The Dragon's Almanac 2007 - 3 Febuary

from Justin Wintle

"Beware the man who incites the dog to worry the pig."

. . (134) Chinese

Finding My Curious Niche

All I want to do in this post is to make a few remarks about objects and their market value. Maybe say something about MY market values.

Everyone recognizes some objects as rare and valuable. There exists a ready market and high value for a few (rare or not) found objects. And then there are the objects that are rare yet obscure, curious or marginal to our contemporary life (appropriate for a window display but of little market value).

I will be selfish in this post, or a bit self-centred, in only looking at some of my own immediate interests. Because I do not know much of what the pro's know in these rare book circles I hear so much about; nor am I much of an adept in the pop culture or mass entertainment media surrounding us in North America -- so I'd say my own focus is there at the end, toward the obscure, the curious and the marginal.

Know Thyself

Some people are trend-setters and have the charisma to exercise great influence on the people they meet, even casually. I would be curious to know whether such a one as this has the Midas Touch - whether the curios and various tools and utensils they collect would fetch premium prices on, say, e-Bay. I would bet not. I would bet that we would find that tens of thousands of offers just like Mister & Miss's are out there driving prices down.

If your tastes run in the common groove of the millions then you should know it and take advantage of it.

Some people are educators. They want to teach people about the connections they have discovered between art and artifacts, history and institutions, demography and language - whatever. If they hold out a 'found' object for you to regard, they can then begin to tell you a long story about it.

But it is the telling that has value, not, intrinsically, the object they are holding up for view.

If you are one of these educators, I hope you find an audience and a good venue for a multimedia presentation. Or start a blog.

There are the artists. Interesting, for example, that Picasso collected objects about him in his studio as if he were stocking a prop room for the Metropolitan Opera. But artists should create, should give added esthetic value to found objects. The market for what they create is not my focus.

If you are an artist, go for it.

So, apart from dull gray men and women, and the domesticated ones as they raise a brood, or the cultivators, sailors and other adventurers (or a few brilliant mathematicians here and there) -- all we are left with is a group of merchants trying to market objects, viz: collectable found objects. Earning a living at it.

Know thyself (remember?)

Well marketing ain't enough for me. I want to work surrounded by ALL of the people I described above. And I think I have a magic formula to find MY groove. I want to have a bookstall like the ones I've heard exist on a quai by the Seine in Paris. (I don't know how I missed visiting them on my trip to Europe!)

Like the stands (kiosks) at the Old Port of Montreal down along our quai (docks). I'd like a space where all sorts of locals would hang out comfortably and maybe perform (I know a clown) for small knots of curious tourists.

One advantage of such places is that they offer ample space for displays of antiques, curios found artifacts alongside the wares on sale. A disadvantage, apart from inclement weather, would be for when I need peace and quiet - far from the maddening masses and that madhouse of marginals out begging from and pandering to all those bemused crowds.

I'll look into it. Maybe I'll join the mad men.

It takes one to know one.

The Dragon's Almanac 2007 - 2 Febuary

from Justin Wintle

"Ignore an old man's advice and one day be a beggar."

. . (128) Chinese

Canoe floats Rogers' boat

Media giants set aside rivalry for mutual gain

By TIMOTHY LERICHE, SUN MEDIA

Media rivals Rogers Publishing Limited and Canoe Inc. will join forces online to present Rogers' magazine content at Canoe's Internet portal.

And Canoe, a Quebecor Inc. company, expects to continue lining up new content and business partners in Canada and abroad to widen the scope of its canoe.ca site.

"Rogers and Quebecor are competitors, so why are we partnering?" asked Patrick Lauzon, executive vice-president of Canoe, anticipating observer questions.



"Online is a very different landscape in terms of where our competition is,"
said Lauzon " . . where we could be the best in is in managing and distributing content. We feel we can work with other publishers to build a single entry point."

. . . Rogers' publications includ(e) Chatelaine, Maclean's, Today's Parent, Flare, LouLou Magazine, Glow, Canadian Business, and Chocolat Magazine . . .

"We're taking 11 Rogers properties and putting the canoe.ca heading on all of them," said Lauzon. "It's a mutually beneficial agreement. There's a business arrangement that I can't really discuss in details."
. . .

Canoe attracts 6 ,781,000 online visitors a month -- about half in French. Its other linked services include employment, personals, autos and continuing education.

. . . Louise Clements, vice-president of digital and interactive at Rogers Consumer Publishing, (related that) the 11 Rogers sites attract about 1.25 million "unique" visitors a month -- meaning repeat visitors are not counted.

"We think it's a great fit," said Clements. "We have high quality content in both languages. We go very deep and they go very broad. Both parties are going to benefit from increased traffic and increased time on the site."
--------------
BCE (Bell) bought CTV*, didn't they, back some 5 or 6 years ago? With LCN, it's TVA who provides the news on Canoe.ca. Does that mean BCE and Quebecor are competitors but now NOT Rogers, who partners with Videotron, a Quebecor property, on cellular networks?

Who then, in media, are we NOT talking about as a participant in this media onvergence on the web at Canoe.ca? asks Blogaulaire, puzzled.

For starters, and merely skimming the surface: it's NOT ( . . probably not??) Transcontinental, CanWest Global, CBC, Telus, Murdoch, Black, Bronfman . . . AOL Time-Warner, Disney, Stronach's T.V. sports cable . . lots of empires, some very powerful Canadian ones at that, are not implicated above. But are we certain EVEN THOSE don't fit into this picture SOMEWHERE. (But how?) (Who owns Hearst?)

Well . . I guess everything and everybody in media is intertwined, inter-connected. BCE as well. We'll have to just wait and watch for more shake-outs. Like the way we've seen media constantly converge. The 'drama' has lasted now for some 30 years . . and we're still counting fewer and fewer players.

Until very recently, cross-ownership was a fairly specialized aspect of the concern over concentration in the media, but it has taken centre stage in Canada in recent months as the result of three major deals: the purchase of Hollinger daily newspapers by CanWest, owner of Global Television Network; the alliance between the Thomson group, owner of the Globe and Mail, and BCE, the new owner of the CTV network; and, finally, the acquisition of the Vidéotron group (TVA) by Quebecor.

Within a matter of a few months, following the merger of AOL and Time Warner, the Canadian media industry has undergone a profound transformation.

Media Studies (2002)

Another Harry Potter Appears in Mid-Summer

The Deathly Hallows, by J. K. Rowling, which will be released in July 2007 ("A Midsummer's Night Dream" for booksellers I guess) might have side benefits for used book shops if it helps clear out the accumulated 'back list' most shops now hold in HP titles. Just buy one new title and put it in the middle of your display and see what that fetches for the surrounding dead pulp - that's my advice. (You aren't overstocked? Pardon moi.)

I really have nothing more to say, other than my pitch for carrying multilingual stock, especially in French, Spanish and German. So let us give a pitch in Espanol. (My Spanish 'language toolbar' is failing to perform on these 'n' accents, sorry!)



AP Spanish | 02/01/2007 |

'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'
Associated Press

LONDRES - 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows', el último de los siete libros sobre las aventuras del niño mago, será publicado el 21 de julio, dijo el jueves la escritora J.K. Rowling.

Rowling anunció la fecha de la publicación en su página de internet.
Bloomsbury, su casa editora británica, dijo que publicará una edición de tapas duras de niños, una de adultos de tapas duras, y una edición especial de regalo y un audiolibro el mismo día.

Scholastic Children's Books, la casa editora en Estados Unidos, manifestó que ofrecerá una edición de tapas duras a 34,99 dólares, una edición de lujo a 65 dólares, y una edición reforzada para bibliotecas a 39,99 dólares."

Many New York City publishers are getting into their own Spanish editions for the 11 million Hispanophones in the North American continental market, so supplying the multilingual market is becoming both easier and a necessity. For used book dealers, it all depends on attracting a larger customer base by expanding your stock linguistically.

A word to the wise . . .

Oh, by the way, here at CPE we would like readers to point us toward an essay or two that compares the history of Latin American authors with UK authors 'getting the jump on' US fiction writers.¨Particulary in the genre of fantasy mixed with the quotidian (or 'magic realism'). Is not this half centuty of the English getting the jump on everyone in the genre of the pure fantastic worthy of deep thought and criticism? Tolkien and Rowling could compare, I believe, with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in their respective cultural domains. Or do you think I'm out lunching on fish 'n' chips with this one? Please comment.

Do not forget that T. S. Eliot, the St. Louis boy, became a Brit and that Ezra Pound became a Euro-whatever to go on to become the last centuries central icons in poetry. Europe is having her revenge inside the pop markets of word an song I do believe, and over a span of 50 years: except in the confessional and grit lit. Please respond.

The Dragon's Almanac 2007 - 1 February

from Justin Wintle

"Who cares what you wear in February and August?"

. . (128) Chinese

The Dragon's Almanac 2007 - 31 January

from Justin Wintle

"However many things you may have on your mind do not go to bed without looking in the kitchen."

. . (123) Chinese

University of Michigan 'Sees' A Post on CPE -- YIPEE !

Today, proudly, Cheap Priceless Editions was given a linked mention on the University of Michigan's list of Internet sites and posts (Boxxet Links) under the category 'Education'. We made the 'Best' Box.

The university's search site of various links is updated daily and choses a different focus each day. CPE was referenced under an announcement regarding Google partnering with the University of Texas to digitize part of their library collection. A similar project, the initial one in fact, of the Google Library Project, was undertaken at the U of M in December 2004.

Blogaulaire, along with several other bloggers with far greater expertise and experience than moi, highlighted our reservations about Google having free reign in how such digitized archives are distributed outside non-profit, public foundations and universities.

The only connection Blogaulaire has with this university is that it is the one and only campus venue at which I got together with Abbie Hoffman back when we were . . .

But I digress. Maybe if the U of M knew more about that 'moment', they would not have chosen to upload a link to CPE!

I'm kidding folks. Abbie's dead and I've mellowed so much, I might as well be. :) (wry, withering smile)


See HERE !!

A Great Hollywood Writer is Dead - A long, long post to bring us trekkies up to speed . .

Subtitle =
"There were T.V. scriptwriters around before Gene Roddenberry; there were Big Studios before Paramount Pictures.")

Screen & Script T.V. Writer Died on Saturday

'"I Love Lucy' writer Bob Carroll dies"

By JOHN ROGERS
Associated Press Writer

NOTA BENE: Blogaulaire - Bob Carroll worked with some of Hollywood's greats. He was there at the beginning of television, as vaudeville morphed into the electronic media.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Bob Carroll Jr., a pioneering television writer who worked on all of Lucille Ball's TV shows, including "I Love Lucy," has died. He was 87.

Carroll, who had been in failing health for the past month, died Saturday, family friend and fellow TV writer Thomas Watson told The Associated Press on Monday.

. . . This B ackground Piece provided by browsing around . . .

When the show moved to television in 1953, Ball took her writers with her, changing the name to "I Love Lucy" and adding real-life husband Desi Arnaz to the cast.

Carroll and Pugh went on to work on every episode of the long-running show, Watson said, as well as many episodes of "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour," "The Lucy Show," "Here's Lucy" and "Life With Lucy." The latter show went off the air in 1986, three years before Ball's death.

Many of the shows had essentially the same premise: Lucy gets involved in some routine function and, often through well-intentioned deviousness coupled with incredible clumsiness, manages to turn it into a pratfall-filled disaster.

Carroll and (Madelyn Pugh) Davis also collaborated on several other projects, including the 1968 film "Yours, Mine and Ours" and the Arnaz-produced sitcom "The Mothers-In-Law."

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

----------------------BELOW SEE: The Museum of Broadcast Communications

Desi Arnaz with Lucille Ball


DESI (Desiderio Alberto, III) ARNAZ. Born in Santiago, Cuba, 2 March 1917. Attended Colegio Delores, Jesuit Preparatory School, Santiago, Cuba. United States Medical Corps., 1943-45. Married (1) Lucille Ball, 30 November 1940 (divorced, 1960), children: Lucie Desiree, Desiderio Alberto, IV (Desi, Jr.). Began entertainment career as singer, with Xavier Cugat Band, 1935-36; formed own band at The Conga Club, Miami, Florida, 1938, height of the "conga craze"; Broadway musical debut, Too Many Girls, 1939; RKO film version of the musical, 1940; music director for the Bob Hope radio show, 1946-47; performed with Ball in radio show, My Favorite Husband, 1947-50; produced pilot for I Love Lucy with own funds, 1951; performed as Ricky Ricardo, I Love Lucy, 1951-57; president and co-founder, Desilu Productions, 1951-62. Recipient: Best Performance of the Month, Photoplay Magazine, 1943, for Bataan.

Died in Del Mar, California 2 December 1986.

TELEVISION

1951-57 I Love Lucy (actor, producer)
1958-60 Westinghouse Playhouse (producer)
1962-65, 67 The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (actor, producer)

FILMS

Too Many Girls (1940); Father Takes a Wife (1941); The Navy Comes Through (1942); Four Jacks and a Jill (1942); Bataan (1943); Holiday in Havana (1949); Cuban Pete (1950); The Long, Long Trailer (1954); Forever Darling (1956); The Escape Artist (1982).

PUBLICATIONS

A Book by Arnaz Desi. New York: William Morrow, 1976.

BOOKS: FURTHER READING

Anderson, Christopher. Hollywood/TV. Austin, Texas: The University of Texas Press, 1994.

Andrews, Bart. The "I Love Lucy" Book. New York: Doubleday, 1985.
(for sale on this CPE site)

Andrews, Bart, and Thomas J. Watson. Loving Lucy. New York: St. Martin's, 1980.

Brady, Kathleen. Lucille: The Life of Lucille Ball. New York: Hyperion, 1994.

Firmat, Gustavo Perez. Life On the Hyphen: The Cuban-American Way. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1994.

Harris, Warren G. Lucy & Desi: The Legendary Love Story of Television's Most Famous Couple. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.

Higham, Charles. Lucy: The Life of Lucille Ball. New York: St. Martin's, 1986.

Sanders, Coyne Steven, and Tom Gilbert. Desilu: The Story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. New York: Morrow 1993.

Schatz, Thomas. "Desilu, I Love Lucy, and the Rise of Network TV." In, Thompson, Robert, and Gary Burns, editors, Making Television: Authorship and the Production Process. New York: Praeger, 1990.

Desi Arnaz

(H)e was one of Hollywood's most perceptive, and powerful, producers in television's early years. His shrewd business skills and his realization of particular combinations of the television's technological and cultural connections enabled him to develop aspects of the medium that remain central to its economic and cultural force.

(In the early 1940s) Lucy and Desi set out on a nation-wide stage tour to designed to gauge public reaction to their working together in a comedy act. CBS was im-pressed with the positive public response to the couple as well as with a sample script for a TV series developed by the writers from My Favorite Husband.

The basics were there, including Desi as Ricky Ricardo, a struggling band leader, and Lucille as Lucy, a housewife with little talent but a giant yearning to break into show business. This homey battle-of-the-sexes premise for the show convinced the network that viewers could relate, and a pilot version of the program impressed the Philip Morris Company, which agreed to sponsor thirty-nine programs for the 1951-52 season on the CBS network Monday nights at 9:00 P.M

The Desilu Empire

Desilu logo as it showed in the ending credits of Star Trek. Desilu was a production company formed in 1951 by Lucille Ball and her husband, Desi Arnaz. The success of the television show "I Love Lucy" enabled Desilu to grow and expand, producing such programs as The Andy Griffith Show. (The downtown Mayberry set was sometimes later used for location shots for Star Trek.)

After the breakup of the Ball-Arnaz marriage Desilu remained successful. In 1961, Ball bought out Arnaz and became the first woman ever to run a major Hollywood studio. Desilu later brought forth shows like Mission: Impossible and Star Trek. Her success continued unabatedly until 1967 when Ball sold Desilu to Gulf+Western which merged it with its other production company (the studio's next-door neighbor), Paramount.

The name "Desilu" comes from Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. Desilu had a first-refusal agreement with CBS, which is why Star Trek was first pitched to that network. When CBS passed on the show, NBC was then approached.

The World's Largest Studio

From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference.
(Redirected from Desilu Studios) via Anwers Com (A. C. ripped it from Wikipedia and gave proper credit.)

Carroll discussed the fact that he and his writing partner Pugh do not receive ANY compensation for the I Love Lucy re-runs, as would be standard for writers today. He has, however, kept his sense of humor over the situation telling a reporter: "Do you think I'd be sitting here if I'd had residuals?" Carroll asked. "I'd have flown you down to Cuba for this interview if I had."

The Dragon's Almanac 2007 - 30 January

from Justin Wintle

"Old trees are hollow inside; old men see things clearly."

. . (120) Chinese

We Call Our Bus Patty Patchwork

//sarcasm//
This application may not have much bandwidth but it moves faster in P2P downloads than the legacy site servers in its class.

It's like distributed computing using a needle and thread for modular interface configuration. //END SARCASM//

Two quilting buddies in southeastern Iowa wanted to open a quilting shop but couldn't decide in which town to settle. So they bought a bus for $1,200 and took their fabric on the road.

All this commercial linking in crazy-quilt patterns could spread virally, who knows?

Two quilting buddies in southeastern Iowa wanted to open a quilting shop but couldn't decide in which town to settle. So they bought a bus for $1,200 and took their fabric on the road.


More than two years ago, quilting buddies Gay Murphy and Kris Kelderman were pondering the idea of owning a quilting store when they retired.

"Being in rural Iowa, it was kind of hard to think of a place to put a quilting shop," said Murphy, 43, who lives in Eddyville, in southeastern Iowa. Kelderman, 52, is from nearby Kirkville.

That's when Murphy's childhood memories of visiting mobile libraries while living in Des Moines** sparked the idea: How about a quilt shop on wheels?

Their business, Patchwork Peddlers, has been on the move since January 2005, delivering quilting supplies to customers in rural Iowa. They also regularly park at the Hy-Vee parking lot in Albia on Mondays, and at the Hy-Vee in Ottumwa on Tuesdays.

The two women have also taken their green 1984 Ford Bluebird bus to visit quilt guilds in the state, as well as in Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Minnesota.

"We call our bus Patty Patchwork," Murphy said.

** - Blogaulaire: 'Been there, done that; glad it inspired someone.' And I was paid 69 cents an hour to travel with and reshelve the mobile library - not bad for a 14-year-old kid at the time. Not as good as caddying, but better than delivering newspapers.

pps: //edit added// The more I think about this Des Moines Register article, the more questions I have. Murphy and Kelderman retire 'kinda yung' wouldn't you say? So I wonder from what employment each 'retired'. Plus, they landed a damn good set of wheels for the price if they can buzz around eastern Iowa every week and go to quilt guilds from Oklahoma to Minnesota whenever they please.

A book-bus that is or was at one time operated by a non-profit group once came to a conference and book sale I attended. The vehicle was very special because it was modified to hold handcrafted chapbooks to promote the work of poets and artisans. So the load was very much lighter than with most mobile lending libraries. If anyone here know more about this, please post a link in your comment. I'll see what I can find on this end. Already, the first day it is posted, this article has proved to be very popular - several hits from interested persons.

The Dragon's Almanac 2007 - 29 January

from Justin Wintle

"A man's breast is the best wallet for his troubles."

. . (116) Japanese

Table-Top Imaging of Books Kept Blogaulaire Busy

Yesterday I did not post to my blog 'cuz I banged out 157 photo shots of books. Once I have my homemade diffusion screen 'tent' set up, once the tripod, lights and backdrop is in place, I blaze away at snapping the shutter and slapping the books in the 'saddle' to have their portrait taken.

Why So Many Books?

It was to upload an image, eventually, to the meta vendor sites where a bookseller friend has listed her entire 14,500 book inventory. Livres Bronx Books is not far from where I live, so it is easy for me to set up there or on my own table at home (and schlock the books back and forth).

Yesterday, it was partly a dry-run, partly my own books which my friend may upload on her site as reimbursement for my work, and partly her books. But don't worry, I'm not setting up to image all fourteen-and-a-half thousand books she's got. Some of those have been on-line nearly 10 years. They're dead pulp. Ready for some 25-cent or 50-cent bin out on the sidewalk (come spring, come summer) in front of her shop. (But SHE knows not to ask what I think she should do. You don't want to go there either, nor see the sparks fly . . so we'll just drop that hot potato, okay?)

As well, yesterday and early this am I registered with flickr and started uploading images as a public archive. I have not decided where I want to take those collections yet. Until I do, I'll make book-related photos public, ditto some of the urban imagery that I will share with the sites UER and Walking Turcot Yard, and make the rest private - to share on a needs-to-see basis.

Oh, I forgot to mention that another friend has opened a wool and fabric shop is St. Jean sur Richelieu. Actually she bought out the former owner. My daughter takes her newborn over to the wool and knitting boutique some days and the 'regulars' are getting to know my grandchild. I wish it was closer to where I live (it is in fact 25 km to the south). But maybe I'll relent on my 'simplicity' and buy another (the latest) in that long line of clunkers I've owned since the $50 Chevy with dual carbs (1957) which I shared with a grad student back when. I wasn't a driver in '57, that's for sure. So I'll let YOU guess how old it was. We kept a quarter barrel of motor oil - I swear, a barrel with a pump - on the back seat . . that Chev burned so much oil! Now that we are so globally warmed, I . . . 'Don't mourn, organize!' I already said that above.

Helen Hill Memorial Website Media Mention

Family, friends and fellow community and cinema activists have been contributing to the pages on the webpage that links to this post's title.

The number of articles, website references and bloggers who have had something to say about the murder of Hill more than 3 weeks ago in NOLA is astounding. That someone makes the effort to pull those links together is commendable. Helen herself, I'll bet, if in her lifetime all that news coverage had highlighted her volunteer work teaching and feeding and offering support to pre- and post-Katrina residents of the Delta Region and New Orleans . . well people like Helen tend to just throw that stuff away so they can get on to the next challenge.

One focus of her impact on other people doing good volunteer work was in encouraging people in Halifax to pitch in after the flooding of NOLA. And when she lived there she influenced cinematographers to find community themes for creative experimentation with documentary film. If we started with the tens of blog posts listed on the HelenHill Org 'articles' page, it would be possible to document what it takes to pull one small community together. Was it Food Not Bombs that helped mobilize Halifax volunteers? Was it the filmmakers? Was it one individual?

In any case, thanks to the people who pulled those links together. Hopefully there will be some follow-up study and help us remember the motto: 'Don't Mourn, Organize!'

The Dragon's Almanac 2007 - 28 January

from Justin Wintle

"It is not every day that a delicious rice-cake falls into the open mouth."

. . (110) Japanese