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writing, yes; reading, not so much

More bleak book news from the New York Times:

The point may soon come when there are more people who want to write books than there are people who want to read them.

At least, that is what the evidence suggests. Booksellers, hobbled by the economic crisis, are struggling to lure readers. Almost all of the New York publishing houses are laying off editors and pinching pennies. Small bookstores are closing. Big chains are laying people off or exploring bankruptcy.

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 31-01-2009, 5 user comments

blogging and journalism

Margaret Simons has an interesting piece about how much  blogging has changed journalists' perception of their work. Paul Bradshaw says this of his survey:

As I pored over the results, I was surprised at just how much these journalists felt their work had been changed by the simple act of blogging. I had expected some effect on their relationship with the “former audience,” but what surprised me most was when more than half of the blogging journalists said this relationship had been “enormously” or “completely” transformed.

In most cases, the journalists' reaction seems largely positive. I did, however, note this response: ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 30-01-2009, 2 user comments

the decline of the literary review

The piece below ran in Crikey today. It's a bit garbled, to be honest, but, hey, it's forty-three bloody degrees. The Louise Swinn piece will run in the next edition, due out on 22 March (unless the entire country has melted by then, in which case it may be somewhat later).

Many obituarists have noted how perfectly attuned the late John Updike was to a particular era in American history, with his best work (the Rabbit books) exploring the mores of the unparalleled affluent post-war society.

But it’s also worth thinking about how Updike’s own literary career reflected that time, for his death comes as popular literary fiction increasingly seems an endangered species. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 30-01-2009, No comments

Unusual Work launch

YOU (singular/plural) are invited to the launch of

UNUSUAL WORK

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No 7

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 29-01-2009, No comments

o come let us adore him

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In my household, we’ve started substituting Obama for the heroes and morals in my son’s bedtime stories. When Little Red Riding Hood is stalked by the Big Bad Wolf, who should happen to be passing by but Obama (in some strange twist of fate he’s on a presidential retreat nearby). When the Three Little Pigs get disillusioned that their houses keep being blown in, they band together to make “Yes We Can” placards, give lofty, inspiring speeches and implore each other “What would Obama do in this situation…oink, oink?” Of course, my three year old just rolls his eyes and sighs. ... read more

Written by Maxine Clarke on 29-01-2009, No comments

a taste of things to come

It was forty-one degrees in Melbourne yesterday. It's supposed to be forty-three today and the same again tomorrow. Weather is not climate and swallows don't make summers and so on and so forth.  Nonetheless, it's a context that encourages one to pay attention to this little cheery press release (ht Robert Merkel at LP):

A new scientific study led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reaches a powerful conclusion about the climate change caused by future increases of carbon dioxide:  to a large extent, there’s no going back.

The pioneering study, led by NOAA senior scientist Susan Solomon, shows how changes in surface temperature, rainfall, and sea level are largely irreversible for more than 1,000 years after carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are completely stopped. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 29-01-2009, 2 user comments

‘we are not going to show restraint anymore’

Last time:

The indiscriminate attacks of the Israeli occupying forces resulted in a high fatality rate of 1325 Palestinians and 5320 injured.

According to the PRCS most updated statistics the fatalities included 446 children, 110 women and 108 elderly while the injured consisted of 1855 children and 795 women.

According to the main three Palestinian military factions' brigades (Al Qasam Brigades, Saraya Al Quds brigades and Al Aqsa Martyrs brigades) the total number of deaths among their fighter reached 118, (49, 34, and 35 respectively). This means that the percentage of innocent civilians' deaths is 85% - 90% of the total number. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 29-01-2009, No comments

down with our furry oppressors

You might not have heardcapitalist-cat but the Left hates cats. No word yet on the line on chickens.

... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 28-01-2009, 1 user comment

more on the Pope and anti-Semitism

I've written a longer (and more thought through) version of the post below for today's Crikey. It's free, I think -- you can read it here. The guts of it are this: though the media attention has been about the Pope rescinding the excommunication of a single Holocaust-denying bishop from the Society of St Pius X, the  bigger story is that the Vatican is openly courting an organisation that is more-or-less overtly anti-Semitic.

Time magazine explains that the Pope wants to make the SSPX into "a personal prelature of the papacy, the same special status that conservative lay group Opus Dei was granted by John Paul II". ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 27-01-2009, No comments

white bred bun: an unaustralian poem

oooooh check out that lifeguard
he’s ripped
hand me a vegemite
sand stuck in my baby bonus
ooooooh my baby bonus bits

oi! mister / let’s breed
gold haired & knock-kneed
buttercup & coon cheese
bandaid on a scratched knee
judge me by a wet T
call me love

my god / i love this
sunburnt cunt –
calls me a slapper
nother shrimp on the bar—
be unaustralian

i come from the land down under
limp lettuce / tomato sauce
burnt sausage & onion on
a white bred bun
i come from the land down under
balangalow screams / do
you speak my language
well / f*ck off & go home

hey sheila
hitch hike your skirt up
like a north shore school girl
hey blackie
yes you / beat it
only kind we dig are rip curls
oooooh check out that lifeguard
he’s ripped
hand me a vegemite
sand stuck in my baby bonus
ooooooh my baby bonus bits

(c) Maxine Clarke 2008.

... read more

Written by Maxine Clarke on 26-01-2009, No comments

the rehabilitation of a Holocaust denier

Meet  Mr Richard Williamson:

"I believe there were no gas chambers... I think that 200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps but none of them by gas chambers," he told SVT television in an interview that was recorded in Germany last November. "There was not one Jew killed by the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies!"

Mr Williamson, 68, who is the rector of the Seminary of Our Lady Co-Redemptrix in La Reja, Argentina, is no stranger to controversy. He has endorsed "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", a notorious anti-Semitic forgery, and claimed that Jews are bent on world domination. He supports conspiracy theories on the assassination of President Kennedy and the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York, and has accused the Vatican of being under the power of Satan. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 25-01-2009, 3 user comments

Saturday chicken blogging

What are you looking at?what-are-you-looking-at

checking out the scene

... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 24-01-2009, 2 user comments

The Black Panthers on Palestine

At the moment I'm re-working two chapters of a novel which is partly set in Panthers-era Black London. It's funny, I've been thinking for several years of the ground-breaking and revolutionary work of Panthers the world over, and of their solidarity and identification with the world's indigenous and oppressed peoples.

The word 'terrorist' carries such different connotations today, and how easily we forget how much a mobilised, and yes, when necessary, forceful mass of likeminded revolutionaries accomplished against such goliath-like odds...and in their time, as supposed 'terrorists.'

Here's Panther's Founder Huey Newton on Palestine:

"We have respect for all people, and we have respect for the right of any people to exist. So we want the Palestinian people and the Jewish people to live in harmony together. We support the Palestinian’s just struggle for liberation one hundred percent. We will go on doing this, and we would like for all of the progressive people of the world to join our ranks in order to make a world in which all people can live." ... read more

Written by Maxine Clarke on 23-01-2009, 1 user comment

John Docker and Ned Curthoys: An Open Letter

John Docker and regular Overland contributor Ned Curthoys are distributing the open letter below on behalf of their newly formed Committee for the Dismantling of Zionism:

J'Accuse: Open Letter to Kevin Rudd Prime Minister of Australia

Dear Prime Minister,

We are part of an increasing number of people around the world of Jewish descent who are sickened by the coldly calculated massacre of the Palestinians of Gaza and who utterly repudiate Israel's claim that it acts in the name of Jews the world over. Like an increasing number of people around the world of Jewish and non-Jewish descent we are also sickened by the indifference of Western governments, including your government, to the death, maiming, terror and trauma, being inflicted on the Palestinians of Gaza, including on a disproportionate number of children, in what now resembles a vast outdoor prison or policed ghetto. The apparent indifference of your government to the humanitarian plight of the Palestinians lends support to Israel's crimes against humanity. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 23-01-2009, No comments

open letter to the president

This is a pretty dodgy video - the mic kept cutting out and the second poem's crap, but it's the only video recording (I can't actually remember a video being taken but there you go) I have of my Open Letter To the President. It was written long before Obama was the next black. What can I say, finger on the pulse, trend-setter and all that. He hasn't replied yet, but I imagine he will soon. Any day now ... Mr President?

... read more

Written by Maxine Clarke on 22-01-2009, No comments