Chicagoans, meet Guy Maddin for free

+
Chicagoans - want to meet Guy Maddin for free? You know, the celebrated experimental filmmakers whose last movie was the critically-acclaimed The Saddest Music in the World? The University of Chicago will be showing this movie for free this Wednesday, in fact, with a Q&A session with the director afterwards. The next evening, then, Mr. Maddin is delivering a free lecture at 5 pm as well, entitled "Goat Glands, Carpet Underlay, and Cinema Sat Backwards." All events are at the Max Palevsky Cinema in Ida Noyes Hall; needless to say, seating is limited, and I imagine there's going to be quite a fight just to get the few that actually exist at that little campus movie theatre. (Thanks to Chicagoist.com for pointing this out.)

A whole pile of new stuff for Palm Treo

+
Okay, so PalmAddicts puts out like 60 damn updates a day, and runs a large-memory photo with each one too, making sometimes for a very frustrating RSS experience (especially while reading on a mobile device, like I do). But man, just look at all the cool things one can discover on a random day: A Treo news and link site designed specifically for the "Blazer" mobile browser; a great weather website, also designed specifically for mobile browsers; a new free IM client (AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, etc) specifically for the Treo; a new eBook reader for Palm with changable skins; oh, the list just goes on and on! And meanwhile, MyTreo.net had news this week about a new stand-alone application from Handango, that lets Treo owners connect with the site without the need of a browser, and download software straight from the site to their device without the need of a ZIP deflator. What a great week to be a Treo owner!

Michael Moore establishes 'rebel' scholarship

+
Go, Michael Moore! The eternal troublemaker announced this week the establishment of the "Michael Moore Freedom of Speech Scholarship" at California State University, San Marcos - a total of $5,000 will be given out each year to students "who have done the most to fight for issues of student rights by standing up to the administration." CSU-SM, for those who might not remember, was the school which abruptly revoked Moore's invitation to speak last year, because of pressure from school-related conservative groups. Moore ended up holding a rally off-campus, attended by over 10,000 people, and announced then the upcoming creation of a "hellraiser" scholarship; the news this week is simply Moore following through on the promise.

LBC gets yet more press

+
My friends at the Lit Blog Co-op have scored yet another article in the mainstream media, this time at The Book Standard. I'm still trying to figure out whether they've got some amazingly effective secret PR person in their midst, or if this is simply a case of Victor Hugo's quote coming true - that "nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come."

a (m)uch-nEEded/praise:of e[e] cummings

+
Slate has a well-deserved critical examination of poet e.e. cummings up this week, a writer I believe more relevant right now than ever before, given the experimental, online days in which we live. Poor e.e. cummings - once revered as a Modernist giant, his reputation recently has become one of "that dude high-school students like because his lines look all funny and shit." There's a lot, lot more to cummings' work than simply funny-looking lines, and I especially encourage bloggers, hyperfiction authors and other online writers to check out the ways the man manipulated language for the benefit of his readers, and blurred the lines between the artistic and the scientific that in some ways are still ahead of their time.

Order photos online, pick 'em up at Target

+
Pretty smart: Physical retailer Target has announced a partnership with Yahoo Photos. Basically, you can now have your local Target print any photo found in your Yahoo Photos account for 19 cents apiece (as well as specialized gifts as mugs, bags, calendars and mousepads), then simply stop by your local Target later that day to pick them up. The genius, of course, is that it requires no extra work on the part of any current Yahoo Photos user, stlil gives all the same online benefits it was before (sharing photos, slideshows, etc), but adds a whole new benefit as well (basically, letting any other visitor, like a grandmother or a sibling, order physical prints of the photos as well, and to pick it up at their own local Target). Click here to get started yourself. (Thanks to "Online Marketing Blog" for pointing this out.)

Stamp out slacktivism - sign this online petition!

+
The UK's Times coined an interesting phrase last week - 'slacktivism,' or (from the article), "the counter-intuitive idea that you can somehow change the world and topple its complacent political classes without even rising from your chair." Liberals, of course, are long familiar with slacktivism already; think of the dozen online petitions you receive from your well-meaning friends on a weekly basis, urging you to sign and to help release this third-world prisoner, and to protest that right-wing leader, and to support the erasing of debt of that other emerging nation.

Let's face the ugly facts - it was slacktivism that was directly responsible for Howard Dean losing the nomination during the 2004 presidential campaign, and slacktivism that directly led to Bush getting re-elected later that same year. Getting press and publicity are fine things, and definitely should be used during any activist campaign; but when an issue is ultimately decided by people pulling a lever in a polling booth, unfortunately you have to actually get people to the polling booth to make a difference. Many of us were shocked in early 2004, when Dean's supposedly insurmountable lead in the Democratic race suddenly dissolved like a paper kite in a rainstorm, when it came time for the first actual primary out in New Hampshire; once many of us learned the cause (that the thousands of young people out there screaming on the internet for Dean didn't bother to actually vote), it was the start of the long, depressing farce known as the 2004 Presidential Election. A little advice for all those would-be slacktivists out there, who actually are interested in making a difference - put down that online petition, shut your screaming mouth, get off your ass and actually do something. Republicans, censors and anti-choice nuts seem to understand this lesson just fine; why can't you? (Thanks to "The Artful Manager" for pointing this out.)

Publishers get blogs, publishers don't get blogs

+
The good news? The mainstream publishing industry seems to finally be noticing bloggers a little more, and are starting to publish a series of books by them. The problem? As Scott Esposito points out, most of the bloggers being picked suck, and the majority of the books being published are not much more than paper-based versions of old blog entries. And man, I can barely stand most blogs as they are, even when they're being delivered to me one tiny piece a day; why I would pay money to read a bunch of these blog entries at once in paper form is simply beyond me.

For what it's worth, I myself have been approached a total of four times over the years by various mainstream publishing companies, about doing a book version of my personal blog. Like I said, I can't see much of a point in publishing a paper version of something as naval-gazing and uninteresting as a personal journal, so have always suggested to these people that perhaps they might print one of my books that are meant to be read as books - one of my novels, perhaps, or one of my travel books. In all four cases, though, the truth quickly came out: none of these people actually considered me a good writer, or at least good enough to publish one of my books meant to be a book, but had simply heard that I have a big audience at my personal journal and wanted to find a way to quickly cash in on that notoriety. Writers who think a "blog book" will lead to more deals and opportunities in the publishing industry should be warned - it won't. At least in my experiences, editors at publishing houses are merely looking at bloggers right now as yet another disposable form of quick income, not as writers unto themselves worth publishing and reading.