Okay, I know, that’s not a violin. But for the purposes of illustrating the point I’m about to try to make, it’ll do. It is, after all, a nanoguitar – the smallest stringed instrument ever created and photographed. It’s about the size of a red blood cell.

Good enough? Wait, I’ll answer that…good enough.

Soooo, as hinted by the headline above, this post is about sarcasm.

The impetus to write it emerged from a variety of catalysts. Sarcasm, also colloquially known as snark or snarkasm, is something I’ve deliberately peppered throughout the pieces I’ve written for this blog. Case in point, this open letter to Jonathan Franzen which, since it’s been posted, has gone semi-viral, in big part it seems, as evidenced by many of the comments it’s generated, because of its liberal use of snarkasm.

Let’s face it, snarkasm can be fun (when it isn’t mean-spirited.) Some of my favorite writers out there are masters of the form (Franzen excluded.) As this real interesting Smithsonian article, titled The Science of Sarcasm, highlights, “studies have shown that exposure to sarcasm enhances creative problem solving,” and “sarcasm detection is an essential skill if one is going to function in a society dripping with irony.” According to one linguist, it’s practically the primary language of current culture.

No wonder I’m attracted to it. Oddly enough, I was recently having a heated exchange on the subject with my sister who noted that one of the traits she likes about Barack Obama (and by inference, dislikes about me) is his utter lack of irony. To her, that’s a good characteristic for a world leader to possess.

As she deplored the spread of snarkasm in general, I found myself slowly bringing the thumbs and index fingers of both of my hands together, then making a tiny, horizontal back-and-forth bowing motion with my right one, as I tilted my head towards my left shoulder while rolling my eyes up to the ceiling.

That’s the cool thing about being snarkastic. Sometimes you can do it without ever having to utter a single word.

Dear Mr. Franzen:

We stand corrected.

As the world’s largest independent eBookstore, we were under the obviously mistaken impression that we were more than just petty capitalists. We naively thought, you see, that we were doing our fellow humans somewhat of a solid by making it easier for them to read a bit more – which we would have assumed you viewed as a good thing, right?

We were clearly wrong.

Since, as you claim, the eBook business…our business…is “damaging society” (like, let’s say, hydraulic fracking), maybe we should have gone into a more benign field (like, let’s say, horticulture or entomology.)

In fact, we must apologize to you for actually carrying and selling (quite briskly we might add) your books in digital format. We can only theorize that you accept the revenue reluctantly, and that you must be quite conflicted about your role in the unleashing of such unspeakable evil upon the planet.

To clear our conscience, we came up with an idea that just may help us sleep more soundly at night. We are willing and prepared to donate $500 in downloads of your latest novel, Freedom, to the reading charity of your choice.

We know, we know…we’re not offering actual books, but we think what we’re proposing you do in turn, will more than make up for that.

We simply ask that you match the number of electronic copies we donate with the equivalent number of hardcover copies of Freedom. Let’s see, that should be around 35 or so, going by the average price. We’re certain your publisher/agent won’t mind taking the time to box them up and to ship them out for you.

Oh, and if you’d rather send 35 handwritten copies (preferably using a quill) instead, since those will more accurately convey the permanence you value so much, we enthusiastically encourage you to do so. There’s nothing like the “magic” of pages actually penned by an author – like they used to do back in the Cretaceous period, when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

What do you say? Do we have a deal, Mr. Franzen?

Please reply at your earliest convenience to frank.coelho@diesel-ebooks.com (if you use email), so that we can hammer out the specifics.

Yours in reading solidarity,
Frank Coelho
Diesel eBooks

(Image: Cryolophosaurus – meaning “cold crest lizard” – was a large bipedal dinosaur, with a bizarre crest on its head that looked like a Spanish comb.)

We’re in a publishing “cold war,” according to the UK’s Guardian.

And it would be kinda entertaining to watch and read about this whole Amazon vs. Barnes & Noble (vs. Books-A-Million vs. Indigo vs. IndieCommerce) atomic struggle, if the eventual consequences, like the Cuban missile crisis, weren’t so potentially dire.

In brief, B&N recently flat out refused to sell Amazon Publishing’s titles (including those from its New Harvest imprint) in its stores, in what amounts to a genuine boycott. That’s basically because Amazon refuses to make certain eBooks available for the Nook, having struck a slew of “exclusive” deals with publishers, agents and authors they represent.

To many, it’s a justified tit for tat move.

Some, like O’Reilly Media’s Joe Wilkert, are even prodding B&N to go a step further by “disrupting the industry” through the elimination of all DRM restrictions on their titles. Provocative, to say the least.

We’re written plenty about Amazon’s predatory instincts/moves in the past, like here and here. With its warheads pointing squarely at the publishing industry at large, will B&N’s countermove turn out like the Bay of Pigs? Or will it make the “evil business empire,” Amazon’s detractors claim it has become, eventually stand down?

As B&N’s Jaime Carey opines: “Their (Amazon’s) actions have undermined the industry as a whole and have prevented millions of customers from having access to content.”

We suspect a truce, and maybe a compromise, will come at some point in the near future but, in the interim, expect the unexpected as the tension between the superpowers escalates.

(Image: George C. Scott as General ‘Buck’ Turgidson in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.)

If there’s a form of literary art that lends itself best to all types of experimentation (shenanigans to some), it’s definitely poetry.

It can be claimed that it all started with the Dadaists, led by Tristan Tzara, who were first known to use newspaper articles and experimental typography in their texts. The Surrealists, with Andre Breton at their helm, were close behind with works like Sorrow for Sorrow by Robert Desnos which were supposedly written under hypnosis. The great poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who may have been the most experimental among them, was known for his “concrete poetry” and “caligrammes”. Here’s an example…

I’ve also dabbled in what I call a derivative of this type of poetic construction (or deconstruction), in the past. Here’s a poem I wrote, a few years back, about the groundbreaking Marcel Duchamp painting, Nude Descending a Staircase, which was criticized in the press in 1912 as looking like “an explosion in a shingle factory.”

EXPLOSION IN A SHINGLE FACTORY
sacrosanct image
blueprint of movement
sinister motion in 2D.
romantic machinery
with a negative edge
nude descending a stair.
visual impact
categorized
emotional content
rationalized.
so they say.
symbolic defiance
completed by chance.
really?
the bride stripped bare.
refrain.
da da da da da
explosion
da da da da
in a shingle
da da da
factory.
da da.

And now, we finally have what may very well be the first digital heir of this legacy – a book called Between Page and Screen from Siglio Press. Although it falls in the still newish “augmented reality” category, which is mostly made up of children’s books (for good reason), I’m gonna call this “augmented poetry” (you heard it here first), and it could very well be a game changer. At the very least, it’s pretty cool. Rather than describe it to you, take a look at this video:

As this piece from Huff Post Books explains, the book “contains no words at all – only a special QR code that the reader can hold up to a webcam, allowing sections of the poem to appear on their screen.”

Although I can’t vouch for the quality of the poetry in the book, technology may have finally taken a significant step in continuing what the Dada and Surrealist movements started 100 years ago.

Although the vernaculars of literature and cinema are different, in the end, the disciplines are closely related because they’re both all about storytelling. Which is why I often bring up films and filmmakers, alongside books and authors, in this blog.

I’m about to do it again, in the context of a story of my own.

Yesterday brought us the sad news that the great actor Ben Gazarra is now performing on the great silver screen in the heavens. Gazzara was most famous for his work in the films of John Cassavetes. The latter is renowned for seemingly spontaneous, deliberately paced movies that tell stories in a style so realistic, it often feels as though you’re actually sitting in w/the characters, while they chain smoke Marlboros.

I’ve mentioned before that, for a few years, I owned a restaurant on the Soho/Tribeca border of Manhattan. That’s the setting for my Ben Gazarra’s Shrimp story.

As I was sitting at the bar one night, the thespian made his grand entrance. Even if I hadn’t immediately recognized him on sight, his booming, gregarious, unmistakable voice would have given him away. Mr. Gazzara was shooting a movie right around the corner and had come in to indulge in a drink, during one of his breaks. He was flanked by a young production assistant, who soon departed. Gazarra ordered an extra dry martini (as I would have wagered he might).

Thoroughly pleasant and eager to communicate, he regaled everyone present with his sharp wit. Periodically, the young production assistant would re-appear to inform him that he was needed on set. This happened 4 or 5 times. At each instance, Gazarra would excuse himself, down his martini in one swig, and then re-order another upon returning. During one of these progressively inebriated “appearances”, he announced loudly with a finger pointing to the sky, like a character out of a Shakespearean play, that he needed something to eat, and asked for my recommendation. I instantly suggested the fabulous grilled tiger shrimp on lemon shellfish bread pudding – one of our signature dishes.

As soon as the plate of shrimp arrived and was placed in front of him, the production assistant popped in to fetch Gazarra again. After they left, the shrimp just sat there untouched, patiently awaiting his return. In the meantime, my friend Mike, who was in the neighborhood, stopped by for a drink. After a couple of minutes, Mike, looking obviously famished as he longingly gazed at the shiny crustacean exoskeletons on the bar, inquired:

“Whose shrimp are those?”

On cue, three of us, like a Greek chorus, spontaneously answered in unison:

“Those are Ben Gazarra’s shrimp!”

In the end, Ben never came back (he sent the P.A. to settle the tab), so Mike ended up eating his shrimp.

That’s my Ben Gazarra’s Shrimp story.

Once a centerpiece of daily life, hand-written letters have pretty much gone the way of the horse and buggy.

One minute they’re there, ubiquitous as hell, the next…pouf!!…they’re gone – washed away down the gutter like yesterday’s news.

To some, that’s a good thing. To others, it’s a heavy price to pay for the convenience of technology and near-instant thought transfer.

To be honest, my fingers are so over-developed from typing, I’m not sure I can properly use a pen anymore. So much for calligraphy. Soon, we’re going to evolve into a species with huge, muscular fingers and gigundo opposable thumbs.

A well written letter is a thing that transcends time. It isn’t created to be deleted. It’s basically the more intellectually complex analog predecessor of the disposable, easily digestible, digital musings that now pass for communication.

National Letter Writing Week took place this month. It’s a noble effort to remind us, of the importance of letters. And if you want to truly know how powerful they can be, read Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet.

But, what really prompted this particular post is a recently discovered letter on the great website Letters of Note, dating from 1865 from a freed slave to his ex-master. Take the time to read it and to savor it.

And, since we’re on the subject, stay tuned for an open letter of our own in response to this.

The last time I read anything by Stephen King, I was still in junior high school. King is the sort of writer you outgrow and leave behind as your tastes and intellect mature – kind of like that type of shirt you liked as a kid but would never consider wearing as an adult.

Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean he isn’t a good writer. Actually, let me re-phrase that…I mean, a good storyteller (‘cause he’s definitely the latter, and not quite the former.) In fact, although fairly commercial in tone and structure, his horror stories are normally quite gripping – especially when delivered through the language of cinema.

A number of King’s books, of course, have been made into movies, with the most famous example being The Shining. In the hands of a director like Stanley Kubrick, a really good King book suddenly becomes a phenomenal piece of art that goes places the writer never intended, while becoming a significant cultural reference in the process.

All this to let you know about a new documentary that’s just been released which examines all the countless, intriguing theories behind the film…not the book. It’s called Room 237. Here’s a recent article that’ll tell you everything you need to know.

Interestingly, the piece points out that King never liked the movie, which doesn’t really surprise me. An imagination as fertile as Kubrick’s would never be able to leave well enough alone.

I’ll leave you what is arguably one of the most haunting pieces of music of all times. It’s played over the end credits of the film. It’s by Al Bowly and the Ray Noble Orchestra and it’s called Midnight, the Stars and You.

Jack Torrance: You WERE the caretaker here, Mr. Grady.
Delbert Grady: No sir, YOU are the caretaker. You’ve always been the caretaker.

]]> http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?feed=rss2&p=2856 0 http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?p=2856 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DieselEbookStoreBlog/~3/oIl74K3JGX0/ http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?p=2843#comments Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:12:43 +0000 Frank Coelho http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?p=2843

If you’ve never heard of Furries (with a cap “F”), that’s okay. Not too many people have. Unless you’re someone with a sociology background who makes his living observing, and writing about, human nature, you’d have no reason to. But, if you’re into sub-cultures and the quirkier aspects of our species (and what makes it tick), you may want to read on.

Furries are anthropomorphic beings – animals with human characteristics, and vice versa. There are books, usually in the sci-fi genre, with Furries as characters. For the purposes of this post, however, I’ll concentrate on the real people who like to dress up in fuzzy animal costumes that make up the Furry category. They do so for various reasons. Some of them are overtly sexual, others are a bit more esoteric – like getting in touch with one’s “animal nature.”

As obscure as the whole human Furry phenomenon is, it’s surprisingly well organized. There are, for instance, several large international Furry conventions every year. Here’s one in Germany (of course) called Eurofurence. It’s an odd enough (and interesting, at least to me) scene that I had a documentary in pre-development a few years back about the whole topic. Here’s the poster…

(If anyone w/deep pockets out there wants to help finance it, get in touch. Ha!)

Harley Moore over at our sultry sister site – eBook Eros – has a great post on Furries, this week. And here’s a page that’ll give more info. about the subject than you might care to know.

My last name in Portuguese means rabbit. That could be one of the reasons I have a passing interest in Furries. Or not. In any case, as much fun as it would be to some of my friends, you’ll never catch me dressing up in a big, blue bunny costume.

]]> http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?feed=rss2&p=2843 0 http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?p=2843 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DieselEbookStoreBlog/~3/DVTFWmroft4/ http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?p=2829#comments Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:09:00 +0000 Frank Coelho http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?p=2829

The title above is a line from Amazon’s latest TV campaign for the Kindle. The commercials are pretty omnipresent, so I’m sure you’ve seen at least one in the series.

Take a look…

Who the hell writes this crap?

Last year, I poked fun at another especially terrible commercial from Amazon. In what’s now an annual tradition, yes, I’m doing it again. Let’s face it, the company’s creative/marketing output begs to be skewered.

Can anyone really identify with the goofy, ultra annoying characters in the above spot? If I had to spend more than 2 minutes w/them in real life, I swear I’d be reaching for the nearest bottle of Drano, and trying to guzzle it down before they uttered another ridiculous, inane word.

How much more vapid and saccharin-like can you make your potential customers out to be? Are these people really supposed to be typical Amazon buyers? Please tell me that’s not the case.

In an attempt to seem edgy and hip, Amazon has hired two zombies from central casting and made them recite lines (over an insipid indie track) that are as believable as the ones being spewed by politicians running for higher office.

Look, this commercial is not a parody or a spoof. So, if this is Amazon’s idea of actual humans, they might as well have used a strutting zebra to pitch their product. The end result would have been just as realistic.

]]> http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?feed=rss2&p=2829 0 http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?p=2829 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DieselEbookStoreBlog/~3/Eef8z4huz2Q/ http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?p=2812#comments Sun, 22 Jan 2012 22:26:23 +0000 Frank Coelho http://blog.diesel-ebooks.com/?p=2812

Candidates for political office make crap up all the time. Let’s face it, you have to be a bold-faced liar to be elected. So, I thought to myself: “Self…what if the recent crop of presidential candidates (and I’ll throw in the incumbent too) wrote works of fiction, rather than the self-serving biographies they normally do?” Here is part two of the results:

Green with Envy by Mitt Romney
Synopsis: Miles Hallsworth is living the dream. As a job creator, he’s pleased at the notion that his wealth may sporadically trickle down to those less fortunate. When his envious gardening crew plots an uprising by refusing to trim the rose bushes, he faces a gripping dilemma….denounce them to ICE or learn to live with the horrors of a sloppily manicured front lawn.

Gold, Guns and Girls by Ron Paul
Synopsis: Special agent Dan Daniels yearns to break free from the restrictions imposed upon him by the “agency.” After going rogue, he unleashes hell on the powerful Federale cartel which stands in the way of a fortune in gold doubloons. A series of cryptic messages with racist overtones suddenly pop up, threatening to derail the entire operation. Did Dan write them? And if not, who did?

999 Ways to Say I love You by Herman Cain
Synopsis: Melanie has finally met the man of her dreams. But there’s a problem. He’s poor, and he’s a Satanist. Will she be able to flip his obsession with the number 666 by showing her love for him in 999 ways? As their romance blooms, Damien realizes he has only but himself to blame for his poverty and decides to shape up by renouncing animal sacrifice and opening up a chain of Christian-themed pizza restaurants.

(Note: John Huntsman’s novel has only been released in China. Mr. Hunstman refuses to provide an English translation. Donald Trump’s plans for the provisionally titled, Hair Today Gone Tomorrow, have not attracted a publisher and have been placed on hold indefinitely. After repeated empty promises of imminent release, Barack Obama’s novel, The Path of Least Resistance, is being blocked by a group of Buddhists claiming copyright infringement.)

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