Disney To Acquire Marvel Entertainment

Last Monday, the Walt Disney Company announced it will buy Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion dollars. This will give Disney all those famous Marvel Comics' superheroes.

Disney went to some lengths to assure everyone that they did not plan to make drastic changes in the leadership of Marvel Entertainment. They stressed their faith in the Marvel creative team.

Among the details reported by Comic Book Resources:

• Existing licensing and distribution deals should remain where they are.
• Disney said the deal was attractive not just because they’re buying great characters, stories and brand, but about working with people who know these characters best and how best to work with them in other media.
• With respect to Paramount’s distribution deal with Marvel and the Iron Man franchise, Disney has every intention to respect the deal that’s in place, but noted that it’s in their best interest, overtime, to become the sole distributor of Marvel films.
• Disney said this deal is expected to benefit Marvel’s retail efforts, being able to leverage Disney’s shelf space and relationships with major chains and distributors.

Go here to read more details from Comic Book Resources.

Color Me Green (With Envy)

Okay, before we do anything else today, we must pay homage to Neil Gaiman's home library housed in his basement.

Go here to drool.

Urban Fantasy, Anyone?

I've mentioned before that my pleasure reading these days is mostly confined to urban fantasy.

I recently finished Thicker Than Water, the fourth in Mike Carey's Felix Castor novels.

Carey's books are darkly witty and entertaining; so much so that I forgive him his major flaw: uneven pacing. I'm curious as to whether the fact that Carey began his writing career as a graphic novel writer rather than as a prose novelist has anything to do with the pacing issue.

By the way, Carey is an award-winning graphic novelist. He wrote Lucifer and Hellblazer and is the current writer on Marvel's X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four.

In Thicker Than Water, Castor's past catches up with him when a bully from his childhood is found murdered in the front seat of a car with Castor's name in blood on the windshield.

Here's some sample dialogue. In Chapter 11, Castor is ambushed by a zombie on an elevated train station. The zombie picks him up and throws him down toward the tracks in the path of an oncoming train. However, the zombie's timing is off, and Castor hits the roof of the first car, bouncing off into the high grasses, which break his fall. Chapter 12 begins with Castor in the hospital visiting with Nicky Heath, a friendly computer hacker who is also a zombie.

"You any good at syllogisms?" I countered.

"Socrates is my bitch."

"Then work it out. Everyone in a hospital eats hospital food. Everyone in a hospital is sick. Conclusion?"

"Right. I heard it was even worse than the shit they give you in prison."

"Makes sense. In prison, most people are strong enough to fight back."

Okay, I'll admit my humor can be adolescent on occasion, but I loved that "Socrates is my bitch" line.

I had to order Thicker Than Water from the UK, but it was well worth it. If you love urban fantasy, try to scare up one of the four Felix Castor novels. Thicker Than Water is my favorite. I just ordered The Naming of the Beasts, the fifth novel which came out last week in the UK, from a bookshop in Southport, England. Paid $19 for a new paperback to be shipped to Texas.

And some people believe I can't commit!

More On A Literary Scam

In yesterday's post, I reported that the Florida Attorney General is going after Writer's Literary Agency and its numerous offshoots, which include:

WRITER'S LITERARY & PUBLISHING SERVICES
THE NEW YORK LITERARY AGENCY
THE CHILDREN'S LITERARY AGENCY
POETS LITERARY AGENCY
THE CHRISTIAN LITERARY AGENCY
WRITER'S LITERARY SCREENPLAY AGENCY
RAPID PUBLISHING-SCREENWRITER911, INC.
RAPID PUBLISHING, INC.
THE GLOBAL BOOK AGENCY
AMERICAN ENTERPRISES GROUP, LLC
AMERICAN ENTERPRISES GROUP, INC.

I read the actual lawsuit filed by the Attorney General, and it should be handed out to all newbie writers as a part of a manual on how to avoid being scammed.

Here are the relevant pages:

"Each of DEFENDANTS’ websites advertised “NO UP FRONT FEES OR COSTS”. According to the websites, aspiring authors, the prospective customers, would, at no cost, submit manuscripts for review by the representatives of the numerous business entities, all of which were created by DEFENDANT ROBERT M. FLETCHER.

"The websites misled the consumer to believe he, or she, would receive a legitimate evaluation of whether the submitted manuscript was qualified for publication. Following the submission of a manuscript by a consumer to one of the corporate Defendants, or one of the other unregistered companies under which DEFENDANT FLETCHER conducted business, an email response was immediately sent out to the consumer by a representative of one of FLETCHER’S many businesses, advising the consumer (in glowing terms)that the manuscript was, indeed, appropriate for publication and (that the DEFENDANTS were thrilled) to enter into a contract with the consumer to assist in the consumer’s efforts to achieve publication of the consumer’s manuscript.

"This proposed contract included a proposal for a critique review by a “trusted” affiliated agency for between $50 and $90 to assure the best reception by publishers. No disclosure was made to the consumer that the “trusted” affiliated agency was, in fact, another business owned, and run by, DEFENDANT FLETCHER.

"Once this critique was completed, the suggestion for a new author edit (to fully polish the work) soon followed for between $99 and $169 (which would allegedly consist of a cursory review of the first 30 pages, or 3 chapters). Again, no mention to the consumer that this edit was by another FLETCHER affiliate.

"Upon the new author edit being completed, the “Look for Now” database at another additional cost was suggested to “boost” the chances of a sale. If the manuscript was for children, an offer for illustrations by another “trusted” affiliated agency for a “reduced” price was made. Again, an undisclosed FLETCHER business.

"These added expenses were soon followed by a suggestion for website building for another $129. Again, no mention that this “trusted” affiliate handling the website building was another FLETCHER connection.

"Finally, the advice followed that (despite the brilliant manuscript) the initial attempts to seek publication had been unsuccessful and recommending the “aggressive agent” program for another additional payment.

"Eventually, the aspiring authors would realize they had been the victims of a scam, or tire of the constant requests for more money, with no results, and either end the contract, or stop communicating with the DEFENDANTS to whom the money had been sent.

"Usually each prospective author was good for about $600.00 and DEFENDANT ROBERT FLETCHER, was turning over about 500 consumers every six months, or receiving approximately $600,000 per year for no legitimate efforts to provide the consumers the help they paid for, leaving only frustration and disappointment for aspiring authors once they realized their money was paid, not to a legitimate literary agency, but a scam."

Newbie writers need to remember:

MONEY SHOULD FLOW TO THE WRITER, NOT FROM THE WRITER.

Florida AG Goes After Writer's Literary Agency

While scanning the publishing news tonight, I came across an item that warmed the cockles of my heart: a press release from the Attorney General of Florida. Here are portions of it:

"Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that his office filed a lawsuit against a Boca Raton company that allegedly preyed on aspiring authors. According to the Attorney General’s lawsuit, Writer’s Literary Agency and owner Robert Fletcher used more than 20 websites and related companies to collect funds from potential authors, but misled victims about fees, costs, and promised results.

".. . . Potential writers paid anywhere from $89 for an initial critique to over $600 for various services including editing and marketing of a manuscript to publishers . . .

"Investigators determined Fletcher expanded into the field of publishing within the past year. Fletcher admitted to having no background as a literary agent and to using at least 10 aliases in his businesses.

"The lawsuit seeks injunctive relief against Robert Fletcher and his associates, as well as his many businesses, prohibiting further business activities in the field of literary agencies or publishers. The Attorney General is also seeking full restitution on behalf of all victimized consumers, civil penalties of $10,000 for each violation of the Florida Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and reimbursement for fees and costs related to the investigation."

In the summer of 2007, I did a two-part post on this blog titled "Spotting a Literary Scam." At the end of Part I, I invited readers to review the Writer's Literary Agency and decide whether or not it was a scam.

You can read those posts here:

Part I

Part II

Way to go, Florida!!!!

Appeals Court Reviewing "Catcher" Decision

Back on July 8, here, I reported that a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction barring the unauthorized sequel to Catcher in the Rye, titled 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, from being published in the U.S.

Swedish author Fredrik Colting used the pseudonym J.D. California in promoting his unauthorized "sequel." He appealed the July injunction, and yesterday the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York held a hearing on the matter.

Regular readers of this blog will already be familiar with U.S. Copyright law's Fair Use test. The test has four factors which determine whether the use of another artist's work qualifies as fair use. The four factors are:

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Please note #2 of the four factors above, which refers to the "nature" of the original copyrighted work. If the artist creating a derivative work "transforms" the original work into something new and different, he has a better chance of winning a fair use case.

During the J.K. Rowling infringement case, I cited an article by attorney Jonathan Band titled "Educational Fair Use Today," which argued that, even when a work is derivative, "repurposing" it or "or placing it in a new context may be sufficient to render a use transformative."

The lawyer for Colting was quoted in an Associated Press article saying his client's new work was "highly transformative with enormous amounts of commentary and criticism."

According to the AP story, the Catcher in the Rye case will also address another point:

The three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals expressed doubts about whether a lower-court judge heard enough evidence before blocking the U.S. publication this summer of "60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye."

Salinger's attorney's argument focuses on #4 of the four factors. She believes Colting's work would impact her client's ability to publish his own sequel to Catcher.

Go here to read the Associated Press article, which includes one of the judges' comments on the quality of the new book.

Stay tuned . . .

USA Today Fall Book Picks

USA Today's five book critics each made a list of the five books they are dying to read this fall.

Here are the 25 titles from authors who include well-known names like King, Kingsolver and Stoker:

Deirdre Donahue picked:
1. Women, Work & the Art of Savoir Faire: Business Sense & Sensibility
By Mireille Guiliano; release date Oct. 13.

2. The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks
By Max Brooks; release date Oct. 6.

3.When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women From 1960 to the Present
By Gail Collins; release date Oct. 14.

4. Cockroach
By Rawi Hage; release date Oct. 12.

5. The Possibility of Everything
By Hope Edelman; release date Sept. 15.

Jocelyn McClurg picked:
1. How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood
By William J. Mann; release date Oct. 21.

2. Prospect Park West
By Amy Sohn; already in stores.

3. Stardust
By Joseph Kanon; release date Sept. 29.

4. Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife
By Francine Prose; release date Sept. 29.

5. The Lacuna
By Barbara Kingsolver; release date Nov. 3.

Carol Memmott picked:
1. Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and ObsessionBy Julie Powell; release date Dec. 1.

2. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
By Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters; release date Sept. 15.

3. Under the Dome
By Stephen King; release date Nov. 11.

4. Eating Animals
By Jonathan Safran Foer; release date Nov. 2.

5. Dracula the Undead: The Sequel to the Original Classic
By Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt; release date Oct. 13.

Bob Minzesheimer picked:
1. Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman
By Jon Krakauer; release date Sept. 15.

2. Spooner
By Pete Dexter; release date Sept. 24.

3. Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel
By Jeannette Walls; release date Oct. 6.

4. The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America
By Timothy Egan; release date Oct. 19.

5. Lit
By Mary Karr; release date Nov. 3.

Craig Wilson picked:
1. The Time of My Life
By Patrick Swayze and Lisa Niemi; release date Sept. 29.

2. Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage
By Christopher Andersen; release date Sept. 22.

3. The Queen Mother
By William Shawcross; release date Oct. 20.

4. Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol
By Tony Scherman and David Dalton; release date Oct. 27.

5. Making Mischief: A Maurice Sendak Appreciation
By Gregory Maguire; release date Sept. 15.

If a title interested you and you want to read the blurb on the book or find the publisher and price, go here to read the entire article.

Grant Thornton Predicts the Future of Retail

For the past month, I've been totally consumed with the task of closing the old fiscal year out at my university department.

Today starts the new fiscal year, and I'm glad to be back. I've missed blogging.

Let's start off slow.

Last Wednesday, Grant Thornton (as in the audit, tax and advisory service guys) was quoted in the Chicago Sun-Times saying that "as many as 10,000 retail stores will close nationwide this year, led by clothing stores, electronics and food-and-beverage stores, and department stores, in that order . . ."

Of course, I was mostly interested in what they had to say about bookstores. Here it is:

Though bookstores represented only a fraction of the total, their closings are forecast to jump 500 percent from last year, to 400 stores.

Help the economy. Buy a book.

Taking a Break

Sorry for disappearing. Life interferes.

I'll be back September 1.

Auditor Concerned About Borders UK

Saturday's The Bookseller had an article in which the accounting firm Ernst & Young raises "concerns" over whether Borders UK will be able to continue trading:

. . . auditor Ernst & Young drew a series of concerns about Borders UK's long term ability to trade. These included the competitiveness of the high street bookselling trade plus a difficulty in predicting sales performance. A "significant" quarterly rent cost, was also highlighted, that led the majority of the chain's landlords to renegotiate to monthly payments, as well as uncertainty surrounding the continuing support of suppliers and the availability of credit insurance.

Last month, the 7/15 edition of Publishers Marketplace reported:

While still denying that Borders UK is even up for sale and insisting that Clearwater Corporate Finance has been hired only to help "seek out funding opportunities," it looks like the ailing chain may have a buyer, or at least a company ready to take it off their hands. The Independent reports that the private equity arm of restructuring company Hilco, Valco Capital Partners, "plans to acquire the entire shareholding of Borders UK and take the company forward."

Go here to read The Bookseller article.

The Best Film Quotes

I enjoy watching Charlie Gibson on the ABC Evening News. I'm not often home in time to see the early news, but when I am, Charlie's my man.

Yesterday evening, he mentioned that Budd Schulberg, the screenwriter for On the Waterfront, died Wednesday at the age of 95.

Charlie quoted the lines Marlon Brando made famous: "You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am."

He said that the American Film Institute listed those lines as third in the one hundred best movie quotes.

Of course, this pushed me to write my own list of the top ten movie quotes of all time.

I had a bit of difficulty because MY favorite lines were not necessarily the ones that I thought should be on the top ten list. Here are the ones I thought would be on the top ten list. I have numbered them in the order that I expected them to appear. In parentheses after the quote is the name of the film and the ranking that AFI attributed to them:

1) Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. (Gone With the Wind #1)

2) Play it. Play it again, Sam. (Note: I misquoted: It should be "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By'." Casablanca #28)

3) Here's looking at you, kid. (Casablanca #5)

4) I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. (A Streetcar Named Desire #75)

5) Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas any more. (The Wizard of Oz #4)

6) Go ahead. Make my day. (Note: I thought it was Dirty Harry, but it was Sudden Impact #6)

7) I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti. (The Silence of the Lambs #21)

8) It was beauty that killed the beast. (King Kong #84)

9) Houston, we have a problem. (Apollo 13 #50)

10) I see dead people (The Sixth Sense #44)

In addition to the ones above, here are my own personal favorites together with the number given (or no number if they didn't make the list):

2) I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse (The Godfather)

11) What we've got here is failure to communicate. (Cool Hand Luke)

19) I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this any more! (Network)

36) Badges? We ain't got no badges! We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinking badges! (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre)

47) Shane! Shane! Come back! (Shane)

-- Pfc. William Santiago is dead, and that is a tragedy. But he is dead because he had no code. He is dead because he had no honor, and God was watching. (A Few Good Men)

-- Get away from her, you bitch! (Aliens)

-- I've seen things you people wouldn't believe . . . All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain... Time to die. (Blade Runner)

-- I came across time for you, Sarah. I love you. I always have. (The Terminator)

-- Jean Louise. Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passing. (To Kill a Mockingbird)

But, for me, the single film which has the best lines in all of movie history will always be The Lion in Winter. Here are my five favorites:

-- In a world where carpenters get resurrected, everything is possible.

-- I even made poor Louis take me on Crusade. How's that for blasphemy. I dressed my maids as Amazons and rode bare-breasted halfway to Damascus. Louis had a seizure and I damn near died of windburn... but the troops were dazzled.

-- My life, when it is written, will read better than it lived. Henry Fitz-Empress, first Plantagenet, a king at twenty-one, the ablest soldier of an able time. He led men well, he cared for justice when he could and ruled, for thirty years, a state as great as Charlemagne's. He married out of love, a woman out of legend. Not in Alexandria, or Rome, or Camelot has there been such a queen.

-- I'm villifying you for God's sake - pay attention!

-- Well, that's the way deals are made. We've got him if we want him. He'll sell us all, you know... but only if he thinks we think he won't.

To read the entire list of 100 best quotes, go here.

Writing, Feeling . . . and Living

This week, on one of the loops I belong to, a multi-published writer spoke very frankly about the recent breakup of his marriage. He talked about his bewilderment and pain in a straightforward, unashamed manner.

I was reminded of the first time I read Stephen King's On Writing. King's honest commentary on issues I couldn't imagine talking about in public, much less in print, horrified me. I especially remember his openness about his bouts of impotency. And I can recall thinking if I were his wife, I'd kill him.

In the years since, I've come to recognize that talking about the human condition is what writers do. Which means we have to learn to maneuver in the Land of Feelings.

I've said multiple times on this blog that I believe the purpose of all genre fiction is to evoke emotion in the reader . . . different emotions depending on the different genres.

I now have a corollary to go with that proposition: If the purpose of all genre fiction is to evoke emotion in the reader, the writer must become comfortable talking about emotions.

Eleanor Roosevelt said: "Great minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about events, small minds talk about people."

While I admire that lofty sentiment, I'm not sure it applies equally to all writers. Maybe it is applicable to writers of non-fiction, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't apply to writers of fiction--either literary or genre. We talk about people and events all the time.

I am finishing what I hope, God willing, will be the second third of my life. In the first third, I was a scared kid, just trying to stay safe. I was pretty much raw emotion; it took everything I had to hold myself together. I was like a pinball, batted back and forth between fear and anger.

Then I careened to the opposite end of the pinball machine. For about half of the second third of my life, I lived inside my head. Everything was an intellectual debate. I shied away from revealing my feelings, or being open about emotion. My anger morphed into competitiveness. While it was good for my career, it did nothing for me as an individual.

When I read my written work from those years, I find it incredibly sterile. It's no wonder nothing sold. Quite frankly, it was boring, without life.

Fortunately, with therapy and a change of career (it's funny how we find what we need), I learned to become both more open and more honest about what I was feeling. And, while I didn't realize it at the time, my writing began to integrate both ideas and emotion.

Now I'm on the cusp of the last third of my life. My goal as a writer
--and as a person--is to try to find a balance between ideas and emotion.

Intellectualism uninformed by feeling no longer holds any attraction for me. Nor does uncontrolled emotion. Increasingly, I'm seeking to slough off negativity and to surround myself with people who are passionate: passionate about their work, their lives and the ones they love. Hell, I've got a limited amount of time left. Why spend it with people who do nothing but complain or criticize?

I guess the message here is to look at your writing . . . and your life. Are you painting a fully nuanced landscape, with all the colors your palette has to offer? If you are only using the colors from one end of the spectrum, won't your finished product be mono-
chromatic? And are you willing to settle for that?

Try painting with different colors today.

The New Report on the Publishing Industry

Bowker, the company that issues ISBN numbers in the U.S., issued a press release on Tuesday.

The company was touting its "2008 U.S. Book Consumer Demographics and Buying Behaviors Annual Report." According to the release, the report is "the first complete consumer-based research report with detailed analysis of who is buying books and what motivates them to make their purchases."

The report also includes first quarter 2009 trends, documenting that mass merchandisers picked up market share while bookstores had the largest decline.

As an example of the kind of info contained in the report, Bowker offered this:

-- 57% of book buyers are women yet women purchase 65% of the books sold in the U.S.
-- Mystery books are the most popular genre for book club sales, with 17% of all purchases of mystery books coming directly from book clubs
-- Generation X consumers buy more books online than any other demographic group, with 30% of them buying their books through the Internet
-- 21% of book buyers said they became aware of a book through some sort of online promotion or ad
-- Women made the majority of the purchases in the paperback, hardcover and audio-book segments, but men accounted for 55% of e-book purchases

Intrigued?

Here's the information on the report's price:

The report can be ordered now by visiting www.bookconsumer.com. Pricing starts at $999 for a single-use PDF or print copy, but the company is offering a 10% discount for orders by July 31, 2009. In addition, members of the news media are entitled to a 50% discount if they are interested in purchasing the report.

Yeah, I'll be lining up for my copy.

Not.

What's Up With Yahoo and Microsoft?

The Yahoo! deal with Microsoft was on everyone's lips yesterday.

To recap, after Yahoo turned down numerous attempts by Microsoft to take over the company in 2008, the two Internet giants found they could agree to a deal in 2009 in which both focussed their gunsights on Google. Another case of "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

The partnership--if approved by Federal regulators--will last for ten years. Yahoo is giving up control of its own search engine, which will now be powered by Microsoft. Yahoo will provide the sales force for the new partnership.

Microsoft is giving 88% of the ad revenue from the search engine partnership to Yahoo for the first five years of the deal.

Let's examine the pluses and minuses of this partnership.

FOR ADVERTISERS: According to the recent comScore press release here during the month of June, 2009, Google dominated the search engine market with nearly 65% of the business. Yahoo had about 20% of the market and Microsoft's new search engine Bing had 8%.

Neither Yahoo nor Microsoft alone has enough traffic to lure advertisers away from Google. However, with their combined 28% of the market and all the publicity about Bing, the partnership offers customers reasons to split their advertising budget between Google and Bing.

FOR MICROSOFT: This is not only about "search." Google threatens the core of Microsoft's cash businesses by developing apps that are web-based and either free or very cheap. Microsoft is built on the concept of proprietary PC-based applications.

By making a deal with Yahoo, Microsoft is counting on diverting advertising dollars away from Google, hopefully weakening its rival.

Microsoft also gains access to Yahoo's search technology and search results. One of the things about search is that the more searches a company does, the more it learns about consumers, which helps it to refine and improve its algorithms.

FOR YAHOO: The company makes a partner of Microsoft, which was threatening a hostile takeover just a year ago. The deal also allows Yahoo to cut huge costs, trading those for a 12% reduction in search revenue. Yahoo can now focus on developing content for its sites, which will continue to run billboard ads.

Google will probably try to convince regulators that the Microsoft/Yahoo partnership poses an antitrust threat and should not be approved.

Stay tuned . . .

Now This Is a Wedding!

By now, you've probably seen this wedding procession half a dozen times. It's had over 11 million hits on YouTube.

This blog has many purposes. Among those is maintaining a record of the things I want to be able to access again quickly in the future.

The fact that I smile every time I watch this video makes it a good enough reason to post it here.

Have a happy day.

For Urban Fantasy Readers

In January, 2008, I recommended a debut novelist by the name of Mike Carey here.

As I said in that post, Mike Carey is an award-winning graphic novel writer. The Devil You Know was his first novel in an urban fantasy series starring Felix Castor, a free-lance exorcist living in London.

I liked The Devil You Know well enough that I purchased the second in the series, Vicious Circle, from a bookseller in England.

What with my hospitalization in February and the release of my Bad Boy in April, I completely missed the release of Carey's third book in the Castor series, Thicker Than Water, in early March.

I just happened to see a notice last week of the release of Castor Book #4 on July 23. Titled Dead Men's Boots, it's in hardcover. I immediately decided I wanted both Book #3 and Book #4.

Unfortunately neither Borders nor B&N had a copy. I could have tried Amazon, but instead I visited Abe Books online. I found both novels . . . once again in Great Britain.

It's an indication of how badly I wanted the books that I paid to have them shipped from overseas. I placed my order on 7/19 and the first one, a new paperback of Dead Men's Boots, arrived last night.

Here's the blurb:

You might think that helping a friend's widow stop a lawyer from stealing her husband's corpse would be just about the strangest thing on your To Do list. But life is rarely that simple for Felix Castor.

A brutal murder in King's Cross bears all the hallmarks of a long-dead American serial killer, and it takes more good sense than Castor possesses not to get involved. He's also fighting a legal battle over the body--if not the soul--of his possessed friend, Rafi, and can't shake the feeling that his three problems might be related.

With the help of the succubus Juliet and paranoid zombie data-fence Nicky Heath, Castor just might have a chance of fitting the pieces together before someone drops him down a lift shaft or rips his throat out.

Or not . . .

The Brave New World of Amazon

Today's LA Times had an op/ed piece on "Amazon's Troubling Reach."

The article points out that Amazon has had two "major" issues in the last three months. The first problem occurred during Holy Week when Amazon "accidentally" dropped the sales rankings for erotic and gay books (read my blog on the issue here).

The second problem surfaced last week when Amazon deleted copies of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm from readers' Kindles (read my blog on the issue here).

The Times article says:

In the wake of the uproar, Amazon announced that it would no longer use its wireless capabilities to erase its readers' e-books, and Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos apologized.

In a tip of the hat to one of Orwell's contemporaries, Aldous Huxley, the Times editor David L. Ulin asked this question:

What is this brave new world [Amazon is creating], . . . and are we sure that it's the one we want? . . . The issue . . . isn't that Amazon has erased material from people's Kindles, or de-ranked gay and lesbian writers, but that it can.

Readers of this blog know that I stopped purchasing from Amazon and removed the links on this blog to Amazon some time ago. I'm no longer comfortable with the "brave new world" Amazon promises . . . any more than I am with the one Wal-Mart offers. I quit purchasing from Wal-Mart over three years ago. Both retailers may be cheap and convenient, but I don't like their policies and refuse to support them with my purchasing dollars.

Ulin ends his op/ed with this thought-provoking reminder:
". . . economics is a slippery territory, defined by self-interest rather than the public good."

Go here to read the entire Times article.

What Will We Do About Mom?

My family is still struggling with The Mom Question. As in, when do we force my mother out of the home she's lived in for more than forty-five years?

My three brothers are united in not wanting to move her until it is absolutely necessary. The dog and I think she passed that point sometime last year, but unfortunately we're outnumbered. So we are doing all kinds of workarounds to make sure she can stay in her home as long as possible.

I call her every morning, and my middle brother calls her every evening. My youngest brother stops by to see her on his way to work very morning. My oldest brother comes up once a week to take her out wherever she wants to go. In the meantime, the dog keeps her on schedule. He wakes her up, leads her to the kitchen when it's time to eat and to the bedroom when it's time to go to bed at night.

It's not perfect, but since she won't move in with me or allow a stranger into her house, it's the best we can do. We've disabled the stove and oven so she only cooks in the microwave.

She is aware that she is losing her memory, and it scares her. We've tried different approaches, but the one that seems to work best is when we tell her she's always been "a little bit off" so why worry about it at this late date? That invariably makes her laugh and relax.

Mom is Irish, and she taught us that humor is the best defense when things go wrong.

Saturday evening my youngest brother called. He asked if I would do him a favor. I said, "Sure" and grabbed a pencil to take instructions.

He said, "It's seven o'clock now. I'm outside Pete's Bar & Grill. Would you please wait an hour and then call a cab. Tell the dispatcher to instruct the driver to go into the bar and look for the man who is the most sh*t-faced drunk. That will be me. Ask him to take me home."

I put my pencil down and said, "Been visiting Mom again, hmmm?"

He: "Took her shopping for shoes. Dear God, what a disaster. It took hours. We finally bought a pair, and I got her into the car to head home. She's sitting there with the new shoebox in her lap, and she says to me, 'It's a shame we couldn't find a pair of shoes. When can we go shopping again'?"

I started to laugh. "Okay, take Sunday off. I'll call her every few hours during the day so you can have a break."

I called Mom in the morning at 9:00, around noon and again Sunday afternoon. At 3:00 PM, she was in a furious tizzy because she couldn't find the scissors in order to cut a piece of masking tape.

Scissors are an ongoing problem. We have bought her no fewer than a dozen pairs in the last few months. They just keep disappearing. No one knows where they go.

I talked her through using a knife to make a small cut in the tape and then ripping it across. Midway through the operation, she asked me, "Why can't I just use the scissors?"

I responded, "Because you can't find the scissors."

She said, "There's two of them right here. An orange pair and a blue pair."

Me: "Mom, you just spent ten minutes yelling at me because you couldn't find the scissors."

She: "Oh, you always exaggerate."

Me: {starting to laugh} "You're trying to make me as crazy as you are, aren't you, old woman?"

She: {laughing, too} "Well, that's pretty darn crazy." {odd noise} "Uh-oh."

Me: "What's wrong?"

She: "The phone just fell off the wall."

Me: "What do you mean; the phone just fell off the wall?"

She: "Well, I was in the living room, and it fell off."

Me: "I thought you were on the cordless."

She: "No, I was on the kitchen phone."

Me: {in disbelief} "You had the phone stretched all the way through the dining room to the living room?"

She: "Mmmm, yes. What do I do now?"

Me: "Good luck to you with that. I'll talk to you soon."

She: "Don't you DARE hang up on me. What do I do?"

We spent the next forty-five minutes as follows:

1) Me trying to talk her through snapping the phone back into place on the wall. No success.

2) Me trying to talk her through unplugging the phone from the wall so she could just use the cordless until my brother gets there in the morning. No success.

3) Me trying to talk her through depressing the receiver and taping it down with the piece of masking tape she'd already cut (prescient, wasn't she?) so she could use the other phone until my brother gets there in the morning. No success.

4) Me trying to convince her she could get by until morning without a phone. Absolutely no success.

5) Me just trying to get the hell off the damn phone. A total failure.

Through most of the conversation, we were both laughing so hard we couldn't speak. I had tears running down my face, and she was coughing, trying to catch her breath after laughing herself hoarse.

I know it won't always be this way. Her rages are growing in intensity and duration. But I'm grateful for the laughter the Lord gave us yesterday.

Why I *Heart* Texas

After you live somewhere a long time, it's easy to forget why you love the place. Yesterday I had some reminders of why I love living in north Texas.

My good friend Maria had a housewarming yesterday. I drove an hour east of the D/FW area where she and her husband Greg have purchased a spacious home on six acres of heavily wooded property.

Maria's new house includes lots of tall windows that overlook the forest surrounding the place. She also has a long, wide screened-in back deck that commands a terrific view of the property. We spent some time sitting in comfortable chairs, looking out at the dense wall of tall pine.

A quarter of a mile away from Maria's new home is a private big cat preserve. Every day at dawn and dusk, the loud roars of the lions disturb the silence. Maria says she was told there has been only one lion that escaped during the past six years. That animal was unfortunately shot when he was found nearby by another neighbor who had small children and was not pleased to look out and see the gigantic beast lounging on her front porch.

The neighbor across the road from Maria has a herd of thirty alpaca, which--now that I think about it--may explain why that lion went AWOL. Maria plans to construct a pond on her six acres and then purchase a few goats.

The group of neighbors had a lively discussion about the continuing problems presented by the local possum and raccoons. Raccoons will wait patiently on the other side of a wired fence for a guinea hen or chicken to come close (Good sense is apparently not a poultry trait). The raccoons then use their strong little paws to drag their hapless victim through the wire mesh. [Ugh]

After I made my goodbyes, I returned home, making a stop along the way at an outlet mall with a Rockport Shoe store. When I got back, I went next door to visit with my own neighbors, Linda and Ken. I wanted Linda, a Spanish teacher, to review a form I had created in both English and Spanish. Spanish verb conjugation is not my strong suit.

Linda asked if I had seen the foxes yet. I had not. My own heavily wooded and hilly neighborhood boasts a stream with numerous caves where coyotes have dens, but I haven't seen a fox out here in over ten years.

I waited until after midnight and then went outdoors. Following Linda's advice, I paused at a spot where I could look down a steep hill to another neighbor's property.

The deck around my neighbor's swimming pool is well-lit. And, sure enough, there were two gray foxes sprawled out in comfort nearby. I made a deliberate waving motion. One noticed me and stood. The other just looked over a shoulder, but didn't bother to get up.

I assume they are a mated pair. If so, we may see the return of the gray fox to our neighborhood. The info below gives an important clue as to why this may be happening. Here's a photo and some info on them, courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:

The gray fox is essentially an inhabitant of wooded areas, particularly mixed hardwood forests . . .

This fox is adept at climbing trees, particularly if they are leaning or have branches within 3 m of the ground, and it is not unusual for it to use this escape device when pursued by hounds.

Contrary to common belief, gray foxes are not strictly animals of the night, but they are much more active then. They have been observed on many occasions in the daytime under conditions that suggested they were foraging. When so encountered, they often move to one side behind a protecting screen of vegetation and wait for the intruder to pass.

Gray foxes usually den in crevices in the rocks, in underground burrows, under rocks, in hollow logs, or in hollow trees . . . In central Texas, a den was found in a hollow live oak with the entrance about 1 m above the ground . . .

The gray fox is omnivorous; the food varies with season and availability. Based upon the stomach contents of 42 foxes from Texas, the winter food consisted chiefly of small mammals (cottontails, cotton rats, pocket gophers, pocket mice), 56%; followed by insects, largely grasshoppers, 23%; and birds (doves, quail, sparrows, blackbirds, towhees), 21% . . . In late summer and fall, persimmons and acorns led with 30%; insects, 26%; small mammals, 16%; birds, 14%; crayfish, 14% . . . Consequently, as judged from these analyses, the usual food habits of the gray fox do not conflict much with man’s economy.

Of some interest is the possible relationship between gray foxes and coyotes. In sections of Texas where coyotes formerly were numerous, the gray fox was scarce; now, after elimination of the coyote, the gray fox has become abundant. Perhaps the coyote tends to hold this fox in check under conditions where they both occupy the same area.

The Myth of the Nice Girl

I had lunch this week with a good friend. While we were catching up, she mentioned a mutual pal of ours whom I'll call Nikki.

The three of us have been friends for almost twenty years despite the fact that our lives have led us in very different directions. Nikki married young, happy to accept her husband's encouragement to remain at home and raise the three beautiful children their marriage produced.

I never cared very much for her husband Harold (Note, that's Harold, not Harry or Hal). You know the type--one of those guys who fancies himself a raconteur, never happy unless he's occupying center stage at any gathering. His humor was always at others' expense, a caustic sniping I found tiresome. But Harold was so tone deaf to social cues that he never noticed his brilliant sarcasm left his audience poised midway between boredom and distaste.

Harold often made Nikki the butt of his jokes. He obviously regarded their marriage certificate as his license to ridicule his wife every chance he got. Her friends tried out the term "emotional abuse" on Nikki, but she didn't want to hear it. She remained steadfastly loyal to her husband.

The first time Harold put his hand on my backside, I stepped away. When his efforts at seduction became less subtle, I explained the pleasure I would take in castrating him with a rusty spoon. He stayed away, but thereafter always made sidebar comments to the effect that I was a "24-karat bitch." I ignored him, but wasn't surprised when rumors of his infidelity began to circulate.

Nikki pretended not to know what everyone else knew . . . right up until the day a little over ten years ago when Harold walked out to move in with his latest mistress.

He demanded an immediate divorce, and Nikki was so used to giving him what he wanted, it never occurred to her to do anything but comply. Her friends pitched in to find an attorney for her, and we provided support when, once the final decree was signed, she fell apart.

Finding a job after fifteen years out of the market was tough, but Nikki had three kids to support. She toughed it out, going on interview after interview, before finally landing a menial job. During the past decade, she worked her way up to a middle management job and, in the last couple of years, began to breathe easier about finances.

Harold never completely disappeared. Since the divorce, he's made all sorts of demands--wanting the kids when it was convenient to him, complaining about having to pay child support, griping about how Nikki took him to the cleaners during their divorce, bullying her into taking out a loan to finish paying for braces for a daughter even though the divorce decree made it his debt. Nikki continued to be gracious, saying she was doing it for the children's sake.

Now he's resurfaced again. During the divorce, they split their modest stock portfolio, with Harold deciding which securities he would take and complaining when Nikki's lawyer insisted on an even dollar split.

Apparently he sold his share of the portfolio to help finance his vacations overseas with his once-mistress, now-wife. Nikki held on to her shares. One security in particular has done very well over the last decade.

Anyway, Harold recently called Nikki to complain that she got the best stocks in the property settlement and to demand that she "make me whole." He went so far as to threaten a lawsuit.

And now we come to the point of this post: Nikki is considering giving him half of the shares in the one security that has more than doubled in value since their divorce.

After the lunch at which I heard the recent gossip, I called Nikki to see if she wanted to talk. She did.

Her friends and family are furious with her for even considering Harold's demand. Her stomach is in an uproar. She hasn't been able to sleep. When she called her former attorney, the woman refused to talk to Harold and made Nikki feel foolish for even worrying about his threat to sue.

I listened, fighting my own urge to say, "What's wrong with you? Just tell him to crawl back into his hole and leave you alone." I know Nikki and how much she hates conflict. She would rather pay him than face any unpleasantness.

I asked her why she thought Harold was calling. She responded, "For two reasons. He is feeling pinched by the bad economy, and he likes to control me."

I asked her why she would entertain his demand. She said, "Because I feel guilty when I'm not nice."

And there's the crux of the matter. Nikki was raised to be a "nice Texas girl." To smile no matter what. If someone peed on her new high heels, she could be relied upon to say, "Oh, don't worry about these old things. I was getting ready to give them to the Salvation Army anyway." It doesn't matter that Harold embarrassed her and ignored the gifts of her heart and her loyalty. SHE NEEDS TO BE A NICE GIRL.

I could tell her pain was genuine. I said: "The decision is yours, not anyone else's."

She acknowledged that and said, "I don't know why I'm not angry at him."

I said, "Of course, you're angry at him, but you never show your anger outwardly. So all that rage is turned inward--you can't sleep and your stomach is in knots."

She was quiet for a moment before saying, "What do you think I should do?"

I responded, "You know what I think, but you're not me. The thing is, if you give in, Harold isn't going to acknowledge you as nice. He's going to pat himself on the back for winning again. But I do think you need to remember your two girls and the message you are giving them if you give in."

We all have our own mythology, the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and why we do what we do. We can choose to remain locked into that myth, or we can write a new ending to the story.

I hope Nikki chooses a different page.