9 to 5 Poet

On Sunday, after we returned from Puerto Vallarta, I did some laundry.  Then, after putting a load in, I started to do some writing, which required headphones from my iPod.  But I couldn’t find my iPod — until I remembered where I last saw it.  In the pocket of my gray hoodie. The same hoodie that was now swimming in the soapy brine of my washing machine.  When I fished it out, it was thoroughly soaked.  Apparently, when you submerge an iPod in cold sudsy water for 10 minutes, it dies.  Who knew?

So, I’ve been living iPod-less for four days. It feels like giving up caffeine or crack.  I used my iPod for two basic functions:  music while I exercise (to take my mind off of exercising) and music for my 25 minute bus commutes to and from work. 

I only exercised on Monday (due to some writing deadlines I’ve been pushing), but I actually had to think on my half an hour walk.  Not hum along to Ani or Tori, but think about what I was seeing and feeling.  It was nice to notice the landscape in my neighborhood, the two squirrels trying to “do it” in the road, the sky growing pink above the Basilica. 

My bus commute has been more challenging.  I obviously travel the same route every day.  In the morning, I share the bus with many of the same passengers.  It’s kind of boring.  I realize that my iPod allows me to withdraw from the world.  Pretty much everyone is wearing one, so we can all retreat into our little self-pods and ignore each other.  At times this is valuable, such as when the crazy guy is ranting three seats away.  But last night I listened to a son describe to his father the picture he drew in day care that day. I got to see their physical resemblance and watch as the dad draped his arm over his son. Would I have missed that in my musical solitude?  Probably.

So, now I’m stuck.  Do I buy another vial of musical heroin or do I live with the silence? As soon as I realized my iPod had died, I was scoping the websites for the best deals.  I think I’m arguing for an iPod-less life, since I really don’t know if I should spend the money on a new one.  And I like being able to think and hear my thoughts.  (Even though that scares me and I don’t really care for the banality of most of my thoughts.) 

I’m interested to hear from other writers who choose to pod or not pod.  Why do you pod?  Do you limit your podding?  Why don’t you pod? What’s the trade-off?

Most importantly, do you think I should get an 80G iPod, because I can find it really cheaply, even though I only have a 60G hard drive on my laptop or should I just get the 30G and live with less?

What is the proper noun for a person that uses Twitter? I think the posts are called tweets, which makes the verb tweeting.  But who is the person that tweets?

I’ve broken down and signed up for Twitter, after reading this post at Read Write Poem.  I’ve avoided the site for a while, because I’m over 30 and it scares me.  However, I like the concept that the gals at RWP have about ways to use the site.  I think being able to connect in a different way with other poets is really wise and I like the informality of it all.

Plus, I’m convinced that in 140 words, you could totally write a rockin’ little poem for the day.  So if you’re into RWP or just poetry, check out their page! Well, I’m off to gussy up my profile!

I haven’t been paying much attention to the Writers Guild strike, partly because I can’t imagine a world where poets would strike and Entertainment Weekly would write cover stories on it. Also, I just am a little wary when people who are paid well and have dream jobs ask for more. (Although producers feigning poverty is pretty laughable too.) I am simply dreading the moment when the episodes run out and I am forced to watch drivel or perhaps write more.

However, this opinion piece put the issue into perspective for me. The author of this NY Times article works in the internet content industry and asks some good questions. Most importantly, is it feasible to charge for content on the internet? Or is it soley going to be an advertisement driven medium?

I think its interesting that the WGA is striking on this issue, since they develop content for one medium (film/television) and it ends up on another (DVD and internet.) Does that change the nature of the value for the viewer? We already get it for “free” on TV, and by free we mean we have to watch ridiculous commercials and pay for cable if we want clear reception. But, we don’t pay the writers of Lost directly for their work. Would it be natural to pay for it online? We already pay for it directly on DVD, thereby endangering future syndication revenue for writers. I also wonder what this means for user produced content like blogs, since those tend to be a low paying enterprise, unless you write about rehabbing celebrities.

It’s an interesting issue and this article is the first time I’ve seen it articulated in a way that makes it understandable for unpaid writers like me.

A while ago, my brother turned me on to a sight called blather. It’s a weird site, but extremely fun to play around with. If you liked Choose Your Own Adventure books or MadLibs pads when you were a kid, then this may be the sight for you. Imagine that the Choose Your Own adventure books were collaboratively written by Mallarme and a stoned high school student and then you could be close.

The premise is pretty simple. The site leads you to a randomly generated word and that word has a collaborative poem written on it. It could be 5 lines it could be 55 lines, you’ll never know. Almost every word in the poem is linked to a page with that name, where another collaborative poem was written. You can add a line to any poem that you like, and the program automatically links the individual words to the pages.

Overall, this is very addictive. I will say that some of the pages are very slow loading and I was disappointed to realize that “acid” had the most lines. *Sigh.*

…having just purchased an iPod a month or so ago. (I used a different company’s mp3 player until it died.) I typed “poetry” into the podcast directory, and found the coolest video! Of course, I can’t figure out how to post it on this blog, so instead I’ll just describe it and strongly recommend it. You Internet-savvy folks will surely be able to find it.

The podcast is called “National Champion Performance Poets” and the episode is called “Bao Phi, Doug Kearney, and William Harris 2002 NPS Finals Showcase.” The three artists, two poet/speakers and one beat boxer, performed a poem with the refrain “We meet at the crossroads of convenience stores, in a galaxy of bullet proof glass, chanting a battle hymn of broken English.” It is a long poem exploring the stereotypes of African Americans and Asian Americans and it is powerful!

I am proud to note that two of the performers are from Minneapolis. Bao Phi is a well-known spoken word poet who is based in Minneapolis. The beat boxer, William Harris, is also from Minneapolis.

I just learned of an interesting company called Eco-Libris. Eco-Libris works like a carbon offsetting company. But rather than neutralizing your carbon footprint through planting trees, Eco-Libris neutralizes your paper usage from your book buying habit. See, publishing companies often use virgin paper for books, which causes deforestation. (Also, paper production companies can be incredibly huge polluters, another environmental concern.) At Eco-Libris’ site, you can pay $10 to plant ten trees, to offset the paper usage of 10 new books. The company works with a couple of non-profit planting partners to get the environmental action done. They are like middlemen in the process, connecting readers to eco-organizations.

When I look around my house, I see hundreds of books — and therefore hundreds of trees that have been chopped down to print those books. Honestly, I’ve never thought of the environmental impact of my book buying addiction. I like books and I like the ideas that they transmit. This site opened my eyes to another aspect of my environmental imapct on the world, and it isn’t pretty. Interestingly enough, even though they are a for-profit company, Eco-Libris’ blog promotes other ways to limit your paper usage while still enjoying books.

Whenever there’s a new movement in writing, the establishment gets scared. Actually, whenever there’s a new movement in human community, the establishment gets scared, but let’s stick with writing for now. I’ve just read an article that sounds like the dying battle cry for “the old way of doing things” in journalism and writing.

This article from the LA Times is infuriating. The author, Richard Schickel, attacks the rise in literary blogging, specifically book reviewing online. I believe this is in response to an article from a few weeks ago on the rise of book review blogs. He says that a rise to a democratic reviewing of books will lead to the degradation of quality in book reviewing as an art. He claims that book reviewers need to be educated in literary history, criticism, and the author’s oeuvre of work. He picks specifically on a reviewing blogger who is also a car parts salesman.

Now, I agree that book reviewers should be knowledgeable and educated. But just because the book reviewer doesn’t publish in the New York Times, doesn’t mean that he or she is uneducated in the literary arts. I would like to remind the author of the scores of writer who must work another job to support their art. (Hmmm, the author of 9 to 5 Poet and the spouse of a fledgling book reviewer is a little biased in this regard.) Most people who get undergraduate and graduate degrees in English do not necessarily walk off into the sunset to write beautiful reviews for famous newspapers. We teach at community colleges, work at retail emporiums, and are no less dedicated to the literary arts than someone who has more opportunities.

When Mr. Schickel writes lines like, “a purely ‘democratic literary landscape’ is truly a wasteland, without standards, without maps, without oases of intelligence or delight,” he seems just a bit elitist, which is his whole point. But is this truly an elitism of quality or of social standing?

According to this article from Publisher’s Weekly, the social networking site MySpace has helped save a Chicago institution from closing.

Women & Children First Bookstore, a 28 year old feminist bookstore in the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago, used their MySpace page to discuss their financial difficulties with their patrons and friends. Even though W&CF is such a popular bookstore, their financial difficulties are a direct result of people buying books elsewhere. In fact many indie bookstores (and big box bookstores) are suffering, due to the widespread popularity of Amazon.com, among other things. The owners of W&CF posted this missive in their blog, to an overwhelmingly positive response. Their sales, both in store and online, improved considerably within a weekend.

Personally, I think it would be a shame if W&CF closed down. When I was in college, I drove down to Chicago to see Alice Walker read from her book on female genital mutilation in Africa. I was packed into this little tiny bookstore with over a hundred other people, and I got to meet Walker face to face. Without bookstores like Women & Children First to support them, independent and interesting writers may not have a chance to promote their work.