Category Archives: The Morgue

Automotive Report: LeMans Update

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car

(photo: author)

UPDATE: There’s a link to pix of last weekend’s 24-hour LeMans race, below, but New Jersey cars, not to be outdone, show real personality! The most recent parking lot find: the eyelash car. Remember the cars whose headlights would rotate closed when not in use? One of them wouldn’t be working right and would close only partway, making the car look half-asleep, when in New Jersey, that privilege is reserved for the driver.

carI’m intrigued by what the person with the do-it-yourself woodie is trying to accomplish.

Is he creating a lumber exoskeleton to give his vehicle some extra protection from his fellow drivers? Pointing out the inadequacy of materials or imagination in Toyota’s design? Making an artistic statement? And, is the upside-down Toyota emblem an international symbol of automotive distress?

 

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Plastic Guns

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meteor

(photo: c1.staticflickr.com)

In the hands of a good mystery/thriller writer, the presence of undetectable plastic guns can change the dramatic equation. But in case the real-life possibility of seriously lethal 3-D printed guns existing outside the weakly regulated firearms marketplace has been a problem barely on the edge of your consciousness, a threat like a massive meteor strike—remote, but awful—it’s time to give it further thought. A Wired article by Andy Greenberg, full of anonymous sources and YouTube videos of test-firings, shows how far this technology has come. Predictably, the cost of manufacture has plummeted as lethality has risen.

A combination of libertarians, gunsmiths, and technology enthusiasts has been improving on printable handgun and rifle designs, step-by-step, moving “3-D printed firearms from the realm of science fiction to practical weapons.” And, Greenberg says, leaving “legislators and regulators in the dust,” despite the Undetectable Firearms Act. Another reason this situation is like a meteor strike is, given what we know—in this case about human behavior—these developments seem unstoppable.

The RFID article below suggests how a different technology can contribute to gun safety, too, for conventional handguns.

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Indie-Author Book Promotion Spending Lags

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books

(photo: wikimedia.org)

A recent survey of a mix of self-published authors, reported by Dana Beth Weinberg, suggests the extent to which individual authors are outsourcing some of the tasks that in the good ol’ days, were done by their publisher. There’s a range of those tasks, and some authors do a few of them on their own, and some authors engage several people to accomplish the whole shebang. Recently, some formal book-publishing “teams” have been developed, and they can be expensive and low-performing (see the recent update on the class action lawsuit against Penguin-Random House’s company, “Author Solutions, Inc.,” a costly team service many authors complain under-performs.)

The 2014 survey was conducted by Digital Book World and Writer’s Digest and received information from almost 2,200 self-published and hybrid (both self- and traditionally-published) authors about their most recent self-publishing experience. Just under half of these authors obtained outside help. Apparently believing you can judge a book by its cover, most often they hired a cover artist (35% percent); and 20-25% obtained help with formatting, print on demand, and copy editing. Amazingly, since book sales is the biggest problem for self-published authors, only 11% got help with marketing and promotion!

Only 112 of the 1,900 authors who reported their earnings (net or gross? article doesn’t say) made $10,000 or more from this recent book, and there is a definite trend line between spending more on services and higher earnings. However, most of the authors had a median expense of $0, and earned less than $1,000 on their book. Even among the highest-earning group, only 20 percent of authors spent on marketing and promotion. Something wrong here. And it may be in part that authors feel competent to look at a book cover and say whether they think it’s good or not, but not to assess a marketing campaign that isn’t working.

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Tamer of Horses

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Iliad, Hector, Tamer of Horses

Hector, Tamer of Horses (photo: farm6.staticflickr.com)

A wonderful play by Trenton playwright William Mastrosimone in production through 6/8 by the Passage Theatre Company. Amazing acting (Hector, played by Reynaldo Piniella; Ty Fletcher, by Edward O’Blenis; and Georgiane Fletcher, by Lynnette R. Freeman), and the well-plotted play moves along briskly, exploring the limits of teacher and teaching. The play never descends into sentimentality in dealing with a tough street kid and the middle-class couple that believes it better to try to save him than protect themselves. Direction by the sure-footed Adam Immerwahr.

The Iliad and its hero Hector, Tamer of Horses, also stars, providing enduring lessons to a generation that knows a Trojan as something you buy at the drug store. Homer’s words “take their place next to urban rap lyrics” as the modern-day Hector and the disaffected teacher “match wits in a struggle for Hector’s survival.” Passage Theatre productions appear at Trenton’s easy-to-get-to Mill Hill Playhouse. Secure parking right in front. Don’t miss it!

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Travel Websites for Readers

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travel diary

(photo: c2.staticflickr.com)

The Literary Traveler website links travel experiences and opportunities with the books, movies, and other artistic output originating from that place. Articles often feature out-of-the-ordinary places and themes, as well as locations with a literary past or some other relevant hook. For example, a recent article on Dubai described a Festival of Literature held there. This fall, the site organizers are planning a group trip to New Orleans, complete with reading list. You’ll find descriptions of hotels that have artistic connections and gear recommendations. There’s a fun blog, too, of readers’ travel adventures.

BootsnAll is a website for independent travelers that, inspiringly, features RTW (Around the World) travel. I chuckled seeing a recent article entitled “The Importance of Optimism”—no doubt a necessary bit of mental gear for dealing with the adversities ambitious travel agendas are likely to present. The site covers a full range of information for travelers, including a section on literature and a nifty travel planner to launch those wanderlust dreams.

Travelforkids.com includes book suggestions for just about wherever travel may take you and your children. Pleased to see a book of favorite Japanese children’s stories I’ve given as a gift is currently featured on the home page!

Related “First Draft” blog post: Backpack Books.

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The Rum Diary

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The Rum Diary, Johnny Depp, Hunter S. Thompson

(photo: pixabay.com)

Is it that drinking-to-oblivion has exhausted its limited appeal? Is it that we feel we’ve been there before? Is it that I’m just old and crotchety? If you have The Rum Diary (2011) (trailer) on your Netflix list, you’re in for a few good laughs, but a predictable romantic element and a decided downturn in enjoyment when the main character suddenly dons a cloak of sanctimony near the end.

The movie, set in Puerto Rico in the late 1950’s (great cars!) is based on Hunter S. Thompson’s book, and while Johnny Depp, Richard Jenkins, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Rispoli and Giovanni Ribisi (who makes the least likable character in the movie fun to watch) are more than fine in their roles, the material isn’t up to their performances. It might have been better as a straight comedy without hitting viewers with occasional deeply menacing information, then staggering on as if nothing just happened. Rotten Tomatoes critics rating: 50%.

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Eastern State Penitentiary

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Eastern State Penitentiary, prison, isolation

Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia (photo: author)

Many East Coasters recognize the photo featured on this website home page as taken inside the crenelated walls of Eastern State Penitentiary. A “model” institution when it was built outside Philadelphia in the early 1820’s, Eastern Pen remained in use until 1970, by which time officials deemed it “not fit for human habitation.” Governing magazine’s David Kidd recently created a photo essay about this crumbling institution, now near the city’s downtown.

Although the felons have left, today Eastern Pen is a tourist attraction and hosts concerts and other events. If you visited it today, May 10, you could attend a reunion of inmates and guards, who would answer your questions about their former lives there. Every fall, it hosts Terror Behind the Walls, “a massive haunted house in a real prison.”

Kidd points out that the Quakers who built Eastern Pen originally constructed only single-person cells, so that miscreants would have absolute solitude to reflect on their crimes and on the Bible. This, the founders believed, would make men truly penitent (“penitentiary”). In this original sense, a penitentiary differed from a prison, where convicts mingled and shared cells. From the time a prisoner entered Eastern Pen and was led to his cell (wearing a hood) until the time he left (also hooded), he never saw or spoke to another human being. Later, with more crowding, that changed.

The city fathers were proud of their innovation and eagerly showed it to visitors, one of whom was Charles Dickens. Dickens was horrified at the suffering he believed this total isolation would produce. He was inspired to replicate it in A Tale of Two Cities, where the solitary cell in the Bastille drove his character, Dr. Manette, insane.

 

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White House Humor

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White House

(photo: pixabay.com)

New York magazine has collected the “best” humor from some sixty years of White House Corrrespondents’ dinners. Some painful reads there! An example from our current President: “These days I look in the mirror and I have to admit I’m not the strapping young Muslim socialist I used to be.” That was 2013. This year he said, “These days the House Republicans actually give John Boehner a harder time than they give me, which means orange really is the new black.” The writing has definitely improved over the years. Going back seven or eight administrations, you have to wonder, why were these people laughing?

This year’s dinner received the perennial criticism from some journalists, including Bob Garfield of NPR’s On the Media, who thinks the dinner is a violation of the separation of source and reporter, from his position on the outside, looking in.

Strike Up the Band!

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The papers, original scores, and more written by George and Ira Gershwin are being made available to music scholars, performers, audiences, and students through The Gershwin Initiative at the University of Michigan. A “listening gallery” is at the U-M website link. The school will create new, definitive scores for the brothers’ many compositions, which include Porgy and Bess, Rhapsody in Blue, and An American in Paris.

The Gershwins were pivotal in developing what is now called The Great American Songbook, recently brought to a broader (or renewed) audience by Michael Feinstein, who is not only an entertainer, but relentless in his effort to preserve this era of musical history and an avid supporter of the next generation of vocal talent. No surprise, one of Feinstein’s early jobs was as assistant to Ira Gershwin, which inspired his recent book, The Gershwins and Me.

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What Ebooks Are Readers Reading?

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(photo: HarperLibrary)

(photo: HarperLibrary)

According to Digital Book World, “dystopian young adult novels with a female protagonist caught in a love triangle might be wearing thin with readers.” So, does this mean the end of series like The Hunger Games and Divergent? Just remember, the industry repeatedly turned down Anne Rice’s first vampire novel, claiming “vampires are dead.”

At least the publishing pundits on a recent DBW panel acknowledged “there’s no silver bullet” guaranteed to capture readers’ attention. Thus their dog-bites-man advice to writers to produce “compelling stories.”

One trend panelists did note is increased interest in true crime (is this “non-fiction dystopia”?), mysteries, and thrillers, perhaps because of the runaway popularity of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, reviewed here in 2013. They also debunked the publishing rule of thumb that readers aren’t interested in characters that don’t resemble themselves. I guess this explains Hannibal Lecter.

In addition, panelists predicted:

  • Continued low prices of ebooks and growth of ebook subscription services, which are low-risk ways for readers to try new authors
  • More erotica, romance, and literary fantasy (e.g., Game of Thrones)
  • More writers of color among mainstream literary authors
  • Classics and back-list titles (cheap for publishers to produce)
  • In July, publication of the “next blockbuster”??—The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen. Lots of hype, many disgruntled pre-pub readers on GoodReads and Amazon.
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