Well, here’s an interesting development… What started as a bit of a lark has turned into a real-world testing lab.

That’s the person who started me thinking more seriously about this electronic book thing. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, eh?

In his original post, he pointed out Christopher Fowler’s lack of by-line on the Independent’s site where it reproduced his second article about ‘forgotten authors’. I responded. Fowler’s a wonderful guy and I think the world of him. Read his books. Better yet: buy his books. Do it or you’ll be smacked with a wet sock. Go to a store or library and get several. I’ll wait here until you’re back.

[hums idly until reader returns]

You’ll be glad you did that, I assure you.

Now in this post, Mr. Cane speaks of e-books and our lack of supply of them. After explaining that this is very much one of our stated goals in development of our ‘get books to the people’ campaign (as well as blaming Guy Adams for one of many things), I offer to ‘set a girl up’ so that we might have someone ‘outside the family’ to look at things and see if they work the way we’d like them to. Also, there’s the added attraction of testing books written in ‘proper English’ on those who seem hell-bent on destroying it in all manner of fashions.

How do you feel about the ‘e-book’? Like it in theory, but the equipment’s too expensive? Like it in theory but the equipment can’t be taken into the bath? Loathe it in theory and practicality and feel the need of smashing the Kindle every time you see one?

For those of you in the last field (and I recognise your view as being my own initial one), here’s something to consider: you’re reading a text on a screen right now. Not so bad, is it? Here’s another article that Mike Cane referred to in his continuing campaign for e-books to conquer the world, from the blog The Digitalist, written by Digital Team at Pan Macmillan (and let’s hope they don’t look too closely at some of our titles).

10 Reasons Not to Write-Off Reading from a Screen

1. We do it all the time anyway. Whether it’s emails, blogs, the newspaper or text messages for the bulk of us, most of our reading is already on screen. The New York Times now [has] 13 million online readers per day against a print readership of 1.1 million.

Tough to refute that. Still, the experience of holding a real book — and just using the term ‘real’ subjugates the e-book — is something that many value above all else, equating it to an over-all sensory experience that is nigh-on orgiastic when applied to borrowing a book from the library and thumbing its well-worn pages that has been handled by so many other anonymous users and then returned to the shelf like some cheap harlot in Limehouse.

And yet, if one’s basic concept regarding the written word in its varied forms — short story, novel, fiction, non-fiction, biographical account of history, whatsoever it may be — is that the word is prima rosa, then of what importance is the method of its delivery? Do we criticise the reader of Tolstoy’s works in mass-market paperbacks because hard-cover editions are the only way of honouring the ‘great words of the master’? Do we decry those who peruse the sonnets of the Bard of Avon because they’ve bought a volume of them exclusive of his plays? Do we eschew the company of those who read The Menachme in — pshaw! — English? No! none of these are important, because we all rejoice to see the tales continue to be read and the stories within them prove their timelessness to another generation of people.

So, that being agreed to, why then do we suddenly jump up and cry ‘foul!’ when paper isn’t involved? Is there a more or less acceptable form for a tale to be provided in? Because the works of Dickens are suddenly available in a form suitable to Sony Reader or the Amazon Kindle, does this mean men will come to your home like the Firemen of Fahrenheit 451 and destroy all of your carefully collected first editions? NO! All are free to continue using ‘dead tree’ versions already extant, as well as future paper versions of things.

However, when I stare at over a yard length of books I have yet to read (some of them our own titles, embarrassingly), the use of one of these little electric sex boxes is crystal clear: they don’t weigh much and you can stuff a large number of books in an overcoat pocket with ease.

When I returned from overseas last fall, Guy lent me a large number of books he felt were worthwhile in my continuing effort to know more about the forms of fantastical fiction available. Wonderful stuff, and it got me into Christopher Fowler’s writing (see how we complete the circle here? niiiiiice…). And yet, those fuckers weighed a ton and I had to pay ‘excess baggage’ charges because of it. Now, had those seventeen volumes been electronic books, I would have had to pay zilch, with the possibility that a few of my own book files would have had to be deleted to make room for these ones of Guy’s, but that would be fine as I would have had master copies of them on my computer at home in this hypothetical paradise.

See how much easier that is for everyone? I don’t have to pay baggage charges, we don’t have to use up precious fuel resources moving the weight of them across the globe so I can read them (still working on them, by the way), we don’t have to use more fuel and postage to get them back to Guy, and no trees need die for them to be in existence in the first place!

Okay, now that this is all out there for your consideration, here’s three views of “The Kindle Option” from Sheldon: The Daily Comic Strip by Dave Kellett (and click each one to go to his site and see them bigger):

Taking some time to tidy-up the office over this Holiday Week-End, I discovered the 90 second promotional film below. This was probably used originally as part of the material shown at cinemas prior to the feature film, and proves just how early Humdrumming dedicated itself to providing well-bound books to the discerning reader.

Head here: Choosing a Strong Book

So first, the good news.

Jennifer: she’s got a gig with the South Delta demonstration gardenwaaaaay down in South Tswassen. The result is that she’s reasonably well paid to play in teh garden and talk to people about compost, water-wise gardening, vegetable growing for self-sustainability, and all that great stuff she’s perfectly able to do but hasn’t since she got laid-off from the GVRD garden about six or seven years ago. Hurrah!It’s a bit of a drive there — about 90 minutes each way, and through the Deas Island tunnell/traffic snarl — but it’s closer than the Chilliwack campus of UCFV that she drives to twice weekly in the Autumn. The new job involves week-end hours, but she can keep the two principle teaching gigs she has (UCFV for the Autumn semester, and Capilano College for Autumn and Winter semesters), so that’s a substancial win for her, and by extension, us. YAY!

ME: as much as I’ve moved on to bigger and better things with Humdrumming in the past three years or so, I hadn’t dropped the acting fully so that I could do paid work in movies/tv/commecrcials. I had infomed my agent — twice — that ‘extra’ work was not desired by me (too much time, too little money, too much sadness, too much damage to the career if one’s known to be a “meat puppet” instead of an actor), yet she called with a ‘background’ gig anyway, and was I available that evening (it was already 6:45 pm). I told her she needed to start actually reading my e-mails, thanked her, said goodbye, and ended the call. About ninety minutes later I got an e-mail from an on-line actor’s data-base saying they understood I no longer had a talent agent, so would I like to be part of their self-represented/models categories? To date, there is no word of confirmation from her that our contractural agreement has ended. I suppose that sort of correspondence is ‘too icky’ or she ‘doesn’t have the time for that’. What a shame. At least, I hope she feels some.

Anyway, to cut to the chase: I just called the on-screen actor’s union (UBCP/ACTRA) and requested that my full membership in the union be placed in a ‘withdrawn’ status so that I can re-activate it once I can either affored to have delusions of being an actor, or someone is daft enough to want me to wander about a set for them. I haven’t enquired, but presumably the on-stage actors’ association (Canadian Actor’s Equity Accociation) would prevent me from acting in a theatre until I’d re-activated my status with the on-screen union, due to reciprical agreements.

The dream of being an actor / director / designer / wanker is now truly dead.

Bring on the Publishing Dancing Girls! Let the Port flow with abandon, as I proceed to fail at my third chosen vocation! First photography (photographer, photofinishing, retail person, assistent store manager, store owner), then performance arts (actor, singer, dancer, production centre employee, director, designer, reviewer, features writer), and now: BOOK PUBLISHING (typesetter, editor, web-monkey, pre-press preperation, some marketing, some sales)!!

Nurse, check the plasma stocks; I forsee much wounding.

So… then what happened?

Yes, more about the trip to England… Now we’re into day three — Huzzah! — and on to Day Four by the end of this, I might add (mostly due to the fact it all blurs together without enough to differentiate betwixt things).

So…

We’re at Monday now, and Steve and Hilary [aka: “The Most Beautiful Woman in the World, according to Steve; and he’s not entirely wrong] have gone off to Italy to visit with her daughter who’s visiting there herself. I’m given the run of the place while they’re gone. Bwahahaahahaha!

The local constabulary has already met me on Saturday afternoon, so they’re wise to me already. Bit of a problem, that.

The Monday passed with me looking for news on the rider of the motorcycle at the Police Station, but they couldn’t tell me anything due to “confidentiality concerns”. I certainly understood, but I hadn’t thought “is he dead?” would be a huge problem to get an answer for. At this point I didn’t even know his name, for Heaven’s sake! I could have asked him on Saturday afternoon, I suppose, but I thought that his lying on the roof of a car at the time signalled something of it being an inopportune moment to bother with paperwork concerns.

I then hied me t’ward some lunch along Ely Street at a place I had spotted the day prior with some claim about the finest Fish & Chips in Her Majesty’s Realm (they didn’t go that far, but it was certainly the best example I could find without any motor-vehicle and a GPS unit). Through the door, and then all the way down a very long hallway, hang a right, pull at the door… pull at the door… pull… at… the door…

Read the notice on the door…

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HeadOn: apply directly to the forehead! HeadOn: apply directly to the forehead! HeadOn: apply directly to the forehead! HeadOn: apply directly to the forehead! HeadOn: apply directly to the forehead! HeadOn: apply directly to the forehead!