Being an internet refuge for Graeme McMillan
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
Students protest against the troika’s plans for the Cypriot economy after the government decided to keep the country’s banks closed until Thursday. Photograph: Georgios Kefalas/EPA
“Do we want to just look on the dark side?/Do we want to wallow in the mire?/Do we want to feel the world’s against us?/Do we?”
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
A Canon camera owned by Lindsay Crumbley Scallan from Georgia in the US which was found on a beach in Taiwan. Scallan lost her camera while on holiday in Hawaii in 2007, it was found last month, more than 6,000 miles (9,600 km) away. Photograph: Douglas Cheng/AFP/Getty Images
I love this story, and the way that the camera looks like a fossil.
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
While a soldier of the Presidential Regiment takes part in the Changing of the Guard ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow. Photograph: Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images
Really, I just like that it looks like he’s kicking the sun.
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
The professional peloton lead the rest of the 1000-plus riders in Stage 4 of the annual ABSA Cape Epic mountain bike race near Wellington, South Africa. Photograph: Kim Ludbrook/EPA
Seeing that pic just puts me in mind of the Elliott Smith line “Good Morning Sun/It’s a beautiful day…”
As usual, from the Guardian’s Photo Blog, but today it’s a juxtaposition of images that grabbed my attention. Doesn’t the confetti from the bottom picture look like it’s fallout from the one above? I have to wonder whether that was intentional or entirely accidental…
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
A young girl can scarcely conceal her excitement as she waits to welcome The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall during their visit to the British School, on the outskirts of Muscat, on day three of the Royal Tour of Oman. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA
Yes, I know exactly how you feel, little kid.
She hit all the right checkboxes to get this crowd all jazzed up: Obama teleprompter jokes, White House tour cancellation jokes, jokes about her sex life, drinking a Super Big Gulp of Soda, gun talk, religion talk, a heartland twang voice, anti-DC trash talk, a Karl Rove swat, everything else. It worked. It was fun! She also let out a little hint about returning to politics…
…Which was of course a tease. She is not returning to politics anytime soon. She is an entertainer and part of her routine is to tease about how she may return to politics, for attention. She is not running for anything. If you see any story headlines this week like, “Is Palin Running in 2016?” then you should print out the full articles and burn them in a trash can, or bomb them. She likes playing pop star muse to the conservative movement, and that’s all.
From here.
The Guardian’s U.S. political coverage is the best U.S. political coverage. “If you see any story headlines this week like, ‘Is Palin Running in 2016’ then you should print out the full articles and burn them in a trash can, or bomb them.” I love the knowingness, and the comedy, in that.
I was reminded of a single page in “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius”; specifically, the section where Dave Eggers breaks down his $100,000 advance on sales from his publisher. He then lists all his expenses. In the end the author banked a little less than half. It wasn’t bad money — just not the “I bet Dave Eggers totally owns a Jaguar”-type of income I expected. I mean, his name was on the cover of a book! He must be rich.
That honesty was refreshing and voyeuristic. I always said if I ever had a chance, I’d make a similar gesture. As a person learning about writing and publishing, there was something helpful about Eggers’ transparency. So here is my stab at similar honesty: the sugar bowls full of cocaine, bathtubs full of whiskey, semi-nude bookstore employees scattered throughout my bedroom tale of bestseller riches.
This is what it’s like, financially, to have the indie book publicity story of the year and be near the top of the bestseller list.
Drum roll.
$12,000.
Hi-hat crash.
From here.
Writing, people. It’s not for the faint of heart. Or those who want to make any appreciable amount of money whatsoever.
I’m reminded of this interview with writer Neal Pollack, about how little money you actually make being a critical/hipster darling, and how he’s actually trying to make writing work for him financially now:
It’s basically like I have a new publisher, and its this new model because I’m not getting these huge advances for them, but they’re publishing them very quickly. This isn’t an exact number, but imagine they give me a $20,000 advance, which is a pretty normal advance for a book from a mainstream publisher. But that’s not a lot of money when you have stretch it out for two and a half years. But for four or five months, when you’re doing other work, suddenly, it becomes more of a viable financial proposition. I recognize that not every writer is able to churn out a novel every four or five months more than once, but I am. I have journalism training and I have written a bunch of books and I have been practicing. I’m ready to roll. And my plan—my plans always seem to be thwarted—but my plan is to just pound out as many books as I can and make them as good as possible and build a library on Amazon. This a quote from A.J. Liebling that says, “I can write better than anybody who can write faster and I can write faster than anybody who can write better.” So I want to try and apply that math to my own life. Am I as good a writer as Michael Chabon or George Saunders? No. But I can get my books out there quickly, you know?
It makes me sad, to think that we’re in a world where you have to be fast and prolific in order to make a living, instead of being good. But thinking about it, that’s pretty much how I’ve built my career in writing: Just continually putting things out there as quickly as possible and as well as I can.
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
Palestinian labourers queue to cross into Jerusalem at an Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank town of Bethlehem earlier this morning. Barack Obama is due to make his first official visit to Israel this week. Photograph: Ammar Awad/Reuters
I am woefully under-informed on the Israel/Palestine issue; my first response seeing this pic was along the lines of “The wall looks just like it does in the Guy Delisle book!” which is, all told, somewhat pathetic.
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
Police close the M1-M7 motorway outside Budapest this morning, as heavy snow hit Hungary. Photograph: Laszlo Balogh/Reuters
It’s weird; once it hits mid-March, there’s part of my head that’s just “Well, it’s far too late for that kind of weather.” Snow? This late in the year? That’s just wrong, for some reason; snow belongs to December and January, and maybe February if the weather envelope gets a little pushed. Otherwise, I just get suspicious and concerned.