Daily Thoughts 9/27/09 Resting

I am taking a break. Maybe I will daydream of Ceylon.

Daily Thoughts 9/27/2009

I was going to write a bad review of The Whuffie Factor Using The Power of Social Networks To Build Your Business by Tara Hunt. I thought it was mediocre. There are better books to read on this subject, but I decided to rest instead. Find another book to read on the subject. There are plenty of books on social media.

I also finished reading And Then There's This How Stories Live and Die In A Viral Culture by Bill Wasik. This was a very entertaining and interesting book. He made a few comments on the philosophy of Epicureanism versus Stoicism at the end of the book which caught my attention.

Anyways back to resting.

Daily Thoughts 9/24/2009

Calligramme de Guillaume Apollinaire

Daily Thoughts 9/24/2009

Today I had a visit from a slam poet. We were discussing how slam poetry was set up. He told me some interesting things. They usually serve tea, coffee, water, and cookies at the libraries where he does the slam poetry. They also don't use a podium, just a microphone on a stand or a wireless microphone. As a prize, they usually give a book and a coffee mug to the winner. The prize is more of a token than anything else. His slams run three hours, first there is an open microphone, then a featured poet, and then a slam. They usually do it once a month in the libraries where he does slams. He often contacts the local schools to get the teenagers to come in.

We also have some new display tables out in front of the "new arrivals". I put out some books for the tables.

Someone also donated some books today. There were two worth adding. We usually try and get more donations closer to when the Friends of the Library hold their book sales. The next one is in November.

I read some more of The Whuffie Factor on the train in to work this morning. I finished reading it on the way home this evening.

Next week is banned book week which runs from September 26 through October 3, 2009. I took some time to look up banned comics on the Comic Book Legal Defense fund. We really don't have any them. A few of them looked interesting like The Salon by Nick Bertozzi which was about Picasso. It had a few nude scenes in it and was part of a court case. There was also a case about the graphic novel Jonah Hex, Riders of the Worm which was interesting to read about. http://www.cbldf.org/ There is also Aaron Magruder's comic, The Boondocks which a number of newspapers in the United States refused to carry.

What Learning Leaves by Taylor Mali was very enjoyable to read. The book is very different thatn most poetry books. Taylor Mali is both a junior high school teacher and a performance poet. He won the National Poetry Slam competition four times in the United States. The poems are meant to be performed from memory. They have a lot of visual imagery in them which can be very arresting.

There is very little introversion in these poems as well. Although they are stories about love, grief, and teaching, they are not overly self reflective. He seems to be making a declaration about the world to his audience in clear terms. There is a little bit of strong language, but it is not overused.

Many of them poems are making statements about the value of teaching and bringing intellectual value to the world in a concrete way. It is a refreshing contrast to whiny intellectualism. Dogs, sex, death, and love also have a place among these poems. Concrete things, important things which speak to everyday life. This book brings a poetry which is easy to relate to because you can close your eyes and imagine hearing the word, "declare!"

Daily Thoughts 9/23/2009

The cartoonist Rube Goldberg. If you look at his drawings closely you can see they had an influence on Dr. Seuss. At least I think so.<p>

Daily Thoughts 9/23/2009

I have been weeding in the 800s in the humor section. There are a few early books by Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss is one of my favorite authors and cartoonists. There were also a few books by Milt Gross who was an early cartoonist who looks stylistically similar to Dr. Seuss in some ways. Dr. Seuss's early works were very commercial in nature. He also did war and political cartoons.

I am still reading The Whuffie Factor. This book is definitely written with the "Digerati" in mind. There are many references to Dell and Chris Vaynerchuck. This may be new to some people, but it is told repeatedly in many other books. There is a definite whiff of the dot com days in this book. Remember to pick up your glow in the dark pen and your squeeze brain toy from the convention floor. The term whuffie is starting to remind me of the old song, "Woof, Woof, Who Let The Dogs Out." This book definitely has that fluffy, lighthearted feel to it.

Inbetween the fluff and the dot com babble there are some useful insights. Tara Hunt quotes Google saying "The simplest design is the right design." Then throws in a few statements like create feedback loops to keep your customers.

The book runs between digerati and consultant talk like the 80/20 rule and useful insights. I am about half way through it.

While reading Publishers Weekly this morning, I found an article entitled Freemium Free E-books Spur Sales At Kensington. This was on P.11 of the September 21, 2009 Publishers Weekly. Kensington gives away quite a few galleys on the http://bookblogs.ning.com/ I think they are using the Ning Bookblogs social networking group as a platform to spread reviews for their books.

I picked up a copy of Taylor Mali's What Learning Leaves. It is a book of poetry by the four time National Poetry Slam winner. I liked watching him in the film Slam Nation.

Today has been another steady day. I have two books on hold right now. The first is The Other Lands by Paolo Bacigalupi which is a science fiction novel. He also wrote an excellent short storie called The Calorie Man. This is his first full length novel. The second book is The Cost of Bad Behavior How Incivility Is Damaging Your Business And What You Can Do About It by Christine Pearson and Christine Poroth. This was reviewed on the blog, The Thin Red Line. The review made me want to get the book.

Daily Thoughts 9/21/2009

The playwright Sophocles.

Daily Thoughts 9/21/2009

I needed a break on Sunday from writing and reading. Somtimes, it just happens that way. I slowed down a bit last week. I'll start picking up again this week.

I read some more of The Whuffie Factor. This book very much ties in with the ideas of Chris Anderson in his book Free. It is about social capital or the amount of ties you can build with other people specifically through things like Facebook, Myspace, and other internet resources.

Social capital is more than just the internet; the book describes how social capital moves from the internet to the real world like workspaces listed on internet sites, and concerts promted through the web. There is a description of how a musician or other person who produces digital material might make money not from the original music online which would mostly be free, but from concerts, t shirts, appearances, and related merchandise. It is quite interesting.

Today has been interesting. I took some time to update the display of graphic novels and make sure the "new arrivals" section was in order. I also tried to find some books on military medals, patches, and insignia. These books are quite expensive. One of our regular patrons asked for them.

There is a graphic novel I am intersted in reading, The United States Constitution A Graphic Adaptation written by Jonathan Hennessey, art by Aaaron McConnell. This graphic novel is by the publishing imprint Hill and Wang. Hill and Wang is an imprint of Farrar, Strauss, and Giraux recently published the official graphic novel adaptation of Fahrenheit 451. It looks like they may be publishing some very good literary comics.

Daily Thoughts 9/19/2009

This image of Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0. This picture was taken in 1975 by Elsa Dorfman.

Daily Thoughts 9/19/2009

While I was walking to get some spinach pies at the local deli, I came across a garage sale. They were selling hardcover books. Among the books was Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg with an Introduction by William Carlos Williams. It cost me $1. This book was very interesting. It is beat poetry dedicated to Jack Kerouac. It was the source of a major obscenity trial. Quite, frankly, I did not find it to be that obscene. It was more interesting than anything else. I found the poetry might be offensive to someone with conservative moral values.

I also walked up to the library today and checked out two books. The first was Dean Koontz's Frankenstein Prodigal Son, the graphic novel. I liked the color artwork. The story was horror in the grotesque sense. Victor Helios's creations are stalking New Orleans killing people. The Frankenstein monster is the hero in this story.

The artwork is in full color.It looks like it was done with a digital palette. The use of panels is very interesting. They are in a variety of different shapes and sizes with very few gutters. This makes the graphic novel arresting to look at. The coloring is excellent, especially the use of shading which brings out light and darkness in the panels and highlights the actions of the villains.

I also read Frankenstein Prodigal Son in paperback. It is very close to the story in the novel. It only makes the novel much clearer. It is escapist reading telling a different twist on the original story of Frankenstein.

I also picked up another book, The Whuffie Factor Using The Power of Social Networks To Build Your Business by Tara Hunt. Whuffie is a term invented in the science fiction book, Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow. Whuffie is a form of social currency which increases ones standing. You might call it, ones ranking in social networks. I rather like the idea that Whuffie is taking on a real world use.