Good to know it can be done...

Of course, reading about self-published people who made it big closely resembles reading about lottery winners who say "I went into a shop, paid a pound, and guessed six numbers", but it still feels good to know that some people have made print-on-demand (or, in this case, eBooks by Kindle) work for them, without going the old mainstream publishing route.

I feel reassured it can happen, but that doesn't improve my own odds from 14 million to one, not really.

Any more than anyone could have predicted that combining Just William, boarding schools and magic spells would have made J.K. Rowling richer than the queen.

Always Merry and Bright

I loved Henry Miller at one point in my life, when he turned up to lift my spirits and give me courage.

"What we all hope in reaching for a book, is to meet a man of our own heart, to experience tragedies and delights which we ourselves lack the courage to invite, to dream dreams which will render life more hallucinating, perhaps also to discover a philosophy of life which will make us more adequate in meeting the trials and ordeals which beset us. To merely add to our store of knowledge or improve our culture, whatever that may mean, seems worthless to me".
Henry Miller

So I would always defend his reputation, especially when confronted by people who dismiss his work without having actually read any of it - just based on rumours and a bad reputation.

In the 70s he got accused of misogyny, for instance, by Feminists - but if Erica Jong loves him enough to write a memoir/biography (The Devil At Large), and Anaïs Nin remained a close friend, perhaps you might consider him worth another look.

Not that I care to promote him - the world remains full of books you and I may never read. I'll just keep him as my little secret treasure.

His position in challenging censorship stays valid, surely - a successful battle - and one from which we all still benefit (if you don't mind reality). In many ways he broke ground for the later Beats, for instance.


Like I said, his particular form of Gonzo autobiography may simply no longer appeal to people, but I have a soft spot for his philosophical musings, and other stuff. Hey ho, but you may still have trouble finding his books in your library.

Check out some online resources:

Henry Miller: personal collection (a site by his daughter)

The Henry Miller Library (in Big Sur) You can buy his books here.

Always Merry and Bright - an unauthorized biography, by Jay Martin

A little more on Tati - reviews and articles

Rosenbaum on Tati at The Evening Class

Jonathan Rosenbaum's website





I found searching Jonathan Rosenbaum's website a bit tricky, so here are direct links to the pieces mentioned in the article above:

* Tati’s Democracy: An Interview and Introduction

* The Death of Hulot

Others:

The Dance of Playtime on The Criterion Connection

Rosenbaum's review of Jour de Fete (when re-released in its colour version) in the Chicago Reader - The Colour of Paradise

"All The World's A Circus" Rosenbaum's review of Parade - in the Chicago Reader.

Senses of Cinema - Jacques Tati

Although hardly a film buff, I have certain narrow areas of expertise and delight.

I have seen just about everything Buster Keaton ever made, and in a proper cinema, with a live pianist (not recorded soundtracks).

I have seen all of Jacques Tati's work, including seeing Playtime in 70mm back when it was first released (even though the run quickly ended). You'll be lucky to catch it that way, now.

As the reviewer mentioned below points out, to watch a film made in such a format on a television is to lose too much, but it's pretty much all we have now.

"The reduction of a 70mm. presentation to the scale of a television set is similar to reducing the performance of a symphony orchestra to a badly done audiocassette."

All the games Tati plays with where you are looking on the screen (sometimes directed by sound, or by colour, or by movement) mean nothing on a small screen where your eyes hardly have to move around at all. His whole style, of not steering your vision to particular activities with close-ups, needs the cinema - both for the size of the screen, and for the kind of concentration that most people do not bring to television.

Jacques Tati, by James M Christley in Senses of Cinema

[A great summary of the work, and some excellent links]

Portraits and Self Portraits

In the coming year I may have to make a decision. To allow a portrait to be painted of me, or to create a self-portrait. Or neither, of course! Always good to have more than two choices.

To create a self-portrait has its problems, in terms of how well you knows yourself, and how honest you want to appear - including revealing the less pleasant side of yourself. And you need to convince yourself of the need for such a thing at all.

To tackle the first problem (of ego and vanity) - in show biz the self-conscious manipulation of image has its place as part of the job. It seems everyone's in show biz these days.

As an example, most of the photos I use as avatars, etc. I took myself with the ten-second timer on the camera. And that's not only selecting a location, and posing, but choosing, cropping and tweaking the picture - to attempt to create a look. I still do it to amuse, and as a form of self-expression, but they also remain masks to hide behind.

Word Pictures

The issue has arisen not in the world of visual images, however, but in the written word. I have made web-sites, written blogs, done online interviews, etc over the last decade, and they form a loose autobiographical project in themselves. Indeed, a journalist/Star Wars fan spent some time digging through that online material to compile a portrait to post on Wookipedia. That material has since migrated to Wikipedia, and although it amuses me I don't feel the right to edit the stuff (that really does smack of vanity). So it contains some errors, or misleading details, which I would attempt correct in my own version.

Autobiography

I have made drafts of a 'proper' autobiography intended to appear in book form (using Lulu, the print-on-demand system which avoids waste). I have set myself up on Lulu, and made various experiments, so I know how to make hard copies very cheaply. My Lulu storefront.

I still have trouble finding the right tone, although I enjoy unraveling memories, and meditating on my experiences. I don't know if I want to compile my anecdotes for film fans, or add to the history of New Circus, or offer my take on the changes made by my generation in The Sixties, the social history of the period, etc. I have tried thinking of it as something for my family, which would have to focus more on relationships, and reasons for making choices of various kinds. And that touches on the thorny issue of how to portray still-living people who have moved on in their lives. Do I track them down and ask them? Do I try to capture the world as I saw it then, or looking back ruefully? And so on.

An Outside Eye

Rich people used to commission portraits, and however carefully they selected and coached their artist, the final image and impression would always remain in the hands of the artist.

The issue of an objective portrait has arisen because someone has suggested writing a biography of me, involving plenty of research - interviewing old friends, co-workers, ex-lovers and all that, as well as extended interviews with me. Do I want to see myself as others see me? Relinquish control of the final image? I never think of myself as sufficiently interesting to appeal to a professional publisher - but if someone else sees a market, and can exploit it, then perhaps that adventure would prove amusing in itself.

I can see some advantages to passing all that work over to someone else. After all, I am unlikely to submit my own writing to much scrutiny from the other people in my adventures, even in the internet world that would take a lot of time tracking everyone down. It might prove very interesting to see the whole story from the outside, and with the perspectives of other people - although perhaps I won't like myself by the end.

The loss of control, and submitting to someone else's time-scale does have difficulties, though. Apart from anything else, I don't know how long the project would take, whereas self-publishing my own version allows me to get it out fast - if pushed - with the ability to carry on working on it, offering updates and later editions as I go along.

So, a portrait, or a self-portrait? I don't quite know how to decide.

Your Own Worst Enemy

I did decide that entering NaNoWriMo without enthusiasm would not work, so I quit before I started, not needing the stress. Don't get me wrong - the right kind of pressure helped me complete the task for the last four years, but each of those times I felt excited, nervous, wired, and had those pre-show nerves that can help a great performance.

This year I just felt flat, daunted, bullied by unrealistic expectations of self, and decided not to beat myself up, or tell myself it would get easier after the initial push - even though that remains the ethos of NaNoWriMo.

I wish everyone well, as they enter the last week of November. I remember how it can feel!

Just taking a break.

I lost interest in writing, for the time being. Except for all this trivial posting, which seems more like chatting than attempting to create anything semi-permanent. These words resemble mere sandcastles, before the tide comes in to wash them away again.

Getting Down To It

I can see the 'write-a-novel-in-a-month' challenge looming on the horizon. I have done it, and completed the task, for four years now. This time I have literally no idea of what to write, or whether I even feel up to the task. I need to make a decision soon!

Meanwhile, I have migrated the data from a wiki that we created for the Illuminatus! study group, which never really took off as a collaborative tool. Instead of the wiki structure I have now started building the material as a website, so it does have much more of my own stamp on it. As before, the intention remains to re-read the book with close attention, and to elucidate some more of the puzzles it contains.

The autobiography drove into the sand again, and sits around looking hopeful, like a dog on a rainy day.

The history of NoFit State (another wiki that does not attract contributors) has proved helpful, at least, in so far as the Timeline has helped when we started sorting pictures for display at the 25th Birthday bash, which is coming up. The task has proved dauntingly complicated, and we have huge gaps in the material (posters, programmes, pictures) from the early days - and then an overwhelming amount of choice since the digital picture era.