We here at in keeping want to, first of all, wish everyone a belated happy new year.
Happy New Year!
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Friday, December 19, 2008
The Bread Loaf Ethnic?
from "How to be a Writer: What goes on at America's most competitive literary conference?" by Rebecca Mead, published in The New Yorker (issue of 10/15/2001)
Many Bread Loafers spoke of the compulsion to write as a kind of calling, though one that they hoped to channel in a direction that might appeal to a publisher. A number of agents and editors are invited to Bread Loaf to give seminars on the publishing business; the question they are most commonly asked is, "Will you read my manuscript?" Each year a small number of participants do get discovered this way, though they tend to be plucked from the select ranks of waiters and scholars rather than from the fee-paying crowd. But there is hope even for them. One evening, Sandra Benitez introduced her own reading by describing how she had published her first novel at the age of fifty two, having come to Bread Loaf as a paying contributor eighteen years earlier only to be told that the book she was working on was garbage. "I went home to my husband, to my writing group, and I went off to bed for two weeks in my little flannel pajamas and moose-head slippers," she said. "The awful thing is that he was right. I knew it would never be published. So I gave it a proper burial. I bought a filiing box and lit a candle, and I said a prayer and I thanked the book for teaching me what it is to write a novel. And I put the box under my bed, where I sleep over it still." Several members of the audience were in tears at this story, although perhaps not many of them would have had the resourcefulness to do what Benitez did after that reversal, which was to take her mother's Puerto Rican maiden name--she had been writing as Sarah Ables--and start writing on Latin American themes instead of about the Missouri in which she'd grown up.
Many Bread Loafers spoke of the compulsion to write as a kind of calling, though one that they hoped to channel in a direction that might appeal to a publisher. A number of agents and editors are invited to Bread Loaf to give seminars on the publishing business; the question they are most commonly asked is, "Will you read my manuscript?" Each year a small number of participants do get discovered this way, though they tend to be plucked from the select ranks of waiters and scholars rather than from the fee-paying crowd. But there is hope even for them. One evening, Sandra Benitez introduced her own reading by describing how she had published her first novel at the age of fifty two, having come to Bread Loaf as a paying contributor eighteen years earlier only to be told that the book she was working on was garbage. "I went home to my husband, to my writing group, and I went off to bed for two weeks in my little flannel pajamas and moose-head slippers," she said. "The awful thing is that he was right. I knew it would never be published. So I gave it a proper burial. I bought a filiing box and lit a candle, and I said a prayer and I thanked the book for teaching me what it is to write a novel. And I put the box under my bed, where I sleep over it still." Several members of the audience were in tears at this story, although perhaps not many of them would have had the resourcefulness to do what Benitez did after that reversal, which was to take her mother's Puerto Rican maiden name--she had been writing as Sarah Ables--and start writing on Latin American themes instead of about the Missouri in which she'd grown up.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
DVR usage shifts prime time (a bit)
from Brian Stelter's NYT article "Jay Leno's Move..."
...Mr. Leno’s show...as the Monday-through-Friday “strip”...defuses the risk of Mr. Leno’s move to another network...saves untold millions of dollars a year. But it also reflects the increasing irrelevance of the network schedule.
The irrelevance is partly [due to] digital video recorders, the bane of many a television executive....Of the 10 prime-time programs that gained the biggest audience from DVR usage this year, none were on at 10 p.m.
The biggest gainers from DVR viewership were dramas...the NBC series “Heroes”....[t]he new Fox drama “Fringe”....the ABC series “Lost”....[etc.]
...But the downside is evident to anyone who measures the gradual ratings declines for an ever-more-fragmented TV landscape. Advertisers pay for air time using ratings that include only the first three days of DVR playback...under the assumption that the ads become less relevant over time [&] that most viewers will watch shows by then. As a result, networks are looking to schedule programming that can encourage live viewing.
...On Tuesday, Ben Silverman...co-chairman of NBC Entertainment, called “The Jay Leno Show” a “killer app,” not only because of the comedian’s talents, but because “you want to watch it that night, and you want to watch it the next....”
...Mr. Silverman predicted that the program would be “totally DVR-proof.”
[But] “[t]here’s no way to schedule around DVR viewing,” said Dawn Ostroff, CW’s president of entertainment.
...Due in part to time-shifting, many viewers, especially...younger ones who are prized by advertisers, do not know what is on at 10 p.m....they increasingly do not care. There is a simple test of this scheduling shift: ...ask a friend what time “Dateline NBC” is broadcast. The hard-to-remember answer is Friday nights at 10.
CBS and ABC are expected to [both] counter-program NBC’s 10 p.m. talk show with dramas....[and continue to win the time slot}
...Mr. Leno’s show...as the Monday-through-Friday “strip”...defuses the risk of Mr. Leno’s move to another network...saves untold millions of dollars a year. But it also reflects the increasing irrelevance of the network schedule.
The irrelevance is partly [due to] digital video recorders, the bane of many a television executive....Of the 10 prime-time programs that gained the biggest audience from DVR usage this year, none were on at 10 p.m.
The biggest gainers from DVR viewership were dramas...the NBC series “Heroes”....[t]he new Fox drama “Fringe”....the ABC series “Lost”....[etc.]
...But the downside is evident to anyone who measures the gradual ratings declines for an ever-more-fragmented TV landscape. Advertisers pay for air time using ratings that include only the first three days of DVR playback...under the assumption that the ads become less relevant over time [&] that most viewers will watch shows by then. As a result, networks are looking to schedule programming that can encourage live viewing.
...On Tuesday, Ben Silverman...co-chairman of NBC Entertainment, called “The Jay Leno Show” a “killer app,” not only because of the comedian’s talents, but because “you want to watch it that night, and you want to watch it the next....”
...Mr. Silverman predicted that the program would be “totally DVR-proof.”
[But] “[t]here’s no way to schedule around DVR viewing,” said Dawn Ostroff, CW’s president of entertainment.
...Due in part to time-shifting, many viewers, especially...younger ones who are prized by advertisers, do not know what is on at 10 p.m....they increasingly do not care. There is a simple test of this scheduling shift: ...ask a friend what time “Dateline NBC” is broadcast. The hard-to-remember answer is Friday nights at 10.
CBS and ABC are expected to [both] counter-program NBC’s 10 p.m. talk show with dramas....[and continue to win the time slot}
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Globalization
from John Gray's September 28 column in the Observer of London
Many in the United States have cherished the illusion that globalization means Americanization. Outside the United States most people have long understood that the actual result of globalization is quite different: a continuous decline in American power. The development of new economies was always going to rob the United States of its pole position in the world.
Many in the United States have cherished the illusion that globalization means Americanization. Outside the United States most people have long understood that the actual result of globalization is quite different: a continuous decline in American power. The development of new economies was always going to rob the United States of its pole position in the world.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Jeb Bush to Newsmax
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush tells Newsmax that the GOP must broaden its appeal to avoid becoming "the old white-guy party," and recommends that Republicans create a "shadow government" to engage Democrats on important issues as the incoming Obama administration seeks to enact its agenda.
In a wide-ranging interview with Newsmax, the popular former governor...said the 2008 election was neither "transformational" nor a landslide. For example, he noted that Barack Obama's significant fundraising advantage over John McCain played a key role in Democratic success this year.
Bush urged Republicans not to abandon their core conservative principles in favor of a "Democratic-lite" agenda....
...Bush said: The United States remains "basically a center-right country." He cited President-elect Barack Obama's stance on taxes as an example.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Alex Kuczynski on the Phrase "Meant to Be"
"I suppose I could have decided that it was my destiny to remain childless, that it was somehow meant to be. But I hate the phrase "meant to be," loaded with its small, smug assumptions, its apathy and fake stoicism. I believe that where things can be fixed, they should be fixed."
Hollywood & the Net
from "Obama Win Helps Tech, Could Hurt Hollywood," by Art Brodsky at The Huffington Post
Hollywood is at a crossroads in the policy world as it decides how to leverage its usual influence within a Democratic administration. In one direction is the traditional path of taking the offensive on perceived copyright wrongs...The alternative path is to look toward the future of the industry...Dan Glickman, the president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), earlier this year came out squarely against Net Neutrality. He called it "regulating the Internet"...Hollywood's other major initiative is to search for copywrighted material online by having AT&T and other willing Internet Service Providers peek at everyone's data packets...
Hollywood is at a crossroads in the policy world as it decides how to leverage its usual influence within a Democratic administration. In one direction is the traditional path of taking the offensive on perceived copyright wrongs...The alternative path is to look toward the future of the industry...Dan Glickman, the president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), earlier this year came out squarely against Net Neutrality. He called it "regulating the Internet"...Hollywood's other major initiative is to search for copywrighted material online by having AT&T and other willing Internet Service Providers peek at everyone's data packets...
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