Je T'aime

I was out for dinner last night with friends.  It was a celebration of a couple of birthdays that have happened this month, but it was also a celebration of decades of friendship.  I came home feeling very cozy and loved … then I turned on the television and heard about the horror that I had been oblivious to as I enjoyed my evening.  I felt sad but I also felt a little guilty and very scared!  Scared because of what had happened but also scared because some ugly thoughts were starting to creep through my, otherwise rational and I like to think open, mind.

This morning’s news did not alleviate any of those feelings.  I signed on to Facebook and in amongst the rants and raves posted I found this …

"Can I just take this opportunity to remind you all that Mr. Mohammed from your local shop wasn't involved in last nights attacks on Paris. Neither was Mrs Azeer from Lloyds Bank or her family.  Kamal from down the road has never been to Paris, and his brother Abdul, the taxi driver, was watching the news in horror along with everyone else.”

It’s important! 

My thoughts and prayers to those in Paris and for all of us because every time something like this happens anywhere, no matter who the perpetrator, it effects all of our lives.

 

14/30

Kudos to Fifteen Dogs

I read this book back in June of this year and thought it was AMAZING!  In fact I started my review by saying “I can honestly say that when I turned the final page my first thought was that this book has easily made it onto my personal list of 5 Best Books EVER!  I realize that may have been a knee-jerk reaction because I could never really compose a list of FIVE BEST EVER, but if I had a list it would be a contender.  Is there a 7-star rating system somewhere?”

 

On November 3rd, 2015 The Writer’s Trust of Canada held their annual awards ceremony in Toronto.  André Alexis - who is also a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize - won the $25,000 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize for his novel Fifteen Dogs. 

The other nominees for this prestigious award were Elizabeth Hay (His Whole Life), Pamela Mordecai (Red Jacket), Russell Smith (Confidence) and John Valliant (The Jaguar’s Children).  The Jury called Mr. Alixis’ work "a beautifully written allegory for our times" and said it is "an original and vital work written by a master craftsman: philosophy given a perfect form."

So kudos to Mr. Alexis for his well deserved win.

Andre Alexis was born in Trinidad, grew up in Ottawa, Ontario and currently resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  His debut novel, Childhood, won the Books in Canada First Novel and Trillium Book Award, and was short-listed for the Giller Prize and the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.  His previous books include Asylum, Beauty and Sadness, Ingrid and the Wolf, and, most recently, Pastoral, which was also nominated for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction prize.

When I was looking for pictures to post I noticed the UK cover for this book.  Personally I found it a little disappointing, almost making the book look cartoonish and possibly "cozy".  It's hardly that!  Pardon my ignorance, but  why do they feel the need to develop different covers for different markets?

4/30

Forgot your Book? Here's a Solution!

Okay … I really LIKE this idea.

Imagine being without your paperback or ereader (because who would need it when you are going to do dinner and a movie with a friend?) and all of a sudden you have an unexpected fifteen-minute wait for said friend who is stuck in traffic.

What to do?  What to do?

At the push of a button you can have a short story in your hands to occupy your time.  You can choose a one, three or even five minute read. Best of all it’s free!

Granted, I can see some problems with these ... vandalism, abuse ... but not anything more than normal vending machines or free little libraries face.  What appeals to me is that it could feasibly put some reading materials in the hands of people who may not be able to afford other sources.  It may even introduce some people to the idea of reading in their "spare" time?

The following article found at ibn.live describes the premise and technology behind this innovative idea.

New Delhi: Technology has truly invaded our lives; from tablets to smartphones, there is no time which could be called a ‘no screen time’. Whether we are travelling, eating, waiting at a public place, the smartphone never leaves our gaze. However, a city in France wants to change that.

Waiting at public places is one thing that we, humans, do not find as an exciting task to do. Just to kill that waiting period, we have enough distractions like a smartphone, an e-book, or a tablet. But Grenoble, capital of the French Alps, wants to help passerby utilise their monotonous waiting time by reading short stories which are ‘dispensed’ from a machine.

Yes, you read it right. Grenoble has come up with an interesting experimental project through which it not only aims at helping people do something better than fiddling with their mini gadgets, but also try to bring back the reading culture that is lost to the technological world.

The ‘short story dispensers’ deliver good quality popular literature to people waiting in public spaces, just like the way chocolates and chips are dispensed. However, the best part about these dispensers is they are free to use.

The initiative is a collaborative effort between the founders of publishing company Short Edition and the green party mayor of Grenoble, Eric Piolle, Konbininotes.  In all, there will be eight machines spread across the town: at the town hall, the tourist office, libraries and in social centers.

Users have the option to choose the length of the literature depending on the time they have to kill. The ‘three minute’ format, for example, takes the form of a piece of paper that’s 8 X 60 cm in size, while the ‘five minute’ version could be double the size.

So the next time you have to wait for your friend to arrive, you would have enough stories to tell when you meet.

The next article from rt.com/news goes into a little bit more detail about the “who and how” of these machines.

The innovation-friendly Green party mayor of Grenoble, Eric Piolle, has ordered eight vending machines to be placed in the heart of the city that will dispense literary short stories to pedestrians for free at the push of a button.

The big orange terminals have three options – stories of 1, 3 or 5 minutes – that are printed out on thin recycled paper reminiscent of a lengthy shopping bill and can be tucked into a wallet.

“The idea came to us in front of a vending machine containing chocolate bars and drinks. We said to ourselves that we could do the same thing with good quality popular literature to occupy these little unproductive moments,” Christophe Sibieude, a digital publisher who pitched the idea to the city council, told AFP.

Sibieude already runs a successful literary smartphone app called Short Edition that has over 140,000 subscribers who will both read and write their own stories for the printouts.

The idea would have been impossible, however, without the input of the mayor – a dashing 42-year-old business-executive-turned-environmentalist. With a population of over 150 thousand, Grenoble is the largest French city to entrust itself to a Green politician.

“We are trying to re-imagine the city center as a place of shared experiences,” Piolle said to AFP. “We are trying to launch a revolution, and the objective is to build a wider and calmer downtown area.”

Piolle has made international headlines several times since his election for controversial decisions, such as ordering that all street advertising be banned from the city center and replaced with trees and hedges. He has also cut the speed limit inside the city to 30 km/h and introduced more pedestrian spaces.

Several initiatives, such as turning popular shopping streets into bike lanes, have met with severe opposition from local traders, who believe his plans could drive business away from the city center.

Although Piolle’s book dispenser plan is innovative, similar stunts to promote reading have already been attempted in other, usually more cosmopolitan, urban centers. Toronto’s Public Library has created pop-up kiosks offering free books at busy train stations, while in California an art collective built a structure out of 50,000 books, which could then be taken away by visitors. By the end of the exhibition, titled Lacuna, almost none remained.

But Short Edition hopes its invention will be more than a one-off.

“We are getting a lot of requests from all over the world for this invention. Once we will sort out our costs, we will ship these machines anywhere – for maybe a month, several months or even for a few years,” Quentin Pleple, one of Short Edition’s founders, told RT.

** On a personal note:  I like how this Green Party Mayor Eric Piolle thinks!

Are Amateur Reviews Valuable to Anyone?

There has been a lot of chatter on various blogs lately about writing reviews, reviews being sold and purchased through Fiverr, authors stipulating only positive reviews in exchange for their ARCs, etc.  To add to those threads I thought this was a timely article posted in The Globe and Mail on October 21, 2015.

Written by novelist Russell Smith, it addresses some of these issues from the perspective of an author.  He also discusses the value of reviews posted in traditional newspapers, these becoming more rare as economics lessen the space for them as well as one author's creative answer to his book, despite being nominated for several awards, was virtually ignored by the press.

I thought it was a interesting article to share. 

Russell Smith: As a novelist, I have to ask: Are amateur reviews at all valuable to anyone?

RUSSELL SMITH

Special to The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2015 3:17PM EDT

I waited impatiently for the first Amazon review of my most recent book to appear. You can’t control these things, I thought, you just have to wait for someone out there in vacuum-land to love it enough to post. And there, finally, it was, the first review: one star. One star! The text of the review in its entirety was, “I was not impressed.” This encomium had been written by “Amazon Customer.”

Curious about Amazon Customer’s taste, literary and otherwise, I looked at her other reviews, her oeuvre as it were. She also really very much did not like The Real Retirement: Why You Could Be Better Off Than You Think and How to Make That Happen, by Fred Vettese (one star), because the print was too small. A similarly harsh judgment awaitedRight Answers: The Answer to 260 of Your Retirement Questions, by Sam Albanese (two stars). Her string of disappointment continued with the Babyliss Pro 12 Hair Roller Set (one star; it doesn’t even work after nine uses) and the Cole And Mason 2 in 1 Salt and Pepper Grinder (one star; too slow to grind). I was very relieved for her when she at least enjoyed the 6” Metal Brown Cast Iron Chipmunk Door Stop Wedge Stopper, as it fulfilled its door-stopping functions admirably (four stars).

And I was genuinely pleased when she found a book that she enjoyed:Torment: A Novel of Dark Horror, by Jeremy Bishop (four stars).

Now, it is easy to say that these reviews don’t need to be taken terribly seriously, and reviewing Amazon Customer’s reviews could be a literary form in itself, but I did worry a bit that maybe potential buyers seeing a single one-star review might be discouraged. So, I did what every writer does – I put out a call to friends to add some reviews. Soon the star rating was satisfactorily high again.

Everyone knows these reviews – even the hysterically negative ones, which are just as often written by rivals – are nonsense and frequently staged; why do we care? We know that most online review sections – on Yelp and Amazon and Hotels, for whatever product – are infiltrated by shills, paid reviewers. We know that Amazon in particular is expending exorbitant legal fees to go after the sites that sell fake reviews for books and products. Recently, it sued more than 1,000 people for taking money from companies to write and post glowing product reviews on its site. These entrepreneurs were advertising their review-writing skills on the odd-jobs site Fiverr.

The writing of less-than-sincere reviews is not in itself illegal – charging money for it is, as it subverts the terms of service of Amazon. Writing reviews of one’s own restaurant or one’s own 6” Metal Brown Cast Iron Chipmunk Door Stop Wedge Stopper is unethical, and the review sites try to look out for it, but it is beyond the scope of the courts to prevent.

And there is nothing particularly new about false advertising: I’m sure there was more than one book published, in the predigital age, with a glowing blurb on its cover attributed to an unknown author and written by an intern.

The question is: With so very many amateur reviews of every book now circulating online – on booksellers’ sites, on Goodreads, everywhere – and so many of them suspect in one way or the other, are they at all valuable to anyone? Are there now too many reviews?

Interestingly, the star-ratings of restaurants on Yelp have proved to have an effect on those restaurants’ bottom line. But no clear correlation can be made with books. Glowing reviews do not in themselves sell books. And hundreds of gleefully devastating literary attacks on Fifty Shades of Grey made no dent in that novel’s stratospheric success.

Paradoxically, it is more and more difficult to secure a review of a serious novel in a traditional newspaper. In the current economic environment, newspapers just have less space for such things. And despite the excess of reviews in the world and their subsequent devaluing, authors are more desperate than ever to obtain such coverage Hence an amusing recent kerfuffle in France. The author Fabrice Guénier published, last spring, a novel called Ann. It is his second novel. It was published by the famous and respected house Gallimard. It was longlisted for an important award, the Médicis, then shortlisted for another, the Renaudot Prize (which is sort of an anti-Goncourt prize). Yet, it was not reviewed in one single mainstream paper in the country. (And by the way, the author lives with his mother and is on welfare, more evidence of the diminishing significance of the great publishing houses.)

So Guénier, without the permission of his editor, last month took out a classified ad in the Parisian weekly Libération. It cost him €100 or about $150. The ad read: “New novel from Gallimard, still in the running for the Renaudot, still without review or any media attention, seeks curious journalist. Contact Fabrice Guénier” – and it gave the author’s personal phone number.

The stunt, of course, attracted far more attention than any review would. Guénier is being interviewed, and now Ann is being widely discussed in light of its curious failure to be discussed.

But the question persists: Why did he care so much about the snobbish reviewers? We are now in the paradoxical situation of having too many reviews and not enough. These reviews count for different things. The papers count not so much financially, but emotionally: Praise from the Halifax Chronicle Herald or the Ottawa Citizen is not actually going to cause a giant spike in one’s sales, but these nods acknowledge respect; they instill the sense that one is being taken seriously. A star rating on some easily manipulable and largely idiotic public forum, on the other hand, may just be a visual powerful enough to make the lazy forefinger click the mouse on “Add to cart.”

ABOUT RUSSEL SMITH

Russell Smith is one of Canada’s funniest and nastiest writers. His previous novels, including How Insensitive and Girl Crazy, are records of urban frenzy and exciting underworlds. He writes a provocative weekly column on the arts in the national Globe and Mail, and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Guelph. He hates folk music.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 How Insensitive (1994)

Noise (1998)

Young Men (1999)

The Princess and the Whiskheads (2002)

Diana: A Diary in the Second Person (2003)

Muriella Pent (2004)

Men’s Style: The Thinking Man’s Guide to Dress (2005)

Girl Crazy (2010)

Blindsided: How Twenty Years of Writing About Booze, Drugs and Sex Ended in the Blink of an Eye (2013)

Confidence (2015)

Well - This is Interesting!

The Plot Twist: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far From Dead

From a New York Times article ...

Those double- and triple-digit growth rates plummeted as e-reading devices fell out of fashion with consumers, replaced by smartphones and tablets. Some 12 million e-readers were sold last year, a steep drop from the nearly 20 million sold in 2011, according to Forrester Research. The portion of people who read books primarily on e-readers fell to 32 percent in the first quarter of 2015, from 50 percent in 2012, a Nielsen survey showed.

Higher e-book prices may also be driving readers back to paper.

Complete article HERE

Read and Ride ... AWESOME IDEA!!

I am taking no credit for this post at all except to say that I think its a great idea and wanted to share it.  It is a straight cut and paste of an article posted by Upworthy and written by Mary Rindlesbach.  Now if only I could get motivated to do the same thing!!

 

Scott Ertl was reading a book while riding a stationary bike at the gym when he had an idea.

Like many busy adults, the only time he really got to read was when he squeezed it in while on an exercise bike.

 

These things are like the ultimate multitasking machines. GIF via "Reposessed."

At Upworthy, we tell stories for a better world.Like us on Facebook to get them first:

Ertl was an elementary school counselor in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and the experience got him thinking, "I bet a bunch of kids would find it fun to read while exercising...we could get some exercise bikes and give it a shot." The principal at his school, Ward Elementary, was on board, so he hatched a plan and put it in motion.

The experiment started with a single bike in the corner of a classroom.

The solo bike was so well received that Ertl knew they needed more.

He's got legs and he knows how to use them — to get his mind and body moving! Images via Read and Ride, used with permission.

With the help of Craigslist and garage sales, he outfitted an entire spare classroom with stationary exercise bikes.

Teachers signed their classes up for 15- to 20-minute blocks of time in the bike room, and students brought a book or picked up an educational magazine. The program was dubbedRead and Ride.

Movin' and groovin' — and reading!

The kids loved it, and they were reading and moving more.

The school wanted to know if there were real learning benefits attached to Read and Ride. They compiled data that showed that reading test scores and proficiency were up — and the more time students spent in the Read and Ride room, the better they did on state reading tests.

Read and Ride programs now exist (at least informally) in 30 states across the country, and educators all over are getting behind the trend. They aren't just using exercise bikes —under-desk ellipticals, something called Bouncy Bands, and exercise balls used as chairs are showing up in classrooms, too.

Movement helps kids like these be more fully engaged in learning. It's a win-win scenario for everyone!

As an added bonus, these types of exercises are especially good for students who are, um, a little less gifted in the athletic department (*raises own hand*). Since the rider controls the speed and intensity, each student can set their own pace, and there's no scrutiny or pressure — and no one ever gets picked last. Score!

Getting smarter and more confident, one pedal at a time.

Most Read and Ride programs get their bevy of stationary bikes via donation programs. If you've got an exercise bike collecting dust in your garage, consider finding out if your favorite school would like to have it donated.

Today's Dose of "Good News"

I love it when: (a) kids love to read and (b) kids do the right thing.

I saw the young man being interviewed on Toronto's Breakfast Television. Jackson Dowler accidentally tore a page in a comic book he borrowed from the library.  It happened when he fell asleep reading (bless his little reader heart), the book fell from his hands and the page tore.  He went to his parents the next morning and they attempted to repair the book, but he felt an obligation to pen a note to the library apologizing for the accidental damage.

This is the LINK to the video but I don't know if its viewable in all areas.

Librarians are planning to frame the note and display it somewhere in the library.  In my humble opinion this young man deserves his "five minutes of fame" for writing his apology note so I just wanted to share.  The following is the article from CTV NEWS WEBSITE.

Fan-Yee Suen, CTV Toronto 
Published Wednesday, August 19, 2015 6:19PM EDT 
Last Updated Wednesday, August 19, 2015 10:17PM EDT

An eight-year-old Toronto boy who penned a hand-written apology note to a local library branch after a comic book he borrowed accidentally ripped received a gift Wednesday for being "so conscientious."

Jackson Dowler received a number of books from library staff at the Main Street branch of the Toronto Public Library, where he had borrowed a copy of an Asterix comic.

"It's wonderful that you can come here today because we got your note in the drop-box about the book that had a torn page. And we were thrilled to get your note because it told us so many things about you," a librarian told Jackson before presenting the gift.

"First of all that you're so conscientious … and that you love reading when you go to bed," she said.

According to Jackson's note, he was reading before bedtime when he fell asleep. The book accidentally tumbled off his bed, ripping a page from it.

"I just fell asleep and I didn't know because I tend to forget stuff when I go to bed," Jackson told reporters at the east-end library. "I woke up finding pages somewhere else on my bed."

Jackson said he was worried he was going to get a fine, so he decided to write the apology note after telling his parents.

"I (went) to my mom and dad and told them: 'Mom, dad, my library book ripped in my bed when I fell asleep,'' he said. "And then I brought up the idea that I should write an apology note so the library would know."

Jackson's note, which was paper-clipped to the borrowed book, was found by library staff. It was posted to the Toronto Public Library's Facebook page over the weekend with the caption: "Here's to many more nights falling asleep with a good book, Jackson!"

The post has been liked more than 4,100 times as of Wednesday evening.

In the sweet apology note written in blue, Jackson tells the library: "I am sorry that a page ripped when it fell out of my bunk when I fell asleep reading. It won't happen again."

Jackson says he's surprised by his newfound fame. The story has been picked up by a number of international media outlets.

"I find it kind of crazy because I've never gotten this much attention in my whole life," he said. "(I'm) really freaked out that I'm getting my 15 minutes of fame right now."

The Main Street library branch plans to frame Jackson's note and hang it up for other patrons to see.

Asked what other people should do if they accidentally damage a borrowed book, Jackson says they should let the library know.

"I think you should always write a note when you wreck a book because it's your fault."

HBO Adopts Big Bird

TODAY'S BLOG POST IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE LETTERS H, B, AND O

One of these things is not like the other,

One of these things is not the same.

Can you tell which thing is not like the other,

Now its time to play our game.

I heard it announced on television this morning that HBO is the new home of Sesame Street.  I understand the financial side of the deal … “Sesame Workshop”, the non-profit organization behind the production of “Sesame Street” needs a cash infusion to remain functional and obviously it is not going to hurt HBO’s bottom line to have what is probably the most recognizable children’s television show in their lineup, but somehow, something about this does not sit right with me?

Okay, I am the first person to admit that I do not like change, but Sesame Street began in 1969 in response to a study that found although preschool children watched an average of 27 hours of television per week, programs available at the time were considered too violent or commercial; or too simplistic to hold their attention.  Many of the children’s programs were produced on a local level.

I remember a television show called “Romper Room” that was on a local television station when I was a youngster – it fit the typical style of children’s program’s at the time – a simple, one-camera-eye view of a “classroom” filled with children and a “teacher” reading from story books and showing pictures, followed by some simple activities and a guest appearance by Mr. DoBee (do bee a good girl, do bee a mommy’s helper, etc.)

Of course, the children were all impeccably dressed, attractive and well-behaved.  There was no Oscar the Grouch in that little group.

Then Joan Ganz Cooney walked into the arena of children’s programming pronouncing it “a wasteland”. 

In 2010 I enjoyed and reviewed a book called “Street Gang” by Michael Davis.  In his book he explains that Ms. Ganz, with her knowledge and research into developmental psychology, understood that changes in early childhood education could increase children’s success level when they enter the school system.  Unfortunately, children from low-income families did not have the resources to prepare them for school.

 

From this stemmed Sesame Street; a program that had a low-key set, short educational vignettes that would hold the child’s attention span, was super colorful and had a neighborhood setting and characters children could relate to without regard to race, economic level or family dynamic.

  

Ms. Ganz led a valiant fight to bring Sesame Street to fruition so on November 10^th, 1969 the first episode of Sesame Street aired on public broadcasting.  Public broadcasting is available to a wide variety of households of various social and economic levels.  I know I do not include HBO in my cable package because of the extra expense, so will this leave a large number of children … those who would benefit the most from Sesame Street … without the program?  No.  Sesame will still air on PBS but with new episodes airing 9 months after they are shown on HBO.  Not a great tragedy, but is it necessary to make that distinction?

I like to think that my time investment of reading to my daughters, coloring with them and playing “learning games” helped them when they got to the scary world of kindergarten as well as helping them become adults who enjoy reading, but I fully admit that in a pinch – don’t judge – Sesame Street was an ideal, temporary babysitter.  I have to give Sesame Street it’s due in helping my girls “learn” before they entered the hallowed halls of formal education.

I certainly hope moving the show to HBO will not deprive a new generation of falling in love with the residents of “Sesame Street”.

And of course, in writing this blog post I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that, despite the news being not yet 24 hours old, the memes and tweets have started to flow fast and furiously.

  

Ya' know what they do to rats on HBO

File Under # Good News, # Way to Step Up and # Love to Read

I saw a post by Goodreads on my Facebook Page and the link led to the following story by Huffington Post.  I thought it was wonderful ... so thought I'd share.  I'm not tech savvy enough to share the video but this link will get you there if you'd like to watch it.

Here's the story ...