eBooks - cutting the crud

Our commissioning editor, D. S. Mills, offers an opinion on the r-e-volution in  publishing.

Publishers will be the last people to correctly forecast the future of books. As they hurry down their corridors of fear, or exit their impressive foyers where past failures glimmer from the shelves, their minds are occupied with professional survival.
But for those who have long been their fodder, the perennially embattled authors, the shadow of coming events is visible already.

Whatever happened to the village booksmith?
Well, we know what happened to the village blacksmith.
Fabrication, mass production and world-wide distribution. 
Now consider the plight of the village booksmith - for example, the old-style Australian publisher. A substantial book is commissioned - perhaps something to do with local history or an  artistic or academic study relating to a national issue. Because the writing and research must be comprehensive, it could be years before the final draft is ready. Then comes editing, proof-reading, legal vetting, production, marketing, distribution... all requiring effort, money,  time and care. 
Eventually, six or seven years since inception and after considerable expense, the book is launched. 
By then, the issue that was the reason for the project could have cooled or become irrelevant. And the expensive result - priced at, say,  $39.95, is bought by one hundred and fifty libraries and - with luck - five thousand readers, although the marketing department had hoped for twice those sales. The worthy addition to the publisher's 'list' becomes another flop d'estime that barely covers cost.


Whatever happened to the journeyman writer?
Everyone from Balzac to John Grisham have been forced to finance themselves - to flog their books to an unwilling public any way they could. The obtuseness and obstructionism of publishers has plagued writers over centuries. 
Publishers, naturally, oppose this view and see themselves as protecting the reader from trash. There is truth in this. But the perception of publishers as paragons of insight is still in question as the few genuine successes that each firm, to its vast surprise, achieves finance the vast crop of duds they frantically overproduce each year.
As for aspirant writers, most lack talent. Writing, unfortunately, is the most accessible art and cheapest to produce. Anyone can pick up a pen or spread inanities over Facebook.  Writing is also seen, by dreamers, as the way to fortune and fame. 
Nothing could be further from the truth but still this myth persists because that most irrational of sentiments - human hope - is  one of our few defences against hard facts.
Today, the most untalented hopefuls can place their drivel directly online.  Their 5,000 word attempt at pornography, reduced by their banality to hamfisted smut is classified as a 'book' and, thanks to Photoshop, adorned by a half-convincing cover featuring much flesh and lurid text. These 'writers', blinded by dollar signs, pump out as many of such half-baked efforts as they can, hoping that quantity will aid sales.


Whatever happened to the old-time reader?
Is grandma really reading her true romance and cosy murders on a tablet?  Some are. Many modern grandmas have embraced the new technology. 
Or is grandma still browsing the bookshops?

Inside darkest Burma (and China). Our travel writers never stop.

Pam Scott and David Farnsworth are at it again. Pam's in deepest South America and David is back emailing from the Yin Xiang Hotel, Weifang China. We hate travel so can't understand it. But there's no holding back their tide. Meanwhile, Burma is apparently opening up. Interesting, because Pam's book Travelling With Mr. Shwe gives one of the best insights into that still mostly forbidden world that you are ever likely to read.

Pam has spent much of her life working in countries of the Far East and five of her books are already on the Buzzword list. And now, when the secretive Generals have apparently relaxed their strictures on Burma - an initiative the rest of the world very cautiously welcomes - it's important to know that country from the inside. And her photo-packed book  Travelling With Mr. Shwe  is an insider's account of the place, its people and its problems. It takes you beyond the pagodas and Buddha statues to show life in Myanmar today. 

Pam describes her journey:

  'The recent election and the subsequent freeing of Aung San Suu Kyi has raised international awareness of the politics of Myanmar (Burma). But, beyond these headlines, not so much is known about the people and the culture. Travelling With Mr. Shwe is not a political story, although it is impossible to avoid some political/ human rights issues. It is a human interest story and a travel tale which I hope will give readers some knowledge about the country and its people and, maybe, cause them to care about its future.

Burma exposed.

'Mr Shwe tells of my first meeting with Mr. Shwe in 1998 and visits to Yangon, Mandalay, Lake Inle, Pyin U Lwin, Bagan, Mt Popa.
   'In 2010, Mr. Shwe took me further afield to Rakhine State and the ancient city of Mrauk U, to the Chin State to meet the women with tattooed faces, and to the amazing new capital city of Naypyitaw, built recently by the ruling Generals. We returned to Mandalay to meet once again the irrepressible Moustache Brothers, before continuing north for twelve hours by train to stay in Kathar, the town which was George Orwell's last posting of his five years (1922-27) in the police force in Burma and the setting for his novel 'Burmese Days'.
   'Finally we headed south to Moulmein, the old British colonial capital for twenty-six years, once said to be the prettiest city in the country and on to the intriguing Ogre Island.' 

 

Buzzword comment: 'This book is essential reading for anyone planning a visit to Myanmar or for the armchair traveller who wants to know more about this fascinating, contradictory country. 160pp. 200 coloured photos.'

As for Farnsworth... 

David loves China, has taught there and keeps going back.  You'll find many of his Chinese travel poems in his anthology, Middle Kingdom, on Buzzword. Here are a couple of scenes from his current trip:

And, as he travels always with a pencil, the poems come in regularly, wherever he may be.

Here's the latest:

 Of Mice and a Woman

A million mice can’t be wrong  This woman is a beast. Who else sets traps  with Stilton cheese? The smell pervaded the neighbourhood. Mice came from everywhere!

The killing field was her cupboard. Well, it was dark and warm An ideal breeding ground for mice and with quick access to the kitchen. We were so lucky!

Like most elderly females she had
a cat. This animal is overfed and
lazy, but don’t tell the owner.
While she is asleep it plays with us.

Things took a nasty turn in Bundoora
when the traps were set. We lost three
of our bravest. A wheelie-bin is not
a good resting place.

We have tried peace moves, moving
in force , waving white flags, but her
eyesight is too weak to see them.
We fear the worst is about to befall us!

He adds a few snippets about his experiences:

Sorry about my tardiness.  Too many banquets. you know the sort of thing, raw jelly fish, yams, donkey, roast pigeons sea cucumbers... boring!.

The bank next delivered/received some cash with about 6 armed guards with sawn off shot guns. At the end they leaped into a van with sliding door in a hurry like some Hollywood movie... although in the movies it's the gangsters.

Tonight I am going to the cinema in Weifang for the first time in 8 years? It's "Titanic" in 3D.
Not many Western films are released here. My friend assures me that this will be expensive. I reassure her that I have just received my pay from the Government!



Pam's travel books are available on Buzzword for just $5.95

THE WORLD (and The Smiths) IN 1959

Ben Smith - author or NO TIME FOR THE SMITHS sets the scene for his remarkable memoir of the first year of his marriage. This extract - the start of a talk on the book - describes how the world was then.

Well, it's not often that a book you wrote fifty years ago gets up but this one did.

Fifty-four years ago, I was a gormless young 21-year old who'd just married a divorced woman nine years older than I was.  We had no money, so all we could afford to rent was a shack in the backblocks of Avalon - 26 miles from where we worked in Sydney. And, as she freely admitted, I was being cradle-snatched. Because, after one bad marriage, she was desperate to settle down and breed.

And we were destitute. She couldn't even afford bed sheets. And all I owned was a rickety car the same age as I was - a side valve Morris Minor that broke down or burst into flames the moment you went near it.

Rina worked in town and I worked as a studiohand or scene-shifter at Channel 2, Gore Hill. Both jobs were a long way from Avalon when you had an unpredictable car.

In other words, the whole set-up was so impractical, it left us with no time to scratch ourselves. Hence - NO TIME FOR THE SMITHS - the account of an impossible first year of marriage.

Remember, things were very different fifty years ago. So just to jog the mind - let's set the scene a little:

THE WORLD AT THE END OF THE FIFTIES:

It was before the Vietnam war and the Berlin Wall. DNA and the laser still hadn't been discovered but a Soviet rocket had just crashed into the moon.

The Dali Lama was fleeing Tibet. Castro had taken over Cuba. Kennedy was not yet president. And there was terror about the prospect of a future nuclear war.

The new inventions were the hovercraft, the synthesiser and stereo recording. And computers were still only to be found in university science departments. 

A Catholic synod decreed that women wearing men's clothes or with uncovered arms were unworthy of the sacrament. And the Archbishop of Canterbury wanted adultery made a criminal offence.

The first kidney transplant had just been done and the BMA had finally decided that smoking caused lung cancer.

Grace Kelly had became a princess. Princess Margaret was marrying a commoner. Elvis was drafted and Buddy Holly, Bogart and James Dean died.

The films were High Society, The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur. The musical was My Fair Lady. Harold Pinter had just written The Caretaker and Jaques Tati was starring in Mon Oncle.

Martin Luther King was stabbed and Alec Guinness knighted.  Donald Campbell set a world speed record and the first Mini Minor appeared.

Cassius Clay had begun his career, but, in Lousiana, mixed race boxing matches were banned. And in Alabama, a children's book was withdrawn because it showed a black rabbit marrying a white one.

So that was the international scene. 

But how was it fifty years ago in Australia?

AUSTRALIA 54 YEARS AGO:

Well, our population was ten million - including one million post-war migrants.

There were just two million cars in the country. And a Holden Station Wagon cost 995 pounds.

A Victor mower would set you back 49 guineas or seven shillings a week. This at a time when the average home - cost around 6 thousand pounds.

A Four-and-Twenty pie cost one shilling and a public phone call four pennies.

Banks had a new product called saving accounts. Medicines were no longer free. Prescriptions now cost five shillings. The contraceptive pill had been invented but was not yet available.

Sydney's biggest building had just gone up - the fifteen story MLC office in North Sydney. And a foreigner called Utzon had just won a design competition for an Opera House.

In Victoria, Menzies, in his fifth term, had just opened the Myer Music Bowl. And Bolte had opened the Eildon Dam - then the biggest water storage in the Southern Hemisphere.

Lake Eucumbene, the Warragamba Dam and the Snowy Mountains Scheme were still being completed.

Reg Ansett had bought ANA. The first Qantas jet had arrived - a Boeing 707. They were talking about building a new Melbourne airport to be called Tullamarine.

Coastal steamers still plied between our major cities, and the Oriana, then a huge vessel of 42,000 tons, was the biggest passenger ship to ever visit this country.

We had compulsory National Service and Aborigines had no vote.

The ALP had just agreed to maintain the White Australia Policy.

Off-course betting was illegal.

Criminals could still be sentenced to a lashing.

CONTEMPT FOR THE SEMICOLON

In this vituperative slur, Clinton Smith pours scorn on the device all academics and bureaucrats hold dear.

The days of Virginia Woolf are long gone. Her musings are too dilatory for this century and her cherished semicolons belong to the era of the clothes prob and mangle.

Many writers have decried this bastard child of the comma and the colon. George Orwell, a permanently contemporary mind, told his editor that the semicolon was an unnecessary stop and that he would contrive to do without it. He was right.


Yet, its worthy and indispensable parents faultlessly fulfil their roles. Its mother, the comma, provides an essential breath or pause in a sentence, clarifies meaning, separates concepts, transforms obscurity into sense. Its father, the noble colon, informs us of what is coming, emphatically amplifies a thought. There is no praise too extravagant for these duties brilliantly preformed.

But the semicolon?

It attempts to express a pause slightly longer than the comma. Or to relate two ideas. And does neither well. Its unwelcome intrusion assaults the eye and judders the mind.

This elaboration of the workmanlike comma is merely the stuffy emissary of the dash or a vapid allusion to the colon. Neither fish nor fowl.

None of this bothers the public servant or local government official, the manager of an institution or a university factotum. Mediocre minds use the thing to appear recondite. It helps them cloak their specious, muddy thoughts in defensive ambiguity. Which might not matter except for the semicolon's major flaw.

It is ugly!

As Barthelme pointed out, it is "ugly as a tick on a dog's belly." The redoubtable Gertrude Stein also disparaged it. Are such views merely pretentious?

Have you not eyes to see? The thing is a flyspeck on the page.

Someone recently remarked that a contemporary fop's desire to be fashionable had transcended his sense of the ridiculous. Brave, because people have been crucified for stating the self-evident. And, if our instinctive attributes included a sense of design, then this barnacle slowing the voyage of communication would never have appeared.


So, next time your finger strays to that perverse key on your keyboard, pause - pause: or pause...


The sensible alternatives are there. None offend the eye or the subvocalisation in the mind. All are efficient, direct, sensible, exempliary.


Does it matter?


As sages point out: everything matters, nothing matters.

So yes! It matters.

Desist!

If this post interested you, see also WATCH YOUR TONGUE on this site.

MURPHY'S REVERSE LAW

Humorist Martin Jensen has a problem with Murphy's Law. He's discovered Murphy's Reverse Law! Read all about it here:

There are many self-evident laws. For instance, Etorre's Supermarket Observation: 'The other line moves faster.' And Jenning's Corollary: 'The chance of bread falling jam side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.'
    And although Murphy's Law, 'If anything can go wrong, it will', is the most famous, his Reverse Law is even more diabolical. This states: 'If anything goes right, it does it when it cocks up everything.'

     For instance, I’m driving somewhere and need the pause at the next set of red lights to tweak the GPS or jot down something I’ve remembered. And what happens? Green lights for blocks. Guaranteed.

    Or I’m standing outside the airport terminal waiting for the shuttle to take me to the long-term car park. I know I’ll be there till I grow roots, so light up a fag. And the bus immediately rockets around the bend with NO SMOKING signs plastered all over it.

    I can’t find a taxi on the main road. So I walk around the corner to check the side road and one cruises by on the main road. I go back to the main road and, like quantum decoherence, another flashes by on the side road.

    I really want someone to phone me. So, the moment I go to the toilet or take a shower, they do. I get the phone dripping all over the carpet, or with my pants around my ankles, just as they ring off.

    Masochists can use this law to attract positive events.
    For instance, if your garden's parched and there are water restrictions, simply invite a major business client to a home barbecue. And you'll cop a thunderstorm three minutes before everyone arrives.

    Need company or attention? Easy. Take a private moment to pick your nose or fart. Someone's sure to walk into the room the moment you do it.

    Detest extravagant weddings? Once your wife's ordered the expensive new dress, got the hairdo, nail job, facial and you've bought the presents, plane tickets, booked the hotel... the happy couple will call it off.

    Note, in this context, Zymurgy's First Law of Evolving System Dynamics: 'Once you open a can of worms, the only way to re-can them is to use a larger can.'

    Well, must finish this. She was going to call tonight and confirm that it's dinner at her place. But the call hasn't come. So, to make sure she rings, I'll have to look forward sincerely to an indulgent meal by myself, crack an extravagant bottle of red and half cook an expensive steak.

    Which reminds me of O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law. 'Murphy was an optimist.'

Liked this one? Then check out Martin's book on Buzzword: "How to Keep Fit Without Avoid Exercise". Click here on How to...

CHINA TODAY - THE BARD FROM BALLARAT REVISITS WEIFANG

 David Farnsworth brings us his promised insight into Provincial China today - with this comprehensive account of his recent visit and bike tour there.

Yes. It’s important to write about visits before they fade. It’s been a bit over three weeks since I returned. My Chinese/Australian friend has instructed me not to be negative, but rather positive. I shall try. I guess if she were writing about Australia, I would prefer her impressions of Australia to concentrate on the positive.

And of course, as I mentioned in my last blog, Culture Shock is an issue, as is the health after being on the move for 30 hours getting ‘home’.

Three weeks in another town

My latest escapade involved three weeks in Weifang, which is a large city in Shandong Province, one of the wealthier provinces. Anhui, adjacent, is relatively poor, I believe. The pollution was the worst I have seen it since I started coming here in 2002. Eighteen days of it. Then the winds blew and the pollution disappeared. My Chinese friend, Kathy assured me it had gone to Australia. I keep mentioning the lack of water birds on all the expanses of water I pass. She assures me they are having a holiday in Australia. I went to Lake Wendouree in Ballarat and took some photographs to send her to show her how at home her birds are here.

Views from the train 

On the train to Jinan (Provincial capital) I guessed that three-quarters of the smoke stacks were not working. I assume that the smaller factories have been closed down.

Certainly alternative methods of power generation are visible. In Shandong, almost every apartment has solar power. I would guess they are far cheaper than those sold here. Here in Weifang, they are placed on footpaths for sale, along with things like water melons.

And the tree planting along the freeways is far more ambitious and advanced than our sporadic efforts. One of the student text books referred to these plantations as The Great Green Wall.

A previous mayor of the city undertook an amazing beautification campaign, where flowering fruit trees, forsythias, lilacs and magnolias are everywhere. My friend Kathy assures me that the magnolia was the Mayor’s favourite. Chinese gardens rely heavily on large rocks and water. Trees are cared for. I saw a large tree in the middle of a road, protected by concrete barriers.

How people live and what they earn

In the last nine years there has been a rapid improvement in the wealth / living conditions of the middle class. (I don’t really get to see the poor or the rural people.) Most middle class now have an apartment and a modern car. (German, American, French are being produced for the Chinese market as well as a large variety and number of Chinese designs.) A small electric car is available here for the equivalent of $1,000.

In the ‘old days’ I would see women collecting coal which had fallen from trucks or men rummaging through construction rubbish, collecting wire and bricks. Not anymore.

Squatting and Toilets - continued...

Our editor, Dan Mills, can't resist adding to David Farnsworth's article about the traditional "squat" toilet. Here is his expressive commentary:

The invention of the "water closet" - one of the saddest examples of so-called human ingenuity -  is probably responsible for most malfunctions of the lower intestine in countries that consider themselves advanced.  

When defecating, the body is designed to squat. This straightens the colon, supports the abdominal wall and facilitates evacuation.  

Do you really imagine that traditional man constructed some kind of seat before he took a bog?


Sensibly, Eastern nations and some European nations - even until recently in areas not yet Westernised - accepted the hole in the floor with places each side for the feet that is the basis of the "squat" or "squatting" toilet.  This can still be found - thankfully - in some modern airports in the Middle East. One example: Dubai. And in some provincial European cities. Years ago, in Chartres, I found one in a local restaurant. 

The squat toilet has its disadvantages. There is the need to remove trousers to avoid fouling articles of clothing - a small price to pay for allowing the body its natural position.  And the floor toilet is less accommodating than the raised seat. 

But,  if you have two neurons to rub together, the advantage should be obvious . 

The floor toilet allows the body to function correctly - free of the damaging lazy ease that we are conditioned to accept.

So how do we counteract the evil seat of ease and constipation? 


How to use a "water closet" sensibly:

The simple way to avoid this effete scourge is to squat on top of the seat. Again, this involves removing clothing if you are male. And it requires bare feet. But if you visit the can in the morning - clothing and footwear are not an issue.


Admittedly, squatting on a Western configuration toilet may not be simple for those past ninety or obese. For others, it's a doddle.

Simply plant the feet either side of the  seat and you will be delighted to find that elimination progress with a facility you never thought possible. Even compulsively efficient types will barely have time to file their toenails.


The Western Toilet needs to go! Pass it on!

Surely you've noticed the trend?

While the East has become obsessed with motor cars, iPods, fast foods and luxury, the jaded West has been rediscovering what Eastern nations have so readily discarded - from Zen Vedanta and Tai Chi, to acupuncture and traditional remedies. 

And it's high time we rediscovered natural elimination!

This message needs to filter into communal consciousness.  If  it gathers adherents and goes viral -  humanity will be served. But if you, at least, hear and understand, it will not have been in vain.


Stamp out Western Toilets!

To be precise - stamp on them. You'll soon get used to it. And it's a small price to pay for better health.


Addendum: The euphemism plague:

It's  impossible to leave this subject without mentioning the endless labels for the bog hole. In polite English society, "toilet" is considered common and the term "lavatory" favoured - a word even more absurd. 

Then there is "loo", "latrine", "privy", "jakes", "comfort station", "W.C.", "convenience", "thunderbox" and so on. It's a sad list of evasions. As are the jocular expressions for eliminating the body's waste: "Watering the horse", "Emptying the bilge", "Pointing the Peter at the porcelain"...  I'll spare you the jocular terms for defecation, though the nautical "Crimp off a length," deserves mention.

Curious, isn't it, that there is no standard term for the bog-hole?

In an era where the "F" and "C" word issue from the petal mouths of infants, our impolite society still dances around the labels for the loo.

Yes, Buzzword is ready to take suggestions for a standard term.

All comments welcome.