Twilight: Career Suicide

Me: I'm reading about how they've finally landed a director for Breaking Dawn. Either they're paying him a shitload of money or he's looking to commit career suicide.
Maggie: Hahaha. You need to blog that line.

Why I like USA Today

#5 - Idol Chatter. I like their American Idol blogger. Sue me.

#4 - The run of Superman comics they published a while back, which was delightfully retro, and their bizarre fixation on cage-wrestling and ultimate fighting.

#3 - Their articles are longer and more in-depth than what I see on other news sites.

#2 - The goof-off stories are more easily discernible as such. On CNN.com, for example, headlines like "Alligator befriends turkey" and "Karzai threatens to join Taliban" are often literally side by side.

#1 - I've yet to detect any bias. Everyone knows MSNBC and the New York Times are left; Fox is crazy right; CNN is just plain crazy, but the headlines and editorial page of USA Today seem straight down the middle. In an age of frothy hyperpartisanship, that's refreshing.

Start the turntables!, Cont'd

I got an email from U2 today alerting me to a new remix album available... only on vinyl. I already own a couple of U2 records -- they're in frames on my wall, relics of an earlier, groovier time. I'm not about to run out and buy a turntable yet, but I do find myself craving this remix album. So big, so packed with tangible objects. Everything old is new again.

Start the turntables!

This month's Rolling Stone says that sale of records -- those big, grooved things made of vinyl -- has surged in the last couple years. While I didn't buy last month's claim that magazine subscriptions are up, I definitely believe record sales are. Last week when I paid a visit to Newbury Comics (to buy a CD) I was amazed how many records they sell now. There's always been a few on hand for the devotees, but suddenly the shelf-space devoted to records is starting to rival CDs.

Amazing, but maybe not surprising. The reason I went to an actual store to buy a CD is because lately it's dawned on me how much money I've sunk into albums that don't actually exist. Ninety-five percent of the albums I've bought over the last few years have been digital downloads, just magnetized dots on a harddrive. And that suddenly feels kind of shitty. It feels like I've only been getting half of what I used to get from buying CDs.

The whole premise of "digital" assumes that content (a story, a song) is the important experience and that the delivery system is irrelevant. It assumes that when you pay for music you're paying to hear a song rather than to own a CD (or a record). That when you pay for a novel you're paying to read a story rather than to own a book. And that may be true for fleeting things like magazines or news, things you consume and throw away. But it's not true for the types of media we define ourselves by and decorate our homes with. Digital has been a novelty because it's cheaper and easier, but I think we might be at the beginning of a backlash, as people realize that for all their collecting and all their money invested, they have nothing tangible to show for it.

Hence the records.

Graffiti in Rio

I'm writing a novel about a graffiti artist in Brazil so this story jumped out at me. Some people took advantage of maintenance scaffolding on the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio, and painted on his head.

It's a heck of a target, and if it'd been done by an artist, it'd be pretty cool... But this is pichacao, scribbles, a style frowned upon by actual graffiti artists, and as such, it's just a mess. Somewhere in a corner of my brain, Mateo Amaral is fuming.

Stop the presses!

My dream job is to be the editor of an independent, moderately successful magazine similar in content to Rolling Stone, but with the focus on books rather than music. Our noble, unattainable goal each issue would be to lift young writers to rock-star status. Printing would be done on-site in the basement of the office, on presses run, like the starship Enterprise, by a harried Scotsman who coaxes every last drop out of the decrepit machines. The result would be a modest living, a lifetime supply of free books, and the sweet smell of ink on my hands at the end of the day.

Unfortunately it's not 1985, and print is kaput.

I'm subscribed to exactly one magazine, the above-mentioned Rolling Stone -- and in fact my subscription expired last fall but they've continued sending it to me, perhaps because there's not a lot of difference between "free" and what they charge for a one-year subscription.

Often by the time each issue arrives I've already read the articles on the Rolling Stone website, but it's fun getting mail.

On page 2 of the issue I got yesterday I found this ad, done in partnership by a bunch of magazines, which reads, in part:

Barely noticed amidst the thunderous Internet clamor is the simple fact that magazine readership has risen over the past five years. ... Think of it this way: during the 12-year life of Google, magazine readership actually increased 11 percent. ... What it proves, once again, is that a new medium doesn't necessarily displace an existing one. ... Just as TV didn't kill movies. An established medium can continue to flourish...

My first thought was Ouch. My second thought was that I don't believe that magazine readership can possibly be up, and I wonder what numbers they massaged to get that result. Third was a feeling of discomfort -- the ad makes me squirm. If you have to join forces with competitors and take out an ad to assure the world you're still relevant, then you're not.

There are some things I'll never accept. I'll never accept the idea that reading a novel on a screen is superior to a paperback book, humankind's greatest invention. Screens and magazines, though, were made for each other. I think rather than sputtering about the continued relevance of print magazines, these organizations should spend their time trying to come up with a business model that will let them make money on the Web, something that apparently no publication has figured out how to do yet.  Maybe someone whose dream job actually matches the calendar year will lead the way.

See you in Machu Picchu

Just so you know, the ancient city in Peru has reopened to tourists after being closed due to heavy rains.

Machu Picchu, rediscovered by the outside world after U.S. explorer Hiram Bingham's 1911 visit, is one of South America's top tourism attractions.

I like the wording of that, and the ease with which it shucks off the Euro-centric, nothing-was-here-till-we-found it perspective. (As a sidenote, I know USA Today, where this article is from, is considered the McDonald's of news, but sheesh, it really does have the best articles.)

I want to go re-re-discover Machu Picchu. South America is tops on my list of places to visit. It has such a vibrant mix of things I would really love to see, and things I'm captivated by the horror of. I just finished an excellent book called The Lost City of Z, a nonfiction account of a journalist attempting to discover (no "re-" necessary) what happened to a famous English explorer who was lost in the Amazonian jungle in the 1930s while searching for the fabled city of El Dorado. The Amazon, aka the "green hell," full of poisonous plants and 30-foot snakes and hostile Indians and maggots that burrow under your skin, makes me think, "Oh my goodness, I wouldn't last a minute there," and then, "I want to go."

A lot of Brazil, about which I've been reading for a book I'm writing, is like that too: the herky-jerk of the awesome and the terrifying. For example, in Rio you've got the incredible beaches and the eye-popping vista of the hilltop Christ -- and down the street the drug cabals are taking down police helicopters with anti-aircraft missiles.

I guess you just have to know where to go.

Romance Novel Delusions

Me: I am feeling creatively antsy. And financially anxious. I should crank out a romance novel. Those sell well.
Brother: Totally. You can photoshop my face on someone else's body for the cover.