Category: Arts & Entertainment

By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Ethics: General, Publishing

Both as someone who loves a good yarn and someone who writes regularly about ethics both in my blog and in my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, I want to talk for a minute about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

There’s so much I could say about this latest (and final) Harry Potter book–but it’s a challenge to find things to say that won’t mess it up for those who haven’t read it yet. I think I’ve succeeded.

Let me put my bias on the table first: I enjoy the HP books so much that we’ve given copies of Book #1 to several of our childless friends. I believe all of them have gone on to read the others, in order (and for these books, in chronological order is the only sensible way to read them). Also, I’m extremely grateful to J.K. Rowling for creating an entire generation of book readers in an era where that didn’t seem at all likely. Yet, there are places in some of the other books where I felt 50 or 100 pages could have easily been cut.

In spite of its length, I don’t feel that way about #7. In fact, the drama is so intense, so early, and continues with so little down time that I almost wish for a bit more filler. It’s a very fast read.

As a writer about ethics, I’ve long been fascinated with Rowling’s take on the nature of good and evil (and that of other writers in the genre, particularly Phillip Pullman, whose His Dark Materials series is every bit as masterful). In this book, she goes much, much deeper on that front, with lots of surprises. Several characters turn out to have a lot more depth than we thought, and Harry himself has to make a choice unlike any he has faced before. And the events following that choice just feel so right!

One flaw, though, is the number of gratuitous characters she’s introducing. It’s a lot to keep track of, and several have only cameo roles. Another flaw is that the trail of corpses leaves some of the deaths without justification or even description, and no time to grieve and remember them before plunging into the next round.

Still, these are minor. Rowling, not only a master storyteller but incredibly well-informed about mythology from many cultures, has long ago earned a special place in literature, and this book proves her mastery. She deserves every good thing that has happened in her life.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Arts & Entertainment, People Helping People, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice

We have close friends who moved last year from California to New Zealand, because they were concerned about the growing rightward drift in the US–even though they lived in one of the most liberal cities in the whole country.

Well, my wife and I saw “Sicko,” the other night: Michael Moore’s movie about the healthcare crisis in the US–and indepedently, both of us thought, ‘hmmm, New Zealand doesn’t seem so outrageous right now.’

Moore exposes the human cost of the USA’s failed healthcare system: doctors who are paid to deny necessary procedures, 9/11 volunteers who fell between the very large cracks, a cancer patient who had to sell her home and move into a spare room in her daughter’s house, thousands of miles away…and in true Moore fashion he bundles a few of these folks off on small boats to Guantanamo Bay–to demand the same free, state-of-the-art healthcare that the Bush-Cheney government repeatedly brags is offered to the prisoners there.

Of course, he’s turned away there–but finds a very receptive audience within the Cuban medical system, which treats the 9/11 volunteers as true heroes. In a very moving moment, a doctor in Cuba tells Moore that Cuba is a very poor country with few resources, but it has made healthcare a priority for all its citizens–and she pretty much tells him, if we can do it, you can too.

Cuba is not the only place that has made healthcare a priority–just about every First World country except the US offers high-quality free or minimal-cost universal healthcare, and Moore documents this with interviews in Canada, France, and England.

Less strident and more poignant than in some of his earlier films, Moore has made a film that I think could reach mainstream American audiences and show them it doesn’t have to be that way. And why, Moore asks, is “socialized medicine” such a demonized concept in the US? After all, we have socialized police and fire protection, public education, and plenty more. Why isn’t healthcare likewise considered a basic service?

In 1979 and 1980, I worked as a paid organizer for the Gray Panthers. Their biggest platform was the need for single-payer healthcare. Back then, we used to say that the United States and South Africa were the only two industrialized countries to lack this basic right–and South Africa, of course, embraced universal healthcare when it voted out the old apartheid government. So the US is all alone in its insistence that healthcare should be for profit, and not for health. Almost 30 years later, the Gray Panthers’ call is more important than ever.

And will I leave the country just to get affordable healthcare? At the moment, no. Our parents are here, our children are here, we live in Paradise in our antique farmhouse next to the mountain…and at the resent, we’re both in fine health. But certainly, this movie made us consider the option.

The website for the movie is https://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/

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By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Marketing Trends/News, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

This is the first viral video I’m linking from in a year and a half dong this blog.

A film that morphs the faces of women from great paintings throughout history.

Of course, the marketing implications of viral travel of humor or inspiration over the Net have been known for a while–but this one made me think about art in an entirely new way. The paintings really seem to be alive.

As a marketer, I want to know why this had such a profound impact on me that I was instantly moved to share it not only with my humor email list, but for the first time, with my blog.

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By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Energy & Sustainability, Frugality/Frugal Fun, Marketing Trends/News, Other, Publishing, Uncategorized

…And they should be trying to invest in this.

In three days at Book Expo America, I saw one technology that could really alter the world.

Because FedEx’s whole model is based on the need to transport paper around the world quickly–in situations where fax or e-mail isn’t practical for one reason or another. Situations that require a physical signature on an original document. FedEx, DHL, UPS, USPS, and all the other courier services need to know that the real business they are in at least as much about transporting signatures as in transporting large documents that would be unwieldy via electronic technologies.

Frustrated by the demands of wearying multicity author tours, acclaimed novelist Margaret Atwood was signing for a package on an electronic tablet. I’m sure you’ve done it. Mistakenly, she believed that she was actually creating a physical signature on a piece of paper, remotely–so, she thought, why can’t I sign a book in my house? After all, it’s been possible for years to do author events by video or audio, remotely. Why not a long-distance book signing?

And now she can. Using two-way videoconferencing, she can interact with a fan or group of fans anywhere in the world, and when a bookstore staffer puts a book under the pen at the other end, she can inscribe and personalize the book.

Interestingly enough, a lot of the company’s promotional material focuses on the “Green” feature: the amount of carbon saved in not flying. Of course, the author who doesn’t have to slog through international border crossings, airports, hotel rooms, and the rest of the grind may or may not be thinking about carbon offsets. And, of course, it’s going to be waaaay cheaper than a year’s worth of book tours–though once the novelty wears off, readers/fans may not find it as satisfying as a real in-person appearance.

Atwood’s company is called Unotchit and the product is Long Pen (TM). I couldn’t find any pricing information on the site but I’m sure that in most cases, a bookstore or other venue will install the device and then loan out the writing tablet (and, if necessary, the video cam) to the author, so the equipment cost will be relatively manageable. And I’m guessing, ironically enough, that a lot of those tablets and cams will be shipped by FedEx

This has huge implications–not only in publishing but in sports, finance, real estate (think about closings with absentee owners), music, international business, and probably dozens of other industries.

You heard it here first.

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By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Publishing, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

Ever been to a rock concert where the merchandise sales tables has more books than CDs? I went to one Friday night in New York: the literary all-star band called the Rock-Bottom Remainders (a remainder, in the publishing world, is a book that the publisher gives up on and sells at a deep discount–these are the fancy $30 art books you see marked down to $8, for instance).

This band consists of people known for their books–Stephen King, Amy Tan, Dave Barry, among others. they did have Roger McGuin of the Byrds sit in for a few songs (and he sounded great!). Missing the introductions while waiting to get in on that looooong line, I couldn’t figure out who the female singer with the black hair was who could actually sing. (I did figure out that it wasn’t Amy Tan, who has brown hair.) Later, my distributor, who came with me to the concert, told me it was Mitch Albm’s wife. But for the rest of them, it’s good clean fun, and the idea isn’t so much to sound terrific as to throw a great party.

And they did, singing mostly songs of the 1960s and early 70s–everything from “My Boyfriend’s Back” to “Don’t Fear the Reaper.”

It’s been a decade or two since I’ve been to a packed New York nightclub–in this case Webster Hall, a fabulous old theater on East 11–and I’d forgotten that in New York, they multiply the legal capacity by several times when they determine the number of tickets to sell. The place was so crowded I literally couldn’t take off my backpack (filled with books and a laptop and probably weighing around 10 pounds). Ever try dancing like that? I could only stay an hour before my feet, worn down by eight hours of walking the BEA show floor, told me I had to stop.

But unlike the typical NYC crowd, nobody was rowdy on that long line to get in. All the booksellers and publishers sedately stood and waited our turn (in our case about 20 or 30 minutes).

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By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Publishing, Uncategorized

This blog may be pretty quiet for the next several days, unless I get a chance to post from the show–but with all the appointments I have, I doubt I’ll have time.

One of the interviews I’ve got scheduled is with the founding president of Viacom. He’s pitching his new book, of course, but I intend to ask some hard questions about media consolidation and the death of the mid-list book at large publishing companies (Viacom owns Simon & Schuster, which published one book of mine and one of my wife’s, and numerous other imprints).

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By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Frugality/Frugal Fun, General Commentary, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

OK, so in December, I turned 50–and since I love discounts, of course I sent in my $7.50 to join the AARP (used to stand for American Association of Retired persons, I believe).

Well, I was looking at the organization’s magazine today and I was astonished by the lineup for the fall conference in Boston, just two hours drive from me: Headlined by Rod Stewart in concert, and featuring such Boomer luminaries as Whoopi Goldberg, Lily Tomlin, Maya Angelou, and Bill Russell.

I’ve got a wedding in Maryland that weekend, but I just might drive in for Friday’s program. Cheap, too–member price is $15 for the speakers and $25 extra for each concert.

Wow! Not at all what I expected, with my memories of AARP (from my days as an organizer with the Gray Panthers, back in 1979-80) as a very stodgy organization.

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By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Marketing Trends/News, Publishing, Uncategorized

Guy Kawasaki reviews Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days–and quotes some wonderful anecdotes from some of the biiig tech startups (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.)

What a hoot–even if he can’t spell “chutzpah” (he thinks it’s “hootspah”)

As an early Mac adopter, I’ve been following Kawasaki since 1984, and enjoyed “The Macintosh Way” back in those ancient days. I also love that Apple gave him the title of evangelist. In fact, that book–and that attitude–were among the influences that eventually led me to write my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, decades later.

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By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, General Commentary, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

As it happens, tonight is the final run of a play that I’m in, about the courage of one Christian scholar, Johannes Reuchlin, who defends Jewish holy books from the German Catholic church’s attempt–with the aid of a converted former Jew, Johannes Pfefferkorn–to confiscate and destroy them.

The play is called “Burning Words,” by Peter Wortsman. It’s based on real events, and the main characters show up in a Google search.

The author has been present for the entire three-show run, doing talkbacks after the show.

Last night, he spoke movingly of the play’s relevance for our time. He cited fundamentalist zealots of several major religions who have gotten into positions of power, and who have tried to foist equally crazy schemes on the rest of us, including the destruction of ancient and irreplaceable iconic art (such as the Taliban’s wanton despoliation of an ancient Buddhist monument in Afghanistan).

I’m proud to be a little part of this small effort to bring free speech and freedom of worship issues to the foreground.

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By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Business Ethics, Ethics in Government, Uncategorized

Just saw this movie today. Not only is Williams brilliant as the comedian running for President–and dealing with the ethical dilemma of his life–but the movie makes wonderful points about vulnerability of electronic voting machines, ruthlessness of certain corporations, politicians of both major parties and their all-too-cozy relationships with special interests, and more.

No matter what your politics, it’s a great romp making serious points. Ideally, see it *before* the election. And tell your friends.

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