I am amused to see this strange new trend of spam email subject lines being meals:
The Death of Print (And What It Means to Journalists’ Dreams)
As someone who writes online for a living, the news that Google is now larger (financially) than the entire US newspaper industry (advertising and sales) is depressing in a way that’s hard to explain. I love the internet and I love what I do, don’t get me wrong, but I have always secretly wanted to have things in print. It’s an old-fashioned thing, perhaps, or a subconscious rejection of the transience of online writing, but I saw Abraham Reisman say this in a Warren Ellis blog post and it rang true:
Writing a cover feature for a magazine remains one of the — if not the — brass rings for a freelancer or young staff writer. Like, for real.
The blue-chip publications are, of course, ideal — your New Yorkers and New York Times Magazines and Wireds. And I don’t suppose anyone has little fantasies about writing for the official Amtrak magazine (although, y’know what, I really shouldn’t say such things in this economy). But even a spot in a smaller-market title is an insane boon to one’s career/prestige/wallet, when one is starting out.
I dream of the day that I can write a cover story — or even just an internal feature. I want to go glossy. I’d literally do it for zero money, because it brings with it a hope that dollar-signs will be in my corneas in the not-so-distant future.
There’s something about writing for print that feels more… successful? established? both? that writing for the internet, and I say that as someone who’s written for Time Magazine and Gawker Media online, two big, somewhat prestigious media empires. In time, that sense of self-success will shift for writers, I’m sure, but for now… print is still where it’s at, despite the size of Google and the weight of reality. And because of that, I think the “death of print” is still a little bit off… or, at least, I hope it is.
Offered Without Comment.
And I Feel Fine
I had a thought, the other day, that all of those “2012! It’s when the world is going to end!” prophecies and panics were right, in a way. Or, at least, that they were as right as they were wrong, and it’s just that everyone was being far too literal in approaching them. I’ve noticed that I am sadly not alone in finding that 2012 so far as been strangely, worryingly overwhelming in terms of life changes and work things and just big stuff – Friends have been having worse times of it than me, and fighting their own battles against all manner of things that I’ve only ever vaguely had to deal with, luckily – and it’s gone from dazed jokes that “This year is trying to kill us” to actually wondering if this year is trying to kill us.
It’s not, of course, but I wonder if 2012 is going to end up being some kind of weird year of change for people, where things happen (Things so important that they require italics, obviously). One of my favorite comments about all the 2012 insanity was someone pointing out that none of the prophecies were actually saying that it was the year where the world ended, but that they were all about massive shifts and dramatic changes (Terrence McKenna’s Timewave Zero, for example, has this year as the equivalent of a massive heart attack for the planet, but not a fatal one, if I remember correctly). I always preferred that idea, that “it’s not death, it’s changing” take on events, but I didn’t really take any of it even vaguely seriously until the other day, thinking that all of this upheaval and drama and quiet sad horror is the start of that change, and that it’s something that we’re all doing without realizing it. It’s the end of the world as we know it, perhaps, but only our own worlds, and only those worlds as we know them.
All of which is a quasi-apology for not writing here lately. I’ve been going through my own internal dramas (Very quietly, very withdrawn, you’ll be happy to know, and none of it serious beyond to my bank balance), and haven’t felt particularly like blogging here. I’m getting over that, though, and will soon be back to trying to catch up to 366 Songs (I am so amazingly behind) and, more importantly, other writing that can fill voids left by gigs that I no longer have or never had in the first place. The name of this site was always meant to push me forward, after all.
Roll Up, It’s An Invitation
So, I’m sick – Well, getting better now, but the weekend (and especially Sunday) was lost to me essentially feeling sorry for myself and coughing miserably and more than a little pathetically. What was particularly weird, though, was that Saturday into Sunday, I couldn’t sleep because I felt so lousy, but I also couldn’t stop myself getting entirely lost in nostalgia for the entire night, remembering people and places that I hadn’t thought about in years, if not decades; people I’d known in high school, stores that I used to go to in Glasgow and Aberdeen, ex-girlfriends and college friends and everything like that. It was one of those times where you’re not asleep, but you’re also not awake enough to be in full control of where your brain takes you, so you end up a passenger in your own thoughts. It was oddly pleasant, to be honest; none of the memories were especially bad, but neither were they of the “I was so young and alive and had so much hair back then…!” variety, so it was just this nice trip down memory lane, really. If only all insomniac nights were like that.
“I Like To Do Just Like The Rest”
I’m not quite sure just why this week has proven to be so exhausting, but it sadly has, hence the relative silence here. While I’m recovering and feeling a little scared about the backlog of songs I have to write about, have some Cornershop doing Bob Dylan and making it into a lovely little pop song:
Where It’s At.
Ego, it strikes me, is wishing that the internet would realize when you haven’t had any new stories on a website for a couple days. Such a thing may be a good enough reason for taking stock and coming up with a new plan of attack, when I stop to think about it, but I’m still at that tender stage where prodding that particular bruise too much makes me wince and want to change the subject. The irony of this is that all of it happened at a point where I was thinking long term, and career-building and brand-building and all of those kinds of things, only for thinking and plans to be simultaneously derailed by the same event, leaving me sitting on the ground going “wha’ hoppen?” like a cowboy sitting, legs apart, amidst the wreckage of some exploded caravan as the result of some heist or another.
…I suspect that my analogy got away from me a little, there.
Nonetheless, I see things like this and feel a little inspired, a little nervous; David’s a friend, but also a true talent in terms of writing and thinking that I find myself in constant awe/anticipation of, and I find myself jealous of his sureness in saying things like “I’m good at one thing and straight at several others,” because it’s that surety in myself and my talents that I’m lacking right now, frustratingly enough. “The only thing stopping me is me” he also writes, and I recognize the truth in that, and I try to fight that battle by reminding myself that, if I could’ve gotten this far, it’s not impossible to keep going no matter what setbacks lie ahead. We’ll see if I start to believe that anytime soon, though.
Fame, One Step Removed
The weirdest part of catching up on IFC’s Portlandia recently was seeing various parts of my neighborhood show up in this sketch, particularly the much-beloved Waffle Window, complete with genuine Waffle Windower serving Fred and Carrie. I had this great moment of “Oh my God! That’s actually the woman who works at the Waffle Window! I’ve talked to her and now she’s on television!” while watching this.
(For those who listen to Wait, What? – The woman serving at the Waffle Window is the woman who cut Jeff off when he was in the midst of his Waffle frenzy. For all we know, she is the reason he is alive today, and not dead from Waffle Overdose.)
366 Songs 035: Born To Be Blue
Day two of feeling sorry for myself (This is actually not necessarily true; I’m writing ahead, so this is actually coming from the inner darkness that is Friday evening, still), and so another song with “Blue” in the title, this time Ray Charles doing “Born to Be Blue.”
There’s a fascinating romanticism of sadness in pop music, maybe in more than any other artform, I think. Normal service will be resumed soon, of course.