Nobody likes a killjoy. So if you're a big fan of guys like Criss Angel the Mindfreak, bail out now before your bubble gets burst.
I watched a show "about" him last night--an expertly orchestrated sham-fest that managed to trick the very gullible into thinking he knew how to dematerialize and rematerialize; and that this was a physically demanding process.
Once you know how magicians operate, it becomes entirely obvious and even kind of funny to see audiences so surprised at what transpires.
Have they never heard of the term "body double"? Clearly this is a big part of his act. He and his troupe of born liars (all seemingly right off the set of "Jersey Shore") make obvious statements about how "Chriss knows he could die if he falls from that height"; and pose silly possible explanations while of course never saying: "or, he could have a body double".
This is fairly standard stuff. That, plus massive amounts of preparation, audience plants, mirrors, trap doors and well-known mechanical ruses, accomplish all of his admittedly imaginative stunts.
What I find disturbing about him is that he seems to revel in lying--his eyes are the shiny orbs of a cynic. At least he is not doing anyone harm; and folks sure seem to love his act.
He is very good with cards of course; and some of his small-bore trickery is quite fascinating in its ingenuity.
One supposes there are plenty of folks who really have no clue how magicians operate, and these comprise his acolytes. In the end, it is they who are annoying for their obstinate gullibility.
Note to Chriss Angel fans: of course he cannot rematerialize; or make elephants move away from their posts in a flash. Why do you suppose he is always using a curtain? and why is he always standing on a platform? Heavens to Betsy.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Do You Have Anything to Share?
In a word, "no".
At least that is what I think to myself when I log into Yahoo and the first thing they want to know from me is if I have anything to share.
Why would I necessarily have something to share with who knows whom? One supposes one should occasionally cooperate with their transparent attempts to collect data on oneself, since they do provide a free email service that one uses much.
But I just can't bring myself to do it.
Claims that social media will not only increase exponentially in popularity, but will "take over the internet" and become "the marketing venue of choice for everyone" are, in my opinion, vastly overstated. I think social media is a fad. A big one, but a fad nonetheless. I predict that in five years people will be wondering what all the fuss was about, and will be using an enhanced web to do everything they want, but without all the needless information sharing. Facebook will be considered lame. Sharing inanities with nonentities will be considered lame. Only the lame will be using social media. There will be no new paradigm. People will want to keep their information to themselves. Yes, even young folks. Note: my kids are already tired of Facebook (hint: SELL!!).
This blog obviously is a form of sharing. But the blogging paradigm has much more long-term potential than Facebook. This is because blogging, while a form of self-publishing (and a kissing-cousin with the rest of social media), offers an attraction found neither at Facebook nor Twitter: in a blog, you can actually complete a thought. Inanity is in general not viewed favorably in a blog. The potential for interesting content (and the fact it is not--present company excepted--controlled by one company) is what gives the blogging paradigm a chance at longevity.
Did you say "Twitter"? Ask not--the bell tolls for it. Twitter (and anything Twitter-like) is going to be about as popular in five years as leg warmers are now. There will be no re-tweet of Twitter, only a long day's journey into night.
Marketers of course will claim to lament this. I believe they will be secretly very glad to see social media diminished, as I predict they will soon come to see they cannot utilize it for long-term effective marketing anyway.
The main reason for this is: as soon as people get the sense that a marketer is "watching", they run screaming in the other direction (unless they have given specific permission to hear from that marketer).
I do believe marketers have the right to try and reach their customers any way they can. I do not believe they will ultimately succeed in doing so via Twitter and Facebook. Ultimately, marketing in the social media world will have a creep-out factor that will outweigh the potential for reach.
Finally, email marketing will remain. Many who now use social media will let their social media involvement lapse but retain their email addresses. This is because email is the most useful boon to humankind since humans discovered they could get in out of the rain. Folks will not be able to survive without it.
Now, if I have managed to share enough. . .good evening.
At least that is what I think to myself when I log into Yahoo and the first thing they want to know from me is if I have anything to share.
Why would I necessarily have something to share with who knows whom? One supposes one should occasionally cooperate with their transparent attempts to collect data on oneself, since they do provide a free email service that one uses much.
But I just can't bring myself to do it.
Claims that social media will not only increase exponentially in popularity, but will "take over the internet" and become "the marketing venue of choice for everyone" are, in my opinion, vastly overstated. I think social media is a fad. A big one, but a fad nonetheless. I predict that in five years people will be wondering what all the fuss was about, and will be using an enhanced web to do everything they want, but without all the needless information sharing. Facebook will be considered lame. Sharing inanities with nonentities will be considered lame. Only the lame will be using social media. There will be no new paradigm. People will want to keep their information to themselves. Yes, even young folks. Note: my kids are already tired of Facebook (hint: SELL!!).
This blog obviously is a form of sharing. But the blogging paradigm has much more long-term potential than Facebook. This is because blogging, while a form of self-publishing (and a kissing-cousin with the rest of social media), offers an attraction found neither at Facebook nor Twitter: in a blog, you can actually complete a thought. Inanity is in general not viewed favorably in a blog. The potential for interesting content (and the fact it is not--present company excepted--controlled by one company) is what gives the blogging paradigm a chance at longevity.
Did you say "Twitter"? Ask not--the bell tolls for it. Twitter (and anything Twitter-like) is going to be about as popular in five years as leg warmers are now. There will be no re-tweet of Twitter, only a long day's journey into night.
Marketers of course will claim to lament this. I believe they will be secretly very glad to see social media diminished, as I predict they will soon come to see they cannot utilize it for long-term effective marketing anyway.
The main reason for this is: as soon as people get the sense that a marketer is "watching", they run screaming in the other direction (unless they have given specific permission to hear from that marketer).
I do believe marketers have the right to try and reach their customers any way they can. I do not believe they will ultimately succeed in doing so via Twitter and Facebook. Ultimately, marketing in the social media world will have a creep-out factor that will outweigh the potential for reach.
Finally, email marketing will remain. Many who now use social media will let their social media involvement lapse but retain their email addresses. This is because email is the most useful boon to humankind since humans discovered they could get in out of the rain. Folks will not be able to survive without it.
Now, if I have managed to share enough. . .good evening.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Too Many Books
A few days ago I commented there was too much media in the world to begin with.
Though one could argue there are NEVER too many books, I have to state my belief: there have long been far too many new books coming out (none of mine, however). Most bookstores, even the independents, are crammed with titles no one is ever going to buy. I believe most of it is shelf-dressing, and a peek at the publishing trades will likely confirm this suspicion.
Is that bad?
Not unless you're a tree, I guess, or an aesthete of economic purity.
This is where two completely different entrants in the book retailing game come in from opposite sides of the stage: e-books and used book stores.
For my taste, there is little reason for a new bookstore to earn my visit except to peruse the bargain bin. Very occasionally a new book seems a must-have, but almost never unless steeply discounted. I own a lot of books, so I know whereof I speak.
For nearly all of my reading pleasure, I supply myself from the stunningly various arrays of wonderful volumes available at low cost from used books stores and charities. Can there be any doubt the world has so many wonderful used books that, were a moratorium on publishing be declared for ten years, the reader's market would not remain well-supplied? I think it would.
Sometimes I buy a "first edition"--for real money. This is because the book, and especially its dust-cover, have intrinsic value. Again, these books are nearly always "used", though they are in nearly every case quite a bit more expensive than a typical brand new book. There is a reason for this--they're collector's items.
With the advent of e-books, there is little reason for me to ever buy an actual new book at anything like list price. About a trillion (it seems) great books are available either for free or low cost as e-books. All of the classics are available as e-books and I have found them quite enjoyable to read in their new electronic get-up. Unless you're literally collecting the volume for posterity (sometimes I do), and if you believe the content is what you are after and not the paper and cardboard of a volume, e-books can provide the reader with about ninety-five percent of his or her reading pleasure.
So I think publishing (and more specifically the "new book" store), like the music industry, is headed for a fall. The fact is, we really don't need that many new books. And those we need, we can--again, except for special editions or signed first editions--purchase as e-books and enjoy quite utterly as such. For the rest, I think we shall see a rise in the status of the used book store for those who want "books". The volumes are as richly varied and as relevant as ninety percent of new books in print, and radically cheaper; and of course have all of the best qualities of print as well (look, feel, smell, weight, cover art). Moreover, you can buy these on-line as easily as you can buy e-books or new books at Amazon.
One model that may prove to work is that exemplified by that exemplar of great book stores, the Powell's mini-chain out of Portland, Oregon. Perhaps the world's best bookstore, Powell's hardly distinguishes between new books, old books, and rare books. They are all on the shelves together. And if you want a really rare book, they have those in a glass case. There is something quite wonderful about finding several editions of certain books, from a much-read paperback to a new hardcover edition, all on the shelf together like dissimilar siblings at a family gathering. Hats off to the Powell's model, may it long endure.
The new world of books will probably be crowded with small, specialty book stores and less so with megastores per se. The B&N model is already morphing into less a bookstore than a brick and mortar entertainment store--and good luck to them with that (and their cappuccino stands). A heavy percentage of buying will be weighted towards either cheap e-books (hooray for the iPad) and used books.
There will always be new books at book stores. But not nearly as many. And not nearly as big a market for new books in general, as it becomes obvious that, no longer needed quite literally as window dressing, most in-print book projects become totally irrelevant.
Next up is electronic self-publishing (see: blogging), which will end up putting further dents in the mighty ships of traditional publishing. We shall see much junk published this way. But we see much junk published "traditionally". I fail to see the problem, except that underpaid editors and entirely unpaid and unqualified interns ("readers") will no longer hold arbitrary sway over the fate of any particular author's chance at publication of a manuscript. Bye-bye!
As a final note, let me say that I have read Moby Dick on a tiny screen and found it quite as absorbing as holding that enormous tome in my hand and maybe more so. In the book world, content perhaps at last will in fact be king.
Though one could argue there are NEVER too many books, I have to state my belief: there have long been far too many new books coming out (none of mine, however). Most bookstores, even the independents, are crammed with titles no one is ever going to buy. I believe most of it is shelf-dressing, and a peek at the publishing trades will likely confirm this suspicion.
Is that bad?
Not unless you're a tree, I guess, or an aesthete of economic purity.
This is where two completely different entrants in the book retailing game come in from opposite sides of the stage: e-books and used book stores.
For my taste, there is little reason for a new bookstore to earn my visit except to peruse the bargain bin. Very occasionally a new book seems a must-have, but almost never unless steeply discounted. I own a lot of books, so I know whereof I speak.
For nearly all of my reading pleasure, I supply myself from the stunningly various arrays of wonderful volumes available at low cost from used books stores and charities. Can there be any doubt the world has so many wonderful used books that, were a moratorium on publishing be declared for ten years, the reader's market would not remain well-supplied? I think it would.
Sometimes I buy a "first edition"--for real money. This is because the book, and especially its dust-cover, have intrinsic value. Again, these books are nearly always "used", though they are in nearly every case quite a bit more expensive than a typical brand new book. There is a reason for this--they're collector's items.
With the advent of e-books, there is little reason for me to ever buy an actual new book at anything like list price. About a trillion (it seems) great books are available either for free or low cost as e-books. All of the classics are available as e-books and I have found them quite enjoyable to read in their new electronic get-up. Unless you're literally collecting the volume for posterity (sometimes I do), and if you believe the content is what you are after and not the paper and cardboard of a volume, e-books can provide the reader with about ninety-five percent of his or her reading pleasure.
So I think publishing (and more specifically the "new book" store), like the music industry, is headed for a fall. The fact is, we really don't need that many new books. And those we need, we can--again, except for special editions or signed first editions--purchase as e-books and enjoy quite utterly as such. For the rest, I think we shall see a rise in the status of the used book store for those who want "books". The volumes are as richly varied and as relevant as ninety percent of new books in print, and radically cheaper; and of course have all of the best qualities of print as well (look, feel, smell, weight, cover art). Moreover, you can buy these on-line as easily as you can buy e-books or new books at Amazon.
One model that may prove to work is that exemplified by that exemplar of great book stores, the Powell's mini-chain out of Portland, Oregon. Perhaps the world's best bookstore, Powell's hardly distinguishes between new books, old books, and rare books. They are all on the shelves together. And if you want a really rare book, they have those in a glass case. There is something quite wonderful about finding several editions of certain books, from a much-read paperback to a new hardcover edition, all on the shelf together like dissimilar siblings at a family gathering. Hats off to the Powell's model, may it long endure.
The new world of books will probably be crowded with small, specialty book stores and less so with megastores per se. The B&N model is already morphing into less a bookstore than a brick and mortar entertainment store--and good luck to them with that (and their cappuccino stands). A heavy percentage of buying will be weighted towards either cheap e-books (hooray for the iPad) and used books.
There will always be new books at book stores. But not nearly as many. And not nearly as big a market for new books in general, as it becomes obvious that, no longer needed quite literally as window dressing, most in-print book projects become totally irrelevant.
Next up is electronic self-publishing (see: blogging), which will end up putting further dents in the mighty ships of traditional publishing. We shall see much junk published this way. But we see much junk published "traditionally". I fail to see the problem, except that underpaid editors and entirely unpaid and unqualified interns ("readers") will no longer hold arbitrary sway over the fate of any particular author's chance at publication of a manuscript. Bye-bye!
As a final note, let me say that I have read Moby Dick on a tiny screen and found it quite as absorbing as holding that enormous tome in my hand and maybe more so. In the book world, content perhaps at last will in fact be king.
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