I was given an incredible opportunity a few weeks back, in the form of the Whispering Beard Folk Music festival. My appreciation for folk music has grown immensely over the last few years, and this is the first real festival I've gotten the chance to participate in (Thanks to oSha Shireman for that).
Many of the performances were top notch, and I enjoyed nearly all of them. But one really stood out in its deep simplicity - and that was Guy Clark's performance at the end of the second night. I am going to paraphrase my notes, written immediately after the set was over:
"He stood slowly, steadying himself with the microphone stand, looking as though he were made of grimacing living granite. A tear glistened on his cheek as he sang, his outward and unabashed emotion the price of a tale well told of a friend well loved and long lost."
The entire week leading up to this moment had primed me for the performance. A dear friend with an unusual amount of insight had told me less than 48 hours earlier that great writing comes from being able to explain your deepest emotions to an audience of strangers while accepting that every last one of them might reject it wholesale. I have only managed one such piece of writing.
Similarly, in a discussion of the author Louis L'Amour's book The Education of a Wandering Man, L'Amour says several times that great stories aren't fairy tales or fabrications. Rather, they are honestly and skillfully told accounts of real people and events. L'Amour used the stories of "old timers" to write his Westerns, framing his stories in historical contexts that are more or less true.
Guy Clark told his stories in an honest and breathtakingly beautiful way. The owner of the merchandise stand said something that distilled both prior points quite well - "Guy Clark does what the best storytellers do - he has the courage to tell his own story honestly and pour out his heart to strangers while telling things as they were."
I had no idea how influential Clark was until I managed to find an internet connection the next day and look him up. As it turns out, he's one of the most important country music songwriters of the last few decades.
Being in the presence of someone who really takes their art form to the highest levels is an exceedingly rare experience. I have been lucky enough to have two such opportunities, and this was one of them.
I have never been a live music snob - in fact, I often prefer recordings to live music. I have to say that Clark's performance is head and shoulders above his recordings. Not for any technical reasons - the guitars are the same, the lyrics are the same, his skill remains the same. No, it is something else that I haven't quite nailed down that makes seeing a performance like his profound in a way a CD will never be.
I left the stage with a strange lump in my throat that returns even as I recall the experience. It seems odd to me for a short set in the midst of a small music festival to have such an effect on someone like me - perhaps that's why it did.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
A red letter day
"Change is the only constant" - Heraclitus
The following article comes as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to books and publishing in the last few years, but it's still a bit disturbing to a guy like me with Luddite tendencies.
Kindle book sales surpass hardcover sales on Amazon
This is not surprising for a few reasons. First, few people I know actually spend the extra money to obtain a hardcover copy of books. And that's within that small subgroup of friends who are dedicated enough to literature to read actual books in their spare time. The rest either buy soft covers or the library for all of their literary needs.
Not to mention the fact that eReaders are the logical next step in publishing.
Don't get me wrong - there is absolutely nothing wrong with softcover books, and libraries are one of my favorite ideas since man invented fire. However, I do think hardcover books deserve a little more credit than they get in these strange times. Few things we buy in our lives will outlast a well bound hardcover book. That shiny new 42" flatscreen will be lucky to survive the decade; the Xbox you attach to it may not survive to the end of the week. Your laptop is probably already outdated, and odds are that the CDs you store your data on will be well nigh useless in another 20 years. Your car will be moldering in a junk yard in 30 years when we finally figure out hydrogen or electric vehicles, and the garage you put it in will probably be imminent domained into a WalMart.
The thing that is mostly likely to keep ticking, and remain timeless, is that hardbound copy of "Dr Zhivago" you wrote marginalia in during your sophomore year of college. And when your children sell it for 50 cents at a yardsale 5 years after you've bought the farm, someone else will be afforded the dual joys of a great piece of a literature and the reactions of a reader in common from a generation away.
I have no problem with Kindles or eReaders of any kind. In fact, I love the idea. As a traveler, one of my most difficult decisions is what books to bring on a long trip. An eReader would solve that problem once and for all. But at the same time, reading from such a device lacks some of my favorite elements of reading. Have you ever put a bookmark in a long book, like Don Quixote, and then looked at the top just to see how far along you were? Or smelled the musty, pungent smell of old paper in a book that's older than your parents? How about marginalia - ever written your thoughts in the margins of a great book, or underlined favorite passages, or dogeared pages to return to later? Or even better, have you bought a used book and discovered someone else's wonderful annotations to one of your own favorite books? To a guy who likes some unusual literature, it's the closest I'm ever likely to get to a discussion with a fellow Kazantzakis or Wodehouse fan. Sometimes the notes are more fun than the actual text.
From another angle, the popularity of eReaders is fantastic news. One of the old barriers to publication was economics -the fixed costs to publish a physical volume are extremely high, and tens of thousands of copies a book must be sold for a publisher to break even on a book. Thus, books were often selected by potential profitability rather than literary merit. As a result, guys like Stephen King could recycle plots for the hundredth time and be guaranteed publication at the expense of less profitable but meaningful writers (Although big name writers like King are also the reason some less profitable writers could be printed in the first place). Ereaders have extremely low fixed costs for publication, and should theoretically allow companies like Amazon to publish essentially anything with little or no financial risk should a book prove unpopular. Whether this is in itself a good or bad thing is certainly up for debate. It could actually make things worse by flooding the market with trash.
The following article comes as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to books and publishing in the last few years, but it's still a bit disturbing to a guy like me with Luddite tendencies.
Kindle book sales surpass hardcover sales on Amazon
This is not surprising for a few reasons. First, few people I know actually spend the extra money to obtain a hardcover copy of books. And that's within that small subgroup of friends who are dedicated enough to literature to read actual books in their spare time. The rest either buy soft covers or the library for all of their literary needs.
Not to mention the fact that eReaders are the logical next step in publishing.
Don't get me wrong - there is absolutely nothing wrong with softcover books, and libraries are one of my favorite ideas since man invented fire. However, I do think hardcover books deserve a little more credit than they get in these strange times. Few things we buy in our lives will outlast a well bound hardcover book. That shiny new 42" flatscreen will be lucky to survive the decade; the Xbox you attach to it may not survive to the end of the week. Your laptop is probably already outdated, and odds are that the CDs you store your data on will be well nigh useless in another 20 years. Your car will be moldering in a junk yard in 30 years when we finally figure out hydrogen or electric vehicles, and the garage you put it in will probably be imminent domained into a WalMart.
The thing that is mostly likely to keep ticking, and remain timeless, is that hardbound copy of "Dr Zhivago" you wrote marginalia in during your sophomore year of college. And when your children sell it for 50 cents at a yardsale 5 years after you've bought the farm, someone else will be afforded the dual joys of a great piece of a literature and the reactions of a reader in common from a generation away.
I have no problem with Kindles or eReaders of any kind. In fact, I love the idea. As a traveler, one of my most difficult decisions is what books to bring on a long trip. An eReader would solve that problem once and for all. But at the same time, reading from such a device lacks some of my favorite elements of reading. Have you ever put a bookmark in a long book, like Don Quixote, and then looked at the top just to see how far along you were? Or smelled the musty, pungent smell of old paper in a book that's older than your parents? How about marginalia - ever written your thoughts in the margins of a great book, or underlined favorite passages, or dogeared pages to return to later? Or even better, have you bought a used book and discovered someone else's wonderful annotations to one of your own favorite books? To a guy who likes some unusual literature, it's the closest I'm ever likely to get to a discussion with a fellow Kazantzakis or Wodehouse fan. Sometimes the notes are more fun than the actual text.
From another angle, the popularity of eReaders is fantastic news. One of the old barriers to publication was economics -the fixed costs to publish a physical volume are extremely high, and tens of thousands of copies a book must be sold for a publisher to break even on a book. Thus, books were often selected by potential profitability rather than literary merit. As a result, guys like Stephen King could recycle plots for the hundredth time and be guaranteed publication at the expense of less profitable but meaningful writers (Although big name writers like King are also the reason some less profitable writers could be printed in the first place). Ereaders have extremely low fixed costs for publication, and should theoretically allow companies like Amazon to publish essentially anything with little or no financial risk should a book prove unpopular. Whether this is in itself a good or bad thing is certainly up for debate. It could actually make things worse by flooding the market with trash.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
New Blog, old news
It seems to me that blogging random thoughts might be the ultimate modern expression of narcissism - my thoughts are worth your time to read them. Despite this realization, I'm going to do it anyway.
Placing one's thoughts on the ultimate open forum is always a risk. For me, the risk or apprehension is not rooted in fear of criticism. In fact, quite the inverse - I want criticism and comments.
My goal, in the end, is to spark interesting thoughts from interesting people. I want to start debates, discussions, and chains of thought. I want someone else to benefit from my random thoughts, conversations, and inspirations.
So take off the kid gloves and let the comments roll.
Placing one's thoughts on the ultimate open forum is always a risk. For me, the risk or apprehension is not rooted in fear of criticism. In fact, quite the inverse - I want criticism and comments.
My goal, in the end, is to spark interesting thoughts from interesting people. I want to start debates, discussions, and chains of thought. I want someone else to benefit from my random thoughts, conversations, and inspirations.
So take off the kid gloves and let the comments roll.
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