I'm dithering a bit, pondering all the this-and-thats, and

all the hems-and-haws and shill-I-shall-I, that (for me at least) are conspiring to keep me hesitating to pull the trigger on an e-publication. Having said that, I don't know what-all is really holding me back. I have a wee collection of stories, more or less concocted precisely for the purpose of putting out as a "loss leader" - something to put on the shelf, more as a means of having a "real" tangibility to deal with in the toe-dipping trial phase of looking up the details of a new venture.

The whole notion of e-publication is exciting: I really want to participate in the "democratization" of publishing. I really would like to get my writing out for a taste of what the greater public's response (or not, which will be telling too) will be. And I've also pretty much convinced myself that at this stage of my life I don't have what it takes to pursue the "conventional" avenues of sending query letters to agents, or magazines (in the case of short stories) of any of that bullshit. If I'm going to do that, then I'm right back in the mode of "doing stuff I don't want to do for some purpose other than the joy of the actual work at hand." My "work at hand" needs to be writing, for the next (last) five, ten, fifteen, twenty or however many more lucid years I'm blessed with. All that other crap is diversionary bullshit - I'm not contemplating a joyful entry into the book publishing business. I don't need to make a living at writing, but it would be very nice to generate some attention, some buzz, and a few bucks here and there are a means of keeping score, I guess.

It appears to me that between them, B&N and Amazon are doing their damnedest to make it irresistible for an independent, unknown writer to publish his or her own works, and widely, and at no real risk or expense. I'm trying very hard to find a downside, and if I don't come up with one soon, I'm a goner, and will be a published ("e-published" I guess, I'm still antsy about "self-published") author.

"Somebody stop me!"

A propos of nothing in particular

In 1960 or ’61, I was in the eighth grade, stuck out in a little whitebread suburb of Boston, perfectly happy & content listening to Elvis and The Kingston Trio. Then Charley moved to town. Charley was from East Boston, but unlike most all of the other people from East Boston (or “East-a Bost”) who moved into town, he was not of Italian origin, but Greek though Charley had a bit of the wise guy (and “Wiseguy”) about him, and hadn’t shed his big city attitude. But he had a good sense of humor, and a pretty good heart, so he found his way into our small town junior high circle fairly painlessly. He brought some interesting expressions, and mannerisms, and a few dirty pictures that he’d copped from somewhere in his childhood and managed to secrete from his parents, but more importantly, he brought Ray Charles to us. It was the beginning of Ray Charles’s career, and he was news to us entirely, and “What’d I Say” was electrifying in the same way that “Tutti Frutti” and “Great Balls of Fire” had been a couple of years earlier. You sit up and say “What’s THIS then?” when you hear one of these guys for the first time – whether the Killer or Janis Joplin or Dylan – there’s usually a shudder of unrecognition when someone outside the box comes along. Charley had a party, early in the 8^th grade term, to sort of introduce himself around etc. At that party we heard Ray Charles, and a few of us WASPy types were puzzled and a few were too good to be bothered with it, but most of us ate it up.

A couple of years later (late ninth grade), I fell, for the first time, arse-over-teakettle in lust with an adorable little blonde named Susie (Susie M. if you must know more details). It was at a dance of some kind, in the parish hall of the Congo church. Susie and I danced a few times together, mostly slow tunes of course, not because I couldn’t dance fast but because for me the point of dancing was body contact with one’s partner. Then on came a brand new release – “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” Ray Charles first significant departure from the R&B/Soul stuff he’d mastered then reinvented. And now here he was reinventing Country, taking this old Don Gibson chestnut and breathing something into it that no country singer could. And Susie and I danced to that record, and when it was over we held onto each other for dear life, and we were in love, and ICSLY was our song, and it’s our song to this day, though I’ve no idea in the world where she might be or what she might be doing, but she’s forever in my arms, thirteen years old, smelling like a garden in paradise, and Ray Charles is singing … “I’ve made up my mind….”

The world turns in odd & interesting ways sometimes

So within a few days of each other, Roger Ebert and Maggie Thatcher clock out. I don't propose to put them on any kind of equal footing; I don't think they're at all comparable, it would be like comparing Dr. Johnson with Pitt (either one). I don't have a whole lot of thought or feeling one way or the other about The Baroness, I suspect one would really have to be a subject of HM Betty (or perhaps a citizen of one of the myriad erstwhile colonies other than our own) for Maggie to have impacted your life a whole lot, at least directly. I don't think I was paying a great deal of attention to UK politics twenty-odd years ago. I knew she was great pals with Ronnie Reagan, which all by itself erodes her esteem in my book, practically down to a nub.

Roger Ebert, on the other hand, I've admired for many years, since the Siskel & Ebert days of "Sneak Previews" and in more recent years for his continued writings about film, and his more general writings about life and culture. In the last few years I've come to think a great deal of his intellect (not to mention his verbal acuity) and his great taste (and luck) in women. I will miss Ebert's ongoing contribution to our times; Maggie, enh, not so much.