reading 2.0

Surviving Progress based on Ronald Wright's book

2011-09-23T12:46:00.001-07:00

Yiyun Li Gives Up Web to Become Better Bookworm

2011-09-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

To quote:

"There were the Facebook friends who beckoned me with their updates; there was the Twittering that had functioned as the soundtrack of my days; there were various websites, relevant or not so much, which somehow I had led myself to believe to be essential for my daily maintenance. Above all there was the habit of opening a website mindlessly, looking for something that was not there and, unfulfilled, looking elsewhere, one page after another.

"The five or seven minutes that had been spent reading some publishing gossip or an acquaintance's acquaintance re-Twittering a joke turned out to be just the right time for a chapter of "War and Peace" or an intense battle in "Iliad."

The Second Internet

2011-04-15T13:21:00.001-07:00

The Second Internet

View more documents from Lou Kerner

Moral Panics over the Internet

2011-04-14T20:22:00.000-07:00

Moral Panics over the Internet

View more presentations from Oxford Internet Institute

Classical Comedy: 'A Little Nightmare Music'

2011-04-13T12:47:00.000-07:00

Simon Rattle on Mahler

2011-04-03T16:43:00.001-07:00

UE Mahler Interviews: Simon Rattle from Universal Edition on Vimeo.

CNN: Berlin Philharmonic: Taming the wild orchestral beast

2011-02-28T07:13:00.001-08:00

Trends in Teen Communication and Social Media Use

2011-02-24T07:39:00.000-08:00

Pew Internet/Girl Scout Joint Webinar on Social Media

View more presentations from Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project

From Papyrus to iPad: The Evolution of Reading

2011-01-25T10:28:00.000-08:00

Is 2011 the Year of a Digital Privacy Revolution?

2011-01-24T12:45:00.000-08:00

From Inc. Magazine: Experts say 2011 might just be the year where digital privacy will come to the forefront in Washington. For example, the Boucher-Stearns bill, drafted by Rick Boucher, a Democrat from Virginia, and Cliff Stearns, a Republican from Florida, would require all websites to inform users how they collect and use personally identifiable information, like phone numbers or addresses. Last month, the Federal Trade Commission proposed "Do Not Track" technology that would be added to websites in order to allow users to "opt out," making their actions on the site unrecorded.

Some start-ups are even carving a niche for themselves in the privacy market, offering data security for both business and consumer use. TigerText, for example, lets users schedule an expiration date for their texts by wiping information from both the sender's phone as well as that of the receiver at a set point in time. Full story.

Social media and records management

2011-01-24T09:27:00.001-08:00

Social media and records management

View more presentations from John Mancini.

The Next Digital Decade

2011-01-19T15:03:00.000-08:00

The Next Digital Decade: Essays on the Future of the Internet

Five mindset for professionals in the age of convergence

2010-10-22T06:52:00.001-07:00

Five mindset for professionals in the age of convergence 안철수 석좌교수

View more documents from Jinho Jung.

Beethoven Symphony no.5 - Radio Kamer Filharmonie

2010-09-24T12:54:00.000-07:00

Günter Grass: "I Would Like to Put a Stop to this Movement Toward Reading on Computers"

2010-08-24T10:36:00.000-07:00

82-year-old writer Günter Grass is famous for writing such works as The Tin Drum, a wildly imaginative novel depicting a dwarf confined in an insane asylum, and for revealing, after a life spent as a left-wing critic, that he had served in the Waffen-SS during World War II. Grass is somewhat less known as a foe of reading on computers. He takes on this new role in an interview with Der Spiegel. (via Atlantic Wire)

SPIEGEL: Can you imagine "Grimms' Words" on an iPad?

Grass: Hardly. But I've also reached an agreement with my publisher that none of my books will be made available for that until a law protecting authors becomes effective. I can only advise every author to develop just as much self-confidence in this relationship.

SPIEGEL: Are you calling for a protest?

Grass: I would like to put a stop to this movement toward reading on computers, but it seems that nobody can do this. Nevertheless, the drawbacks of the electronic process are already apparent during the writing of the manuscript. Most young authors write directly on their computers, and then edit and work in their files. In my case, on the other hand, there are many preliminary steps: a handwritten version, two that I've typed myself on my Olivetti typewriter and, finally, several copies of versions that my secretary has input into the computer and printed out, and into which I've incorporated many handwritten corrections. These steps are lost when you write directly on the computer.

SPIEGEL: Don't you feel old-fashioned with your Olivetti?

Grass: No. On the computer, a text always looks somehow finished, even if it's far from it. That's tempting. I usually write the first, handwritten version all at once, and when there's something I don't like I leave a blank space. I fill these gaps in the Olivetti version, and because of that thoroughness, the text also acquires a certain long-windedness. In the ensuing versions, I try to combine the originality of the first version with the accuracy of the second one. With this slow approach, there's less of a risk of slickness and arbitrariness creeping in. Full article.

A Big Question: ‘How Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?’

2010-08-24T09:19:00.000-07:00

Edge posed this question; discover how a wide range of thinkers responded.
Source: Nieman Reports

As each new year approaches, John Brockman, founder of Edge, an online publication, consults with three of the original members of Edge—Stewart Brand, founder and editor of Whole Earth Catalog; Kevin Kelly, who helped to launch Wired in 1993 and wrote “What Technology Wants,” a book to be RELATED ARTICLE
"Origins of Edge"published in October (Viking Penguin); and George Dyson, a science historian who is the author of several books including “Darwin Among the Machines.” Together they create the Edge Annual Question—which Brockman then sends out to the Edge list to invite responses. He receives these commentaries by e-mail, which are then edited. Edge is a read-only site. There is no direct posting nor is Edge open for comments.

Brockman has been asking an Edge Annual Question for the past 13 years. In this essay, he explains what makes a question a good one to ask and shares some responses to this year’s question: “How is the Internet changing the way you think?” Full story

Twitter: 10 Psychological Insights

2010-08-12T07:36:00.000-07:00

Source: PsyBlog

1. Twitter is like a game of broken telephone.
2. People join Twitter to follow their friends.
3. Most tweets are babble.
4. The average age is 31.
5. Men are Twitter leaders.
6. 20% are "informers," 80% "meformers."
7. Trends are one-time and short-lived.
8. Average tweet frequency is 1.
9. Existential angst can motivate users.
10. Twitter is less social and more informational.

Full story

NPR: Audience Picks: Top 100 'Killer Thrillers'

2010-08-05T12:43:00.000-07:00

Source: NPR

1. The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
3. Kiss the Girls, by James Patterson
4. The Bourne Identity, by Robert Ludlum
5. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
6. The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown
7. The Shining, by Stephen King
8. And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie
9. The Hunt tor Red October, by Tom Clancy
10. The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

11. Dracula, by Bram Stoker
12. The Stand, by Stephen King
13. The Bone Collector, by Jeffery Deaver
14. Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton
15. Angels & Demons, by Dan Brown
16. A Time to Kill, by John Grisham
17. The Andromeda Strain, by Michael Crichton
18. Mystic River, by Dennis Lehane
19. The Day of the Jackal, by Frederick Forsyth
20. Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier

21. Eye of the Needle, by Ken Follett
22. It, by Stephen King
23. The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas
24. The Girl Who Played with Fire, by Stieg Larsson
25. Jaws, by Peter Benchley
26. The Alienist, by Caleb Carr
27. Red Dragon, by Thomas Harris
28. Presumed Innocent, by Scott Turow
29. The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett
30. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, by Stieg Larsson

31. No Country For Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy
32. Gone Baby Gone, by Dennis Lehane
33. Gorky Park, by Martin Cruz Smith
34. Rosemary's Baby, by Ira Levin
35. Subterranean, by James Rollins
36. Clear and Present Danger, by Tom Clancy
37. Salem's Lot, by Stephen King
38. Shutter Island, by Dennis Lehane
39. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, by John Le Carre
40. The Poet, by Michael Connelly

41. The Boys from Brazil, by Ira Levin
42. Cape Fear, by John MacDonald
43. The Bride Collector, by Ted Dekker
44. Pet Sematary, by Stephen King
45. Dead Zone, by Stephen King
46. The Manchurian Candidate, by Richard Condon
47. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, by John Le Carre
48. The Talented Mr. Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith
49. Tell No One, by Harlan Coben
50. Consent to Kill, by Vince Flynn

51. The 39 Steps, by John Buchan
52. Blowback, by Brad Thor
53. The Children of Men, by P.D. James
54. 61 Hours, by Lee Child
55. Marathon Man, by William Goldman
56. The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins
57. 206 Bones, by Kathy Reichs
58. Psycho, by Robert Bloch
59. The Killing Floor, by Lee Child
60. Rules of Prey, by John Sandford

61. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
62. In the Woods, by Tana French
63. Shogun, by James Clavell
64. The Relic, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
65. Intensity, by Dean Koontz
66. Casino Royale, by Ian Fleming
67. Metzger's Dog, by Thomas Perry
68. Timeline, by Michael Crichton
69. Contact, by Carl Sagan
70. What the Dead Know, by Laura Lippman

71. The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
72. The Cabinet of Curiosities, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
73. Charm School, by Nelson DeMille
74. Feed, by Mira Grant
75. Gone Tomorrow, by Lee Child
76. Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay
77. The Secret History, by Donna Tartt
78. The First Deadly Sin, by Lawrence Sanders
79. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
80. The Brotherhood of the Rose, by David Morrell

81. Primal Fear, by William Diehl
82. The Templar Legacy, by Steve Berry
82. The Hard Way, by Lee Child [tie]
84. The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper
85. Six Days of the Condor, by James Grady
86. Fail-Safe, by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler
87. Strangers on a Train, by Patricia Highsmith
88. The Eight, by Katherine Neville
89. The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown
90. Goldfinger, by Ian Fleming

91. Bangkok 8, by John Burdett
92. The Kill Artist, by Daniel Silva
93. Hardball, by Sara Paretsky
94. The Club Dumas, by Arturo Perez-Reverte
95. The Deep Blue Good-by, by John MacDonald
96. The Monkey's Raincoat, by Robert Crais
96. Berlin Game, by Len Deighton [tie]
98. A Simple Plan, by Scott Smith
99. Child 44, by Tom Rob Smith
100. Heartsick, by Chelsea Cain

Source: NPR

6 Digital Trends to Watch

2010-08-04T07:15:00.001-07:00

Six Digital Trends To Watch by Steve Rubel and David Armano

View more presentations from Edelman Digital.

Interview w/ Stephen King about "Under the Dome"

2010-07-14T10:04:00.000-07:00

10 phrases to ban from your resume

2010-06-07T13:10:00.000-07:00

Source: MSNBC
1. "I'm a team player." Instead, provide specific examples of collaboration you have had.

2. "I have great communication skills." What communication skills? Presentation? Press release? Fact sheets?

3. "I have a proven track record." So prove it!

4. "I'm a problem solver." What problems have you solved?

5. "I assisted in X task." Maybe you weren't the lead on a particular project, but saying you "assisted" is the kiss of death for your resume. Write what it was that you did.

6. "I have a strong work ethic." Did you take a class to improve your skills? Did you meet some really tough deadlines?

7. "I'm bottom-line focused." Quantify for this skill.

8. "I'm responsible for X." Drop this expression and just state what your job title is and what you added to the company's success.

9. "I'm self-motivated." Find a way to show that you're not a slacker but self-motivated. Did you overhaul a broken inventory system or find a new way of expand your sales territory?

10. "I'm accustomed to a fast-paced environment." To be specific, look at one of your business days in your (former) job.

Show, don't tell.

Antonio Pappano on Gustav Mahler

2010-04-28T14:02:00.001-07:00

UE Mahler Interviews: Antonio Pappano from Universal Edition on Vimeo.

Manual: Social Media for Local Governments

2010-04-22T10:45:00.001-07:00

Fels Social Media for Local Government

View more documents from GovLoop.

Content Containers: Stepping up to the Experience Plateau

2010-04-22T09:06:00.000-07:00

Cil containers

View more presentations from stephenabram1.

Source: Slideshare.net

8 brand personalities Facebook and Twitter users hate

2010-04-13T10:18:00.000-07:00

What an insightful posting from Kevin Barenblat at iMedia Connection

1. The canned responder
2. The spammer
3. The deathly long status updater
4. The lurker, or "creeper"
5. The press-release republisher
6. The off-site hustler - visit this link, visit that link!
7. The serial retweeter
8. The non-responder

Source: iMedia Connection

6 Career-Killing Facebook Mistakes

2010-04-13T07:09:00.000-07:00

Source: Forbes (via Yahoo.ca Finance): With 400million+ active visitors, Facebook is arguably the most popular social networking site out there. With that kind of reach, Facebook can be a valuable tool for connecting to former and current colleagues, clients and potential employers. In fact, surveys suggest that approximately 30% of employers are using Facebook to screen potential employees – even more than those who check LinkedIn, a strictly professional social networking site. Don't make these Facebook faux-pas – they might cost you a great opportunity.

1. Inappropriate Pictures

2. Complaining About Your Current Job: While everyone complains about work sometimes, doing so in a public forum where it can be found by others is not the best career move.

3. Posting Conflicting Information to Your Resume: If you say on your resume that your degree is from Harvard, but your Facebook profile says you went to UCLA, you're likely to be immediately cut from the interview list.

4. Statuses You Wouldn't Want Your Boss to See: Everyone should know to avoid statuses like "Tom plans to call in sick tomorrow so he can get drunk on a Wednesday. Who cares that my big work project isn't done?" But you should also be aware of less flamboyant statuses like "Sarah is watching the gold medal hockey game online at her desk".

5. Not Understanding Your Security Settings: At the very least, your profile should be set so that people who are not your friend cannot see any of your pictures or information.

6. Losing By Association: You can't control what your friends post to your profile (although you can remove it once you see it), nor what they post to their own profiles or to those of mutual friends. Take a look at everything connected to your profile, and keep an eye out for anything you wouldn't want to show your mother.

Facebook Can Help You Get Hired - Or Fired: The best advice is to lock down your personal profile so that only friends you approve can see anything on that profile. Then, create a second, public profile on Facebook purely for professional use. This profile functions like an online resume, and should only contain information you'd be comfortable telling your potential employer face to face. Having a social networking profile is a good thing – it presents you as technologically and professionally savvy. Just make sure your profile is helping to present your best side – not the side that got drunk at your buddy's New Year's party.

The Digital Information Seeker: Report of findings from selected OCLC, RIN and JISC user behaviour projects

2010-04-08T07:00:00.000-07:00

Executive Summary
There are numerous user studies published in the literature and available on the web. There are studies that specifically address the behaviours of scholars while others identify the behaviours of the general public. Some studies address the information-seeking behaviours of scholars within specific disciplines while others identify the behaviours of scholars of multiple disciplines. There are studies that only address undergraduate, graduate, or post graduate students or compare these individual groups’ information-seeking behaviours to those of scholars. Still other studies address the behaviors of young adults (Screenagers (Rushkoff 1996) and Millennials). --> Source: JISC

The twelve studies included in this report are listed in chronological order:

Perceptions of libraries and information resources (OCLC, December 2005)

College students’ perceptions of libraries and information resources (OCLC, April 2006)

Sense-making the information confluence: The whys and hows of college and university user satisficing of information needs (IMLS/Ohio State University/OCLC, July 2006)

Researchers and discovery services: Behaviour, perceptions and needs (RIN, November 2006)

Researchers’ use of academic libraries and their services (RIN/CURL, April 2007)

Information behaviour of the researcher of the future (CIBER/UCL, commissioned by BL and JISC, January 2008)

Seeking synchronicity: Evaluating virtual reference services from user, non-user and librarian perspectives (OCLC/ IMLS/ Rutgers, June 2008)

Online catalogs: What users and librarians want (OCLC. March 2009)

E-journals: Their use, value and impact (RIN, April 2009)
JISC national e-books observatory project: Key findings and recommendations (JISC/UCL, November 2009)

Students’ use of research content in teaching and learning (JISC, November 2009)

User behaviour in resource discovery (JISC, November 2009)

Bad grammar, jargon, slang and stupid jokes: How to avoid writing your way out of a job

2010-03-26T08:25:00.000-07:00

Source: The Globe and Mail:

To who is may consern: Why is this targt my primary action item on a go-forward basis? The answer might make you LOL! The reason im messaging u instead of meeting offline follows this joke I was just forwarded ...

Looks grrrreat, doesn't it? :)

Here are 10 rules for good business writing suggested by the Canadian Globe and Mail:

1. Think before you write: "Take the time to consider what you want to accomplish with your communication, and what that achievement would look like. If you aren't clear about your objective, how will your readers be?

2. Dial in W-I-I-F-M: "What's In It For Me? The sooner you can provide the answer in your e-mails, letters and memos, the better response you'll get. Put yourself in their position: What's their state of mind? What motivates them? How can you serve their needs while attaining your goal?

3. Be specific: "Use reader-focused words such as "you" and "yours." Get to the point quickly and be specific about the purpose of your correspondence. Your most important information should come first, a principle called front-end load.

4. Keep it tight and bright: "To ensure your e-mails are opened, make sure your subject lines are reader-focused and action-oriented.

5. Go for visual appeal: "There's nothing more daunting than opening a document thick with text, and few paragraph breaks. Use headings and subheadings to organize material simply and clearly. If you need to refer to several elements or factors, enumerate them in a reader-friendly list.

6. Use proper English: Abbreviations, short-forms and slang aren't appropriate in business correspondence, whether hard copy or e-mail. Use full and proper names, terms and references. Make your language accessible to readers by minimizing the use of jargon. Ensure that spelling and grammar are correct.

7. Be more formal: Forget about the "Hi" salutation; you're not in high school. The word "guys" should be banned from all forms of written and, for that matter, oral communication. When writing to someone you don't know for the first time, use Mr. or Ms. If, in future, the recipient wants you to use his or her first name, you'll be informed.

8. Use positive language: Minimize negative-based words such as alleged, can't, claim, fail and wrong. Always end your correspondence with a positive, or at least a reference to an agreement or some shared common ground, especially if you have bad news to communicate.

9. Issue a call to action: Too many business e-mails, letters and memos simply drop off a cliff at the end, leaving their recipients mystified about the purpose of the communication. You need to conclude by telling your readers what exactly it is you want them to do. Is it to buy your product, test your service, attend your meeting? If you don't tell them, they won't know.

10. Never send in haste: Keep in mind that the irate e-mail you send today will exist long after you're gone. Carefully consider the best form of communication. Deal with contentious issues in person; if that's not possible, speak personally by telephone. When drafting an important e-mail, print off a copy and edit. You'll almost always be able to make improvements.

You are, after all, telling your readers a lot about yourself. And you want to be sure it's good, all good. Full story

Lorin Maazel on Gustav Mahler: “Mahler came out of nowhere and what he wrote was shocking.”

2010-03-22T17:47:00.000-07:00

UE Mahler Interviews: Lorin Maazel from Universal Edition on Vimeo.

Words, Version 2.0 - Books that question the web 2.0 culture and socity

2010-03-18T22:27:00.000-07:00

A bookshelf for further reading (Source: The New York Times):

REALITY HUNGER: A MANIFESTO
By David Shields
219 pages. Alfred A. Knopf. $24.95.

YOU ARE NOT A GADGET:
A Manifesto
By Jaron Lanier
209 pages. Alfred A. Knopf. $24.95.

THE SHALLOWS: WHAT THE INTERNET IS DOING TO OUR BRAINS
By Nicholas Carr
288 pages. W. W. Norton & Company. $26.95. (Scheduled for release in June.)

TRUE ENOUGH: LEARNING TO LIVE IN A POST-FACT SOCIETY
By Farhad Manjoo
250 pages. John Wiley & Sons. $25.95.

THE AGE OF AMERICAN UNREASON
By Susan Jacoby
357 pages. Vintage Books. $15.95.

INFOTOPIA: HOW MANY MINDS PRODUCE KNOWLEDGE
By Cass R. Sunstein
273 pages. Oxford University Press. $15.95.

GOING TO EXTREMES: HOW LIKE MINDS UNITE AND DIVIDE
By Cass R. Sunstein
199 pages. Oxford University Press. $21.95.

THE CULT OF THE AMATEUR
By Andrew Keen
256 pages. Doubleday. $14.00.

Related: Texts Without Context (March 21, 2010)

10 Kick Ass Presentation Techniques by Alex Hunter

2010-03-18T07:08:00.000-07:00

Source: Think Vitamin

1: Rehearse
Again and again and again. So you know every detail of your talk, all the slides and the order in which they appear. Practice in front of a mirror or even video yourself. This is the best way to find potential tripping points, inconsistencies, and also gives you a chance to weed out the crap jokes.

But more importantly, it will make you so comfortable with the content that you won’t need notes or prompts and you’ll appear conversational but knowledgeable.

2: Don’t repeat what is written on your slides
It’s painful when a speaker reads verbatim what is written on each slide. Your job is to give context and detail to the one or two lines (at the most) on a slide.

3: Don’t overload your slides
Further to the last bullet, nothing is uglier or less appealing than a slide with 15 bullet points and a graph. In my recent keynotes, over 80% of my slides only have one line OR graphic/chart on them.

4: Make eye contact
This may sound like a no brainer but so many speakers spend their time looking at their feet, at their slides, at their notes – anywhere but the audience.

5: Know your audience
I spoke at a two-day tech conference recently and was scheduled to speak on the second day. This turned out to be a huge advantage for me because I spent the whole first day following the (substantial) Twitter traffic surrounding the event and I noticed some interesting trends in the audience reactions to speakers and their content.

As a result, I spent several hours that night retooling my presentation to better suit the audience – I like to think my keynote went down well the next day.

6: Move around
As a speaker, I loathe standing behind a podium when I speak – it feels like I’m preaching down from the pulpit and as far as I’m concerned public speaking is about conversation not lecturing. Also, a podium is physical barrier between you and the audience making it much harder to connect with them psychologically.

So wherever possible get out from behind that podium or lectern, get out on stage, move around, gesticulate and really CONNECT with your audience.

7: Don’t read the script
Reading word for word from a prepared script is the fastest way to put your audience to sleep. It’s also lazy. Don’t do it. It’s perfectly ok to have some notes jotted down which you glance at from time to time but anything beyond that is a disservice to your audience and to you as a speaker.

8: Slow down
It’s really easy to rush through your content and speak very quickly, especially if you’re nervous. It’s much easier for an audience to engage with your content if your delivery falls into a natural rhythm. Try to pace yourself and remember to punctuate your speech with pauses to emphasize key points.

9: Make ‘em laugh
Humor is my most powerful tool when I’m giving a presentation. I almost always try to get a laugh within the first 60 seconds of a talk. It relieves the collective tension in the room almost immediately and helps ease the transition into the bulk of the content.

10: Be passionate and energetic
I learned this from the best, Mr. Gary Vaynerchuk, whose energy on stage is completely captivating. Look, chances are if you’re standing up in front of people giving a talk, you know what you’re on about – and if you know what you’re on about, you’re probably passionate about the subject. So make sure you project that passion during your presentation!

Full story.

Why are Scandinavian detective novels so successful?

2010-03-11T18:17:00.000-08:00

"The girl with the dragon tattoo" and two more installments that are related to the first one; Kurt Wallander series by the venerable Henning Mankell; Jo Nesbo; Karin Fossum; Ake Edwardson; Hakan Nesser...all Scandinavian, and all successful. Why? The Economist provides good answers to that: language, heroes and setting.

style of the books, “realistic, simple and precise…and stripped of unnecessary words”, that has a lot to do with it. The plain, direct writing, devoid of metaphor, suits the genre well.
The Nordic detective is often careworn and rumpled. Mr Mankell’s Wallander is gloomy, troubled and ambivalent about his father. Mr Indridason’s Inspector Erlendur lives alone after a failed marriage, haunted by the death of his younger brother many years before in a blizzard that he survived. Mr Nesbo’s leading man, Inspector Harry Hole—often horribly drunk—is defiant of his superiors yet loyal to his favoured colleagues.
Most important is the setting. The countries that the Nordic writers call home are prosperous and organised, a “soft society” according to Mr Nesbo. But the protection offered by a cradle-to-grave welfare system hides a dark underside. As Mary Evans points out in her recent study, “The Imagination of Evil”, the best Scandinavian fiction mines the seam that connects the insiders—the rich and powerful—and the outsiders, represented by the poor, the exploited and the vulnerable. Larsson is a master at depicting the relationship between business, social hypocrisy and criminal behaviour, and his heroes do not want to be rescued through any form of conventional state intervention.

Full story.

13 Signs of the Apocalypse (When Is It Time to Look for a New Job?)

2010-02-24T08:47:00.001-08:00

Steven Bochenek | Monday, September 22, 2008

Most of us refuse to admit when a job is going nowhere, and we may be on the chopping block. It feels like a personal failure. (And, well, maybe it is!) So we tell ourselves everything is fine, cross our fingers, and bury our heads in memos, emails and reports.
With a nod to this blind optimism, we compiled this lucky list of 13 signs that you should search for new work. The first seven are obvious. The other six are subtle, storm clouds on the horizon.

1) "Comrade Trotsky was never here."
You've become persona non grata.
They've stopped inviting you to meetings. Decisions within your scope are made without your input. People avoid eye contact. You enter the coffee room to sudden awkward silence; colleagues nervously filter out. Gossip spreads fast in unhappy workplaces. Though you'll be the last to hear of your decline in popularity, the body language of others will broadcast it clearly.

2) "It's the economy, silly."
The company's not profitable.
Your industry or sector has been especially hard hit. Cutbacks are imminent. Sure, work hard to demonstrate your worth to the company. But unless you're irreplaceable – polish your resumé. In the mean time, now is the time to offer to take on more, to be helpful, to make it a lot harder to let you go.

3) "poor attitude … not a team player … leaves early ..."
You get a terrible performance review.
Your review is an official document. Employers prefer to keep them blandly positive. If yours reads clearly negative, it's fodder for HR to say you had warning.

4) "We have a 'special' assignment for you."
You're being set up to fail.
Are unreasonable expectations put on you without appropriate resources? Watch out. When you're set up to fail, unremarkably, you fail. Likewise, if you're re-assigned "special projects" irrelevant to day-to-day business, you're isolated and easily eliminated.

5) "2 + 2 = 40"
You made a big mistake.
Screw-ups cost companies money and well, business is business. Steve Thompson of Associated Content suggests bringing your mistake to your boss right away (rather than waiting for him to find out). Good advice, yes. Meridith Levinson of CIO.com suggests that you find a way to spin it during your pending job interviews. Much better.

6) "Why don't you go rest at home."
You're sent away.
Being invited not to contribute is always a bad sign. Use the time to begin your search.

7) "Meet the new boss."
Treat a new report like a new job.
Whether your company's been bought out, or your immediate report (that mentor who protected you) has been replaced, tread carefully. When you have a new boss, Meridith Levinson of CIO.com recommends a prepared elevator speech which justifies your position. And get in front of him or her asap – don't wait to be summoned regardless of your seniority.
The Subtler Signs

8) "Radical, dude!"
Lots of young people are being hired.
Young people cost less and can learn new tricks. Even if you believe you're indispensable to your company, a lot of fresh faces is rarely good news.

9) "One of us."
You're being watched.
Mark your own attitude. If you hate your boss or work, it will become evident warns Mark Swartz, Workopolis Advisor and GlobeLink's Career Activist. Little things will give you away, whether it's being late for meetings or simple grumpiness. If you're genuinely unhappy, do everyone a favour and start looking anew.

10) "Anyone agree? Anyone? Anyone?"
Nobody supports you.
Have to push, beg and cajole to get anything done? If management, colleagues and even employees aren't giving you buy-in, it means you're powerless. Soon you'll be gone.

11) "No, thanks."
You can't recruit good staff.
The best people go where they will learn the most. If you're unable to attract top candidates, your reputation is in trouble and so are you.

12) "See me!! CC: Whole team."
There's evidence of all communication from your boss.
HR likes to cover its, umm, tracks. Your boss may have been instructed to supply proof that you had many warnings, chances, etc. When there's a long paper trail, it usually leads down one path.

13) "Wanted: your replacement."
A job eerily like yours appears on Workopolis
Politely confront your boss. Then, maintain your sense of humour. When you see your own job advertised, ignore the petty urge to apply for it and offer your boss as a reference. Instead forward it to someone you hate.

Then begin searching that same resource for your next and better workplace.
Steven Bochenek is a freelance writer. He's been fired in the past.

Mariss Jansons on Gustav Mahler

2010-02-19T12:23:00.000-08:00

The real reason people forward content

2010-02-11T13:00:00.000-08:00

People are more likely to pass along stories that are positive, long and intellectually stimulating, according to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania who spent more than six months studying The New York Times' list of most-emailed stories.

Researchers found that popular stories often inspired a sense of awe by tackling a broad topic and requiring the reader to approach the subject from a fresh angle. Researchers say these articles are popular because they create emotional connections between the person sending the article and its recipient.

"Emotion in general leads to transmission, and awe is quite a strong emotion," the researchers said. The New York Times

Raj Patel: The Value of Nothing - Our Unsustainable Economy

2010-02-06T13:23:00.000-08:00

From the Globe and Mail:
The Value of Nothing: Why Everything Costs So Much More Than We Think
By Raj Patel | HarperCollins, 250 pages, $26.99

It isn’t every day that video trumps the written word, but the video trailer for Raj Patel’s The Value of Nothing is such a pithy introduction to this challenging and important book, it bears repeating: “From the 1970s onward, our economy was hijacked by free-market fundamentalists whose mantra was greed is good, regulation is bad,” Patel says on his website. “But it gets darker still: We were all along for the ride. We bought, ate and drove more. And paid for it with debt, diabetes and pollution.

“We mortgaged our future,” he argues. “And called it freedom.”

Full story.

Mahler Symphony No 2: Chicago Symphony/Haitink

2010-01-26T14:30:00.000-08:00

Gustav Mahler
Mahler: Symphony No 2 Resurrection
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
CSO Resound

2009

Fiona Maddocks
The Observer, Sunday 13 December 2009

When the 80-year-old, Dutch-born Haitink first introduced Mahler symphonies to audiences early in his career, halls were half empty. Now the composer guarantees full houses and Haitink's pioneering devotion and numerous Mahler recordings are partly responsible. This new, white-hot version of the C minorResurrection, recorded live with the Chicago SO last year, has characteristic nobility, dynamic variety, detail, clarity, lyricism and, in the opening movement, a monumentally slow, shattering climax which makes even Klemperer's famously weighty 1961/2 EMI recording seem speedy. Portamento strings and raw yet refined brass timbre, especially, create vivid intensity. The fine soloists and beautifully blended, almost transcendentally pianissimo

BNET Book Brief: Collaboration by Morten Hansen

2010-01-26T12:44:00.001-08:00

Public Sentinel: News Media & Governance Reform

2010-01-26T08:18:00.000-08:00

The Great Gizmo Guessing Game

2010-01-16T17:28:00.000-08:00

The Great Gizmo Guessing Game

Norman Lebrecht on Carlos Kleiber: "the greatest non-conductor we have ever seen"

2010-01-15T08:30:00.000-08:00

Source: La Scena Musicale

An exclusive new clique has formed in the world’s concert foyers. Following the sad death of the conductor Carlos Kleiber, a notoriously elusive performer, a silken cord of snobbishness now separates the few of us who witnessed the master in the flesh from the multitudes who merely heard his achievements on record. Those who saw him in action have something to tell the grandchildren, the others don’t. So there.

Obituarists last week drove themselves into a frenzy of hyperbole, describing Kleiber as the ‘greatest’ of all conductors, whatever that overworked superlative might mean. Certainly, he was a meticulous interpreter who elicited intricate, often essential detail from densely written scores. At his Covent Garden debut in June 1974, he spent three hours rehearsing 80 seconds of the Prelude to Der Rosenkavalier – an object lesson to musicians everywhere that structure stems from the phrasing of the opening passage.

Kleiber had a knack for striking a tempo that felt ‘just right’, nowhere more so than in the Beethoven Fifth Symphony where, in a Vienna Philharmonic recording for Deutsche Grammophon in 1975, he struck a perfect balance of the ominous and the numinous. Remarkably, he did so at a metronome marking that was just eight points off the head-over-heels 108 which the composer had erratically inscribed in his score, a lickety-split misguidance that commonly dashes literalist interpreters onto the rocks of musical ridicule. In a century of symphonic recording, only Toscanini, Giulini and Kleiber have ever got away so fast in the Fifth. Of the three, Kleiber sounds measurably the most relaxed and correct.

He got what he wanted out of an orchestra by means of intense self-preparation, rather than intensive rehearsal. While he demanded more time than most, he scorned the likes of Sergiu Celibidache who required 15 sessions to prepare a Bruckner symphony and once lampooned the mystic Celi in a letter to Der Spiegel, submitted pseudonymously. Kleiber, after rehearsal, would leave polite notes on players’ desks: ‘This bit I think could be a bit more forceful and audible. Many thanks and kind regards, C. Kleiber.’

Such courtesies, among many gentle anecdotes, established his image as an intuitive conductor of a severely restricted repertoire. At the height of his activity, in the mid-1970s, he confined himself to eight operas, two dozen symphonies and some out-of-the-way pieces like Dvorak’s uneven piano concerto, which he recorded unforgettably with the Russian pianist, Sviatoslav Richter. He spent the next 30 years reducing his range. In his final decade - and he was a vigorous-looking 74 at the end - Kleiber averaged less than one gig a year. He was not a recluse, as was widely misreported on the basis of his lifelong refusal to give a media interview. On the contrary, he maintained a wide network of musical friendships, cordially refusing all invitations

Carlos Kleiber was therefore famous not so much for conducting, as for not conducting. He liked to say that he worked only when his deep-freeze was empty and he did not have to work much to fill it. Aware of his scarcity value, Kleiber stuck out for record fees – a million dollars, reputedly, for his last trip to Japan. He cancelled more than he conducted and was quickly bored. At his last London appearance, a 1986 Verdi Otello at Covent Garden, he seemed to me to be marking time. The phrasing was exquisite but the Moor’s jealous rage was never musically aroused. Some who knew Kleiber thought he no longer liked music, maybe actively hated it.

Speculation aside, one cannot ignore the chilling influence of his formidable father. Erich Kleiber, a demanding man, went through 126 rehearsals before he conducted the premiere of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck in 1925, an event that marked the dawn of operatic modernism. Erich left the Berlin State Opera in 1934 in principled protest at Nazi policies (he was not Jewish) and spent the war years in Argentina, where young Karl became Carlos. The family returned to the Soviet sector of Berlin, where the State Opera now stood, and suffered western suspicion in consequence. In the early 1950s Erich brought professional rigour to Covent Garden and made some superb Decca recordings but he was only 60 when he died in Switzerland, embittered and unfulfilled.

Carlos, who had been warned off conducting by his father, took up the baton regardless and proceeded to perform Erich’s favourites – Beethoven's fifth symphony, Brahms’ fourth, Der Rosenkavalier, La Bohème and Wozzeck. He was music director for a couple of years at the Stuttgart Opera, but he held no major posts and made his name by word of mouth. Unfortunately, it was a name he shared with his father. Freud would have had a field day.

Whatever conditioned his attitude towards music he kept his feelings to himself. He lived on a mountain slope outside Munich, unreachable by phone. He had (like his father) a son and a daughter; his wife, Stanka, was a Slovenian ex-ballerina. Her death earlier this year plunged him into depression and he arranged to be buried beside her, in Konjsica. It took almost a week for the world to become aware of his passing, a lapse that would undoubtedly have pleased this most taciturn of men rather more (one suspects) than the immediate issuance of a DG souvenir album.

A maestro dies, a myth is born. Among the posthumous flowerings is the icon of Carlos Kleiber as a perfectionist who could not allow himself to conduct a work in which he might trangress a composer’s sacred intentions. The source of this theory is Harvey Sachs, a biographer of Toscanini and Solti, who recalled in the New York Times meeting a distressed Kleiber during rehearsals for a 1978 Tristan and Isolde at La Scala. ‘Why do I keep trying to conduct?’ Kleiber exclaimed. ‘I can’t get them to understand what I want. I shouldn’t be conducting at all… I can’t bear to let the errors go uncorrected...’

That agony of self-doubt has been experienced by everyone who ever raised a baton above an open page and a seated mob. I have heard variations on it from Tennstedt and Solti, Jansons and Gergiev, Muti and Abbado. It’s an occupational wail.

Those who mythologise such moments misunderstand the musical process. Every conductor knows that if perfection were attainable we would never want to hear another performance and there would be no further need for conductors. What a conductor does is his or her best to get close to a composer’s intentions. What the composer intends is for the music to be heard, faults and all. No composer would agree to wait a lifetime for an error-free performance. I don’t believe that Carlos Kleiber, a decidedly practical man, imagined otherwise.

Kleiber was a magnificently gifted conductor who chose, for reasons known only to himself, to deny himself to music. He gave very little, and then he took it away. He was the greatest non-conductor we have ever seen.

The Future of Reading; The Future of Library by Tom Peters

2010-01-14T14:38:00.000-08:00

The Future of the Digital Library [PDF]: An interview with Tom Peters.

The Future of Reading [Library Journal, November, 2009]: In the future, will readers only be found at living history farms or natural history museums? Hardly, argues Tom Peters, in LJ's Nov. 1 cover story, "The Future of Reading," though the rise of books in many forms beyond the beloved hardcover or paperback brings challenges to the publishing industry--and to libraries. For libraries to remain central in the lives of readers, argues Peters, librarians should reconsider their bond to paper books and embrace instead the "power base" of libraries--readers.

The Dreamer by Thomas Quasthoff

2010-01-12T08:53:00.001-08:00

Thomas Quasthoff DVD Trailer THE DREAMER
Uploaded by daijobjob. - See the latest featured music videos.

"Confessions of a Public Speaker"

2010-01-11T19:50:00.000-08:00

In the Town All Year 'Round by Rotraut Susanne Berner

2010-01-07T09:09:00.000-08:00

In the Town All Year 'Round

Rotraut Susanne Berner , Hardcover

Chronicle Books

Online Price: $18.20 irewards Price: $17.29

What a beautiful, lively and lovely book!

1 minute ago

My 2.5-year old son loves this book. He wouldn't go to bed without this book. He loves to see and follow all the people, animals, trees, flowers, cars, buildings and a variety of activities displayed beautifully throughout this beautiful book. Illustrations are just marvelous with subtle humour and warm feeling. They are also very true to the details. It's the kind of book that you would like to see again and again without feeling ever bored. Once this book's worn out, I'll definitely buy another one then another.

Sviatoslav Richter Enigma Pt. 1 & 2

2010-01-06T20:19:00.000-08:00

Part 1

Part 2

Top 10 Digital Trends for 2010

2010-01-06T12:35:00.000-08:00

Source: AdWeek.

1. Content at Scale.
Rise of so-called content mills like "Demand Media and Associated Content."

2. The End of the Digital Agency.
More digital agencies will compete for (and sometimes win) through-the-line assignments, and more clients will be willing to choose a lead agency based on which of its roster shops comes to the table with the best idea.

3. Social Gaming.
Start using it like Foursquare and you'll see how addictive it becomes in competing to become "mayor" of your local coffee shop. The same goes for the runaway success of social gaming company Zynga, which has shown that people will spend real money for virtual goods.

4. Demand-Side Platforms.
Ad exchanges, which in turn has fueled the development of agencies building out demand-side platforms like Interpublic Group's Cadreon and Publicis Groupe's VivaKi.

5. Engagement Pricing.
As the Web matures as a branding medium, 2010 should be the year when more publishers and marketers explore new pricing mechanisms that better reflect their goals. Promising starts have already been made in cost-per-engagement and time-based ad models by networks like VideoEgg and Lotame.

6. Augmented Reality Grows Up.
City guide Yelp has shown the possibilities of AR with an iPhone app that lets users view reviews of nearby businesses (like restaurants) through their phone camera. While AR will likely retain its cool factor, its test for 2010 is in proving it can live up to the hype.

7. Social Media Morphs into Digital.
If 2009 was the Year of Twitter, 2010 will be the year when social-media tools are treated as part of the fabric of the digital world. As Altimeter Group's Charlene Li predicted, social media would become "like air," and be pretty much everywhere.

8. Privacy Wars.
Data on consumers, the Web's greatest strength, might also be its Achilles heel. Scrutiny on the collection and use of consumer information online will increase in 2010, as regulators grapple with whether the industry needs new rules of the road that give consumers more notice and say when their information is collected. The ultimate bogeyman -- an opt-in requirement for collecting behavioral data -- probably wouldn't fly, but Web players will likely be required to give more notice and choice to consumers when tracking their digital footprints. The ad-preferences dashboards rolled out by Google and Yahoo are a sign of things to come. Another possibility is marking behaviorally targeted ads to give consumers an easy way to opt out of tracking.

9. Data Gets Creative.
In 2010 more marketers will tap into the popularity of data visualization by providing tools for consumers to see data in action. Sprint used this approach to produce a hit advertising campaign with the Sprint Now widget. The king of this approach remains Nike Plus, which uses data visualization to show runners how they're progressing. Thanks to open application programming interfaces, Twitter has spawned dozens of data visualization offshoots, conditioning people to mix their social data to find interesting trends.

10. The Year of Mobile, Finally.
Heavyweights Apple and Google are poised to face off in the key market, with Google pouring its seemingly infinite resources into the development of the Android operating system. The competition will open up new opportunities for marketers in the burgeoning app economy. The biggest push should come in location-based services, which hold the possibility of giving brands the chance to minutely target consumers.

Darwin's Theories, Speaking Musically

2010-01-06T07:35:00.000-08:00

From NPR Classical

The year 2009 was a big one for fans of Charles Darwin. It was the 200th anniversary of his birth and the 150th anniversary of his hugely influential book On the Origin of Species.

All the Darwin-mania was not lost on David Balakrishnan, the composer-violinist who heads up the eclectic Turtle Island Quartet. For the Darwin year he wrote Tree of Life a remarkable multi-media work, inspired by Darwin and encompassing a wide range of cultural references. This week at NPR Classical, you can hear Balakrishnan, with the rest of the Turtle Island Quartet, as they stop by the Performance Today studio to play a version of the piece for string quartet.

Google's Bid to Digitize Books Sparks Debate

2010-01-05T13:31:00.001-08:00

Mahler's "Apocalyptic" Second Symphony [NPR]

2010-01-04T19:29:00.000-08:00

December 29, 2009 - Gustav Mahler, not long after completing the Symphony No. 2, said, "The term 'symphony' means creating a world with all the technical means available." The ResurrectionSymphony is an all-embracing work, the first of the Austrian composer's symphonies to make use of voices and words as well as the orchestra, and the piece that set him decisively on the path toward the grandly scaled, high individualist and confessional style of symphony that was to become his legacy. It was also the composition that brought Mahler his first fame, and its premiere in Berlin on the night of Dec. 13, 1895 (staged with the help of Richard Strauss), marked the real beginning of Mahler's career as a composer.

Symphony No. 2 is the work with which Mahler answered the metaphysical challenge of Beethoven's Ninth. There are a lot of similarities along the way — the turbulent beginning, the vast exploration of musical territory in the middle of the work and the triumphant conclusion. In the final movement, all 38 and a half minutes of it, the ramparts are being climbed and the noise and confusion of battle surround you. Using off-stage instruments to explode the musical space was one of Mahler's favorite devices, and trumpets sound from different sides of the stage in this movement. He engulfs the listener in something beyond the reaches of the concert hall.

Mahler, To The Limit

Leonard Bernstein's is an apocalyptic vision. This is theResurrection taken to the limit, and then well beyond. It may not be a reading to everyone's liking, but it is certainly an experience, and there's no question of the performers' commitment.

It makes sense to have Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic represent Mahler. The New York Philharmonic was Bernstein's orchestra — and it was Mahler's, too. He spent two years with the Philharmonic from 1907 to 1909. His conducting was intense, impassioned, revelatory and very physical — a frenzied, sublime communion with the music. Leonard Bernstein's body language was similarly dramatic, and his 1987 performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 2 is extraordinary.

Edmonton Symphony Orchestra Season Highlights 2009/2010

2010-01-04T08:38:00.001-08:00

[Youtube] Bernard Haitink and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra plays Mahler Symphony 4

2010-01-03T11:16:00.000-08:00

[Book Trailer] Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age

2009-12-21T07:07:00.000-08:00

Source: Princeton University Press

Delete looks at the surprising phenomenon of perfect remembering in the digital age, and reveals why we must reintroduce our capacity to forget. Digital technology empowers us as never before, yet it has unforeseen consequences as well. Potentially humiliating content on Facebook is enshrined in cyberspace for future employers to see. Google remembers everything we've searched for and when. The digital realm remembers what is sometimes better forgotten, and this has profound implications for us all.

In Delete, Viktor Mayer-Schönberger traces the important role that forgetting has played throughout human history, from the ability to make sound decisions unencumbered by the past to the possibility of second chances. The written word made it possible for humans to remember across generations and time, yet now digital technology and global networks are overriding our natural ability to forget--the past is ever present, ready to be called up at the click of a mouse. Mayer-Schönberger examines the technology that's facilitating the end of forgetting--digitization, cheap storage and easy retrieval, global access, and increasingly powerful software--and describes the dangers of everlasting digital memory, whether it's outdated information taken out of context or compromising photos the Web won't let us forget. He explains why information privacy rights and other fixes can't help us, and proposes an ingeniously simple solution--expiration dates on information--that may.

Delete is an eye-opening book that will help us remember how to forget in the digital age.

After ten years on the faculty of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, Viktor Mayer-Schönberger is director of the Information and Innovation Policy Research Centre at the National University of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. He is the coeditor of Governance and Information Technology: From Electronic Government to Information Government.

Born Standing Up - A Comic's Life: Wow!

2009-12-16T13:37:00.000-08:00

By Steve Martin
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 1936 KB
Print Length: 224 pages
Publisher: Scribner; 1st edition (November 20, 2007)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
Language: English
ASIN: B000UZNSN6

My Take:
This book has forced me to change my naive, if not criminally wrong, view to "stand-up comedians" completely. I haven't poured too much thought on comedians except on their face values. Haven't thought about how much time and energy they had had put on their "gigs," how nervous or scared they might feel whenever standing up in front of a large crowd, how tired and exhausting it would be for them to go though one comedy routine to another.

Steve Martin didn't mean that much to me except short, fragmented and passing shots of his elements as a comic celebrity: good looking, subtle humour, hosting an Academy Award Ceremony, silly (or even stupid in some cases) comic movies, etc. It didn't occur to me that he has been so intense and on relentless pursuit to achieve perfection and originality in his comedy. Up until picking up this "wow!"- book (to me).

It was a page-turner (I know it's a tiresome cliche, but it's true indeed!). Steve's humble, modest, and honest description of his comic life moved me immensely. His book also hooked me to seek more memoirs that might be as enticing and captivating as his. A great book - what a life he has lived!

The Barnes & Noble Review

It's hard to imagine any well-known comedian alive today achieving Steve Martin status. He is an actor, comic, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, director, essayist, magician, musician, and composer; he is master of the catchphrase and the balloon animal; he is sufficiently beloved and respected that no one really holds Bringing Down the House against him. Seriously, who else is there? Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell, say, have the Saturday Night Live credits and the screen time, but we're not about to see their essays in The New Yorker. Denis Leary has the writing and serious-actor chops, but show me one parent who will let their kids memorize his albums word-for-word like we did with the mega-selling A Wild and Crazy Guy. (Twenty-nine years later, I can still recite "Cat Handcuffs.") Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are without peer, but their personas don't fill arenas. (Also, no banjo. Or rope tricks.) Robin Williams: similar antic quality, but too many demons (including, but not limited to, Patch Adams). Jim Carrey: what happened? Seinfeld? Feh.

So how did Steve Martin achieve Steve Martin status? The answers can be found in the performer's autobiography, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life. "I was seeking comic originality, and fame fell on me as a by-product," Martin writes without false modesty, adding elsewhere that "despite a lack of natural ability, I did have the one element necessary to all early creativity: naïveté, that fabulous quality that keeps you from knowing just how unsuited you are for what you are about to do." His volume itself is modest as well: spare and unsentimental, gently self-effacing, a colossal success story told in just over 200 pages (including photos). This is partly because the book is not so much autobiography as autobiographical, limited almost entirely to the genesis and flowering of Martin's brainy-meets-loony stand-up career.

In other words, if you are dying to know what it was like to work with Eddie Murphy, you are out of luck (though you will get a soupcon of Dan Aykroyd). I should also add that if you are looking for wild-and-crazy-guy tales of late nights on the road -- sex with fans, benders with Sam Kinison -- you will also be disappointed: Martin spends his between-show downtime watching The Brady Brunch and trolling antique stores for art. And if you are expecting out-loud, fall-down laughs on every page -- this is Steve Freaking Martin, after all -- you should probably read Cruel Shoes. This book, though not without funny asides and anecdotes, is actually not all that hilarious. And as it turns out, that's part of what makes it good.

Martin's first big break came at age ten, when he landed a job selling guidebooks at Disneyland, whose opening had been announced with two-inch headlines "as though it were a victory at sea." Disneyland, he writes, was his "Versailles." It was also his earliest education. Apprenticing himself to the performers in its employ, Martin learned rope tricks, sleights of hand, sight gags, the essentials of patter. By age 15, through the kindness of the local Kiwanis, he was performing "at the hectic pace of one show every two to three months." He kept scrupulous notes on how each bit played -- "Quiet," "Big laugh!" "Relax, don't shake" -- and learned to juggle and play banjo, eventually landing a regular gig performing melodramas and olios with the troupe at Disney rival Knotts Berry Farm. There, he writes, the "soft, primordial core" of his act was formed.

Then it was on to crappy clubs in San Francisco, crappy clubs in Aspen, crappy clubs in God-knows-where -- plus philosophy studies at a series of colleges -- and a stand-up routine that was anything but. "How many people have never raised their hands before?" he asked, drawing on his fascination with logic, or lack thereof; he confessed his fetish for wearing men's underwear; he developed a habit of Pied-Pipering the audience out into the street, ad-libbing all the way. After lucking into a TV job writing for the Smothers Brothers, things snowballed from there, to Carson, to Saturday Night Live, to the 45,000-seat Nassau Coliseum, sold out -- a bit too large for the Pied Piper routine. "The lightning strike," he writes," was happening to me."

Along the way, of course, there are panic attacks, political shifts, puzzling breakups (best advice he gets: "Oh, that'll happen a lot"), and plenty insights into the really rather alien anatomy of his act. And there are lingering grudges -- resolved beautifully at the end -- against his distant and likely envious father, a failed actor turned real estate salesman who presided over silent dinners and threatened at any moment to explode into violent rage. Martin recalls, at seven or eight, the one time ever that his father suggested a game of catch: "This offer to spend time together was so rare that I was confused about what I was supposed to do," he writes. "We tossed the ball back and forth with cheerless formality." This simple, haunting image makes quite clear what prompted young Steven to, in effect, run off and join the circus.

This image also makes Martin's scattered lapses in writing craft all the more glaring by contrast. "Having cut myself off from [my father], and by association the rest of the family, I was incurring psychological debts that would come due years later in the guise of romantic misconnections and a wrong-headed quest for solitude," Martin writes clunkily, obviously taking dictation from his therapist. Elsewhere, he's sophomoric -- "The balls were bright red, and so was I" -- or in desperate need of a line edit ("The physical distance from each other had permanently broken up Nina and me").

But honestly, this awkwardness and unevenness are part of the book's charm. At heart, Steve Martin is a dweeb -- a handsome dweeb, but a dweeb. (Come on, he was the guy in high school who did magic!) As he has also made clear in interviews, he is not altogether comfortable talking about himself. His act was only superficially autobiographical, if ever; the genre does not come naturally to him in the first place. And yet here he is. He resists the urge to hide behind jokes, to do -- in the guise of self-disclosure -- well honed, perfectly polished material. (Perhaps he learned something from an appearance on Merv Griffin, where, when he launched into a bit -- "I just bought a new car. A '65 Greyhound bus" -- Griffin, interrupting, asked why on earth he would do that. "I had no prepared answer; I just stared at him," Martin recalls. "I thought, 'Oh my God, because it's a comedy routine.' ") In this book, however, Martin is telling the truth. Most of it, anyway. Even when, like comedy itself, it's not pretty. --Lynn Harris

Lynn Harris is an author, essayist, commentator, and award-winning journalist. Her most recent book is the satirical novel Death by Chick Lit. A former stand-up comic, she lives in Brooklyn.

O'Reilly Webcast: Confessions of a Public Speaker by @Berkun

2009-12-15T11:35:00.000-08:00

Mahler No. 2 "Resurrection" by UC Davis Symphony - Epic Performance. Dazzling.

2009-12-12T20:48:00.000-08:00

What is good music? Roger Scruton's new book tries to answer to the elusive question of musical understanding

2009-12-10T08:01:00.000-08:00

November 18, 2009
From The Times Literary Supplement
Roger Scruton
UNDERSTANDING MUSIC
Philosophy and interpretation
244pp. Continuum.

"It is Wittgenstein’s analogy between musical and facial expression that Scruton eventually uses to sketch an account of the way music demands imaginative engagement. Just as facial expressions do not communicate something that can be understood so much as enjoin us to imagine what it feels like when we ourselves make such an expression, so too, according to Scruton, does some elemental aspect of musical experience enjoin us to engage our imagining in similar fashion. In this way, and because the experience of music is not, at least not typically, heard as a single expression, the imagination is forced to grapple with the musical shapes and forms as they unfold over time, following its movement as it echoes in, or is anticipated by, the movements of our body and rational imagination.

"It is in this aspect of "enjoinment" – of the way we join with the music – that is the key to Scruton’s conception not only of musical understanding but also of its wider cultural and social value. Just as a grimace demands that we imagine the complex of unpleasant feelings and thoughts behind that particular belligerent facial expression, so too music may require us to identify with a world of sensibilities which happens to sit ill with us.

"This is why the cultural aspect of music is so important for Scruton. ... The point is a blunt one: without good music, culture and society simply degrade. But what is good music, according to Scruton? As with the concept of musical understanding, this is something that must be teased out of the volume as a whole. A clue may be found in the essay on Janácek and Schoenberg, however, where Scruton refers to the common sensation in art that something "could not have been otherwise"; to a sense of necessity central to the experience of all art according to which we judge the rightness of a gesture, an expression or an entire work down from its overall shape to its tiniest detail.

"The most rewarding chapters in fact are the critical essays, in which the philosophical dimension ties itself to elucidating, for example, the meaning of the use of "colour" in Szymanowski, or the sacred utterance at the heart of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Here – even for those of us with more apparently progressive musical tastes than those professed by Scruton – there is so much to agree with that one’s nascent frustrations at the absence of a more complete book grow exponentially. But extended philosophical exposition has its dangers, too, and in enjoining his reader to piece together for themselves such a humane and insightful conception of musical understanding, perhaps this lack of systematic presentation should be considered a virtue.

Full story.

Walter Mossberg Reviews B&N Nook - "Amazon Kidle's Still Better" (via @GeorgeDearing)

2009-12-10T02:34:00.000-08:00

The Angel's Game - C. R. Zafon's Another Spellbinding Story [Review]

2009-12-05T15:46:00.000-08:00

by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Published by: Random House

eBook Publish Date: June 16, 2009

Print ISBN: 0385528701

File Size: 2.77 MB

If it is allowed for us to refer fiction to simply a story or a narrative, and if you would like to read a good, and entertaining (or even spellbinding) story, then do not hesitate to pick this tumultuous, dramatic, interlacing, and page-turning novel by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. You will not be disappointed. This novel has them all - romance, growing-up tale, thrill and suspense, fantasy, paranormal events, crime and murder, mystery, friendship, and of course our dearly love for books and literature...you name it.

It was the big hit "The Shadow of the Wind," of course, that has led me to this book. I consider "The Shadow of the Wind" a classic, not because of its huge success but because of its "story," or truthfulness to what fiction means - again "story" or "narrative." Zafon was simply masterful in weaving a range of stories and plots to make readers spellbound all along. His style seems to be predictable - laying out an intriguing main story that gives birth a variety of interesting branching stories that are flowing all the way back to where they had started. During the course, a wide variety of memorable episodes mushroom. Zafon has demonstrated his magical skills in developing a so-called "picareque" style novel to its most beautiful and complete form.

"The Angel's Game" reminds me a lot of Zafon's former bestseller "The Shadow of the Wind," not only in overall atmosphere, characters, locations and historical context; but also the way the whole story flows and pans out with his usual picaresque structure.

Nonetheless, Zafon's way of presenting his stories is simply magical. He himself truly believes in what exceptional power and influence a good story/narrative emanates, and he triumphantly prove his belief with this novel in a most enthralling way.

With Sony ebook format (LRF file), it has close to 1,000 page-long, yet it has never made me feel long or bored. How many novelists or storyteller out there can achieve it? How many novelists or storyteller can reader(s) under their magical spell from start to finish?

I have no idea how good his book would be from a literary point of view or something like academical standpoint. Nonetheless, I admire him dearly of his masterful skills of storytelling. I even feel tempted to call him "a Spanish Homer."

Again, if you love to hear a very interesting story, Zafon will fulfill your wish. 5 stars out of 5.

PS. I have also enjoyed the luxury of listening to theme music Zafon himself composed for his novels. They are all lovely and sometimes hopelessly romantic. Indeed Zafon is an artist in a more classical sense.

- - -

Some memorable quotes I like from the novel:

Don Bailio was a forbidding-looking man with a bushy mustache who did not suffer fools and who subscribed to the theory that the liberal use of adverbs and adjectives was the mark of a pervert or someone with a vitamin deficiency (p. 13)

"You don't look well," he pronounced.

"Indigestion," I replied.

"From what?"

"Reality."

"Join the queue."

Lord's Prayer - "A beautiful and well-crafted prayer. Poetry aside, a religion is really a moral code that is expressed through legends, myths, or any type of literary device in order to establish a system of beliefs, values, and rules with which to regulate a culture or a society."

"Everything is a tale, Martin. What we believe, what we know, what we remember, even what we dream. Everything is a story, a narrative, a sequence of events with characters communicating an emotional content. We only accept as true what can be narrated." (p. 280)

"Natural talent is like an athlete's strength. You can be born with more or less ability, but nobody can become an athlete just because he or she was born tall, or strong, or fast. What makes the athlete, or the arthritis, is the work, the vocation, and the technique. The intelligence you are born with is just ammunition. To achieve something with it you need to transform your mind into a high-precision weapon." (p. 344)

"Why the military metaphor?"

"History is biology's dumping ground, Martin."

"All interpretation or observation of reality is necessarily fiction. In this case, the problem is that man is a moral animal abandoned in an amoral universe and condemned to a finite existence with no other purpose than to perpetuate the natural cycle of the species. It is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality, at least for a human being. We spend a good part of our lives dreaming, especially when we're awake. As I said, pure biology." (P. 383)

"No, simply a commercial proposition. Nature is one large free market. The law of supply and demand is a molecular fact." (p. 384)

"An intellect is usually someone who isn't exactly distinguished by his intellect. He claims that label to compensate for his inadequacies. It's as old as that saying: Tell me what you boast of and I'll tell you what you lack. Our daily bread. The incompetent always present themselves as experts, the cruel as pious, sinners as devout, usurers as benefactors, the small-minded as patriots, the arrogant as humble, the vulgar as elegant, and the feeble-minded as intellectual." (p. 385)

"Do you know what fables teach us?"

"Moral lessons?"

"No. They teach us that human beings learn and absorb ideas and concepts through narrative, through stories, not through lessons or theoretical speeches. This is what any of the great religious texts teach us. They're all tales about characters who must confront life and overcome obstacles, figures setting off on a journey of spiritual enrichment through exploits and revelations. All holy books are, above all, great stories whose plots deal with the basic aspects of human nature, setting them within a particular moral context and a particular framework of supernatural dogmas." (p. 435)

The girl was staring at me as if her life depended on a kind word. I yielded to temptation. Good words are a vain benevolence that demands no sacrifice and is more appreciated than real acts of kindness." (p. 446)

I closed my eyes and succumbed to one of those naps that can be enjoyed only on board some mechanical monstrosity, the sleep of modern man. (p. 526)

"Nobody is. Nihilism is an attitude, not a doctrine. Place the flame from a candle under the testicles of a nihilist and notice how quickly he sees the light of existence." (p. 563)

Confessions of a Public Speaker - Superb, honest, personal, down-to-earth how-to book

2009-12-04T10:02:00.000-08:00

By Scott Berkun
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 2979 KB
Print Length: 238 pages
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc. (October 20, 2009)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
Language: English
ASIN: B002VL1CGM

This is a great book, superbly written, very approachable, personal, and honest. Mr. Berkun doesn't try to hide or disguise anything - he's being himself, exactly the same guy you see from a number of Youtube videos: a down-to-earth, yet smart as a whip, guy. This book is read so easily, so fast - more like a spellbinding whodunits (probably even more readable than many crime novels for sure).

That it is a page-turner doesn't mean that it has few guides or instructions however. It is exactly the opposite. It has tons of how-tos for you and me (if you happen to have a few presentation opportunities in/voluntarily in daily lives that is) to keep in mind and to get moral support from it. It doesn't necessarily list exact how-tos though. It doesn't do babysitting. Rather, it reveals and analyzes what drives us to those fears, anxieties, sweaty palms and trembling legs that we experience whenever standing on a podium, sometimes with a good reason, sometimes not. By revealing and exposing the "behind the scenes," Mr. Berkun effectively soothes us, powerfully persuades us that there's nothing you can't overcome, or rather embrace.

I have been enjoying all three books by this interesting, energetic, and thought-provoking guy but this would probably be the most intimate, intensely personal, and equally educational book to date. I strongly recommend that everybody read this book. It doesn't matter if you're a professional PowerPoint killer or not, this book will be a huge eye-opener for you nonetheless.

13 Conundrums of Management - H. Schachter reviews H. Mintzberg's new book "Managing"

2009-12-02T14:56:00.000-08:00

Book Review of "Managing" by Henry Mintzberg (Harvey Schachter) | Canadian Government Executive magazine

“Every way a manager turns, there seems to be some paradox or enigma lurking,” Henry Mintzberg observes. Mintzberg lists 13 inescapable conundrums of managing, but "doesn’t really offer much in the way of answers in his exploration of the conundrums – let alone easy answers. But he does offer solace, recognizing that these are big if little remarked upon issues that confound managers." Here are 13 inescapable conundrums of managing:

1. The syndrome of superficiality: How to delve deeply on a matter, when there is so much pressure to get it done? Managers have to become proficient at their superficiality, by for example breaking down complex issues into smaller steps that can be taken one at a time.

2. The predicament of planning: This related syndrome refers to the struggle a manager faces in his hectic, constantly interrupted daily work life to plan, strategize and just plain think – let alone think ahead.

3. The labyrinth of decomposition: Where to find synthesis, in a world so decomposed by analysis? Organizations are decomposed into regions, divisions, departments, and services, not to mention missions, visions, objectives, programs, budgets, and systems. The agendas at meetings are divided into various issues. But managers are supposed to synthesize this confusing mess.

4. The quandary of connecting: How to keep informed – in contact, “in touch” – when managing by its own nature removes the manager from the very thing being managed?

5. The dilemma of delegation: How to delegate to others when so much of the relevant information needed to handle the issue is personal, oral and often privileged information of the manager?

6. The mysteries of measuring: How to manage it when you can’t rely on measuring it? “Who has ever really measured the performance of management itself…. I guess that means that management cannot be managed. Indeed, who has ever even tried to measure the performance of measurement? Accept this adage, therefore, and you have to conclude that measurement cannot be managed, either. Apparently we have to get rid of both management and measurement – thanks to measurement.”

7. The enigma of order: How to bring work to the order of others when the work of managing is itself so disorderly? Managers must weave between letting chaos reign and reigning in the chaos.

8. The paradox of control: How to maintain the necessary state of controlled disorder when one’s own manager is imposing order?

9. The clutch of confidence: How to maintain a sufficient level of confidence without crossing over into arrogance?

10. The ambiguity of acting: How to act decisively in a complicated, nuanced world?

11. The riddle of change: How to manage change when there is a vital need to maintain continuity? For all the claims that everything is changing – or must change – most things around us don’t change and that’s for the better.

12. The ultimate conundrum: How can any manager possibly cope with all of the other conundrums simultaneously?

13. My conundrum: Mintzberg asks himself, “How can I reconcile the fact that, while all of these conundrums can be stated apart, they all seem to be the same.” And he answers: “Maybe these are all just one great big jumbled management conundrum. In that case, you needn’t be bothered by the previous ultimate conundrum – just all the ones that preceded it.”

Full column by Harvey Schachter.