Swine Flu Pandemic Shocker Death Oh My God

"Just the facts, ma'am."

I only seem to have time to update this when I am ill. And I am ill. And, naturally, because of the headlines, because I am grumpy and ill, I think I must be about to die of pig flu. Well, actually, no, I don't, for I have read a little bit about biology, and have a smattering of knowledge about biological systems, and I know the difference between a cold and full-blown influenza A, so I am immune to the media and their games...

Oh, but a famous person got it. This must make it serious. Just like poor Rupert Grint, I also have a sore throat and have been in bed for a few days. Perhaps I *do* have swine flu. I think this brings us closer together, Rupert and I. I feel briefly dusted by the magic of his ginger celebrity. Perhaps the very viruses that are in me now are the direct descendants of microbes that previously ravaged the throat and lungs of a Harry Potter star. Perhaps we have briefly harboured similar DNA. This actually raises me up the ontological league table. Oh happy day! And, because a celebrity had it too, this swine flu, this somehow makes my suffering more real. Rubbish. Get lost, Daily Telegraph, and get lost, Anita Singh. You, lazy pig farmer editors: you are the curse of this age!

Illness can be good, too. Not only because it gives me time to update my blog. Illness also, as wise philosopher sages have said, lets you know you are actually alive -- if this universe were all just a solipsistic fantasy, why would I think to create illness? I am ill, therefore I am. I'd have to be a bit of a twisted sod to torture myself with.... oh. Well, that's what gets me out of bed in the morning. Or, hang on...

Importantly, however, and my reason for blogging to you, oh world, is that this illness and fever has led me to a new amazing breakthrough scientific conclusion: the uncontrollable and potentially deadly pandemic of swine flu is not linked to a poorly maintained muggy pig grave in a Mexican desert. Oh no, sirs and madams. It is instead an irrefutable by-product of the uncontrollable levels of spam on the internets.

Consider the evidence: spam has been increasing steadily. So has swine flu. People are exposed to high levels of spam everywhere. On Thursday I read a poem about spam, and on Friday night I began the long process of deleting all my spam messages on Facebook: I was ill by Saturday. Swine flu started with pigs. And, as we all know, spam is made from dead pig. I rest my case. And all this aided and abetted by bad-journalist-pig-farmers troughing out the latest bit of celebrity garbage; slowly turning all newspaper content into yet more spam...

Socrates, long legged, bearded, and reclined at a Symposium coffee break one afternoon, picks up a tabloid newspaper, mid-thought, while considering contemporary society: 'Swine Flu Pandemic', he reads. He might well pause for a smirk.

Egg Box & Landfill Reading

Daniel Kane and Jeff Hilson
Poetry Reading at UEA

The Time: Friday 29th May, 6pm
The Place: Room A3.02 (Arts)

On 29th May, former American Studies lecturer Daniel Kane is fluttering back into the UEA habitat to read from his new collection, the funny, edgy and risk-taking _Ostentation of Peacocks_, published by Norwich-based Egg Box Publishing. Alongside Daniel will be fellow poetic ornithologist, Jeff Hilson, whose acclaimed sequence _Bird bird_ was published this year by Landfill Press. The readings will be introduced by Egg Box editor and publisher Nathan Hamilton, and followed by a discussion with the poets introduced by Telegraph critic and Landfill editor, Jeremy Noel-Tod.

About the poets:

Daniel Kane was born in New York City and grew up in Manila; Mexico City; London; Tenafly, New Jersey; and New York City. He is currently a senior lecturer in American literature at the University of Sussex. His poetry has been widely published, most recently in the London Review of Books.

Jeff Hilson is senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Roehampton University. He runs the Crossing the Line reading series in London, and is the editor of _The Reality Street Book of the Sonnet_, described by Ron Silliman as 'flat out the best book of its kind I have ever seen'.

Here is a sample of _Ostentation of Peacocks_ for you to enjoy. If you can't make it, be sure to buy your copy here. Copies of both publications will be available at the reading, along with a free glass of wine and a sneak preview of Egg Box's next offering: Vahni Capildeo's eagerly-anticipated second collection _Undraining Sea_. We will look forward to seeing you there.

Jeff Hilson's blog.

Please to internet detail on your blog sharing machine? That would be wonderful like the internets.

Too Busy to Blog?

A brief update on a few things. Curiosa has been up to a lot recently. Most of the absence can be accounted for by running Blogging Norfolk: a project that caused me to stop blogging for a period of time while I talked to lots of people all about the benefits of blogging, or arranged workshops teaching people how to blog. It included a few appearances on the radio chatting about blogging, a picture and video interview on the BBC Norfolk website of me looking like an exhausted murderer, talking about blogging, then an entire day of blogging. All the while, not actually blogging. Or, at least, not blogging here. Instead, I was blogging here.

It was all great fun, and thanks to the BBC, Writers’ Centre Norwich, and Arts Council, England, for the opportunity. And thanks to Sam Jordison for all his help, too -- it has hopefully proved a decent test case for exciting future work.

Over this same period a number of other things happened. My brother ended up stranded in Mexico, caught in the middle of the Swine Flu pandemic of hysteria. I had dinner with and bummed a fag off Martin Amis (he still owes me 50p, mind). I attended a lovely wedding, to which I turned up late because of a pregnant lady and a blue hat and at which I injured myself dancing. I did a reading with Kapka Kassabova and Abi Oborne at SoPo -- an excellent new reading series organised by Laura Forman (we were really well looked after, with free booze and the best ever nibbles I have ever nibbled at a poetry event). I also saw some boring Handel; interesting live literature; got my haircut...

All of which I failed to blog or Twitter about adequately or interestingly, due to distraction. This has caused a build-up of what feels like blogger’s guilt. To expunge this, I am going to catch up and post a few things here over the next few days and back-date them (along with new stuff)… just to get us back on track, dear Curiosas…

The Collected Poems of Ian Hamilton

Hmm. Lunchtime, I think...

Today saw the publication of the collected poems of Ian Hamilton, my uncle; an exemplary poet and a significant influence for me, personally as well as artistically. I hope to write more about this and his relevance for younger poets at another juncture. For the time being I’ll give a bit of info about the book and let a few of the poems speak for it.

First of all, this characteristically witty and previously unseen poem, the better of three published recently in the TLS, and one of a number of new ones featured in the book:


Work In Progress

A six foot three American breathologist
Has cornered me for cocktails; 'Suck on these',
He says, and chucks me a slim vol.
Entitled: Big. Two words a line, at most,
Nine lines a page, typography diseased,
It's signed: 'To Ian, in pulse-harmony --
You dig? Love, Irv. November, seventy-three.'
And on the sleeve, a photograph:
Irv felling trees.


And here a few more of my long-standing favourites:


Rose

In the delicately shrouded heart
Of this white rose, a patient eye,
The eye of love,
Knows who I am, and where I've been,
Tonight, and what I wish I'd done.

I have been watching this white rose
For hours, imagining
Each tremour of each petal to be like a breath
That silences and soothes.
'Look at it', I'd say to you
If you were here: 'it is a sign
Of what is brief, and lonely
And in love.'

But you have gone and so I'll call it wise:
A patient breath, an eye, a rose
That opens up too easily, and dies.


Returning

It isn't far. Come with me. There's a path
We used to take. There is a stream,
A thin ripple, really, of white stones
Dislodged from a dilapidated boundary
Between two now-forgotten fields;
There is a tree, a muddily abandoned sprawl
Off-balance -- the one tall thing
You could see from where I walked with her.

What it all looks like now I wouldn't know,
But come with me. It was an early dusk
On that day too, and just as sickeningly cold,
And when I called to her: 'It isn't far',
She said: 'You go.'
Somewhere ahead of us
I thought I could forsee
A silence, a new path,
A clean sweep of solitude, downhill.

Dear friend, I wish you could have seen
This place when it was at its best,
When I was,
But it isn't far. It isn't far. Come with me.


The Forties

'The self that has survived those trashy years',
Its 'austere virtue' magically intact. Well then,
He must have asked himself, is this
The 'this is it'; that encapsulable Life
I never thought to find
And didn't seek: beginning at the middle
So that in the end
The damage is outlived by the repair?

At forty-five
I'm father of the house now and at dusk
You'll see me take my 'evening stroll'
Down to the dozing lily pond:
From our rear deck, one hundred and eleven yards.
And there I'll pause, half-sober, without pain
And seem to listen; but no longer 'listen out'.
And at my back,
Eight windows, a veranda, the neat plot
For your (why not?) 'organic greens',
The trellis that needs fixing, that I'll fix.


As mentioned, the book has a small but interesting selection of new poems and juvenilia, plus some manuscripts displaying Ian's own edits -- along with a moving introduction and further decent scholarly work by Alan Jenkins. It is published by Faber and Faber and will hopefully get the coverage it deserves.

We lost Ian suddenly, too early, in 2001, and I miss the opportunity to ask for his opinion or advice often. I regularly wonder what he would have thought of this or that poet, or myriad other things. Here he is on the poet laureate ten years ago, for example; and here is an extract from Dan Jacobsen’s fine interview with him 6 months (we didn’t know it then) before he died -- along with copious biographical and other notes (scroll down for the interview extract). The interview is available to buy in full here (or is available in large part in LRB back-issues). It is well worth a read. I will blog more about this another time, as this is probably enough for now -- he wouldn’t have liked me to go on (indeed would already have thought this all a little too much…)

All poems (c) The Estate of Ian Hamilton

Ian Hamilton Collected Poems is available now from Faber & Faber.

Celebrity Look-a-likes 4: The More Interesting Story

Fernando Alonso relaxes at a GP Fundraiser

New research into the sinister world of celebrity lookalikes has unearthed *amazing facts* recently. A scientist has proved that Adam Goldberg, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Fernando Alonso are all, in fact, related.

Goldberg and Alonso are brothers, while Baron Cohen is a cousin of both. Prof. Crick, Head Scientist from the Big Insititute of Science, Miami, explains:

"I was first piqued by the possible genealogical links between the three of them at my brother's house while eating pizza on his couch. It was just after watching the Malaysian Grand Prix. A trailer for the DVD release of the Borat movie came on TV and I was due out that evening to see my sister, who'd taken me to watch Saving Private Ryan for my birthday several years previously, which we both enjoyed. Suddenly, it struck me: could these guys all be related?"

Baron Cohen's hilarious new character,
Fredericko -- homosexual Spanish estate agent

After a successful application for a PhD placement at the Big University of Science in 2005, Prof. Crick embarked on a three-year investigation of the possible links between the three well-known celebrities. Unfazed by a mountain of evidence to the contrary, and despite wide-spread criticism and professional condemnation from so-called experts, Crick persevered in his pioneering work.

"The clincher was when I took a swab from Cohen's mankini after trailing his movements for a number of months. I had to wait until the right moment, after the correct amount of exertion by Cohen, before I drugged him and took my sample. I then compared this with Alonso's discarded driving glove and a scraping taken from the nose end of a rolled-up 5 dollar note I'd retrieved from the coffee table at a cafe Goldberg frequented. My studies showed they were similar. Further work proved they were related."

Critics have said that most people 'kind of knew this already' having always thought they looked alike, before the study revealed the obvious at great cost. Other experts have gone further, pointing out a wealth of historical and biographical evidence in contradiction of Crick's findings -- not least that all three were born in different countries of unrelated mothers.

Goldberg relaxes after test driving a Williams

"Such nay-sayers do not concern me", says Crick, "it is quite feasible that Scientologists in science labs are conducting genetic experiments and generating viable offspring to hand on to alien collaborators", says Crick of his controversial findings, "these aliens then abduct the mothers and implant the ready-prepared offspring in the womb when it is at optimal fertility, something which they can tell from their specially advanced science instruments."

While experts might disagree, the media reaction has been very positive in helping get word out about these dangerous practices. Those newspapers and TV stations not distracted with exaggerating and misleading the public over the scale and scientific likelihood of a pandemic of Swine Flu have thankfully been doing their duty by alerting the world's attention to this deeply evil alien conspiracy through apocalyptic, histrionic headlines and inaccurate reporting.

UK Government officials were generally unavailable for comment, despite repeated 'phonecalls, but a spokesperson for the US Department of Homeland Security said, in reference to alien involvement: "this ... is ... appalling ... [I will ensure] never [to let] contact [with] me [happen] again."

Despite uncertainties over his own parentage, further research into whether UK poet and publisher Nathan Hamilton was somehow also involved in these sinister experiments has not proved conclusive. Preliminary studies were abandoned after initial approaches met with a hostile response and a research panel decided he was not famous enough. This reporter remains credulous.

Landfill in the Egg Box

some landfill

And, while I am talking about matters economical (see previous post), I thought I'd mention that I heard, at the IPG Conference 2009, that publishers, and particularly smaller independents, are quite well placed to be recession resilient. (I will blog more about all this at some point over the next week.) I also learned that an economic low point is a good time to buy companies.

Therefore, with this in mind, I can declare here that Egg Box and Landfill will be merging and setting sail on the risky financial high seas of poetry publishing, together henceforth. It is a move that is sure to shake the markets to its fundamentals and bring forth the first green shoots of economic recovery. Actually, I'll admit this is unlikely, given company structure and earnings, but, nevertheless: look out crusty editors, insipid scene-sters, and status quo, for we are coming for you, cutlasses and daggers drawn, our sails powered by a new wind...

By way of announcing our future co-operation, here is some information about an upcoming Landfill event, and some excellent featured writing from those reading: Jeff Hilson, Chris McCabe, and Simon Smith. Hope to see some of you there:

***

Landfill Press is pleased to announce 3 new sequences by

Jeff Hilson, Chris McCabe, and Simon Smith

to be launched with a reading

at 7.30 pm

on Wednesday 18th March

Harold Pinter Drama Studio

Queen Mary, University of London

Arts Building, Mile End Road, E1 4NS

All pamphlets are now available to buy @ £3 each (+ 50p postage)
or 3 for £8 (+ £1 postage)

Paypal to sales@landfillpress.co.uk

Other titles at www.landfillpress.co.uk

***

Jeff Hilson, Bird bird
41 prose poems on the birds of Britain.

Coccothraustes coccothraustes (hawfinch)

That tapping. It’s the rain or the rainiest day that nobody looked at the hawfinch and it’s like a Dixons in the springtime. It’s massive its head in a conifer belt. We have streets and we have a Dixons. We have streams and houses and fields on the borders of woods and we have like a Dixons. That’s where your iPod is. Like there was this shy gardener found with sixty iPods. Much more like that because he so rarely mixed with them. I mean the finches. Got to get to take them from the city for the white phase that they utter in. I mean again the finches. It’s so dark it passes. The lores as they slide over each other. That’s where your mouth is. Finches and iPods interchangeably. And that tapping. It’s so thin it must be a display.

***

Chris McCabe, The Borrowed Notebook
An elegy in 15 sections.

6

The White Album: you said you listened to it before I was born.
A black joke: I said I would be listening to it when you were dead.

Live Forever the shaving soundtrack from the bedroom door --
he’s always singing about needing more time. I said “don’t we all”.

I could have played on full volume, upstairs, an audio CD
of Plath’s poems, while downstairs you turned up your
scratched LP of Ted Hughes’ Crow. Could have.

Montage of where we meet on the staircase
in mortgaged space, fucked over by the rent of time.

***

Simon Smith, Browning Variations
8 found sonnets from the Brownings' love letters.

So shall my flower’s eye be ruined forever
Tennyson was still in Town
He unaffectedly hates London
I will go out and walk where I can be alone

I will look in the direction of London
And send my heart there
The early “day of small things”
Talk and “stare” at the same time

Not one feeling is lost, and the new/
Ones>feelings/are infinite
Take care of this cold wind

She has been in the habit of going to London
“’Pippa Passes’ pretty and odd” she does not
Love me after all, nor guess at my heart

Quantitative Easing and The Myersons

Today is, or will be, quantitative easing day, says this guy here. The experiment begins. Now, I don't know how you feel about it, but I have a deepened sense of 'uh-oh' about the whole thing. Hopefully it'll be a great success, interest rates will climb, the banks will start lending again and my sense of dread will prove misplaced but, at school, when I studied the history of the economic collapses of Germany and the US that occurred in the early 20th century, or when I have read about other economic collapses in the news, one of things I've heard mentioned as a bad thing that appeared ridiculous in hindsight was when they did anything like put more money in circulation, or print more of it.

However I'm not an economist and my understanding of all this is deeply flawed. But I do know that I feel uneasy and I wonder what this move is good for. Is there an element of short-termist impatience to get the whole thing running again and the headlines turning around? Might it be better to just wait for things to level out, while reforming the markets slightly to make sure it doesn't happen again -- isn't that progress? Tinkering and experimentation at a time of fragility, in hope of artificially boosting an early upturn, seems very risky. Has it ever worked? (Do people know?) Or perhaps it would all be a lot worse by now if they hadn't been busy bailing out and tweaking here and there. Perhaps the problem is that the good it does will always be invisible, the bad very visible. In which case, poor old Gordon Brown.

The thing that makes me angry, with my layman's understanding, is that the banks are now receiving our money in two directions, via the government through bailouts, and via our current accounts, savings accounts, mortgages, bonds etc, and *still* they don't do anything in our interests. Even worse, in some cases they are spending even more of our funds fighting against us -- their own shareholders -- as we try to claim back our money from them, which they took unlawfully. They know no shame. I await retribution. I will vote for anyone willing to find and flatten those responsible. I would like to see something like this.

It also strikes me that, if the banks repaid the unlawful bank charges to the thousands-to-millions of customers hit with them (rather than cynically delaying it), that might well stimulate some positive economic activity, as people treated themselves after the windfall. In some cases, people are owed thousands. Refusing to pay out is a third way they are failing us. So, what exactly are they good for? As far as I can see, in recent history: they take our money, pay us lower than the going rate of interest for it, charge us unlawfully, then don't pay us back what they owe, at the same time as screwing up the economy through irresponsibility, and display no signs of guilt. That is almost the definition of a criminal.

And, as it is quantitative easing day, let's have a bit of quantitative easing for the Myersons too, please. My thoughts are with them in all this tawdry and hypocritical crap in the papers at the moment.

I had horrific teenage years myself. I had friends and family who suffered drug addictions, and, at various stages I (for different reasons) and they were unruly and paranoid, exhausting, self-destructive and aggressive. I can spot much of the slight madness, cocky self-justification and exaggeration, breakdown and recovery between the lines of Jake's cynically chased 'quotes'.

But some don't recover, or don't want to. It is an impossible situation to find oneself in, trying to deal or help with another person's addiction and aggressive denial, especially if that someone is a loved one, and I can well imagine throwing someone out of the house being the only solution left. There is little help available for those who are faced with dealing with another's drug problems.

Most came round in the end and rebuilt their relationships. None had to suffer a media spotlight, though, and the thought of the people who must (I assume) be chasing or prodding or exploiting Jake Myerson's wish to be public about it makes me very angry -- it is utterly irresponsible. It is a delicate situation and he needs quiet support and time to recover and gain perspective; to grow up. He does not need this, whatever he thinks, and those who kicked off about it, or arranged the kicking off about it, shouldn't have. I hope he's getting to talk to some good people, too.

And I can't see anything wrong with Julie Myerson having written about it. She tried to keep it private. Yes, it was unlikely it would remain so forever (with hindsight), but she also probably needed to write about it for her own well being -- there is nothing wrong with that. And the thought that it might help others was likely a genuine one. If anything, once Jake's own perspective develops, it'll help when one day he wants to see the other side of it, properly. But it probably won't be until he's a fair bit older or has a child of his own.

Why am I banging on about this? Well, I lost my Mum to alcoholism and related disaster this day a few years ago, so I am thinking about such family things -- how things turn out, how bloody difficult it all is -- and so wanted to say I hope they all come through it OK. And that it has lowered my already rock-bottom opinion of contemporary journalism, if that were possible.

PS quantitative easing sounds like a fat banker relieving himself after a particularly heavy meal.

The Manhattan Review: Invited to the Party

Curiosa in party mood.

It is always nice to be invited to the party. Therefore Curiosa is in a party mood (and provides photographic proof). Todd Swift has again revealed himself as a man of good tastes by including me in a selection of 'Seventeen Young British Poets' in the Fall/Winter edition of the New York based bi-annual antholog-zine, The Manhattan Review. It will be launched on Thursday night this week (5th March) at Oxfam Books and Music shop, 91 Marylebone High Street, London, W1. Here are the details. Hope to see some Curiosas there.

The list was co-selected by the Manhattan Review's editor, Philip Fried, and is intended to feature seventeen poets who would likely feature "on a list of the thirty most impressive, or original, new younger writers to start publishing in the 21st century". And, while I generally dislike listings of the elect, my scorn is naturally lessened by actually being included on this one, thanks very much.

The others On The List include the following surprises or usual suspects: Emily Berry, Zoe Brigley, James Byrne, Melanie Challenger, Isobel Dixon, Joe Dunthorne, Nathan Hamilton (oops... typing out the list without due care and attention...), Luke Kennard, Chris McCabe, Alex McRae, Helen Mort, Daljit Nagra, Jacob Polley, Sally Read, Kathryn Simmonds, Jack Underwood, and Ben Wilkinson.

It does not intend to be exhaustive; there are others, some noted in Swift's introduction, who should or could be among them -- and naturally I second that.

Swift himself highlights and queries the curious wish or need for a sense of 'the next big thing', or anointing over-determined 'new generations' in the British poetry scene. It's my gut feeling that, if this is curiously British, it might have something to do with being a monarchy for so long. Honest. It has degenerated our sense, or capacity for dealing in, ideas of fluidity and flux, I fear. Of polyphony without taxonomy. But I'm not sure. It is also to do with the all-infecting marketing-think that pervades our age.

In the 1990s, the "New Generation" and "Next Generation" campaigns did as much damage as good, to my mind, and, no doubt, similar schemes will continue it soon -- the way Faber&Faber's new Arts Council pamphlet series is turning out seems set to do so. And the Eric Gregory Award, while admirable, often over-anoints poets as interesting before they are interesting. People defend its track record, but then people look to it for this track record -- and what if you are not aware of it early enough? And then the extended culture of various prizes and awards...

All so much kneeling at courts for dubbing and arising, it seems, sometimes. Although many countries do it, so it is perhaps rather more human nature generally. And can I really be saying 'do away with all awards'? That seems an extreme and potentially silly position to have argued myself into. But I, generally, don't enter any. No doubt my opinion would be different should I enter and win one.

Laudably, Swift is careful not to over-egg his selection and declares it a provisional report on an unfolding present (as should they all). But he does assert that there is more than just merely media buzz at the moment -- there is a different sense of things, new possibilities. Indeed there is -- and I've felt so too for some time.

Elsewhere, in his perceptive introduction, Swift also draws a familiar line of distinction between two main, often rival -- esp. among the older editors I think -- approaches in British poetry.

One side might be termed the "British empirical tradition" which "expects, requires, its poets to work within either the neo-classical, or Romantic, mode. Poetry that is praised for its craftsmanship, sense of restraint and truth to lived (but not hyper-emotive) experience; nuance and understatement. Nature (or "eco") poetry is de rigeur. Irony is welcome, but not too much "Postmodern" shifting of tones ... Those concerned with the subtle, formally masterful British lyric would include Sean O'Brien, Don Paterson, Roddy Lumsden, George Szirtes, and Hugo Williams."

The alternative tradition are the "more avant-garde, sometimes known as neo-modernists", with Denise Riley and J.H. Prynne named as pre-eminent exponents. These are defined as those who "tend to disrupt or reconsider the lyric stance, and investigate language from a philosophical position". They are often influenced by Veronica Forrest-Thompson, W.S.Graham, Lynette Roberts and American figures such as Olson and Dorn.

Younger voices now, as highlighted also by Swift, and I agree with him, are playing faster and looser between these two traditions. And that is an exciting thing. But there is room to infer an accelerating irrelevance for older editors involved in presiding over the anointment or publication of younger poets. Indeed, a wise poet, critic and editor with whom I share some DNA once said to me that, beyond a certain age, he avoided reviewing younger poets for just this reason...

And so where would I place myself? Well, I'd say I generally enjoy and am intrigued by the latter hymn sheet while often apparently being misread -- particularly by younger poets -- as more concerned with the former. Which, I suppose, is a strange kind of compliment. Or it could just mean I don't use enough 'quotation marks' -- or even just write badly.

The Manhattan Review antholog-zine can be purchased difficultly here and is well worth a read. Elsewhere in the issue are poetry and criticism from Toon Tellegen, Penelope Shuttle, Julia Hartwig, George Szirtes, Ruth Fainlight, Tim Liardet, Benjamin Fondane, John Kinsella, D. Nurkse, Hal Sirowitz, Christopher Bursk, Seth Abramson, Jeanne Marie Beaumont, Bob Wormser, Marc Kaminsky, Mark Sullivan, and Ian Brand.

To add further to my party mood, I also have a poem in the March 7th issue of The Spectator. Please spread the word and buy (perhaps multiple copies of) this one, too, so that both publications might notice a brief peak in sales when publishing my work. This might then later be described as 'The Hamilton Effect' and will encourage other magazines to follow suit -- should I ever buy a printer and begin to assault them through the post.

Exit to music ...

A Brief Note

This is a brief note to let you know that I've now posted the last of the write-ups for TOC2009 below. They are Narrative is Changing, Youth and Creativity and Reasons to be Cheerful. I've also tweaked a few with addenda or a couple of extra links. And rather than write up Sarah Lloyd's presentation on Tues 10th, I thought I'd just give you a link to the article it was based on here and below. And here is the full text of a speech delivered by Jason Epstein on Technology and Human Nature, Tues 10th Feb, 2009, 5.30--6.00pm. It is an interesting counterpoint to much of what I've summarised. Enjoy.

TOC2009: Goodbye New York

Curiosa atop the Empire State, 2008

Well, the Tools of Change for Publishing Conference is now over. 'Already?!' I keep thinking. But also not soon enough -- I am pretty knackered.

Not so long ago it was Sunday, I was settling in to an armchair on the 38th floor, watching the busy circuit glow of the avenues of Manhattan, the dark Hudson, New Jersey flickering beyond, looking ahead to a busy few days. There's a lot to say about the conference generally; it could do with a full write up somewhere, as there were some interesting main threads to it all.

It seems too soon to be leaving NY again. I love this place. Watching the sun rise over New Jersey on Monday morning, The Hudson revealed in peach, a full first day ahead, felt easy; homely even -- perhaps it is to do with the fame of the place; the familiarity. It has been hectic -- 14-hour days of learning, thinking, writing, rethinking, tweeting -- but very relaxed, too; oddly peaceful in the middle of such a busy place in a busy city at the centre of many busy worlds.

Again, I've learned a lot, and thought a lot, at this conference. There are a few more interesting sessions and ideas to write up (those that don't re-iterate what I've already posted, that is) and I'll drop them in to the blog tomorrow, or soon after [now done - CH]. In the meantime, OReilly are posting many of the presentations here. Also, rather than write up Sarah Lloyd's presentation on Tues 10th, I thought I'd just give you a link to the article it was based on here.

But just one more thing, ma'am, before I go. A number of thoughts have been asserted, sometimes glibly, about human beings and communication at this conference. And about the 'global community.' I have had to try to hold my tweeting tongue on occasion, as it may surprise you to learn that I have been wanting to make a wry observation. I overheard this conversation:


Person One: are you Australian?

Person Two [Chinese features]: Canadian.

Person One: Oh, I don't speak Canadian.

[pause]

Person One: Ni hao

Person Two: [looks puzzled]

Person One: I'm speaking Chinese.

Person Two [confused, but friendly]: Oh, you speak Chinese?

Person One: No.

Person Two [confused, annoyed] walks away.


Perhaps this speaks for itself. Now, to bed. But, before that, I think I'll watch this again. It is a demonstration of how Jason Epstein's Espresso Book Machine V 2.0 prints a single book. There has been one working here in the exhibitors' lobby. It is curious. I like watching this for some reason. The tidy process of it: boringly tender. It should help me get to sleep. To sleep, perchance to defrag.