This question is like a sliver under my skin. It started after I read an article that made the following statement: “At its root, poetry is the language of protest.”
What say you, dear reader?
Rumor has it that I am one of the many authors at this event.
Here are details of the event from the Racine and Kenosha Authors Book Fair Facebook page:
September 20 from 6 to 9 pm, authors from all over Racine and Kenosha will converge at the Racine Arts Council. Six featured poets and authors will give readings (Kenosha Poet Laureate Jean Preston, Kelsey Marie Harris, Dan Nielsen, Nick Demske, Marcie Eanes, and Kelsey Hoff), and many more will be present to sign their books and meet with readers. This event is also the official release of Sad Girl Poems, a chapbook self-published by Kelsey Hoff. Light refreshments will be served.
The Racine and Kenosha area is a thriving arts community, with a surprising number of authors and literary publications in residence. This event will represent the diversity of that community, with up-and-coming writers side by side with well-established ones in multiple genres including poetry, fiction, young adult, and nonfiction. Representatives from Left of the Lake and Straylight Literary Arts Magazine will be present with copies of their publications available.
What a strange chaos is this wide atmosphere we breathe! … The air itself is one vast library, on whose pages are for ever written all that man has ever said or woman whispered. There, in their mutable but unerring characters, mixed with the earliest, as well as the latest sighs of mortality, stand for ever recorded, vows unredeemed, promises unfulfilled, perpetuating in the united movements of each particle, the testimony of man’s changeful will.
—Charles Babbage
A library of Babel concealed in the very air we breathe. (via alphacaeli)
Thanks to all of you who downloaded a copy of my digital chapbook for When the Lights Go Out!
With your support, the Kindle Edition went from being ranked somewhere around 1.6 million-and-something to breaking into the top 11,000 e-book titles downloaded.
For those who prefer a physical signed souvenir—print copies will debut this month at the Racine & Kenosha Authors Book Fair.
Thanks for your support!
To all three of you have inquired as to the absence of the monthly podcast, please forgive the delay.
My voice got sidelined for almost a month by a horrible summertime flu/virus/thingy. And then I had a week or so of heavy design projects. And then lost my voice again for a couple weeks due to another summertime allergy/virus/whatnot.
And then there is the issue of selecting and securing the rights to use guest music on the podcast.
I know, enough excuses. Thanks for your patience. I think you may enjoy the upcoming episodes.
Thanks for your support!
When it comes to promoting my own work, I am extremely self-consciousness. However, here are three announcements that may interest you.
In a GTD[1] effort to increase productivity, I studied my online activity this spring using time tracking software. Currently self-employed, I wanted to make sure time is not wasted but used wisely.
For the most part, social media is out. Same goes for video games and online audio and video streaming sites (not that I ever play video games online anyone, but I do allow myself to listen to music and audio podcasts while working).
A couple times during this period I noticed that the weekly report showed that I spent four hours on Facebook. I was shocked. Maybe I left the computer on while running an errand (which could take hours due to my current rural location) and left the internet browser window open during that whole time. I made immediate efforts to close that open loop of un-productivity.
Those reports intrigued me and I wanted to find out how many hours most Americans spend on Facebook per day. According to a 2011 source, the average American spends
“15.5 minutes … on Facebook every single day.”[2]
But, as you know, three years ago is a century ago in the digital world. A 2013 study reports that an
“average user spends 23 hours a week emailing, texting and using social media and other forms of online communication.”[3]
23 hours! That is a lot of online time. But that statistic does not surprise me. As a professional graphic designer, I spend at least 40 hours a week in front of a screen. And now, most design and communication applications are cloud based or at least supported online. So, as you can see by the screen shot at the beginning of this post, much of my time is designing books, book covers and other marketing and print materials while listening to podcasts or music.
A month ago a new report says
“the average American now spends 40 minutes a day checking a Facebook feed.”[4]
That is a huge increase from three years ago — 280 minutes a week spent on Facebook. 4.6 hours a week. 18 hours a month! I can layout a 240-page book in that time and maybe have time left over to design the book cover (of course, that depends on editor and author changes and corrections, but I digress).
I am sure there is a lot of news from family and friends that I miss by avoiding Facebook. But when you are self-employed those 18 hours can be used resourcefully and effectively to provide for your household — and to secure and maintain future clients. Or, at least, that is the strategy.
NOTES:
[1] GTD, or Getting Things Done. http://lifehacker.com/productivity-101-a-primer-to-the-getting-things-done-1551880955
[2] “You Spend 8 Hours Per Month on Facebook” by Ben Parr, September 30, 2011, accessed August 22, 2014, http://mashable.com/2011/09/30/wasting-time-on-facebook/
[3] “Americans Spend 23 Hours Per Week Online, Texting” by David Mielach, July 2, 2013, accessed August 22, 2014, http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/4718-weekly-online-social-media-time.html
[4] “Americans Now Spend More Time on Facebook Than They Do on Their Pets” by Joshua Brustein, July 23, 2014, accessed August 22, 2014, http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-23/heres-how-much-time-people-spend-on-facebook-daily
In social media there are no take-backs, no do-overs.
—Ronnie, “Beware the Dark Side” (via Develop Socially)
From an email about the event:
All the words that I utter,
And all the words that I write,
Must spread out their wings untiring,
And never rest in their flight,
Till they come where your sad, sad heart is,
And sing to you in the night,
Beyond where the waters are moving,
Storm-darken’d or starry bright.
— William Butler Yeats, “Where My Books Go” (via bookoasis)
Last week The Asheville Blade published a story I wrote — Why I Left Asheville.
The response to that story has been overwhelming. If you have not read the story yet, please give it a read and share your thoughts in the comment section. Thanks for your support!
From the graphic design archive…
Anyone remember doing advertising or editorial mockups using dry transfer lettering? Or the fact that mockups were expected to take days not hours?
The weekly Racine Public Library Wordshop gathering of poets and writers is always lively and engaging. Last week there was a special presentation of Beat literature.
Upon acceptance of another story this week, I received this note from the editor:
“Good lord this is good.”
The encouragement from these editors helps sweep a lot of self-doubt out of the way.
Announcing the release of When the Lights Go Out: and other writings [Kindle Edition]!
This e-book collects four stories from a Coffeehouse Junkie audio podcast plus a bonus chapter. Inside When the Lights Go Out includes stories about creative space, laptop versus hand-writing and more. Here’s a list of the chapters:
Plus a bonus chapter!
Listen to the audio:
And thank you for your support!
Download today: When the Lights Go Out: and other writings [Kindle Edition]
Received this note from the editor of a forthcoming article to be published:
“…it’s excellent, timely, very motivating and inspirational.”
“The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.”
Gustave Flaubert (via absynthe-words)
Years ago, the practice of capturing a moment or event was accomplished with pencil and sketchbook.
But poems are like dreams: in them you put what you don’t know you know.
Adrienne Rich, ‘When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision’ On Lies, Secrets, and Silence (via thedaysarenotfullenough) (via libraryland)
This morning, kidlinger walks up to my desk while I work, looks at the laptop screen critically and asks: “What’s that?”
Me: “I’m listening to Shostakovich.[1]”
Kidlinger: “He’s not one of the three killer B’s.[2]”
Me: “True. Would you prefer to listen to Bach, Beethoven, or Brahms?”
Kidlinger: “I don’t know.”
Me: “How about some Bach… violin sonata in G minor? Something to encourage you to practice your violin.”
Kidlinger: “Yeah, that sounds good.”
NOTES:
[1] Here’s a brief bio on Shostakovich: http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/shostakovich.php
[2] This is not a reference to the 1991 release of Anthrax’s B-sides collection Attack of the Killer B’s. But it is a reference to the three greatest classic music composers, commonly knowns as the Three B’s, Bach, Beethoven, or Brahms. Here’s a link to recent relesases of the Three B’s from NPR’s “Music We Love Now: New Albums Of Bach, Beethoven And Brahms”: http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2013/03/18/174659127/music-we-love-now-the-3-bs-on-cd
I didn’t foresee that my whole little life was going to revolve around this object, this computer. That’s worth exploring to me, not simply being critical of it. If you’re going to have a movie about people my age in L.A., they’re going to have to be online a lot of the time or it’s not realistic. But for anything to happen, they have to stop being online. All of those little moments throughout the day when you’re like “What am I doing? Who am I?” I just check my e-mail, or I go online. That sort of mini-lost feeling isn’t new, but I’m curious what happens when you don’t really have to see it through, ever. There is always a distraction.
Miranda July, on the characters in her new film, The Future (via thesalinasvalley)
“Meformer” (vs “informer”) is not a new term,[1] but for some reason it is making its rounds on social media the last few[2] months.[3]
NOTES:
[1] Jennifer Van Grove, Mashable, “STUDY: 80% of Twitter Users Are All About Me”, September 29, 2009, accessed July 15, 2014, http://mashable.com/2009/09/29/meformers/
[2] Patrick Allan, LifeHacker, “Be an Informer, Not a ‘Meformer’, To Get More Followers On Social Media”, May 29 2014, accessed July 15, 2014, http://lifehacker.com/be-an-informer-not-a-meformer-to-get-more-followers-1583508468
[3] Kirk Englehardt, LinkedIn, “Are you a Twitter ‘Informer’ or ‘Meformer’?”, June 03, 2014, accessed July 15, 2014,
https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140603184736-3091133-are-you-a-twitter-informer-or-meformer
“I’ve always been suspicious of those who seek to describe the effects of digital media in generational terms, drawing sharp contrasts between young “Internet natives” and old “Internet immigrants.” Such distinctions strike me as misleading, if not specious. If you look at statistics … the average adult has spent more time online than the average kid. …. And the idea that those who grow up peering at screens will somehow manage to avoid the cognitive toll exacted by multitasking and persistent interruptions is a fantasy contradicted by neuroscientific research. All of us, young and old alike, have similar neurons and synapses, and our brains are affected in similar ways by the media we use.”
Nick Carr, from the afterword of the paperback edition of The Shallows (via wwnorton)
Listen now:
When was the last time your wrote a letter? Not an email, but a handwritten letter with pen, paper, envelope and postage. Learn about a legacy of letters from a WWII soldier discovered by his son. Also, a short story about poetry, jazz and a rainy afternoon.
This show is unofficially sponsored by Circa Celeste — a cafe located in historic downtown Racine, Wisconsin. Check them out at CircaCeleste.net.
Special thanks to John Hayes. He enjoys several musical incarnations from honky-tonk country to jazz to silent music scenes. His current incarnation involves old blues. Enjoy some of his music on his Bandpage.
Listen on:
PodOmatic: coffeehousejunkie.podomatic.com
SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/coffeehousejunkie
Coffeehouse Junkie 