Thursday News: A battle over the Anarchist Cookbook, return of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the Popular Romance Project called government waste, an amusing assortment of calendars, and Gawker’s ability to boost the viral signal
Publishing NewsAnarchist Cookbook / censorship / First-Amendment / Gawker / Popular Romance Project / Stieg Larsson7 Comments
After latest shooting, murder manual author calls for book to be taken ‘immediately’ out of print – After more than 40 years in print, William Powell’s The Anarchist Cookbook is the subject of a battle between its author, who wants the book pulled from print, and its publisher, who believes that the book should remain on the shelves. Powell’s assertion comes just a week after the latest high school shooting in Colorado, where a copy of the book was found among the “arsenal” of the teenage shooter. A very interesting First Amendment issue.
“Powell, meanwhile, has apologized for the destructive cultural force that bears his name, and posted an eight-paragraph warning to would-be buyers on the book’s Amazon page. But Powell has no say: the rights belong to the publisher and always have — and the publisher has never wavered in his commitment to selling.” NBC News
Stieg Larsson is gone but ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ returns – I don’t know what surprises me more: the fact that another author has been recruited to continue this series, or the fact that Larsson has been gone almost 10 years now. I don’t know anything about Swedish author David Lagercrantz, but it’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out in the wake of the ongoing battle between Larsson’s father and long-time partner over Larsson’s literary legacy (and future works).
“The announcement comes after a long debate over Larsson’s estate. He and his partner, Eva Gabrielsson, were together for more than 30 years. When he died of a heart attack in 2004, he had no official will — and under Swedish law, his entire estate went to his brother and father. Gabrielsson was entitled to nothing.” Los Angeles Times
Federal government has spent nearly $1 million on romance – The $914,000 NEH grant to the Popular Romance Project has been targeted by Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn and his annual “Wastebook,” which designates almost 100 programs deemed wasteful, especially in the wake of the US’s $17 trillion debt.
“The Romance Project is just one of nearly 100 programs targeted by Coburn’s report, which also includes a documentary on superheroes, promotion of a Green Ninja character to educate children about climate change, and a zombie-themed video game for math education. Coburn’s paper calls into question nearly $30 billion in federal spending that some would argue would have been better spent elsewhere.” Yahoo News
9 Odd and Awesome 2014 Calendars – Although Kayne’s Pug Calendar might be my favorite of the bunch, there are some pretty funny and appealing calendars here. Sexy Monsters evokes some of the more recent trends in SF/Fantasy, Romance, and relevant sub genres. The Warwick Rowers and Hot Guys and Baby animals echo many a Romance novel cover, and Tattooed Librarians is just downright cool. Mental Floss
Why Everyone Will Totally Read This Column – Not a surprise, but there’s still some interesting stuff here about how Gawker boosts the signal for viral content. Editor Neetzan Zimmerman reviews a feed of more than 1,000 sites a day to cull content for Gawker. His sensibility is organic, in the sense of seeing himself as tapping into the human mind in a way that he believes allows him to predict what people most want to read.
“Indeed, Mr. Zimmerman earns traffic so reliably that its tempting to dismiss him as an automaton who simply posts every sensational news story that comes along, or as a mere “aggregator” who doesnt contribute anything original to journalism. But that take misses Mr. Zimmerman’s skill. He posts only about a dozen items a day. Almost every one becomes a big traffic hit—an astonishing rate of success. I’ve worked on the Web for years, and I still have trouble predicting which of my stories will be hits and which will appeal only to my mom. Mr. Zimmerman has somehow cracked the code.
His secret, he says, is a deep connection to his audiences evolving, irreducibly human, primal sensibilities. Usually within a few seconds of seeing an item, Mr. Zimmerman can sense whether its destined to become a viral story. ‘I guess you could call it intuition,’ he says.” Wall Street Journal
The Anarchist’s Cookbook is an interesting issue. Many years ago when I worked in a chain bookstore it was on the list of books that must be kept in stock along with classic novels etc. My opinion was if we had to keep the Playboy and the High Times magazines where kids couldn’t buy them at will the Anarchist’s Cookbook should rate the same caution. I didn’t want to be the person who sold the 12 year old boy the means to blow his hand off (I wasn’t worried about school shootings or bombings back then- just mischief and carelessness). The people in charge didn’t agree- it was put out on the shelf for all and sundry but anyone who wanted to look at pictures of people smoking joints were carded and handed a sealed plastic bag from under the register counter.
I suppose today with the internet, adults and kids can find all the information in the Anarchist’s Cookbook and more with little trouble but I always thought it was interesting what was considered “forbidden” information (event the cover of Playboy and High Times had to be hidden under the counter) and what was considered good for all.
@Christine: At about the same time you were working at that bookstore (I would suspect, anyway), I was working at a library that kept certain books in “the vault” — a locked safe, to which only the Director had the combination.
Most of them were rare, valuable, and/or fragile books, but there were two that I recall were kept there only because there was such a high incidence of theft: Abbie Hoffman’s STEAL THIS BOOK and, of course, THE ANARCHIST’S COOKBOOK.
I admit to being torn about the Romance Project. I’ve checked it out and am still unclear as to their ultimate goal. They assert to a broader inclusion of how popular romance is portrayed in everything from film and song to comics and fan fic but the focus is clearly on romance novels. As far as I can tell, it’s a romance blog site that has funding to make a movie. What’s the point? People who bash or misunderstand romance novels aren’t the ones who will visit the site or see the movie.
And sites like DA are already regularly following international romance trends. Jane, did you know there was funding for that?
@Lada: Here’s an earlier DA discussion about the Popular Romance project, written up by Jane when they had a kickstarter going (I believe the kickstarter met its goal).
More generally, Tom Coburn is going after anything in the social sciences and humanities that he thinks is not science-y enough. He’s already succeeded in getting Congress to pass laws restricting the political science program (to the extent that basic data collection about US political attitudes and behavior has been suspended). He’s not done yet.
@Sunita: Thanks for the links. I remember reading that previous post but didn’t connect the dots.
@Sunita: even more generally, Coburn is going after anything that does not fit his concept of “science” on ideological grounds. I am a computer scientist, and for the last two years there has been at least one project marked each year which I know closely. Both times there was good, solid science coming out, and practical applications, too. But one year the issue was that the science was concerned with detection of double entendre (clearly, any mention of sex is a no-no, even if the goal is to not accidentally put wrong things into translations, or in front of kids); the second time it involved computer science application to law training (because, again, lawyers are evil, and we don’t need better trained ones especially in constitutional law). I can easily name a few projects where money was spent much less effectively, but since they don’t have such “dangerous” keywords, they fly under his radar.
What a shame the tattooed librarian calendar is sold out…