Click here for CNN Entertainment while the link lasts. Not sure how long the story will be linked. I noticed the link Friday around 3 or 4 pm. I'm guessing it may last through the weekend.
Going from a local blogger duking it out in the online scene, to having a direct connection to CNN in the past month, has been part of an exciting journey into the media world. It's sort of a weird rags to riches story for any blogger to go through.
I'll be curious to see how much traffic will come to ABC23 through CNN. I'm guessing somewhere between 25,000-50,000 visits, but really can only guess. Could be double that.
Getting such links isn't just good for me as a blogger. Really, it's good for Bakersfield, the Bakersfield music scene, Korn and Brian "Head" Welch.
Noveltown literary magazine reviewed in Bakotopia - By N.L. Belardes
Bakersfield, California's alternative online and print resource, Bakotopia posted a report on the Noveltown Review today from writer Greg Goodsell.
Greg wrote:
Of all the literary magazines vying for space at local bookstores, the locally published Noveltown Review emerges as a breath of fresh air. The project of longtime Bakersfield media gadfly Nick Belardes, the Noveltown Review offers a both fiction and non-fiction essays about today's literary landscape. An oversized magazine boasting slick, shiny covers, the periodical is beautifully laid out. More importantly, the Noveltown Review offers highly accessible prose for readers weary of experimental efforts that often prove to be not worth the effort.
Fresno deflated as Bakersfield Condors take 3-2 series lead after Noveltown's lucky Dirty Spanglish gig - By N.L. Belardes
Dirty Spanglish posing with Aaron Novak from The Silence Club right before their performance outside game 3 between the Fresno Falcons and the Bakersfield Condors
I just got done listening to streaming media radio: The Bakersfield Condors defeated the Fresno Falcons... again!
Fresno has officially fallen flatter than a Fresnoid grape. Talk about frustration. Maybe it's just luck?
Hockey luck? I once wore the same pair of lucky fish boxers 13 roller hockey games in a row. My team went 16-0. Sports jocks grow mohawks, beards, and wear lucky socks. It's part of the game: superstition...
The moment of luck quite possibly began when Lando from Dirty Spanglish, performing outside the Rabobank Arena said, "This is an oncore of our song 'The Big No' we played earlier dedicated to all you Fresno Falcons fans. This time we're dedicating this song to that fan over there..."
Watch Dirty Spanglish perform in Aaron Novak's video about Noveltown, Dirty Spanglish, ice hockey and lunchtime:
Matt Munoz poses with the Condor Claw giveaway, presented by Noveltown
Jordo from Black Dog takes a grab with the claw. He captures the essence of Bakersfield fans down 2-0 in a playoff series: frustration. Who would have guessed that by the time I posted this, the Bakersfield Condors would be up 3-2 in the series?
It was the second time Dirty Spanglish performed their song "The Big No" to the fans passing through to the arena. One Fresno Falcon fan said, "Fresno has Bakersfield's number. Bakersfield is a good team, but Fresno is just way better." He had the song dedicated to him. Later in the game, he got into a bit of a shouting match with Bakersfield fans.
Not sure if he was arrested like other Fresno fans: too confident.
I could see why Fresno Falcons and their fans likely had swollen egos. They had been winning big.
But now Bakersfield was about to deflate them. And that started with Dirty Spanglish blasting their hit "The Big No," as part of Noveltown bringing Bakersfield music to the Bakersfield Condors, who up to that moment were on a two game losing streak to the nasty Falcons from the Big No...
Aaron Novak, Squirrley, Matt Munoz, chingpea and Matildakay were on hand to watch one of Bakersfield's cool kid punk rock bands. Hey, where are The Pants? I haven't seen them in a while.
The show was great. Fans lined up by the front doors, hung out on benches, by the fountain, and generally enjoyed the festive pre-game air. It was the perfect moment to have youth on punk fire. Especially since Puck passed by, clearly deflated and depressed since the Condors had just lost two games straight, even trying to arrest Fresno fans to help out with a win. Less fans means more Bakersfield support, right?
Lando dedicates "The Big No" to all Fresno Falcon Fans, especially those listening to the band
Baby Cal comes out and dances to the song, "Electric".
...while Emily Tebow runs like the dickens to win her Condor claw!!
Game three itself was just as great as games four and five were over streaming media. The Condors simply manhandled the Falcons, and the Fresno Falcons fans who all arrived with inflated egos were left deflated. Believe me, that's how I felt after games one and two. Those were decimations. I wasn't sure if the Condors could pull out a game three victory after losing 7-3 and 9-3. Ouch.
I was nervous before the game. Until I donned this paper helmet.
The Fresno Falcons fans? What can I say? Mike Seay has got to be eating his hat right now. Show him some love.
Condors are back in Bakersfield for game six on Thursday.
Fresno? They're The Big No. They better hope Dirty Spanglish doesn't pass out CDs with their song on it.
Gaylen Young of KGET 17 talks Noveltown and more - By N.L. Belardes
Full report coming soon of my interview with Gaylen Young today, talk of The Noveltown Review, and about the new Metro Art Gallery opening tomorrow night...
Watch Gaylen talk about the story he's working on:
Fresno vs. Bakersfield round-up: Justin Fahsbender gets Noveltown player of the game while you can win his sweaty claw! - By N.L. Belardes
*Contest details below:
Fresno fans get nasty with the Condor Claw
It was an ugly game from start to finish. Right away, the Turner family from Fresno accosted the Noveltown Condor Contest Claw. Yes, this is the very claw that you can win! It was a crotch grab from the claw, but the bird hand got flipped. I think it was a Dorktown ploy: send in secret agents from Fresno to cause as much trouble as possible. Could these guys be from the Fresno Wiffle Ball League?
What can you do?
The claw just doesn't listen. It has its own mind. Just look at this other fountain the claw insisted on grabbing. What was this, a two-for-one reach around evening?
The claw grabs another fountain then jumps on the 'no touching' sign...
Eventually Matildakay, armed with a towel soaked in Fabreeze cleaned as much of the outside of the claw as possible.
Matildakay arms herself against the stench of the crotch-rubbed claw
Later, player of the game, Justin "Fahzy" Fahsbender cleaned the inside of the claw with his hand soaked in a rare whale oil. That was of course, right before he scored the first goal in a broom ball brouhaha against a bunch of Fresno punks during the second intermission of Fresno's demolishing of the Bakersfield Condors.
Although I had a great time, Justin's fiesty goal was the highlight of the entire evening. Forget the game and the minor 7-3 setback and 4th loss in a row for the Bakersfield birds. Let's celebrate Fahsbender, who earlier in the day was asked what he did to prepare for the playoffs along with the rest of the BakoBird staff:
A couple guys here in the front office decided not to shower until we win the cup. Others will stick to the traditional playoff beards. We all decided to forgo the playoff mohawk due to the fact that the only staff member that did the mohawk last year is no longer employed with the organization...
Interesting. I had a sighting of the ex-employee earlier in the evening and he once again had a full head of hair!
The Fahz swears he got no FresNoids from the claw
HOW TO WIN THE CLAW AND FRIDAY GAME TICKETS:
Winning is easy. Just quickly write what you would do for FOUR Condor playoff tickets and a Condor claw and send to nick@noveltown.net. The best answers will win. If you do win, we will announce on the site and you just pick up tickets at the will call window at the Rabobank Arena this Friday night. If you win the claw, you'll have to pick it up from Dirty Spanglish outside the arena before the game. Oh yeah, Dirty Spanglish performs at 5:30PM. Winners will be announced Wednesday night.
Noveltown will have a table inside on the concourse. And don't forget to see the cool Condor commercial promoting the Bakersfield Hockey CD. They even play snippets from the album during the game...
The claw has done quite the traveling...
As for the Turner family. Their mockery of the claw landed them in hot water with the BPD. One was escorted out, while another was cuffed for "Inappropriate Bird Claw Activity":
N. Frank Daniels joins Noveltown, and in good fashion, begins by bashing N+1's elitism toward the literary scene - N.L. Belardes and N. Frank Daniels
What's this? A literary journal just waiting to get bitch-slapped? Image taken at Russo's by N.L. Belardes Go to www.russosbooks.com
First off I want to welcome N. Frank Daniels, author of Futureproof, to the Noveltown team. He'll be posting here often. In fact, you can expect him to be carrying the Noveltown standard into literary battles and peacekeeping missions; you know, cleaning up the messes of literary disasters like one you're about to read.
And don't forget to ask yourself if Noveltown is guilty of the very arguments Frank illuminates... - n.l.
The Infotainment Revolution Vs. n+1 & the Literary Elite: Collision Course In A Handbasket Bound For Hell - By N. Frank Daniels
n+1 is inside...tread carefully
"At every crossroads on the path that leads to the future, tradition has placed 10,000 men to guard the past." ~M. Maeterlinck
"You know who the critics are? The men who have failed in literature and art." ~Benjamin Disraeli
"The covers of this book are too far apart." ~Ambrose Bierce
Recently the “upstart” “literary” review n+1 published an editorial arguing that the litblog culture has dumbed-down the entirety of the litworld; that instead of good, intellectual criticism, blogs are more ass-kissing fandom than real exposition or serious enquiry and therefore abandon true literary debate and critical thinking.
From n+1’s “The Blog Reflex”
In addition to free advance copies, the blogger gets some recognition: from the big houses, and from fellow bloggers. Recognition is also measured in the number of hits -- by their clicks you shall know them -- and by the people who bother to respond to your posts with subposts of their own. The lit-bloggers become a self-sustaining community, minutemen ready to rise up in defense of their niches. So it is when people have only their precarious self-respect. But responses -- fillips of contempt, wet kisses -- aren't criticism.
Intelligence seeps from its very cover
As has been asserted in other blogs of note, the n+1 article attacks a cadre of straw men and generally bunches every litblog into one, disregarding the multitudinous blogs whose entire existence is focused on exactly the thing n+1 pats itself on the back for being: the keepers of the flame, the last regiment protecting the old guard. But as can be seen in the first-ever editorial posted in the first-ever issue of the Paris Review in 1953, the flame n+1 purports itself to courageously and valiantly guard is much older than they’d probably like to admit. Even in 1953 (and about 200 years earlier than that as we’ll see later), William Styron was taking the old guard to task. I’ll let Styron speak for himself. Remember, this piece was written 54 years ago:
Literally speaking, we live in what has been described as The Age of Criticism. Full of articles on Kafka and James, on Melville, or whatever writer is in momentary ascendancy; laden with terms like architectonic, Zeitgeist, and dichotomous, the literary magazines seem today on the verge of doing away with literature, not with any philistine bludgeon but by smothering it under the weight of learned chatter.
One of you has written that it is not always editorial policy that brings such a disproportion of critical manuscripts across the editors’ desks, pointing out that ‘in our schools and colleges all the emphasis is on analysis and organization of ideas, not creation.’ The result is that we have critics, not creators.
Let’s by all means leave out the lordly tone and merely say: dear reader, THE PARIS REVIEW hopes to emphasize creative work not to the exclusion of criticism, but with the aim in mind of merely removing criticism from the dominating place it holds in most literary magazines and putting it pretty much where it belongs, i.e., somewhere near the back of the book.
A critic nowadays will set up straw-men, saying that Mailer had Ahab in mind when he created Sergeant Croft, that Jim Jones thought of Hamlet when he came up with his bedeviled Private Prewitt, stating further, however, that neither of these young men have created figures worthy of Melville or Shakespeare; they do this, or they leap to the opposite pole and cry out that no one writing today even tries to create figures of the tragic stature of Lear. I still maintain that the times get precisely the literature they deserve, and that if the writing of this period is gloomy the gloom is not so much inherent in the literature as in the times. The writer’s duty is to keep on writing, creating memorable Pvt. Prewitts and Sgt. Crofts; to hell with Ahab. If he does not think one way or another that he can create literature worthy of himself and his place, at this particular moment in history, in his society, then he’d better pawn his Underwood, or become a critic.
A contrast is 'good'/'crappy'
Keith Gessen, editor of n+1 gleefully points out the distinction between his journal and others like the Paris Review (which he disparagingly refers to as “throwing creative writing contests”), saying of his n+1, “It’s just a different model of magazine. Eliot’s Criterion, where he published The Waste Land, or something like Partisan Review (those guys published their own poetry!), are places where the editors had things they wanted to say that they believed no one else was saying. Irving Howe’s Dissent. Herzen’s Bell. Dwight Macdonald’s Politics. Sartre’s Les Temps Modernes. The other model is curatorial: you’re throwing a creative writing contest and whoever wins the contest gets published. That’s the New American Review or the Paris Review—or the thousand magazines associated with MFA programs. They’re both valid models, but obviously we’re working in the first one.” So the gist of Gessen’s argument is that this “different model of magazine” belongs on the wall with the other elitist publications that are blazing a new trail and therefore must publish their own work to set an example for all of their lesser counterparts. That’s so…self-righteously cute.
Just for the record, the Paris Review, which n+1 apparently looks down it’s snooty and bespectacled nose at, has published some of the earliest known poetry and prose of the following writers (among many others):
Raymond Carver Bobbie Ann Mason Robert Stone John Updike William T. Vollmann Vladamir Nabokov Rick Moody Toni Morrison Margaret Atwood David Foster Wallace Ted Hughes Jonathan Franzen Truman Capote Jorge Louis Borges Alice Munro Jay McInerney William Faulkner John Irving Hunter S. Thompson William Burroughs Jim Carroll Denis Johnson Jack Kerouac Primo Levi Kurt Vonnegut W.S. Merwin John Le Carre Susan Sontag Umberto Eco Galway Kinnell Ian McEwan Joyce Carol Oates Philip Roth Robert Bly Gabriel Garcia Marquez Allen Ginsberg Billy Collins Seamus Heaney Norman Mailer Gary Snyder Anthony Burgess T.C. Boyle James Baldwin Philip Larkin V.S. Naipaul Tennessee Williams E.L. Doctorow Joseph Heller Don DeLillo
That’s one hell of a creative writing contest. It reads like the Harlem Globetrotters of both popular and critically acclaimed literature of the last century. But we’ll give n+1 the benefit of the doubt here and let them dig their own hole. They say that they are following “the first model.” Fair enough. But wait. n+1 doesn’t just leave it at that. This hubris extends even further, as demonstrated in an interview Gessen granted to The New York Enquirer (Philadelphia’s bastard sister paper?). In the interview, Gessen carefully lays out a position that directly confronts what most lit “types” consider sacred, and then proceeds to smashing their heads on n+1’s (they wish) punk rock. Gessen has now officially thrown down the gauntlet in the initiation of what is ultimately some kind of misguided and ridiculous offensive aimed not only at “Type two” lit journals, but also at every litblog on the web:
This is where McSweeney's and the Believer come in. When we launched, it seemed like they were the ideal representatives of a certain kind of literary position, which states that 1) reading, in any form, is good, that writing is good, that literature is good; 2) all these things are imperiled, and therefore 3) that anything done in the service of these things is good. We disagree with all three parts of that, even #2. And we've said so a number of times.
Uh-oh. Methinks I hear the first hint of asshole coming out of the uber-elite litworld critics, valiantly headed up by one Keith Gessen and his brainchild. n+1: the savior of all the downtrodden critics and bearers of the flame of true literary appreciation.
Only 2 copies left...but nobody's buyin'...literati have turned in for the night
“I never met anybody who said when they were a kid, ‘I wanna grow up and be a critic.’” ~Richard Pryor
Gessen continues his lament for the loss of the olden ways as follows:
When we got out of college, in the late 90s, there were a number of really good highbrow magazines for us to try to write for. Most of those magazines are now gone. So as of three years ago, basically, the only thing you could aspire to as a young writer was to write for the New Yorker, which isn't a bad aspiration in itself, but it strikes me as the wrong aspiration for a young person to have. The New Yorker wasn't meant to serve that function—a highbrow function—and really I don't think it ever was asked to before just a few years ago.
This is one of the most depressing and pathetic things I have ever read: a man pronouncing the death knell of smart-people literature and the loss of avenue for which his great kind can publish and be appreciated.
So with respect to creating a place that is unapologetically highbrow that—if you were me eight years ago—you'd want to write for, I think we've partly done that. Unfortunately, we've failed to create an infrastructure to help us work with people who come to us and want to write. We’re working on that.
Again, Gessen here sounds like a whiny bitch but at least he’s trying to create his writer’s utopia instead of just bitching about the state of things. It is to me, though, a laughable scenario, like a bunch of nerds complaining about the lack of good calculators in an AP Physics class, but at least he’s not attacking the other 99% of the lit world’s readers and writers. Oh yeah, we nearly forgot. He is.
The standard model for a literary magazine these days is not the New Criterion but something more like Ploughshares or McSweeney's—basically, a kind of short-story contest curated by one editor or a rotating series of editors. You might have a mix of stories and essays, but they will be chosen because they met certain standards of being a "good story." And obviously those standards are very different from one magazine to the next. I really don't think there's a tyranny of the workshop creating a particular kind of story. Even [the] Iowa [Writers’ Workshop] creates different kind of stories. But the point for us is we're much more focused on the idea of a story’s or essay's necessity—is it necessary, does it explain our situation, some part of our situation? If so, then we'll edit it until it's good. Otherwise, it doesn't matter how good it is.
I’m not sure from where Gessen hails but in my neck of the woods them’s fightin’ words. Though I have to admit that we here at Noveltown were hesitant to even address this issue because it is somewhat akin to the media hoopla that erupts every time Ann Coulter opens her mouth in yet another idiotic plea for attention. This whole debacle is nothing if not n+1’s attempt at garnering a fleeting bit of recognition. For the entirety of the time that we’ve been blogging on lit topics, we've railed against this kind of ivory tower posturing and snide holier-than-thou assholishness. As Tristan Tzara once said, “The rest, called ‘literature,’ is a dossier of human imbecility for the guidance of future professors.” I take this to mean that ivory tower posturing such as expressed by the likes of n+1 is done with a certain “I'm more educated and refined than you are, so drop dead, you have nothing of worth to contribute.” Gessen and n+1 miss the bigger picture here, harmless attention-baiting or not.
All of this rancor aimed at litblogs and even litjournal greats such as The Paris Review completely disregards the impending death of not only the printed word, but also any kind of writing that isn't immediately handed to the masses in the much more easily palatable medium of film. And n+1 even acknowledges this oversight in the now-infamous (in small circles) editorial in question:
People might have used their blogs to post the best they could think or say. They could have posted 5,000 word critiques of their favorite books and records. Some polymath might even have shown, online, how an acute and well-stocked sensibility responds to the streaming world in real time. But those things didn’t happen, at least not often enough. In practice, blogs reveal how much we are unwitting stenographers of hip talk and marketing speak, and how secondhand and often ugly our unconscious impulses still are. The need for speed encourages, as a willed style, the intemperate, the unconsidered, the undigested ... The language is supposed to mimic the way people speak on the street or the college quad, the phatic emotive growl and purr of exhibitionistic consumer satisfaction [sic]—"The Divine Comedy is SOOO GOOOD!"—or displeasure—"I shit on Dante!” So man hands information on to man.
The damning evidence
“And here I must desire all those critics to mind their own business, and not to intermeddle with affairs, or works, which no ways concern them; for till they produce the authority by which they are constituted judges, I shall deny their competence to pass judgment.”~Henry Fielding, TOM JONES (1749)
What n+1 fails to recognize is that in this time of a myriad different media/entertainment possibilities, the great majority of that entertainment dollar/minute is going to give a fuck less about a 5,000 word essay about anything (how many of you have already stopped reading this post?). It all comes down to targeting an audience and talking to that audience. Example: If a generation does not reproduce, eventually there will be no future generation to replace it. The same holds true for readers in general. If young people don't start reading, eventually nobody will, because who is going to instill the great value of reading anything outside of the back of a cereal box if the older generation doesn’t instill this value in them? Which makes anything n+1 says completely irrelevant and out of touch with what truly matters. If you don't like what a so-called “pufflit” blog such as Susan Henderson’s Litpark is doing, go elsewhere. There are placesforthesnootierofus on the web. For fuck's sake, it's the internet after all. And all of the above links are, by the way, mentioned in the n+1 article as being good but “overlooked” critical blogs. This despite the fact that they all have far more visitors than most every litblog on the net. What n+1 seems to (willingly) overlook is that three minute sound bites are what sells these days and can even (shock!) smack of intelligence. There is no better proof of this on the web than Zefrank’s stellar video blog “The Show”. He has regularly (every day for the past year), succinctly and in far fewer than 5,000 words come up with insightful and probing revelations about politics and our culture in general. In his August 29 entry, Zefrank accurately and deftly (and awesomely) explains in less than three minutes the devolution of the American attention span, saying:
“Everything's a potential brand! Think about your grandmother. Feel it? Right, that feeling is your grandma's brand. A bunch of experiences contributed to the making of that brand, like making good cookies. And tucking you in. And chasing you under a table when you called your uncle an alcoholic. But that emotional aftertaste is no longer dependent on any of those experiences. Unfortunately that emotional aftertaste you feel when you think "grandma" isn't all that successful of a brand. In order to be successful, a lot of people have to experience something related to the brand. I.e., who the fuck is your grandma? If a lot of people do have those brand experiences, there have to be similarities in the emotional aftertaste they engender. Lastly, for a brand to be successful, its emotional aftertaste has to be stronger than the more general brands that are associated with it. Your grandma, unless your grandma is Grandma Moses, isn't as strong as the general brand "grandma." But "grandma" is a stronger brand than the more general brand "old people." That's why you can sell cookies using the general brand "Grandma's Cookies" but would have a hard time selling "Old People's Cookies." Right now, platforms are fracturing. There are fewer specific places that have access to a large market share. It's getting harder to speak to lots of people. But the shared emotional aftertaste of brand is platform-independent. If you leverage those aftertastes, people will pay attention, regardless of where they are. And whether the emotional aftertaste is good or bad is irrelevant! As long as they're watching.
“Most people believe that if any shot goes unanswered it must be true.”~Chris Matthews (yes, THAT Chris Matthews, of MSNBC’s Hardball)
That being said (in a wide-eyed, caffeine-injected manner), we aren’t the first blog to take umbrage with the blatant elitism displayed by n+1. There are others such as The Millions, who said,
When n+1 stoops to the kinds of gross generalizations and straw-man-thrashing we are accustomed to seeing on the covers of the newsweeklies, it threatens to undermine its own mission. Anyone looking for an Ebert-style thumbs-up or thumbs-down on Dante will no doubt find one on the internet. Google will even tell you how long the search took. Blogs both reiterate and catalyze the coarsening of the culture ... the dumbing-down, the, uh ... whatever.”
Millions even goes further, pointing out the hypocrisy displayed by n+1 in this campaign against anybody who isn’t them:
Why would its (n+1) editors seek to penetrate the citadels of Random House and Doubleday? Why would they run ads for HarperCollins? Why would they continue to publish? (Why would they demand 5,000 word critiques of favorite records?) Obviously, some accommodation with the system has been reached, and more power to n+1 for continuing to fight the good fight. But to call out others for their own accommodations is to devolve to the level of intellectual pissing match. Despite (or because of) such stimulating missteps as ‘The Blog Reflex,’ the journal provides a much-needed antidote to the inanities of consumer culture. The biggest danger would be for n+1 to fall through the trap-door of elitism…
Uh…too late. And then there’s Eric Rosenfield of Wet Asphalt, who bluntly calls n+1 “the worst literary magazine on the market,” saying:
n+1 is run by a cadre of pretentious, arrogant assholes with strange and insupportable ideas about literature and criticism, with Keith Gessen chief among them. Let us not forget that n+1 is the organ that thinks normal people go on $130 dinner dates, get paid $40 an hour for copy-editing, and sleep with 10 people on a ‘busy but not extravagant Spring Break.’ Elif Batuman's article on the short story, which takes the problem of workshop fiction and somehow deduces that the problem with these stories involves too many proper names and implied familiarity—again, a perplexing, weird conclusion.
To imply that the lit bloggers are somehow in the pocket of the publishing houses just because those publishing houses send them review copies, and give them recognition simply doesn't follow. In fact, that argument is better applied to profession newspaper and magazine reviewrs [sic], such as n+1 editor Marco Roth. After all, they not only get free books, they get paid to write about them by giant corporations, who themselves get advertising money from the publishing houses.
A shout-out to the intelligencia...right on the cover!
The Valve, a blog n+1 professes to admire (to whatever degree n+1 can admire anything that isn’t them) says, “The pettiness behind his (blogger Mark Sarvas’ The ELEGANT VARIATION) decision to publish Gessen’s emails proves the editors of n+1 correct: some lit-bloggers do turn bellicose when their authority’s questioned…” Perhaps, but in Noveltown’s opinion (learned at that!), this article/essay (close to 5,000 words! (though many, touché, are not our own words)…do we get a cookie anyway, n+1?) isn’t a case of a litblogger turning “bellicose” because our authority’s been questioned, it’s a case of calling a pompous ass a pompous ass.
But Wet Asphalt and The Millions (even though it eventually capitulates and gives n+1 far more credit than it deserves) are in the minority. Most of the litbloggers who even know that n+1 exists and have taken the time to respond have done so on the cowering defensive. And any of these bloggers responding defensively to n+1 are really only exacerbating the problem. There’s Literary Kicks, which mutedly states, “I hope we (litbloggers) have the opposite effect, and I can think of a few public debates we've managed to smarten up recently. I think it's hilarious that an n+1 editor should feel so superior to literary bloggers. That's not the way I add things up. Personally, I know without a doubt that I'm a good enough writer to be published in n+1, if I were to put any effort into it at all.” Awww. We could all get published wherever we wanted if we just put our minds to it. I’ll keep that mantra handy.
Then there’s Conversational Reading (whose very name seems to conjure up what n+1 professes to be the death of “high-brow” lit): I think what they wrote about litblogs was unfair in that it lumped everyone together and relied on a lot of straw men. Frankly, I find some litjournals embarrassing. Do I judge n + 1 by them? No. So please don't judge me by the bottom of the barrel either….I think the litblog world could use a little honest, intelligent criticism. A couple of the remarks I've heard from n + 1 have struck home, and I've tried to consider them and think about how this blog could be better….I resent the idea that this blog, and a number of others, are PR hacks in pursuit of review copies.
Best thing Esposito says:
I also don't know how well n + 1 understands blogs. They seem to be under the impression that longer is better, that short, quick posts are somehow necessarily uncivilized, as though it's a physical property of them. But blogs just don't work like that. Often in the blog world, short and sweet is what's required. Moreover, with the medium's requirement that people post often (daily or more), long isn't always possible.
BUT THEN THE CAPITULATION (ARRGGHH!):
Should people say stupid or uninformed things? Of course not. But sometimes a few well-placed words is [sic] just what a blogpost needs, and just what readers want.
So maybe Snoop Dogg expresses our sentiments even more clearly, even more eloquently than we ever could in the following clip (substitute the word(?) n+1 every time the name “Bill O’Reilly” is mentioned):
So there you have it. To us here at Noveltown, all this hoopla smells suspiciously of a shallow (and transparent) attempt at garnering publicity. I guess we're going to contribute to this publicity like anybody else addressing the ludicrous and myopic assertions of n+1, but you don’t have to buy the journal, or even acknowledge it’s holier-than-thou existence. We know we won’t.
“I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it.”~William Burroughs
Nah. They aren’t. Sounds more like the last gasp of a fast-becoming irrelevant breed.
“Second-rate minds usually condemn everything beyond their grasp.”~La Rochefoucauld
Could (gasp!) n+1 possibly be second-rate? All we know is that their website looks like it was put together by a freshman taking a web design 101 class. So yes, they could be second rate. Possibly third. But no lower than 4th.
“Helping out his conjuring tricks with imperfect light, distracting noises and a certain amount of intellectual hanky panky, he pretends that he has proved what he has merely stated.” ~H.R. Trevor-Roper
n+1 has made quite the name for itself among the small group of bloggers who have chosen to engage them in this debate for whatever ultimately self-defeating reason. But in the end, after all the dust settles, there is only the sound of desolate prairie wind, the sound of n+1 sucking air. As Literary Kicks points out, “If n+1 thinks bloggers like me are a step below them on the evolutionary scale, they may want to take another look at the straight odds here. Remember, it's survival of the fittest in this literary game, and we've got computers.” Check and mate, bitches.
The Noveltown Review April 12th Business/Mixer Event at Benjamin's in Downtown Bakersfield - By N.L. Belardes
MUST R.S.V.P: melody@noveltown.net
Noveltown to Hold Business/Media Mixer to Promote New Magazine
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Bakersfield, CA - Noveltown has gathered some of the finest literary talent from across America in a new magazine with multicultural flavor. A business/media mixer premiering The Noveltown Review promises to show off cultural literary arts in Bakersfield, CA, Thursday April 12th 7-10 PM at the downstairs bar in Benjamin's Restaurant, 1419 19th Street. Music will be provided by Bakotopia.com.
"The Noveltown Review is a new vehicle to promote literary arts. It's newsy and it's classy with a unique blog crossover aspect. Anyone published within the review is in great company. It will grow into its multicultural shoes. And it's a free magazine," says Noveltown publicist, Melody Saberon. "We want businesses to support this great cultural effort coming out of Bakersfield. So we're making the magazine available to them first."
The inaugural edition has articles by Cindy Wathen, author of Remembering Cesar. She's affiliated with Writer's Digest and the Yosemite Writers Conference. Riotous author of Futureproof, N. Frank Daniels is also on board as well as sultry author, Robin Slick, and big-time chick lit author, Lauren Baratz-Logsted who just released the historical fiction novel, Vertigo.
Fiction pieces within the Noveltown Review come from L.A. Times Bestselling author Brad Listi of Attention. Deficit. Disorder fame, Susan Henderson, who runs www.LitPark.com out of New York, and Conrad Romo: Latino author out of L.A. who runs Hollywood's Hotel Café Tongue and Groove poetry readings. Brad Listi also runs the popular blog, www.TheNervousBreakdown.com. Attendees can R.S.V.P. to attend the event by emailing: melody@noveltown.net.
The Noveltown Review will be distributed in Bakersfield, Fresno, Clovis, L.A., Hollywood, Baltimore, Atlanta, Philadelphia, London, and more…
Noveltown (www.noveltown.net) will soon be announcing the author of its next book in print, and is proud to be working towards leading the way in publishing in the Southern Central Valley… Noveltown's N.L. Belardes will be speaking at the upcoming Yosemite Writers Conference (www.yosemitewriters.com). ###
Noveltown in the Fresno Undercurrent, also announcing new affiliation with the Kern County Board of Trade - By N.L. Belardes
We’re having a Business/Media Mixer event on April 12th at Benjamin's Restaurant promoting the inaugural release of The Noveltown Review. If you haven’t heard about it and you’re in a local business, just click the link. We might even post information here.
As a result of sending out invitations and talking about our The Noveltown Review, The Fresno Undercurrent did a little write-up in their April newspaper issue to talk about Noveltown and the magazine. Thanks Fresno!
Jessi writes:
Bakersfield-based publishing company Noveltown is now issuing the inaugural issue of its new literary journal, the Noveltown Review, which will feature fiction pieces as well as nonfiction articles. There is a Valley focus, yet Noveltown Review’s Spring 2007 issue includes contributors from across the country...
In other Noveltown news, we’re happy to announce a new affiliation with the Kern County Board of Trade. This is just another step in getting the word out that Noveltown does exist!
Remember the scene in Star Wars with C3PO yelling, “Hey over here!” to the big Jawa vehicle? That’s us. “Hey...Over he-e-e-e-re! Hey!”
Anyways, the Kern County Board of Trade has an online media guide and even a film commission. They also may be going back to a print version soon for their media guide. Of course we’re interested in more and more people reading our Media Blog and joining our print magazine community…
Is the National Press Club saying bloggers are not journalists? - By N.L. Belardes
Do bloggers fit in with the elite D.C. media circle?
On a day when Lithuania bloggers made news in America, I can’t help but think fellow bloggers might be interested in an overlapping tale.
I’ve never considered myself a journalist, though I did recently try to join the highly touted National Press Club in Washington D.C.
Seems the Lithuanian parliament isn’t the only entity saying bloggers aren’t journalists by refusing accreditation to applicants. Last November I applied to the National Press Club on a tip from a friend of a National Press Club VIP who thought bloggers might be allowed into the fold. I would have never tried on my own. But I figured, why not? It was a friend who brought up the idea anyway.
I’d already been beating the local paper to minor news stories, even provided fodder for news junkies interested in stories that made national headlines out of Bakersfield: creationism courses making headlines in nearby Frazier Park, immigration marches on the streets of Bakersfield, political prop 85 protests, and the bombing of children on Maple Street just one street away from where I live in Bakersfield’s Oleander area.
So I spent a hefty $100 and went through the National Press Club’s application process. Easy enough. It was a simple online procedure that took just a few minutes. I was asked to follow up. I did that in a lengthy email.
I didn’t hear anything back.
Four months went by and I had pretty much forgotten about having applied. Out of sight, out of mind I guess. Besides, I was still going to do what I was going to do—be a feisty blogger—with or without the consent of the National Press Club.
About week ago I inquired again. This was a non-refundable hundred-dollar investment on whether I could label myself a journalist by National Press Club standards—literally a hundred-dollar question. I thought those were only in the movies.
So the National Press Club lost my follow-up email. No big deal. Could happen to anyone. I found the message and resent. I linked up to my Emilio Estevez article on the film premiere of Bobby. There I had been standing with the press, a holy monk, a seer along with the rest of the mystic gathering in the press room. I not only asked Estevez a poignant question, I even took video. I thought it was journalistic; blogger meets journalism meets novelist. Maybe I should have sent them the Modesto Famous piece. Talk about some digging for that work of blogospheric art!
Maybe that article would have failed me too. Am I really just a citizen with a blog? Just… a… citizen?
OK, I’m joking. I know I’m sort of a soloist in a sea of media.
Hey, there are a lot of people who fly solo. The media farms stories off non-accredited sites, buys film footage from others. Yet these people aren’t considered journalists. What are they, we, me? Hackers? Who is this journalist locked up for his San Francisco protest video? Did he even have a blog? Is he a journalist?
I’ve never called myself a journalist, so I’m not worried. I have used the term ‘citizen journalist’. And I have had articles in trade journals, and magazines.
Doesn’t matter. The Paperback Writer blog eventually got rejected. Case closed for now as they say in the Anna Nicole diaries…
I did receive a nice rejection:
The Membership Committee reviewed your application again after receiving the additional information you submitted and unfortunately they concluded that you do not currently qualify in any of the membership categories. We thank you for applying to the National Press Club and hope that you will continue to utilize our services as a guest.
Once again, since my blog isn’t newsworthy to the National Press Club in Washington D.C., it shouldn’t matter that I reprint a simple rejection, right?
Yet I can’t help to wonder how many already in the National Press Club write blogs or are affiliated with them… And what was it about Paperback Writer that made them toss me in the bin of rejection?
Is it because I’m in Bakersfield, or maybe it’s too much Op. Ed., or the big baby blue background? I wrote the National Press Club to find out what they thought.
No response yet.
So I went to some people who I thought might give me some opinion…
I asked Howard Owens, Director of Digital Publishing at Gatehouse Media, Inc. if he considered bloggers as journalists. He gives a lot of credit to self-made bloggers out pounding the streets with narratives and digital media blogs:
Bloggers can commit acts of journalism. Anybody who finds something out and reports it is being a journalist. You don't need credentials or a paycheck to do journalism.
If a blogger does journalism and calls himself a journalist, I would consider him a journalist.
Yet Howard recognizes that some bloggers don’t want to be held accountable in the crossover to what some like the National Press Club might consider as legit media. According to Owens, “Not all bloggers want to be journalists. Some are just journalers and happy to be so.”
Owens goes on to say:
All people, whether you call them journalists or not, who self publish, have the same and equal right to free speech and all government protections for protecting sources, gathering data and asking questions.
You don't need a license to be a journalist. You only need the first amendment (and outside the US, as a matter of morals and ethics, you only need its spirit).
I asked Matt Munoz, fun-loving Product Manager of the big Bakersfield blog community, Bakotopia, if he considers bloggers journalists. He says, “Sometimes, but then again it all depends on their mood.”
But what does Owens considers N.L. Belardes and the Paperback Writer blog? Citizen journalist/blogger/novelist? Or... Owens says, “Mostly what you do on your blog I would consider journalism.”
And King Bakotopian, Munoz? His answer reverses that of Owens, “Blogger, but then again it all depends on your mood.”
So really it’s just a matter of opinion even between journalists and journalist organizations. The National Press Club didn’t actually say, “No, Belardes, you’re not a journalist.” Yet I failed in qualifying. So I suppose take that how you want. All that can be said in the end is the National Press Club has a particular exclusivity regarding joining and taking part in their club and club benefits.
And bloggers from Bakersfield might just have a tough time getting in…
Interesting news question while Bakotopia on KRAB radio with Meathead and Rocky Nash - By N.L. Belardes
Just what is a media blog? Is Paperback Writer news? And just what is the value of Bakersfield's leading media blog?
Conversation I heard a few minutes ago on KRAB radio with Rocky Nash and Meathead about whether the news was at Backstage for the first Bakotopia CD release party.
Meathead: Was the news there? Matt Munoz: No Meathead: Well they should have been.
Isn’t Bakotopia itself the news? They are owned by the Bakersfield Californian. Or did they mean television or major newspaper representatives? And yes, a Californian photographer (He contracts with them, so is it safe to say he works for the Californian?) was there. Personally, I think the Noveltown media blog, Paperback Writer is news/media/etc. Noveltown posted an article/interview, and photos from that night.
Hmm...
And if Paperback Writer isn’t news, what is it? Just a blog? Every news site has blogs these days. Are blogs media/news?
What does the Paperback Writer blog mean to you? Do tell. I’m interested what Noveltown readers think.
Oh, and yes, I heartily support the Bakotopia CD! I just think the radio comments make for an interesting discussion! Support!
A Bakersfield Cowboy and his Dog - By N.L. Belardes
I didn't stop to talk other than to scratch the puppy's head for a moment. I didn't even ask the cowboy's name.
But that wasn't what was important. It was the moment. A young guy and his best friend--the beginning of their friendship, really.
It could have been on the outskirts of town on a ranch. It was timeless but only lasted a few moments. I was on my way on a sidewalk in a strip mall...
Reminded me of the dog I used to have... Do you have a pet story to share?
Who is ripping off whom? The Fresno Bee or The Fresno Undercurrent? - By N.L. Belardes
Just stumbled onto an interesting conversation titled, "Mike Oz vs. eavesdroppers." Just when you thought Fresno Famous and Modesto Famous were all the debacle, in comes a miffed Fresno Bee reporter who admits the Bee is ripping off the Fresno Undercurrent. Apparently the Bee is starting their own little niche market free paper modeled after the Undercurrent. Of course, the same reporter is leaking info onto myspace saying the Undercurrent got it all wrong. But why leak info onto the Internet?
Is the Fresno Bee going to try to destroy the Undercurrent? Or is this just healthy competition?
Maybe not, but it sure seems like in today's age journalists should understand that every word on the Internet practically becomes public information. Anyway, read the drama for yourself and you decide who is ripping off whom.
The Making of an Indie Press Part One. Is it self-publishing? And what’s the DIY battle in the literary world all about? - By N.L. Belardes
(NOVELTOWN 2.0 is on the way, an entire DIY marketing campaign filled with lights and attention-seeking fanfare… more on that in another post. Coming real soon!)
Self-Publishing Scam Can Hurt Indie Writers
There’s a trend going on in the literary world: Indie writers with books fighting through the masses, swinging as they go. They need you. And Indie publishing companies need support too.
Maybe you’re just a reader who wants to support. Maybe you’re thinking about starting a press. Maybe you’re a writer who wants to get published. What do you do? How do you even start the fight? And what are you fighting for?
If you’re a writer maybe you’re confused. Do you send your book out into the world to slog through commercial publishing rejection swamps? Do you invest your own money in self-publishing? Or, do you take it a step further and go the Indie route: submit or start your own company? What’s the damn difference?
Right away you need to get it straight. I may have published my own novel through Noveltown. But I didn’t use the fly-by-night iUniverse, Authorhouse, or Lola (kings of print-on-demand publishing). I self-published once before and that’s a killer headache unless you’re already famous or have thousands of dollars at hand for a publicist. Even my old agent who died in a car wreck had negative remarks about print-on-demand self-publishing. In 1999 he was on special assignment for ebooks & print on demand publisher, iUniverse. Yet he would call me on the phone and rant and rave about print-on-demand services being a scam.
Why the hell did he do it? He had friends in high places and probably needed a paycheck.
Those places are rape artists, scamming potential self-publishers who waste their money creating a couple of books to throw on a shelf. There’s no marketing involved from the publisher perspective, and it’s a very hard road to even make a splash in the literary community. I learned the hard way by self-publishing The Blimperwhirls. Notice I don’t promote that book on here? Why should I? I see no profits and iUniverse is just a big phony wanting people to invest their money so that print-on-demand houses get fat pockets.
Noveltown, an Independent Literary Publisher
So I took DIY (Do It Yourself) axiom to the next level. I created a company and expanded my vision. Noveltown was born out of the fight to help all Indie people. 99.9999% of the artists Noveltown has promoted are self-starters, self-publishers, self-creators: TOTAL DIY… That’s the media side of Noveltown…
Why do you think I have been talking about World Wide Spies? DIY. The Filthies: DIY.
Noveltown is publishing other authors, that’s the literary side. One of the biggest and most exciting secrets Noveltown entertains is: who will be our next author? Do we even know? YES.
It won’t be me, thank goodness. Lords: Part One was an experiment of the Indie and self-promotional kind. Noveltown had just started out. None of us with Noveltown knew the business. We couldn’t afford to take a risk with anyone else’s book. Who wants a potential flop using someone else’s art? So we used a controversial novel to kick some life into Noveltown and to stir up controversy. It’s done a decent job. We’re ready for the next step: NOVELTOWN 2.0… (More in another post)
Join the Indie Fight
Should we beat ourselves up over books?
Maybe all you know is that you need to join a literary fight somewhere. There’s room for lots more warriors. I can tell you that NOVELTOWN 2.0 will be trying to recruit you all…
But more on the Indie fight…
I’m part of the fight, Noveltown is part of it, LitPark is on board. Many fans and writers we’re affiliated with want to change the literary world as part of an Indie fight to help folks have success in a commercially dominated literary world.
In a way, it’s LIT FIGHT CLUB. Us against them, us against ourselves and the world, us against the spirit of rottenness that’s out there in big lazy television-filled living rooms that says: books are boring, pass the potato chips, send me the football stats and throw me the remote control.
Why spend all your time watching TV when you can spend your time creating change?
It’s not just a music revolution out there. Indie houses are making waves because of the ability to pay attention to marketing one book at a time.
Fighting to Reach the Few Readers in the World
This can't feel good for very long... or can it?
The Noveltown blog is part of a fight to gain readers for literary fiction and non-fiction in general (not to mention music, the arts, etc). When a mere 3% of the population is interested in books, something has gone wrong. Is it with you? With me? With our parents? With my parenting? With our ability as a society to read?
Axioms I seriously live by:
1. If you want attention, start a fight - Blanksy.
2. When the fight begins within himself, a man’s worth something. - Robert Browning, 1855
3. This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time. - Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 3
4. I just don't want to die without a few scars. - Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 6
5. Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion. - Jack Kerouac
The Physical Making of a Company Through Building a Book
Noveltown finally took shape in 2005 when we decided to go forth experimenting with publishing Lords: Part One. We figured it was a hot topic, that the book could be utilized to raise capital to publish other writers.
Which writers?
You’ll see.
The process was tough. But we thought: doable.
We had to figure out how big the book would be. We used a copy of Jack Kerouac’s Desolation Angels we had lying around. 5 inches by 7.75 inches looked good for several reasons: It was smaller than the 6 x 9 print-on-demand scam format, and we thought it a good size for the page count we had.
But where to print? What kind of paper? 2-color? 4-color process print job? Grayscale? What kind of paper for the cover? How did we buy a bar code and ISBN number?
We started talking to friends in the industry and were finally recommended a printer out of China. We decided grayscale was a good choice since the cover was a foggy depiction of youth gone wrong.
What about design layout? We used Adobe InDesign and mimicked layouts from favorite books. I took the cover photograph in a living room with a fog machine blasting mist into the photo’s surreal textural background. The camera was a wimpy off-brand digital piece of crap. Yet the photo works. We think it’s a good cover.
Paper is always a tough issue. We went with a nicer stock. We found out how to buy bar codes and ISBN numbers from friends in the publishing industry. Easy enough.
Money for publishing?
Money is money and is tough to come by when you’re only three people in Bakersfield with a literary vision of a publishing company. Especially with an Indie publishing company. A few people accused Noveltown of being a vanity press, or self-publishing whores—the works. Some idiots still don’t know the difference and yet are DIY themselves. As if DIY can’t affect books. DIY isn’t just about music, theatre, fine art. It’s about all the arts. Every self-publishing accusation I read has stemmed from disgruntled readers of the controversial media blog, Paperback Writer.
So, is Noveltown a real company?
Yes. Does Lords: Part One have an ISBN number and Bar code? Yes.
And yet, early battles on the Paperback Writer blog took place as a defense for local artist self starters, self-publishers. I’d love to see the stats on how many musicians out of cities like Bakersfield are actually signed to a music label? I’m guessing 99.99% of all Bakersfield bands have burned CDs out of their living rooms and spent their own money having albums professionally made.
We’re still learning and have a long way to go.
So we scraped up and fronted most of the cash. I sacrificed getting a car so I could follow the Noveltown dreams. A few hundred trickled in from friends.
Thank goodness chingpea and Matildakay are part of Noveltown.
That makes three people in the fight. They help promote, make phone calls, do the accounting, and pick me up when I’m fighting and slogging through the blogosphere.
I said it was lit fight club, right?
We’re still find answers and solutions to the complex process of creating and selling books.
Solutions and answers for a young company: You!
We’re getting somewhere. Last year we converted the Paperback Writer blog to the official blog of Noveltown. It was a marriage waiting to happen.
Samurai swords, boxing gloves, a blog and books... that's us!
That’s risky in itself: a business with a controversial blog. We didn’t want to keep the two separated anymore, especially after Malcolm Margolin of Heyday Books called the Paperback Writer blog the “Paris of the Central Valley.”
That’s a big compliment and tells us that both the blog and Noveltown are going in the right direction.
Literary agent Erin Hosier of the The Dunow, Carlson, & Lerner Literary Agency recently wrote in an email:
“Paperback Writer is by far my new favorite... I am so impressed with the loyalty of its readers and the conversation Paperback Writer generates. So good for books.”
Did you catch that? It’s the community of readers who enjoy the blog and the books. That’s you. You make the idea of Noveltown work and we appreciate you.
Erin just sent me a new book to review. I can’t wait to dig in. And I can’t wait to write about NOVELTOWN 2.0. It’s all about you and community making a difference.
After all, I believe books are one of the deepest part of our cultural lifestyle that we can embrace.
We have to sell our stock of books to build our niche of Independent literature in Bakersfield. That means we need your help. Will you tell a friend? Will you help? Ask us how and give feedback by leaving a comment.
Christopher Taylor photo haunts - By N.L. Belardes
I know nothing about this photo except that it's creepy as hell. Where was it taken? What does it mean? Who is the face in the tree? Christopher Taylor better come on here and answer some of these questions...
It's a nightmarish photo.
If you haven't seen Christopher Taylor's art gallery, go now.
What's being created in your Bakersfield neighborhood? - By N.L. Belardes
I was walking to work a few days ago and decided to walk down a back alley that parallels H Street. I was wondering what the neighborhood had created. Would I find manicured back fences intricately woven with rose bushes and vines like tapestries?
Would I find trash cans spilling over with the debris of our community lives?
I found two photos of interest in the many photos I took.
1: The Created Abandoned House
This abandoned house has an aire of poor man's neighborhood artistry about it. In a past blog I showed how a big gang-tagged rock and shopping carts litter the front yard. If melting, would surely look like a Dali painting of the HOOD. But with broken windows, I think this house truly has that abandoned look and feel. It could sure make top billing on a "Pimp Out My Neighborhood Crack House" TV show...
It's been created.
2: Alley Trash: Getting to know your Creator
This piece of Christian marketing literature 'being' trash says a lot about how this little newsprint magazine found its way into an alley. Sure, maybe it was so I could ponder my own spirituality and oneness with the universe, my oneness with even the randomness of alley trash. But what about the person who tossed the trash into the alley? Why did they do it? What value do they have in the question of whether they were created along with the rest of humanity and nature like a tuna fish can in a factory?
And why would Christian marketing literature ask a question it already knows the answer to?
Why would I need to be reminded of a basic question I should have known the answer too long before the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes came about?
I ponder such philosophic mumbo jumbo of detritis in an alley...
So I ask, what's being created in your Bakersfield neighborhood? (You can answer this question if outside of Bakersfield)
The myth of Brad Alexander and my Joseph Campbell Star Wars book - By N.L. Belardes
Does your life ever turn full circle? Can you trace your past and connect dots? One moment today strangely connects to another point in your past that you thought was completely isolated?
I recently spoke to a relative of Joseph Campbell. As soon as I heard the name I thought of the book by him I once owned, The Power of Myth. You know the book, right? There was a six-part PBS/Bill Moyers series that recorded interviews between Lucas and Campbell on Skywalker Ranch. All six one-hour episodes were recorded there and aired in 1988, the year after Campbell died. Campbell discusses at length the role of myth in human society.
I used the book as reference when writing my own myth: The Citrus Girl. There’s even a few Star Wars references in the novel. The novel sits in a dusty cupboard. Hardly anyone has read it. I don’t know why I hoard it. Fear probably.
At work, when I sit at my desk I always see, “Brad Alexander”. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t glance in the direction of his shadowy name. The cover on my Rolodex has slipped off and his is the first to appear. I don’t throw it away for a few reasons. One, some people you don’t want to forget, and two, I’m too lazy to just grab the card and toss it.
The last time I called LucasFilm they acted like they never heard of Brad Alexander. How could that be? He’d just worked on a few Star Wars films and games. He was supposedly responsible for portions of CGI in the cantina scene and the weird millipede creature that crawls on Amidala. I often wondered if he worked on some of the lighting on the giant Wookie battle… he may have set the mood entirely. Emails bounced back too.
The receptionist said she never heard of Brad Alexander.
It was a cover-up.
And a lot like chump Brad’s own cover-up of the book I loaned him years ago while at Up in the Air Productions out of Las Vegas working on Fremont Street Experience sound-and-light shows. There was Brad, a snotty-nosed kid right out of the Air Force. We talked Star Wars. I mentioned the Power of Myth book. He needed to read it like a true Star Wars junkie.
So I loaned it. I just never got it back.
I talked to another buddy of mine who had a lead that he was working on War of the Worlds. I had no leads, so I gave up trying to find him. According to the IMDb database, it looks like he not only worked on War of the Worlds, but moved on to Underworld: Evolution, X-Men: The Last Stand, Ghost Rider, Evan Almighty, The Kingdom, Transformers, and Avatar. And it looks like Brad Alexander has moved up in the world of Animatics and pre-visualization.
Throughout the workday, he is completing a series of tasks including rigging and animating a digital character, texturing and lighting lavish realms, modeling a creature or character, and 2D/3D tracking.
Alexander often begins his day organizing what needs to be done, whether it be creature modeling or animation. Sometimes he is expected to show his progress to Lucas who visits the Animatics office on a daily basis.
"My favorite part of the job is being able to work directly with George on sequences one-on-one and learning his way of making the masterpieces he does," Alexander says. "Learning the aesthetics of filmmaking from him as it is created in real-time is the most incredible thing."
I often wonder what that book helped form in Brad’s own mind about Star Wars. And all the notes I’d written in the margins—my own theories and ideas of myths, heroes and the nature of humans.
I don’t hold anything against Brad. He’s just one of those old pals you lose sight of then gain glimpses of again in memory.
Pipehead comic gets political, but first, a photo of a truck with a non-partisan message - By N.L. Belardes
Just to let you know: I'm getting political on Paperback Writer this week. I'll be posting a satirical Pipehead cartoon that's sure to raise a few eyebrows. I suppose it will be my own way of criticising the American-Iraqi war. It will be the first in a series that will see if I can tread a fine line of humor, satire, criticism and my own patriotic consciousness.
But let's start off with a photo I took at Bakersfield's The Marketplace recently. I don't remember which movie I showed up to see a few weeks ago, but I do remember snapping this photo of a truck:
Is liberalism an illness? What is liberalism?
Now, I know I entertain readers from the full spectrum of American political ideologies: conservative Republican warhawks, moderate Democrats and Republicans, Independents, and full-on left wing conservatives. We're a dynamic group, especially politically speaking...
Differences aside, I wonder what you all think of this photo and its message? What could be the truck owner's agenda? Is liberalism an illness?
I'm taking requests. If you have a profile on Bakotopia and you want to be added to my drawing, just let me know... You can suggest an insect too... Just add your suggestion to this blog.
Christopher Taylor hits the Empty Space to see Lettice and Lovage - By N.L. Belardes
Photo by Christopher Taylor
Lately I've had some great meetings with Bakersfield area photographer Christopher Taylor. Some of his work is going to appear in The Noveltown Review. The first time I met him was at Backstage. He was out in the scene snapping photos... But then we met up again at the 18th Street Art Gallery. That's where I discovered Christopher is a huge supporter of the scene.
Photo by Christopher Taylor
This is the first in what I hope is a long series of photo essay pieces out of Bakersfield's newest pro photog: Last weekend I went to see Lettice and Lovage at the Empty Space. It was a pretty good show and I took some pictures. (Click for full photo gallery)
Photo by Christopher Taylor
Photo by Christopher Taylor
Photo by Christopher Taylor
More info:
Lettice and Lovage (www.esonline.org) By Peter Shaffer Feb. 9-24 8pm FREE!
