juliannechat

Amanda Palmer's excellent question(s)

I offered my analysis of why Rich Berlew's Kickstarter project was doing so well, to one of my many editors, when Rich had raised $100K. When the editor passed and Rich's project (hereinafter OOTS) hit $200K I decided to post my analysis on the secret blog you're reading right now. And Rich closed at $1.25M, which was a record for a comics-related project and in the top ten overall (at the time).

Now Amanda Palmer is on Kickstarter again, heading towards a finish of at least $1M three days from now. I don't need to write about Amanda's project because everyone is. Here's a nuanced discussion between Alan Wexelblat and Neil Gaiman (first comment) as an example of the more intelligent analysis out there.

What do these two campaigns, AFP's and OOTS', have in common?

• Both artists have many years' history of connecting directly with fans, growing their fanbase over time, while remaining authentic, not letting fame go to their heads, and continuing to provide self-funded art. 
• Both of these Kickstarters were/are essentially selling unique merchandise (some of it digital) to backers. The creators are obsessed with quality and have been sharing with us the details of how they're making stuff, rejecting versions that aren't satisfying and so on. They have a history of professionalism and they convinced us the rewards were going to be in the tradition of quality that they had already established.
• Unlike the "usual" Kickstarter, they provided lots of entertainment and bonus content throughout the funding period.
• Both of these artists will break even on the Kickstarters per se ... if they're careful. Accountants and lawyers get involved; spreadsheets have to be wielded. Here's one of Rich's posts on breaking even: of the first half million, $200K went to postage! Here's one of Amanda's posts on the same subject. This income is taxable. Kickstarter and Amazon take noticeable slices. Kickstarter doesn't let projects charge directly for shipping. Et cetera.
• This isn't about getting rich (because they'll spend almost every dime fulfilling the orders); it's about making it possible for many more people to experience their work, bringing in new fans, and continuing their careers at a much higher level...
• This has been fun for us fans. Rich's fans partied on his backers' board (continually refreshing, late into the night, around the world, as he threw down new rewards in the last few hours); Amanda's tend to use Twitter and earlier today got to see a live interview with a performance of a new song during which she bled on the piano keys. As fans we've been able to enjoy the self-forming networks that have grown up around the Kickstarter projects; relationships and collaborations have begun...

If you have all the preceding in place, you can do likewise. But most artists don't have all these pieces in place. 

Amanda's live webcast from the Media Lab was shredded by advertising

Today's live webcast was frustrating because it kept dropping off and on, and because every time it flickered on/off (and sometimes when it didn't) I had to watch an advertisement. The lumosity (brain games) ad was the first one that was skippable (1 of 2 ads skippable in a three hour stretch; the other was a pretty funny credit union ad, which appeared several times) and the only one with a female narrator. (How are the ads chosen? Grrrr USTREAM. Suggest capability to choose ads that actually appeal to the people viewing? Allow me the option of paying to not see them? Because in my browser they interrupted the climax of The Bed Song; I can imagine no harsher criticism.)

Added later: I've broadcast on USTREAM myself (to a Share the Care group, not the general public) and I admire the way its service handles a wide variety of target devices. USTREAM Pro levels allow stream providers to send out content ad-free. Sean Francis (@indeciSEAN) says I can buy credits (as a viewer) to remove them and I'm so doing that for Thursday!

Having said that, it was great to hear Joi Ito's take on the Media Lab's mission (which has morphed over time, of course, so this is his version after 1 year as director), and see some of the latest projects with Amanda explaining how she'd like to use them...

"I want to have a show where everybody holds hands and I get to play every member of the audience as instruments!"

...and playing four songs live, one of them brand new to me (and during the songs ads came on randomly and frequently). There may be a full archived version somewhere, but until there is, search twitter for #AFPatMIT; Amanda's team will eventually be providing a more complete list of URLs.

Amanda's most interesting question was...

...if there are excellent artists out there who are introverts (except Amanda said, "not manaically social" the way she is, but I'm translating that to INTROVERTS because introverts rock - this is their century - we need deep thinking now as never before), do they "have a hope"? Do artists who are less full-on with the public than Rich and Amanda need new intermediaries to help them reach out to fans (so the artists won't have to go through the dying dinosaur artmachines any more)?

This is a great question and I see myself as part of the solution, but let's go on to...

Provocative AFP quotations (excerpted from the Kickstarter updates)

"we are committed to doing amazing things for all of you who pledged. sure, it’s going to cost more to make things extra fancy (and for us to ship things for FREE all over the world), but making this stuff amazing IS THE POINT. if i skimped on making the packaging and actual products INCREDIBLE, i’d be an idiot."

"...a LOT of our income for the next year WON’T COME from this kickstarter. it’ll come gradually, over the following year: from the touring show, from the merchandise we sell on the road, from money we get in donations when i make the tracks available online, from the money i get from iTunes from the people who are sometimes lazy (like me), and so forth. it’ll be a slow burn, like it always is."

"i’ve been running my life this way for years, bouncing up and down financially and just making sure i always had enough money to do WHAT I WANTED, and do it RIGHT...

...it may be what makes me different, fundamentally, from a lot of pop artists. i’m almost never looking at the monetary bottom line, i’m always looking at the creative bottom line. the happiness index of my life and creative self, not the amount of dough i’ll have in the bank at the end of a project."

"if i wind up truly loaded someday, it means i’ll probably buy an abandoned church somewhere and turn it into a free 24-hour circus brunch bar for everybody. cross your fucking fingers. we’ll all win."

"you can't crowdfund without a crowd"

"it makes me cringe to read in the press that people have 'donated $600k to amanda palmer's kickstarter.' that makes it seem like i'm getting away like a bandit. as you can see above, i have to PAY for and manufacture (and pay the staff to help me create) all the products that are for sale. it's almost as ridiculous as newsweek proclaiming that "people donated over $56 million dollars to apple in order to own the new iPhone 4G". that would sound DUMB. this is a marketplace. an art marketplace, but still. it's a real exchange. i have A Thing (it's A Weird Thing, but still) and people are buying it....via the vehicle of kickstarter."

"you know that 10,000 hours theory? i've spent more than 10,000 hours connecting with my fans, figuring out how to be with them. so i'm an expert in them."

"runaway projects on kickstarter that are offering a gadget, like the pebble watch (which has funded over 10 million on kickstarter) don't need FANS. they just need CONSUMERS who want their product. but artists and musicians need REAL supporters. people who believe in their work and want to lift them up, who want to see them succeed and want to own a physical piece of the history that goes along with it. i think this is a subject for a longer blog someday, but you get the gist."

"the music business for years has seen the fanbase as a bunch of faceless consumers who were going to have to be TRICKED into parting with their cash. whereas i see them as people who love art and want to help. attitude is everything."

Many of us have been watching AFP for years, from way before Losers of Friday Night On Their Computers (link is down right now). For the full glory of her pronouncements, go to the Kickstarter page and read the updates in reverse order. There will be a street party in Brooklyn on Thursday night as she heads to the finish line. I'll be watching the webcast and ranting as usual; hope to see you there!

ux+viral case study: Order Of The Stick's turbo-Kickstart

Last week Rich Berlew's Kickstarter project became one of the top ten funded Kickstarter projects of all time, and the highest ranked one that's creative (not technical). Rich's goal was to raise $57,750 to reprint one of his web-comic compilations, and he received $400,000 in the first 12 days. As a comparison, of the top 10 comics-related Kickstarters in 2011, only one cracked the $100K barrier and most hovered around $25K.

How and why did this campaign go (comparatively) viral?

The usual elements for a successful Kickstart were in place: Rich's comic is high quality, with a solid base of long time readers (most of whom are geeky and thus more familiar with online fundraising). But he also has a design degree and prior self-publishing experience. He added extra elements to the usual Kickstarter campaign and those, combined with ongoing responsiveness to his target customers, are making the difference. Here are the distinguishing elements of user experience (ux) that helped this drive go viral:

Sponsor rewards are unique merchandise

Rich's self published books are sold in gaming stores. They contain significant extra content that has never been on his web site, and older titles are out of print. "Sponsoring" in this case is more like "purchasing merchandise" than with most Kickstarters.

Upbeat progress charts are linked by a narrative

Rich's updates are the heart of the campaign. His color-coded charts visually show how each new chunk of money will be used; they're the old "thermometer" progress graphics on steroids and mushrooms together.

The charts are linked by a story, which started with a comic on the project's home page (an opportunity to kick a character from the strip) and unfolds with developments on each new chart, so readers want to check the updates whether or not they've already signed up. (For the full effect, read from the back forward.)

Rewards are networked

Some sponsor rewards are PDFs of new stories that the fans want. As people kept donating, Rich added all the electronic rewards to EACH package. By now a person who bought in for the $10 "fridge magnet" level is getting a ton of special rewards that they didn't plan on getting, and the revelation of each new "Mystery Reward" also kept people checking back in and telling their fellow fans.

One of the latest rewards is a set of free downloads. Rich Berlew wrote, "That's my way of thanking all the fans who may be not be able to help out in monetary ways but are spreading the word and keeping it alive." To sum up, the networked-rewards technique uses swag to leverage the power of Metcalfe's law.

Kickstarter comments support viral behaviour

As various targets were reached, and more books are able to be reprinted, Berlew began offering full sets of the books, full sets signed, full sets signed with original art, and so on. And early sponsors switched to these better options. To quote Dave Freireich at approximately comment 1960, "Only 2 books? What was I thinking? I want all of the full color books. Pledge upped!"

Kickstarter doesn't allow projects to adjust or remove rewards that people have already signed up for. Berlew continually added various combinations of merchandise as requested by fans, so that now the list of sponsor packages is (a) mostly sold out and (b) an unholy mess.

But as people "managed their pledge" (which Kickstarter does support, quite elegantly), some of the early sold-out packages (rare Christmas ornaments, full sets of magnets that you would have had to attend three gaming cons to get, etc.) briefly "flicked on" as available. The comments list was a 24-hour party of fans around the world refreshing their browsers and trying to get the rare stuff. Then they praised Kickstarter's server capacity and decided to make a chart of where fans were geographically and showed all those other signs of a project going viral on the web.

Summary (at the half-way mark of 15 days)

To sum up, Rich Berlew was already taking good care of his target audience with high quality content and extras such as Christmas ornaments and fridge magnets. He took the basic Kickstarter template and added dramatic progress visualizations and networked rewards. His fans took this viral.

As of this posting (Sunday evening 5 Feb 2012) the drive is closing in on the #6 position (on the all-time list of Kickstart projects), but in his latest update Rich has also suggested that it will soon be OK to put on the brakes: "That should take us to a cool half a million dollars of OOTS products being created and shipped, which defies all logic and common sense." With 15 days to go, I can't wait to see where this ends up.

Deena Larsen >> South Africa

Update: You can follow Deena's adventures in South Africa here. She also writes, apparently in answer to numerous inquiries, "no, I have not yet seen an elephant here."

Original posting: Hypertext author Deena Larsen will be spending this coming summer in South Africa. (That's their summer, the Northern Hemisphere winter.) Her life threatening medical conditions will be helped by the additional sunshine and rest, and she will be working on a new version of her classic Marble Springs.

If you are a South African digital artist or educator, below I'll list reasons why you might enjoy meeting with Deena, having her address your class, or collaborating with her. But first, for friends and fans...

This year's Deena projects

In addition to coding Marble Springs 2.0 (with Leighton Christiansen), planning for Marble Springs 3.0, and holding down her day job, Deena also finished the coding on A Modern Moral Fairy Tale, co-authored with the late MaJe Larsen, and completed another large chunk of Chronic Bio, another of her many works that have involved inventing new ways of writing and therefore reading. (Let me know if you'd like to see a slide show about plans for unleashing this work on the world.) She invites all sister/brother hypertexters and their friends/families to stay with her next summer at a natural hot spring 8000 feet above sea level where she intends to complete the third and final section of Chronic Bio.

Speaking of her day job, Deena originated the idea for the brochure Federal Workers Keep America Running, Every Hour of Every Day, (mirrored here by me), wrote/edited the countless versions necessary to get it approved by her union and her work group, and then fought through the additional layers necessary to get it published...and in this climate of relentless budget cutting it was picked up by the Washington Post...

For those who don't know her, here are my opinions about...

Why it's fun to work/play with Deena

(1) Deena can push any digital platform beyond its limits and use it in new (usually unintended) ways that we can all learn from.

I vividly remember how she created a new work on Trellix, along with a "wish list" of about sixty new features that she would like included in future releases, in a single day. Her successes in pushing the boundaries of HyperCard, StorySpace, Flash poetry (e.g E:Electron with Geoffrey Gatza), games (The Princess Murderer with geniwate), and so on are even better known. 

(2) Deena's brain is not normal. She stores information and makes connections differently than we neurotypicals do, in extremely interesting ways. Another way to say this is that Deena seems to use more of her brain than most people. You will not be bored. (Having said this, she is sensitive to NT issues and consults frequently to make sure students and collaborators are getting what they need.)

(3) Deena is generous and inspiring and down-to-earth. She tends to leave people with a sense of new possibilities for their own work...

Due to a chronic condition called MHE (which is not her most severe medical problem, but it's the one I have a Wikipedia link for), Deena has some issues with mobility and chronic pain. And she is face-blind, so it's helpful to remind her of your name every time you change your clothing (once a day, in the morning, does it for me), at which point she will be fine. She totally knows who we all are, she just can't identify us by our faces. And she blasts right through all of these problems in teaching rhetorical techniques for interactive literature or whatever else you might find helpful.

Deena herself is contacting South African teachers and artists. I am happy to provide references for her if necessary, but the strongest references are the works themselves. Deena, I hope you have a wonderful second summer and I look forward to working with you again upon your return.

integrity dispatches from Elliott and Lefsetz

Stephen Elliott recommended that his Daily Rumpus subscribers read Bob Lefsetz's emails as well. (And Bob likely said "Wha?" at all the non-music-biz people who signed on.) This post is about what Bob and Stephen really have in common:

(1) Their usually-week-daily [1] emails are nothing like most things I subscribe to: daily deals, bulletins from people paid to do journalism [2], announcements of events. They are particularly not like the myriad "thoughtful just-the-right-length community building article with a discounted offer at the end" that professional [3] bloggers send me all the time. And yet I make time to read Stephen and Bob, while usually ignoring the rest.

(2) They are not skimmable. And that's OK because I *want* to read them, whether I disagree or not. I read their stuff right after "actual emails from people I actually know."

(3) They have been doing what they do (in an evolving way) for a loooong time [4]. As a result they have fascinating conversations with other people in and out of the biz, and they are also musing aloud on subjects such as "how to do what we love, make enough money to survive, and remain authentic." What gives these emails their juice is the COMBINATION of these two elements. They're musing on integrity, and asking their industry/movement connections tough questions about it, and reporting all this to us on a daily basis. Trying to see the pattern from within the fabric, while keeping the shuttle moving back and forth. A combination of content and attitude, with integrity, about integrity.

(4) They don't always name names. Often when they report a conversation they don't say who it was with. People in their world(s) seem to trust them and understand that sometimes Stephen (or Bob) will want to flat out promote something he cares about and other times they will prefer to say nothing, and it's up to them, because these platforms are so SO personal. It's unthinkable that I would get a message, "while Bob is on vacation, SomeJerk will be filling in." Bob will be filing dispatches from the slopes, if he does some thinking there or has an interesting conversation, and if he doesn't, I'll wait. You too Stephen! *air kiss with a worshipful air slap in it*

(5) Both of them do maintain (likely at intense personal cost) some connection with readers, despite the fact that there are thousands of us. Stephen sends out surveys [5]. Bob posts collections of reader replies as follow-ups [6]. (These are only some of the many Bob-mails that don't make it onto the site. Those are why you want to subscribe.) By sharing so much of themselves and inviting us to do the same, both have created a sort of community...to use an oft-abused term...

Taking a break in the numbering for a moment: don't try to copy these guys. It almost certainly wouldn't work for you or me. It works for them because their personal confessional styles combined with being constantly on the move, connecting and questioning, and having the discipline to write the email regularly so they don't get backed up... I'm afraid if I analyze this too precisely I'll jinx it. Maybe these guys could be called "professional bloggers" but they are so SO different from what that term usually means. Maybe because these emails are not how they make money, but instead a gift to the universe. OK, back to the numbered list...

(6) These emails are a new kind of news: actively filtered but not at all pre-digested. They're a new thing. No, I don't know what they are exactly. But I know fun and experimentation when I see them combined in an intoxicating cocktail [7]. I'm actually only writing this today because I got a feeling that Stephen may be about to move on to his next thing and I want to celebrate what he's achieved. Both their emails today were particularly good. But then, they always are.

(7) The last thing these two guys have in common, is a strong underlying theme: there are no short cuts. In the spirit of that [8], I'm not posting actual excepts here. If you want to get on the journey with them you'll have to risk your own time and attention.

Speaking of which, if you've read to this point, I would like to thank you for your time. (Personal to Stephen or Bob: I am not asking you to link to this; we're taking the burden off you by talking amongst ourselves.)

Wrapping up with two thoughtful codas: Emma McCreary's Tao of Prosperity, and a quote from Suze Orman [9]: "Truth creates money but lies destroy it." 

Footnotes

[1] Stephen calls his an "overly personal email" and he writes one most weekdays. And when he doesn't write one he tells us why. Some of Bob's rants are on his web site, but if you subscribe you sometimes get three and four in a day. Other days none.

[2] God bless them, may they long have jobs!

[3] God bless them too; may a thousand business models bloom. But I find myself unable to read most of the things they send me. Um, thinking why: the voice doesn't sound authentic? Especially when it's trying to? See the Cluetrain Manifesto and its spawn.

[4] Credit to M.G. for popularizing and explaining the concept of the 10,000 hours.

[5] What makes Stephen's surveys fun is that he's asking questions to which he really wants the answer. A question from someone who really wants to know: there's nothing like it! I can't say which parts of Stephen's rants are the most fun for me. Maybe it's his conviction that there are no geniuses, which he keeps worrying at and challenging (himself more than anyone else).

[6] After Bob has discussed or even dissed a business model or industry power, his email bag will contain a reply from this person, as well as a bunch of other emails saying "don't use my name" and Bob passes them all along.

[7] On the left side of this page you might be able to find a link to my article from PerthDAC 2007, published in Leonardo Electronic Almanac, entitled "Where's the Party?" Note to self: write a better one, updated, and also make the old one easier to find.

[8] And because I am a process junkie. To quote Chris Berendes and Elin Whitney-Smith (you'll find their links on the RIGHT side of this page), "Content is just a crutch for people who can't handle process." Also, I'm not saying that that theme sums up these two men's work or that they don't have lots more to say.

[9] Quoted in the March issue of Oprah magazine. Thanks to Mary McCartney for turning me on to it, years ago now.

Cheap Complex Devices, ed. by John C. Sundman

Executive Summary: Cheap Complex Devices is of possible interest to e-literature readers, where e=electronic OR where e=experimental. And tragically funny.

Quotation: "Assembling itself into a narrative, the subject of Bees is Bees itself, a consciousness coming into being."

Obvious question: Does Bees have anything to do with the ARG I Love Bees? Answer1: Clearly not, since the novel preceded the game by several years. Answer2: Only in the sense that both of them use facts about actual bees as imaginative points of departure [1]. [Footnote numbers in square brackets.] (Item numbers in parentheses.)

You may know John Sundman as a legendary technical writer, or a blogger at wetmachine, or the guy who wrote so candidly about selling his self-published books directly to readers at Defcon. If you are attending this year’s SXSW you can hear more from him on the self-publishing panel. I now put all that knowledge aside and consider his novel CCD as it asks the reader to consider it.

The puzzle began when I tried to find the book on Amazon. Sundman’s commitment to his art extends to his middle name: each of his novels was published using a different one (appropriate to its content), which meant that I couldn’t click on any occurrence of his name and see his other works. However, a search on "john sundman mind over matter" led to all three of his currently extant books. Any female larva may become queen; this posting is one larva’s reaction to Sundman’s Cheap Complex Devices – Mind Over Matter Volume Red, hereinafter CCD [2].

The artefact/artifact CCD consists of a novel, preceded by an introduction to the novel, preceded by an introduction to CCD as a whole, preceded by a raft of epigraphs and dedications. On page 9.000023 the introduction-to-the-novel suggests stopping to read the novel at that point, before the reader’s mind has been contaminated by the information contained on pages 9.999999967 to 26.0000083 [3], and then returning to page 9.000023 to finish reading the introduction-to-the-novel. Since I have the oulipian merit badge (junior class), of course I played^H^H^H^H^H^H followed this direction.

Rather than bore all of you, I will eventually transmit my detailed list of reader-reactions [4] to John personally. Instead, here is a high level reaction in a techwriterish form that – if it doesn’t completely avoid spoilers – casts them in a form such that they aren’t actually spoilers unless and until you’ve read the book yourself.

[here goes: OL]

(1) CCD contains sentences of terrible beauty that are also terribly funny [5].

(2) Huge chunks of it are structurally flawless.

(3) From the evidence of its language, Bees takes place in a slightly altered present. As a reader of science fiction, I admired the way the changes from my own reality became apparent. But I hesitate to encapsulate CCD within science fiction, since I think the alterations are subtle enough that one could read this for entertainment without bothering about them. Except see (6).

(4) The first page (first epigraph) begins to be explained on page 53.111111. From that point, my foremost ongoing question, as noted in my reading diary and cross-referenced with the dedication, came to be, "Is Amadou real?" Eventually I decided that Amadou was either real (from “reality”) or (because of the way truth emerges in fiction) realer-than-real.

(5) I can describe my issues with the ending of the novel in two ways:

(a) It goes off the rails.

(b) The writer (whom I am explicitly not identifying) switched from writing with his head to writing with his heart.

Re (b), perhaps it’s fairer to say that even though the head was still active, the heart took over. And although the heart sections moved and challenged me, I missed the crystalline perfection of the head-created sections. I had previously mentioned (at the end of this posting) that this review would actually be more about me than about the novel; wasn't kidding.

(6) I find myself in total agreement with the narrator when he writes on page 50.000963: “Pay attention.” [6]

(7) Once I finished the "novel", I returned to the "introduction". Page 30.000239 is the heart of a clever attack upon (takedown of?) another of Sundman’s own Mind Over Matter novels. Seemingly they’re all related in some yet-to-be-discovered (by me) fashion. They tell me that once you’ve experienced that uncut crystalline structure, it sets up a craving... "Not for me, they’re for a friend."

[/OL]

A novel that – (I don’t want to use the word "makes" but it’s the most applicable one here). This novel makes its reader take a stand, forced me to decide. Repeatedly. It’s far more than the stunt its introduction suggests it is. Thank you, John.

Footnotes:

[1] Note the way we USians celebrate most fervently that which is lost; as just one example, we began to romanticise "the frontier" (in 1902, by rhapsodizing over Owen Wister’s The Virginian) when all the land stolen from the First Nations had already been divided up and given out and the actual frontier was gone. Similarly, these imaginative celebrations of bees have appeared just as it has become clear the extent to which actual bees are on the ropes. Clearly this is another essay poking its way in here: down, Fang!

[2] Of the three, CCD is the one most worth purchasing in hard cover, because of the pleasures of the frequent changes in typography and the gonzo page numbering scheme, but the power of the text also comes through in the PDF. I enjoyed the many typographical games, with one notable exception: the extensive use of "ct" ligatures in the first section was arch, precious, and unsuited to the content (in Dorothy Sayers’ phrase, "clean out of the period"): each one hit me in the eye like a tiny fist. On the other hand, the joy of self-publishing is that one can do what one wishes, and most of the offbeat things this author has done are very engaging indeed. In early 00speak: whatevs.

Update from John: "...the ligatures were in homage to Donald Knuth, author of "The Art of Computer Programming"-- and father of LaTeX (or however you spell it). The book is set in a faux-Knuth typeface, and Knuth is overly fond of ligatures -- which drives many of his readers batty. Anyway, that's a pretty recerche allusion, but I thought you should know what I was trying to get at." Thank you John, and regardless of the way Knuth's lectures at MIT changed my life, I am definitely one of the readers driven "batty".

[3] Floating point errors are a key plot point, not to say theme.

[4] The first item in the list is: "p. 27: For personal reasons, I do not find jokes about Paavo Nurmi funny." See, you’re not missing much by not reading the rest of them.

Thrillingly, this novel spells “straitjacket” correctly. If there were bated breath in it, likely that term would also be correctly used and spelled. Read it now, people, before language morphs so much further that all CCD’s nuances become little more than static (QRN) and interference (QRM).

[5] In both senses of terrible, (a) "exceptionally" and (b) "catastrophically". Also, as I’ve suggested in my rant about technical writing, some of Sundman’s humor and sarcasm is most easily appreciated by readers who have themselves worked for a computer company. Or who have at least read Tracy the Kidder’s The Soul of a New Machine. But appreciation of most of it requires no more than a heart and a brain.

[6] Thereby echoing Simone Weil, David Foster Wallace, and several other writers I consider spiritual teachers.

Final note: I have excerpted the preceding opinions in my Amazon review of CCD. They don't let you use italics or footnotes or links, which is why I so very seldom review there.

quotes & advice from Lizz Winstead's writing workshop

Live Wire brought Lizz Winstead to Portland this weekend, and she led a writing workshop in Curious Comedy Theater's amazing space. Text in quotation marks = Lizz. The rest is her paraphrased advice, grouped roughly by subject. Corrections welcome. Follow Lizz on Twitter: @lizzwinstead.

Lizz on Integrity, Passion, Clarity, Focus

"Your voice matters, so act like it." Believe what you're putting out there. "Own it. Write about the stuff that inspires YOU."

Rather than feel you have to cover topics that bore you, or topics that other people (e.g. David Sedaris) are already doing well, "be consistent and write [only] what you love," so that people know they can "trust you on two or three things." 

"Be critical about your own writing. Sometimes it's not the audience" that doesn't get it, sometimes your stuff is not good. "You're your own obstacle." Write every day and get your "percentages [of good stuff] higher".

Re public performance, sometimes there's just a mismatch. You might be Miles Davis but the audience came to hear country music. "If you love it and you prepared it [properly], you did your job."

"The only ownership you have is the belief in the material." Get "so much under your belt" that you're not defined by any one performance. Quoted Roseanne Cash re "play to the 6% of the audience that are poets."

"Find your clarity." Once you figure out what you're supposed to be doing, "kill the other babies": stop doing the other tangential things so that one thing can grow.

Lizz on Writing A Memoir

"You cannot make an assumption that you can control who you are going to offend." If you are "trying to keep the peace," you get a "crappy memoir." "You can't keep the peace if you're a writer."

Put out "the best product you can and take the lumps." 

"If you have to leave out details, don't even tell the story" at all. Rather than tell a good story with all the best stuff left out and self-censored, choose a different story where you can tell the whole story and get behind it.

Lizz on Co-Founding Things and Paths Into Comedy

She was unemployed (or underemployed) for two years after 9/11 because it was as if there was a moratorium on ... public critique and satire, her kind of thing. Then she got a call asking for her help finding a "Lizz Winstead type" of person to help launch Air America and she said, what's wrong with Lizz herself?

Co-founder's comment on The Daily Show history: In the first stack of 150 submissions (right after founding) only three were from women. To work there, must be news junkie and able to be funny under pressure, which takes a special kind of nerdiness. "It's a nerd club, not a boys' club." [My note: today's Oregonian Q&A said she worked at TDS until 1997, but Lizz confirms it was 1998.]

She said it was great to see today's participants half female. But only one of us was African-American...

"There is no one path to breaking into comedy." She used to "burn Harvard resumes in a Folger's can in my office." She did her first stand-up routine on a dare.

If you want to write for TV, you must submit via an agent. "Understand the tone," of where you're submitting to and/or what you're doing; lots of good material is rejected just because the tone is wrong.

If there isn't an entity where you can see your stuff appearing, create an online presence "that feels like an entity where" your work can live. Again, get the tone right, set the tone for that future entity...

Lizz on Context and Perspective

"Have some context about" yourself and your story. Be aware of your context.

"Keep writing [about an event or issue] until you get perspective," and then "share the perspective." That's the best and most useful thing you can offer other people.

Lizz on Criticism and Trolls

"Engage when they say your philosophy is flawed, but not when they attack you personally." Unless you want to joke with them [she gave great examples]. You can use humor to have a moment of connection with people you otherwise profoundly disagree with.

[Question] How does she find the distance, emotionally, to watch what she has to watch to get stories?

"I do it because you can't." Don't want to sift through? Media Matters for America and Crooks and Liars will show the key clips. In terms of how Glenn, Rush, etc work: she studies "the theatre of the thing": emotional people, people crying, even crocodile tears, wake up corresponding emotions in the audience.

Lizz on Other Ways To Improve

Hang out with people who are "smarter than you". "Always ask questions."

Seek out collaborators who do things that you respect but don't do (or want to do) yourself, "that you don't have but embrace."

To get great stories: click on names you don't know, ask questions and answer them. (Yesterday she discovered a good angle that no one else had, by questioning and looking for answers: only four clicks, but too few people dig down.) If there's a national story, go to its hometown and read what the local newspapers (that local newspaper base) are saying about it.

"Listen instead of see." [Me: *ex-radio person pumping fist*] Watching TV news doesn't make you smarter. She recommends the C-SPAN app, so you can listen to hearings while you're driving, etc. She wants a ban on people sitting at desks looking like newscasters when it's really an opinion show using news visual tropes.

Lizz Cares That People Don't Care, and Is Curious Why More People Aren't Curious

It's sad when people aren't curious about anything. "How do you fight people who aren't curious?"

"There's something very boring about not caring." Call those people out! "It's a cop-out to not care."

[Me: Lizz mentioned @elonjames; calling out people who don't care, and are not curious goes well with Elon's point about calling people on facts that are just wrong.]

Caring for our parents as they age: "No one is writing about it."

Thank you, Lizz!

[In the second half we practiced collaborative comedy writing. I didn't do very well and as soon as I have perspective I'll post about it :).]

#MyOwnFavouriteHashtagsAreGames

[The most interesting postings here are about the recent read+play list updates: main posting with excerpts and meta-notes. But the summer's fading (here in the N Hemisphere); time to move on.]

I admire people who are creating new art forms using Twitter #hashtags. Yes, some of them are on the read+play list. There are two kinds of tags I like: #TagsThatAreSoFunTheyCatchOnLikeWildfire, and #TotallyUniqueStringsThatSimplyAddAnotherLayerOfCommentOrContent. In the latter category, Kevin Smith (@ThatKevinSmith) used to be reliable...maybe I'm celebrating this trend just as it's over!

I think I was the first to use #SolarTsunami, which others picked up later. And I had fun creating, for specific occasions, #ForgotDashesDont-Work and #ProblyNotOrig. But the two tags that I think I will find myself returning to are sort of like games:

#TryReadingTogether

and

#QuizFor50+
(since search ignores it, should I replace the plus with a word? but that would make the tag longer; quizzes for old people is waaay too long)

Examples:

Q: What do these have in common: stale, mute, indy | A: in snowboarding, they are types of grabs #QuizFor50+ (like me)

#TryReadingTogether David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest and Andre Agassi's OPEN - eeek parallels and contrasts. http://www.agassiprep.org

Speaking of awesome twitterers, please see @sistertoldja's The Twitter/Blogging Comment Problem. Critical issue for people whose blogs are related to their income - or even just their brands.

things in common [meta]

Who's on my updated read | play list at the right? People and groups whose work and/or activities overlap a nexus that I find of great interest because I think new genres are emerging there. The hover text for each link sometimes explains why I particularly find the work(s) valuable.

In most cases I did not ask for permission to link; I asked only when I wasn't sure which address to use. So people (and groups) may not find out they are on this list for some time (for example, until I write more specifically about them, giving me a reason to get back in touch) or in fact ever. And in terms of links here, for now please only send the URL to others who might think it's fun.

[Ultra skippable TMI: for over thirty years I have been, underneath my bubbly exterior, in a cranky mood. As my scattered bio paragraphs almost always tell you, since 1979 I have worked professionally with interactive online text and audio (keywords: documentation, help, hypertext, usability, HCI, IA, UX, &c); meanwhile my own site's miscellaneous iceberg-y content lurked underwater and un-documented. Even the pieces I did for my 2005 degree had navigation almost completely hidden. As a final example of crankiness, since 2004 this blog has avoided using any of the standard TypePad category tags, to avoid being seen in the Pythonian sense. Fortunately this obfuscatory mood seems to be coming to a long overdue end. When I next do something stompin' it will be not only accessible but more link-swap-happy than an adult services site.]

Once I had gathered these links I was surprised to see how many led to people who as "unacknowledged legislators of the world"[1] (except that in our present distress the species is beginning to realise how important they might be) work with some aspect of poetry, that is to say, with words chosen with precision, for their particular powers. [Hmm; alliteration is hard!] I mentioned that in the previous post, which also calls out some texts that are not 100% poetry but that struck me as I collected the links.

This is an optional bonus posting with read | play list metadata (current as of July 2010).

What the read | play list is not

• Not "all" of my favourite writers (in any genre or format) or musicians or artists or programmers: so many of those are missing that if I added them, the list would be unmanageble
• Not "best friends"; there are friends on the list but most of my best friends are not listed
• Not "favourite blogs" or "news sources I read regularly"
• Nothing selected only on the basis of political viewpoint
• No major publishers
• Few journals
• Not in alphabetical order by LAST name, which makes me focus on first names [here on the internet where we can all be on a first name basis, at least until our social data processing neurons burn out]
• None of my exes are here, and neither is anyone I am actively stalking that way: it's manipulative, to put people on a weblist as a pre-dating ploy involving artificially induced reciprocity [I have a separate dating identity and if you haven't met her already you won't ever need to]
• Unusually for me, here you will find nothing watered down from the pure elixirs of Jacques Ellul and Simone Weil [I do dilute their ideas, garnish, and serve, but not here, except that Simone gets two namechecks in the hover text and she is someone I would have wanted to date; I bet I could have got her to eat; oooh, transgressing my own rules ("they're really more like guidelines") already, but it feels possible because she is gone]

Fun ways to slice and dice

• Closeness: As of today, four of the people mentioned in the list are married to each other; that is to say, there are two sets of couples on the list. There are also many collaborators here, listed singly or in their groups.
• Apartness: On the other hand, I am mixing some of my different worlds, so that it is unlikely that many people on the list are aware of the work of all of the others. There are a few mavens (using the term as popularised by Gladwell) on the list who might know everyone. But if you're deep into your own work and you discover you are on this list and some of the other names on the list baffle you, you will not be alone. (And you don't have to go look at all the others' work now; I've linked to you because I greatly admire something you are doing and it's more than fine with me if you just keep doing it.)
• Aliveness: Dana is the only person here who I know has passed away; at last report Phil Agre was contentedly alive, just "off the grid." Many here are struggling with things that threaten their lives; sometimes they discuss those, in the context of their work and otherwise, and sometimes they don't. And of course projects and collectives also struggle for life.
• Sedentary Scavenger Hunt: (The full story of the sedentary scavenger hunts would be a separate posting.) It'd be fun to have a contest in which I asked you to add up the number of people (in the list + hovertext) who are working with video, divide by the number of people who speak at least one Scandinavian language (tricks: last names alone won't be sufficient here; is Finno-Ugric Scandinavian or not), and multiply by the number of people who are involved in some way with World of Warcraft (which is, because of character names, hard to correctly discern). And the person who got closest to the correct number (I'm sure we'd have arguments that would best be addressed by a temporary arbitration panel with an odd number on it and no 'fourth official') would get the prize: his or her own custom video shot inside WoW with pop-culturally-Scandinavian elements dragged in...maybe a World Tree (structure)...
• Back to the slicing and dicing, we obviously have ... people who speak Scandinavian and Finno-Ugric languages here, whose presence can be traced to my affection for the DAC conference series founded by Espen Aarseth as well as people I met there, who were not all northerners, but many of them are ...
• ... and people involved in some way with World of Warcraft ... and
• People who can speak Romance languages really well: Susana, Marion & Gonzalo [and possibly others that I don't know about]
• People who have their initials as a URL: Celia [+"andfriends"]
• People who have their first name as a URL: Trygve, Sooz, Rob [+half his surname w/ double meaning], Noah [+ initials], Nick [+ initials], [mondo+] Marion, Jill [+txt], Bassey [+world] (URL recently stolen but still hers in my mind and for that matter the Google cache) & Baratunde
• People who have their last name as a URL: Zeldman, Klastrup, Gibbs & Bricklin
• People who have their full name as a URL: Stephanie, Scott, Nalo, Mary, Justine, Joel, Jeremy, DJ Spooky, Derrick & Deena [imo future generations are not going to think this stuff is fun because we'll have taken so many of the URLs that they'll use something far different, but I'm enjoying the moment(s)]
• People who have renamed themselves: Sooz, DJ Spooky & ][mez][
• People who maintain extremely useful archives: TBTF (Keith), Scott, Phil, Jeffrey (A List Apart), Gonzalo (Ludology), Ellen (presents), DavidW (JOHO old and new), david jhave (glia.ca, coming soon on USB, seeking a hosting home that would welcome the surges of traffic that terrified its previous home) & most of the journals listed [and all the independent artists who spend time and effort updating so that we can continue to enjoy their work despite time, changing platforms, and entropy generally]
• People or collectives who have created their own new brands: The Unknown, Tasty Bits from the Technology Front, Take Action Games, Spineless Books, Sooz, Word Circuits, Powerful Robot Games, xdesign, Gibbs Universal Industries, View Askew, A List Apart, AvantGame, Ludology.org, Ludica, ICE Lab/Studio, UnBlinking, Glide, Game Studies, furtherfield, lfs.nl, ebr, the seven legged spider, DJ Spooky, dichtung-digital, JOHO, Next Exit, Citizen Tools, CyberText Yearbook, Basseyworld, _Augmentology 1[L]0[L]1_ & ][mez][ [a non exclusive list as I'm sure I've missed some]
• People with a connection to Australia: William (see the Sydney Biennale videos), Justine, Jill, Jason, Deena, DavidT & ][mez][
• The more meta notes I record, the more risk of being misleading or wrong, so I will pause here...

Of course one possible big plan is to explain the nature of the nexus that I mentioned in more detail than just "new genres are emerging there", as soon as I figure out how to articulate it. But for now, I am happy simply to have captured these links at this moment in time. (As you may or may not know, some of my own projects have to do with selection and how the future and the past regard each other, in particular what they "get wrong". And your tiny scavenger puzzle now is to find the...never mind! We'll do it later.)

As I noted in the previous posting, if you find errors, please let me know and I will correct them as soon as possible. Thank you in advance for reading | playing!

[1] One husband of the foundational proto-TwilightSagaVerse author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was also allegedly a writer; this sonorous phrase is popularly attributed to him. Most sources indicate that his first and middle initials were "P.B.", referring thus to an avant-garde vegetarian protein paste that became more widely popular in subsequent centuries. A small minority of scholars argue that because contemporary postings were often recorded in hand-written script, "PB" is more likely to have been a misreading of the initials "H.P.", which flowered like golden staph over school enrollment lists and tie-in merchandise during this era.

[2] The preceding footnote was inspired by questions raised by JRRHP Tolkien in his essay "The Monsters and the Critics" (1936), without by any means wishing to blame him for the way I am using them: I call blessings upon Ursula K. H. P. LeGuin for recommending this essay to me, and I now recommend it to you.

read | play link updates

I have updated the "read | play" list (to your right), a selection of people whose work with electrons has inspired me. You are invited to hover over the links to see WHY I think you might enjoy clicking each one. I have also collected list metadata & trivia for those of you who have read the hover text and want to have fun with it.

Many of the people listed create poetry as a primary or secondary activity, or just because they can. Grappling with their work takes everything I have. By now I know not to even start when I cannot pay full attention. That says more about me than about poetry, but I'm just explaining this because I don't like to hear, "I tried a poem once but I couldn't get into it." Rita Mae Brown recommends preparing physically for mental challenges and mentally for physical challenges. So a few hours of Pilates (or equiv) should set us right up...

No attempt has been made to be comprehensive; many more digital objects | opportunities to read | play can be purchased from Eastgate or the MIT Press and found in the directory maintained by the Electronic Literature Organization. I hope that if you find the list wanting (too many poets and visionaries? not enough history and theory? needs more Australians?), you will be inspired to update your own and send me a link.

As I checked all the links just now, several pieces in particular struck me.

 

Secret rules from within Rhetorical Devices for Electronic Literature

This node offers an alternative path into Deena Larsen's e-literature teaching site. It contains the most concise statement of ... I dare you to click it, that's all.

 

Torill Mortensen's thinking with my fingers entry "It feels final"

Excerpt: Living in Volda, the distinction between "real" and "virtual" world feels meaningless. What's real about living here? It's so secluded, so filled with its own rules, concerns and moving by its own rythm that living in the flesh world of Volda is like living in a virtual world. The insane beauty of the place, combined with the ruthless weather, the heavy darkness and the dreariness of the third month of rain and sleet, it turns Volda into something on the flip-side of other flesh world realities. At the same time - this is it. This is the reality, because reality is made up of a million little spots like this, places of heartbreaking beauty and equally numbing mundaneity, spread like random handfuls of marbles all over the planet.

Torill, your poetic way of ... *weeps quietly* Hope the move continues to go smoothly.

 

Elin Sjursen's posting on Barriers to Understanding Twitter

Excerpt: Journalists continue to fall prey to the most outrageously ridiculous claims from those with titles within fields like psychology who claim to understand something about human interactions in the online world. ... Sweeping generalizations that misguide the public on the reality of what happens online is a big problem.

Although perhaps my favourite bit is where she asks (after quoting some "experts"), "Are you on twitter? Is this how you feel?" Exactly!

 

The final two links have content about health, linked to matters of spirit and mortality:

Justine Larbalestier's posting on RSI and so much more, "Farewell For Now"

Bassey Ikpi's re-posting of "One Good Reason To Stay (A Poem for Phyllis Hyman)"

Excerpt from the introduction: Fuck Stigma. If you need help, get help. Those who wish to shame you aren’t going to ever come to your rescue. Fuck them. Seek treatment. Pity the ones not brave enough to seek help. Who only want to sit in judgment of those who do. Fuck them. Seek treatment. Talk about it. Fuck a stigma.

 

If you are listed here, and I have not linked to the preferred version of your online presence, please let me know (juliannechat at gmail dot com). All comments are welcome!

obsessing about what is "real"

Salon readers have taken to arguing about whether letters to Cary Tennis are fiction. (Requires subscription or watching an advert for a one-day pass.)

And the lonelygirl15 discussion was only the latest of many such "does this child with cancer really exist" maelstroms. (My favourite video commentary on LG15 - the "modern YouTube auteur" one linked from my Video area - is good regardless of Bree's degree of realness. I feel myself edging towards a point about "art" here, but I'll save it for the next post.)

And yesterday I bought some Tupperware on eBay and the buyer referenced three different names (one for the ID, one for the bank account, one for the PO box)...and in other arenas recently I've found myself eavesdropping on people obsessing about what is "real". My philosophical friends (e.g. David) must be enjoying this even more than I am.

Today's public link: Danah Boyd on "Facebook's Privacy Trainwreck"

[This note was originally posted on VOX: thanks VOX for the clean handoff.]