattle to play down its Darth Vader image. Talks described as “freewheeling, frank and contentious.”

Another brick in the wall between authors and their publication is knocked loose.

When I was a child-author, I had 2 frequent daydreams.  One was my appearance on Oprah, long before she was in the bookclub business.  The other was opening a box filled with the hardbound copies of my book.  It seemed the culmination of the painfully long and humiliating process of getting noticed, read, and printed.  I pictured publishing houses as giant printing press mills, the size of Russian blast furnaces, where guys chewed unlit cigars and studied folio pages with a raised eyebrow "not bad" look of approval.

Please remember when I tell you these stories that I am well under 18 when they take place.

My freshman advisor says I was the only student she ever worked with who arrived with a novel in a box.  I find this hard to believe at the finest writing program in The South, but maybe it had just never happened to her before.

Vanity Publishing was possible in those days, but of course it was called vanity publishing, meaning no one in the business liked it enough to publish it, and "certain" people could always get their work published.  In today's market, self-publishing will still cost you, but players like Amazon are happy to produce "on demand" as sales are made, rather than a 1000 print run that was required in the old days to justify the effort of machinery.  They will also happily make you available by Kindle, because more is more for the Kindle library, and Kindling costs even less.

They look good, these self-published books. The covers are clearly not Wendell Minor, but they are colorful and sturdy, trade paperback size with good typeface.

One of my blog acquaintances punched out a novel in a few months, made the necessary rounds of agents, and learned that without vampires, an unknown writer was too high a risk to take.  So he published it on his own, and launched an aggressive viral campaign to get noticed. 

Another blog acquaintance has an idea for a coffee table book featuring photographs of roadkill.  There did not appear to be another hook, such as vampire roadkill, Tuesdays with Roadkill, or Oprah-approved roadkill.  I can not imagine who the audience is for this book, but if she finds one, she does not need to convince Random House that revenue will exceed costs.  I said, "I did not learn much in publishing school, but I did learn that your book needs to be cheap to produce but look expensive, arrive right-on-fad and not overrun."  (I got a little excited that I was able to quote all that, to tell you the truth.)  "OR...you can publish it yourself."

Makes the perfect Christmas gift.

Obsessive Specific

The post is a not-very-cleverly disguised plug for the latest thing I love, brought to you by the staff of The Onion.  Wish I had written it myself.  It is the kind of thing that ought to make Borders and B&N rethink having a coffee shop and comfy chairs, because I would tuck right in and read this whole thing.  But then I couldn't read it again, could I?

List books are all well and good.  Anyone can make a List.  The difference between trivial and commentary is the differenc between "15 famous brains and what they weighed" (zzzz) and "6 quiet film revlutions."

The art of the list is not in Top 10s of Top 10s lacking subjective criteria, that make the INTJ you love ask "Best Romantic films by what standard...?"  in that whiny way she has before she reties her shoes too tightly.

The art of the List is in its specificity.  It's obsessively specific  specificity, as the title of this book explains: Inventory: 16 Films Featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls, 10 Great Songs Nearly Ruined by Saxophone, and 100 More Obsessively Specific Pop-Culture Lists . 

Amazon has the audacity to categorize it under History & Criticism.  You go, Amazon. 

Highlights of Lists you can try to make on your own, but better let the professionals do it.

11 beloved songs sung by secondary singers (ie Peter Criss)



8 great films made by directors after they turned 70 (ie Fish Called Wanda)


15 common types you meet on DVD audio commentaries (I listen to a lot of DVD Commentary. When you hear some of these types at work, it is best just to bail. Directors and Producers actually provide the most engaging commentary. And parenthetical bloggers)


22 great songs inspired by heinous true crimes (have a good time with that one. Billy Joe may not be true.)

10 things The Ramones Do and Don't Wanna
 
 
 
Enjoy.

A flea in her ear

HUBBARDSTON: The dream of a beach day this year was never realized, but we did finally make it to Rietta.

Many months ago, Fitchy invited me to come along on a pilgrimage to Rietta Flea Market, "a family fun experience," says the website.  and Fitchy too.  So I began to roam the house looking for flea-worthy finds.


Oh, that picture at right will be explained soon enough.  It serves the same purpose there that it did for all us all day -- it attracts attention.


The hook to Rietta is that the tables are provided.  You rent the slot (or slots) and rig it up as you need.  Some of the regulars are elaborate, indeed -- canopies, chair rigs, tarps on the ground.  One family near us had a full taco bar going on in the bed of a pickup.  It reminds me of that scene in Charlotte's Web when they are packing up to go to the fair, where they will live for a couple of days through the ag shows.  Only at Rietta, it is only 1 Sunday at a time, from 6am to about 2pm.


Junk Bonds
Fitchy's family stays packed for these events, and use it as a go-to like your family might use touch football or yachting.  I imagine your family as the Kennedys.  As it turns out, I did too, because our original date was rained out, and after that it became near impossible to coordinate.  My bins stayed in the garage, taunting me, but the joke was on them.  They were in the garage, and no longer in my house.


As a result, I had time to pad my cache with pure-profit finds, namely, books from the town dump.  Some background reading to catch you up. (TV Guides, Bibles)  References may occur.  When the opportunity presented itself, I would load up on the kind of mass-market p'backs that the public go for and toss them into the bins with my thigh-length jackets, size 10 clothes (ha-ha, how cute) and entire bag full of ripped jeans that I boldly labeled "scrap denim," like that's a thing.

I found (yes, really found) a Casio keyboard missing its adaptor cord, some corporate-label swag from the Mill, and Otto's Sega Genesis, which he bequeathed to me as a house-warming because he knows my love of Lethal Enforcer ("keep a-goin'). 


Late Saturday afternoon, the family mobilized, and the plan was on.  Meet at 7am, drive to Hubbardston, add our carload to the family table already in progress.




The Early Birds
Fell into a few categories:
1) The Cadillac Jacks - these are the guys who buy for buyers.  When I am shoveling through the book bin at the dump, I pretend to be one.  It seems more respectable than being a person who shovels through dumpsters.  This is entertaining: according to abebooks.com, a signed first edition of Cadillac Jack goes for $8500.00
2) Old Guys - I think they come for the coffee, and because they are already up
3) Other vendors - who will catch you unprepared and paw through boxes while you are opening them, then resell on you later that same afternoon


The hoarders come later.  They can't rush through the house.  But they will come.  Because
this is who we want to be
this is who we are

650 vendors, of which we were 2, with our own table in between, 2 clothes racks, a shoe rack, a portable crib and a dog kennel, which we were careful to keep apart so they didn't compete with each other.

You in America Now  (said Old Fiddler to Kunta)

If you find the crowd at Walmart just too pretentious... if NASCAR's dress code is too formal... come to where America lives.  and smokes.  and barters you down from $2 to $1 on Ann Taylor linen pants.  And you give them up, because you already feel bad for not just donating them to start with.

People will tell you their stories, which was why Cadillac Jack did it, and a lesser author would have turned him into a detective franchise who solves crimes through his obscure knowledge of Americana and collectibles.

No charge for ranting

A guy who bought a book on cassette so he could tape over it complained to me about how hard cassettes tapes are to find, and even more expensive to buy, but people think the government should pay for health care.  It was like someone hit the remote on my Rant-o-Vision.

Big Ticket Items

Our biggest bulk, the crib and kennel, went fairly quickly, and not to the same family I am happy to say.  The Sega began to get dissected, since I could sell the games without the system, but the whole package made a better price.  The guns and LE game went to an Early Bird, who caught me before my brain was caffinated, and I let him get away with it.  A frequent flier kept trying to talk me down once the only games left were Disney, and he admitted he was only interested in the box, which I found suspicious, so I reserved the right not to serve.  By the end of the day it was $20 with 3 Disney games, and still had the $149.99 Lechmere price tag on it.  Lots of nibbles, but no strikes.

Which brings us to

The Attention Grabber

I no longer remember which of you gave me the pretty boys paper dolls.  I certainly got my enjoyment out of them (and I don't care what you think that means) and decided it was time to put them aside.  I priced them at 50 cents and put them in my book box where p'backs were 50, hardbacks a dollar, a first edition Lovely Bones for $2, which I hid in there for the treasure hunters, and the latest stash of Bibles, each marked "Free."  You can see why the cover of the Romantics Heroes paperdolls would be an eye-catcher (he's not actually naked, but he is wet).  Passersby would see that, the Bibles, then me, and are probably off writing their own blog right now.

It became a quest to sell the paper-dolls.  I pitched it as a gag -- "you want at least one thing today that makes you laugh," -- and they would laugh, then put it back.

Game On

The other item I stashed for the collectors was 4 TV Guides from the big haul -- Michael Jackson, Charles and Di, the Golden Girls, and Valerie Bertinelli.  I purposely obscured them, to see if I could lure a legendary monster trout out of his hiding place.  Next time I will have a rig for them, and bring a lot more.

A 2-foot tall clear spice mill, of the kind you find in Marshall's, or receive in Yankee Swaps, couldn't be given away.  Maybe because it was full of  unspecified "spices," maybe because it was branded as "Betty Boop," when so many chefs are available.  Maybe because it expired in 2006.  Even the woman wearing a Betty Boop fanny pack didn't want it.  She said "enough is enough."  She said it as if we had manufactured the thing.

The buyers have their games too.  One common move was to show a wad of bills (usually under 5) and claim it was all that was left.  Another was to offer to buy the entire box of shoes at a cut rate because they were going to Africa.  Both had the effect of pegging us as Richies (because of my shiny new Cobalt, no doubt, and the fact we were not smoking) who didn't want to take this stuff home, and who felt bad about asking poor people to pay for our castoffs.  It half-worked.  By that I mean, the shoe guy won; the woman who wanted the blender did not.

Fitchy's dad had a scheme for giving stuffed animals away.  They were priced, but if a kid showed any interest, he was going to get it for free.  On other items, he stood firm, but he was working his own set of rules.

Also priced as free was a book called "Free Yourself from Clutter," which I gave to a grandmotherly type who said she was going to hand it to her family and say "you take over."  Funny, or...??

Speaking of Therapy

I found my calling in Fitchy's boxes of baby clothes, which presented so many opportunities for sorting: boys/girls, seasonal, jammies/clothes, sizes... I learned quickly that sizes were what was called for, and created under 12 month, over 12 month, and Ts.  I maintained order throughout the day.  When people ask me "well, what do you want to do?"  I am not really kidding when I say, "fold things at the Gap."

This is not our set-up.  I just thought the page needed a break.

Let me close with this observation of what it is like to work hard for the money.  After about 7 hours (1 coffee, 1 donut, and the best hot dog ever made) I had personally cleared $32.  Not a bad margin when you figure most of the stuff I was selling I had never paid for, and I didn't have to kick in on my share of table fee.  The clouds and wind rolled in, and reminded us it was fall in Massachusetts.  Prices began to slash.  We began to look for people who had touched the peppermill before, or stared long at the Sega.  The paper dolls went down to 25 cents and sold seconds later.  Gag gifts are only a quarter-dollar funny.  Not half.

Fitchy and I ate most of our earnings for lunch.  We strategized for next year and were grateful we did not have to earn every meal that way.

Bookcloseouts

It has been far too long since we trolled the Alleywebs looking for the opium dens of the bibliophile. (how long? this long) This site was offered by the Readership, and your humble narrator has gotten to the vettin'. Could this be more overwritten? I think we both know it certainly could.

http://www.bookcloseouts.com/

What's the hook?

Bah-gins bah-gins

Absurdly low prices: most under 5 dollars, with a "You save x%" statement under each title.

Anything good?

Well.... no.

They are advertising a KIDS CLOSEOUT at the moment - 7000 titles with an extra 50% off. They present in alpha-order, so it is not entirely fair to complain about "10 rules of dating" or "AAA Family Travel Journal." So I searched for the classic and the contemporary.

Charlotte's Web? Yes - lots of versions and editions, lots of price ranges, but still mostly under $10.

L.A Candy? No, and the matches it offered instead were very odd.

This list is about as compelling as the audio download at my local library. Big title count, not much selection.

Who are these people?

They don't say. They are in Thorhold, Ontario, and they are certainly a dealer in returns and damages. Click the "Scratch and Dent" area to enjoy more savings, though you can not be certain whether it is a scratch or a dent.

Better than Books a Million or Buck a Book or Building 19?

Doesn't appear so, but certainly no worse. And if you are in Ontario or New York, this is probably easier to get to.

Any cool features?

You know, it isn't easy to be a cool book title search website. I think Goodreads does this nearly as well as Netflix does movies, but to my mind there are 2 ways to buy books: direct search for what you want - card catalog style - and these sites are good for that. Or you want to browse, and I don't think any website is good for that. Book browsing is still too physical an activity for this to replace it

ya gotta have a gimmick.

Like being able to dump my discards there?

YES! An excellent example, thank you. No drop off/trade-in program here. Check other posts under the "For the Booklovers" category for those.

Still, seems like a great deal on books, doesn't it?

Not entirely sure. You can not purchase without an account, and the shipping charges are not offered ahead of checkout. So I can not prove how much the 6.99 copy of Charlotte's Web really comes to.

And honestly, don't you have Charlotte's Web? If you are giving Charlotte's Web to a kid, don't get one with a magic marker stripe down the side.

Can customer service answer questions about shipping charges, US sales taxes, and other hidden charges on my bargain book?

The customer service model (weekdays, business hours) and the site map signal a sort of "let's put on a website" vibe that might be part of the BARGAIN image, or just Canadian niceness. There are no FAQS, and tech service is only available by email. It also feels a little home-schooly, which is probably its major market.

I don't think they are hiding anything; I just think they want to get to know you before they become your book discounter.

So go in eyes open. And compare to used copies on Amazon, which will be in similar condition.
Inter-library loan is a pretty cool service too.