If in doubt about the social media revolution, just watch this sequence of three video presentations. Pay attention to the statistics; watch the revolution evolving in real time as the social media juggernaut sweeps the globe.
The social media revolution is
mushrooming while you sleep!
Is social media a fad? Or is it the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution? This video details out social media facts and figures that are hard to ignore. This video is produced by the author of Socialnomicshttp://www.socialnomics.com
Take a look!
If the music distracts you or wakes up your parents, mute the volume. But watch. Read. Wake up!
The social media revolution doesn’t sleep. Ever. And while you’re dozing off, it’s already evolved. The next video, Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh), updates the social media and mobile media statistics.
Michael Ondaatje‘s words resonate for me in ways unlike any other living English language writer. In my perfect world daydream, I am always accompanied by Ondaatje, like a translator or a tour guide for the world’s many mysteries. His vision and his use of words is simply unrivaled. The Cinnamon Peeler is no exception!
In Ondaatje’s poetry as in his prose — even in his unrehearsed, spontaneous conversation — music, meaning and perception are inextricably intertwined. He speaks as a chorus with layers of voices, layers of stories, harmonizing and enveloping the reader, the listener. I can imagine no finer companion for a walk in the woods, a long train trip through a snowstorm or a tin of tawny port by a popping campfire!
Cover of The Cinnamon Peeler
I happened to meet Michael Ondaatje about fifteen or sixteen years ago in New York City. Accident. An embarrassing accident, in fact. I’d been invited to “crash” a filming of Literati in the Playbill Suite at the Algonquin Hotel. I was fresh out of college, and I was trying to decide whether to follow my undergraduate studies in Spanish and Latin American literature with a doctorate. Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman was being interviewed on Literati, and I’d convinced World Affairs Executive Producer Larry Shapiro to let me ask him some questions in the green room after filming. I’d studied in Santiago, Chile while Patricio Aylwin was reinventing Chilean democracy, and I’d read (and/or seen performed) everything Dorfman had written up until that point. I was certain he could advise me on my studies…
Today I remember virtually nothing about my conversation with Dorfman. But while sitting in the green room, waiting and rehearsing my questions, I chatted with some of the crew who were setting up for the next filming session. A bearded fellow sitting next to me asked why I wanted to speak with Dorfman, and then chatted lightheartedly about Literati and his interview. His interview? Yes, it turned out he was being interviewed next. He introduced himself as Michael Ondaatje. I’d never heard of him. He talked about working with Anthony Minghella on a film adaptation of a novel he’d written called The English Patient. Unfortunately my mind was so focused on Dorfman that I mostly enjoyed the magic of Ondaatje’s voice. I recall telling my girlfriend later that I would have been happy to have him read me the phone book.
A couple of years later I would see the film and remember my conversation with Ondaatje. The film was spellbinding. I watched it twice. And then I went out and bought the novel. And read it twice. And then I bought and read In The Skin of the Lion. Twice. And so on until I’d read all of his fiction, nonfiction and poetry. My appetite has endured through Anil’s Ghost andDivisadero and I’m looking forward to The Cat’s Table which will be published this autumn.
From good things, good things come! I was rewarded with exciting news: Ferdinand is a septuagenarian! For three quarters of a century Ferdinand has inspired kids (and adults!) to stop and savor the blossoms.
The Story of Ferdinand (Image via Wikipedia)
Once upon a time in Spain there was a little bull and his name was Ferdinand,” the book, which was illustrated with simple black-and-white ink drawings, opens. Deep in corrida des toros country, Ferdinand stood out from all the other bulls: “He liked to sit just quietly and smell the flowers.(ArtsBeat, New York Times)
Chasing down a related link to a vocal rendition of Ferdinand the Bull by The Lennon Sisters I stumbled across this version performed by theDixieland Swingsters. In fact, it turns out that YouTube is chock full of Ferdinand videos including:
I suppose that 75 years is plenty of time for derivative works to be inspired, produced and forgotten. And yet, I’d never stopped to consider the cretive legacy that The Story of Ferdinand. Cool. But I’m still sticking with the original. Simple line drawings and all!
In a recent video response to the question, “What are your thoughts on audio books?”, Frist expressed a wish that I’ve been trumpeting for months: it’s time for user friendly digital book and audio book integration. Print books are familiar and nostalgic. Digital books are cheap, quick, frictionless and they eliminate paper cuts. Audio books are perfectly portable and they expand our reading opportunities to the car, the gym, the ski slopes.
Why aren’t we bundling all three? This value-added merchandising play is not only good business in an increasingly competitive publishing world, it’s actually better than all three. In short, bundling digital, audio and print is better than the sum of its parts.
Most of us still love paper and ink. Bindings. Smells. Easy marginalia. Worn pages. Dog eared corners. It’s a habit with some enduring benefits (ever read your iPad in full sun?) and a viable long tail. In short, many readers still want print books.
Digital book detractors have not immersed themselves in the experience. Just my two cents, but I find it hard to believe that print book purists don’t accept that there are some amazing opportunities with digital publishing. Instant access to almost everything no matter where you are. Did I mention instant? Did I mention cheap? Did I mention searchable content? Okay, the technology is still new and rather clunky, but progress is being made at warp speed.
I admit that once upon a time I scoffed at audio books. Remember when they were recorded on tapes? When they were almost all abridged? When the audio book technology and availability were more hindrance than help? I changed my tune almost a decade ago when my then-fling-now-bride and I were commuting between the Adirondacks and Manhattan. Five hours in the car wrestling with tailgators and snow storms was transformed into five hours of “reading” books that we might not otherwise have taken the time to squeeze into our busy lives. Outstanding recordings, many by the authors themselves, and none were abridged. In those early days we listened to CDs. Remember those? The advent of compact disks reduced the need to abridge books because they could hold so much more data than tapes. Before long we transitioned to MP3 downloads from places like Audible.com and enjoyed the dilated offerings and the instant access. Driving bliss. It wasn’t long before audio books crept into my workouts, flights, train rides, etc.
So spoiled! So many choices. So much bickering about which one is best.They’re all best! Do you remember this video?
We have so many amazing resources at our fingertips, and yet we live in a culture where opinions are celebrated without necessarily stopping to evaluate or analyze them. Remember debate? No? It was a logical, quasi-methodical framework for constructively addressing differences of opinion. Weird, right? I know. Now we just shout opinions, whine opinions, burp opinions, snore opinions, regurgitate opinions, sweat opinions and generally excrete opinions around the clock. It’s cool. It’s social…. ;-)
An avalanche of opinions. But are we evaluating and analyzing this avalanche of opinions, or are we just scrambling to keep our heads up and our opinions spouting? Is anyone stopping to ask if print books, audio books and digital books need be mutually exclusive? With such distinct merits and appetites for all three, it would make a world of sense to zip them all up together in the same pair of pants so that they could audition for the lead roll in our storytelling opera.
Some of my best book experiences lately have resulted from buying all three formats, and in many cases re-consuming large sections of the work in multiple formats. Active writers, researchers and thinkers would relish the opportunity to:
buy a bundled, multi-format title from their favorite seller
tuck into the hammock to read the print book in the shade of a towering oak tree
continue the story on their iPod while mowing the grass
bookmark a quotation while listening to the audio book so that they can send it off via Twitter or email
sync the audio book with their digital book reader to pick up where they left off
quickly locate and share the bookmarks via email, blog post, Facebook, etc.
So often while I’m listening to an audio book I’ve yearned for a quick and easy way to bookmark, quote or share a passage. So often while reading a digital book I’ve yearned for a high-quality audio performance to pick up where I need to leave off to drive to a meeting. So often while reading a printed and bound book I’ve yearned for an efficient way to search for a passage…
Isn’t it time that we integrate digital books and audio books seamlessly in a single, user-friendly app? And wouldn’t it be great if this integrated digital app were bundled with a print copy? It’s a win-win-win proposition!
Ready to turn your damned-good-doggerel into an ebook? Or that collection of your grandmother’s delicious desserts? These “Six eBook Formatting Tools” from eBookNewser will get you started:
Calibre: This free tool will let you create an eBook for all of the major eReaders, including Kindle, Nook, iPad and Sony eReaders as well as a bunch of others. You can transform news from websites into readable files on eReaders and even make DRM-free eBooks. But note that it does not support Word files.
Aspose: Using Aspose.Word plugin, you can convert a Word file into an ePub file. It is a pay service, but you can test drive the application with a free trial.
Mobi Pocket: This free tool lets you create an eBook from HTML and Word and image files. Image files –GIF, JPEG, PNG, BMP– get automatically optimized for a PDA viewer.
Jutoh:This $39 tool lets you make books for Kindle, iBooks and Nook, among other formats. It can ePub, .mobi, .txt and .odt files through its in app text editor. It works in Windows, Mac and Linux.
Feedbooks.com: This free tool lets you create your own ePub, Kindle and PDF files from within its software platform.
BookGlutton: This free tool lets you turn HTML books into ePub files
Did I miss your favorite ebook creation tool? Please tell me about it, and I’ll add it to the list. Thanks!
Do you ever stop to wonder
why erogenous and erroneous
are so close together
and yet so far apart?
Do you ever stop to wonder
why the green ink
spilling from my fountain pen
in paisleys and undulating hills
doesn’t seep through the paper
like water following
hidden seams in the earth,
seeping into streams and rivers
then emptying into the ocean?
Do you ever stop to wonder
if all roots grow down
into the dark, moist soil
or if a few are curious,
are rebellious and brave enough
to grow up to toward the sun?
Or why riffling through a magazine
in bed late at night
can cause the wind to blow
and the rain to fall
and the hoot-hoot of an owl
to echo in the woods
beyond your bedroom?
Or why you don’t lift off –
in a balloon perhaps –
and wait for the earth to turn
and then settle down again
in Tangier or Mumbai or Tokyo
without ever boarding an airplane
or waiting in a TSA security queue?
Or why you hurtle
across oceans and mountains
to plunge into the exotic
while neglecting terra incognita
in your own back yard?
Laurels and hugs and lots of chin-chin toasting to Lisa Pepin (@lisa_pepin) for her poignant video “Storyteller” about north Carolina’s storytelling organization, The Monti including director Jeff Polish’s backstory. I’m fascinated with storytelling unplugged and with The Monti in particular, and I suspect you will be too after enjoying Pepin’s moving pictures and talking heads.
“As a storyteller it gave me validation for all those years that I was quiet… the stage is the best expression of myself… I’m bulletproof. It’s amazing. It’s probably the most amazing place that I live.” ~ Jeff Polish
Perhaps you should read it. Especially if you enjoyed The English Patient. You’ll recognize Hana and Caravaggio, for instance… And you’ll recognize why Pepin’s tidy storytelling about storytelling at The Monti reminds me of Ondaatje’s storytelling in In the Skin of a Lion. Are you starting to catch my drift?
I’ve excerpted Polish’s comment, substituting an ellipsis before “I’m bulletproof.” Those two phrases which I removed — two phrases which are reemphasized dramatically in “I’m bulletproof” — speak to the puissance of storytelling that fascinates Ondaatje. That fascinates me. Drawing the storyteller’s mantle over our quotidian garb, pulling the cavernous hood low over our eyes, obscuring our familiar face, we become our stories. We are bulletproof. For while. And it is indeed an amazing place to live.
A publishing world evolution. Print. Digital. Books. Gadgets. We’re bombarded with speculation, doomsday nay-saying and snake oil promises. Exciting. Exhausting. Time to take a rest. Just for a moment. A short rest. Here. On this bookshelf… Aaahhh.
Champlain Valley friend and fellowDepot Theatre board member, Kimberly Rielly snapped this during her Savannah adventures and emailed it to me this morning. “Found your Savannah office quite charming, George.”
I love Savanna! But of course, it’s another George Davis, not me. Now you see why I’m virtualDavis…
Thanks for the great snapshot, Kim! We miss you in the Adirondacks. Coming home soon?
Rory Sutherland: Life lessons from an ad man (TEDTalk)
“How many problems of life could we solve actually by tinkering with perception rather than that tedious hard working and messy business of actually trying to change reality?” ~ Rory Sutherland
Aside from Rory Sutherland‘s native charm (V4VYVUKTS56Y) and compelling storytelling which might have made his presentation enticing even if he were reminiscing the joys of wash-and-wear nappies, this ad man’s life lessons about perception and intangible value are spot-on! Obviously writers and storytellers of all stripes have been trafficking in perception since the beginning, but listening to Sutherland wax on about Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Pernod and Shreddies I found myself thinking about publishing.
On the one hand, much lamentation has been spilled over the inevitable tactile and aesthetic losses in a digital book world. That musty smell of decomposing paper, the crisp swish of a turned page, the decadence of filling the margins with inked notes, doodles and the phone number of that attractive lady you met in the adjoining library carrel. Also much grumbling about the practical nuisance of an electronic tablet, ill-suited to reading in the tub or on a beach towel under the sun… In short, print book folks worrying aloud as we adopt a new vehicle for reading and sharing books.
To be sure, there is much that we’re losing, though I’ve suggested often enough that the transition is not likely to be quite as black and white as most people suggest, nor will print books vanish for a long, long time. Books will remain an important and present part of my world forever. But the inevitable transition to digital for many/most new releases is bittersweet for me. And yet, I understand and embrace this change. Sutherland touches obliquely on one of the reasons for my enthusiasm.
“If you want to live in a world in the future where there are fewer material goods you basically have two choices. You can either live in a world which is poorer, which people in general don’t like, or you can live in a world where actually intangible value constitutes a greater part of overall value. That actually intangible value in many ways is actually a very, very fine substitute for using up labor or limited resources in the creation of things.” ~ Rory Sutherland
This is but one small enthusiasm I share for digital publishing’s eclipse of smells-and-bells print publishing. And yet it’s an interesting one given that this question of perception and intangible value is deeply intertwined in the markets eager move to digital. Buyers are loading digital accounts with books that they may read, hope to read, could read,… Reading is hot again! Or at least owning books is hot again. I suppose that publishers lamenting the appetite for digital books might have mounted more intelligent campaigns cultivating and nurturing our appetites for the aesthetic pleasures of print books. It’s not too late. As print books become the exception rather than the rule, they will become luxury goods. And the opportunity to romance and inflate the value of ink and paper and binding will be ripe for exploitation.
A meandering post, headed nowhere in particular, I realize now. A pensée du jour that I’ll abandon as quickly as I initiated it. But first, two quotations with which Sutherland concluded his presentation:
“We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.” ~ G.K. Chesterton
That image above is one of the “picture poems” I included in 40×41: Midlife Crisis Postponed and it combines contour drawings that I made in 1994 during my final year in college with abstractions from photographs that I took in Peru in 2011. I’ve previously posted elements of “Contours & Artifacts” in Choice (June 4, 2012) and Wonder (December […]
and
and I’m looking forward to 
which will be published this autumn.
