I’m heading out for a couple weeks’ holidays now — back on January 2. Taking a cue from danah boyd, I’m discarding all the mail that comes in between now and then; that way I won’t come back from hols with a million emails shouting for my attention and harshing my mellow. It’s a good way of managing holiday away-time, keeping work from creeping into downtime — I’m seeing it more and more.

Of course, the rest of the gang will still be here. If you want to submit a Boing Boing suggestion, use the form. I just delete Boing Boing suggestions I get by email, anyway, so this is always the right thing to do, no exceptions, ever, period.

If you want to talk to someone about doing business with Boing Boing, visit FM Publishing.

If you’re looking to talk to someone about licensing some of my stories or novels, or commissioning a speech, article or whatnot, contact my agent, Russell Galen.

Have a great holiday, everyone! See you in 07!

Cory

Last night’s episode of Criminal Minds on CBS opened with a quote from my novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town — keen!

1.6MB QuickTime Link

(Thanks to everyone who wrote in about this!)

Last week I did an interview with Tom from the Command Line podcast, and I was immediately struck by how knowledgeable and quick Tom was on the subjects that I care about — technology, civil liberties, and social change. Curious, I downloaded some of the previous episodes of his podcast and found them to be even better than I’d hoped — thoughtful, informative, and deep, a real plunge into the geeky end of the news-pool. There’s great analysis and rumination, as well as detailed explanations of important security issues with common OSes and so on. Tom’s just posted the episode with my interview, but don’t stop there — I’ve added this one to my subscription list.

Link, Podcast feed link, iTunes “enhanced” podcast feed link

Lirevite is a new, free/open speed-reading program for mobile devices that displays a long text one word at a time, quickly. The three initial test books for the system were my novels Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Eastern Standard Tribe, and Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town.

Alexandre Hervaud from Fragil, a French website, did a short interview with me last month in Nantes at the Utopiales convention and he’s just posted it:

Le copyright est justement l’objet de sa venue aux Utopiales où il donne une conférence à ce sujet. Activiste, il est convaincu de l’absurdité d’un copyright excessif.

« Le copyright, c’est un monopole qui a tendance à entraîner des concentrations. Désormais, dans le domaine artistique, on a 3 ou 4 compagnies qui contrôlent la musique, et autant pour le cinéma et l’édition… D’une certaine manière, c’est comme un retour au mécénat, l’ancêtre du copyright, lorsqu’un artiste ne pouvait exercer son talent qu’avec l’appui des puissants, et pas autrement. Le pape ou le PDG d’Universal, c’est du pareil au même. »

Son baladeur mp3 à portée d’oreilles, il voit le Web comme une chance pour l’Art. « Avec des coûts de distribution très bas, Internet permet à un plus grand nombre de personnes de participer aux pratiques artistiques. L’offre s’en trouve considérablement augmentée, ce qui permet de satisfaire différents publics. »

Link

Forbes has a new special issue on the future of books, and I have a lead op-ed in the issue, called “Giving It Away.”

The thing about an e-book is that it’s a social object. It wants to be copied from friend to friend, beamed from a Palm device, pasted into a mailing list. It begs to be converted to witty signatures at the bottom of e-mails. It is so fluid and intangible that it can spread itself over your whole life. Nothing sells books like a personal recommendation–when I worked in a bookstore, the sweetest words we could hear were “My friend suggested I pick up….” The friend had made the sale for us, we just had to consummate it. In an age of online friendship, e-books trump dead trees for word of mouth.

There are two things that writers ask me about this arrangement: First, does it sell more books, and second, how did you talk your publisher into going for this mad scheme?

There’s no empirical way to prove that giving away books sells more books–but I’ve done this with three novels and a short story collection (and I’ll be doing it with two more novels and another collection in the next year), and my books have consistently outperformed my publisher’s expectations. Comparing their sales to the numbers provided by colleagues suggests that they perform somewhat better than other books from similar writers at similar stages in their careers. But short of going back in time and re-releasing the same books under the same circumstances without the free e-book program, there’s no way to be sure.

What is certain is that every writer who’s tried giving away e-books to sell books has come away satisfied and ready to do it some more.

Link, Link to special books issue of Forbes

This Thursday, I’ll introduce director Kirby Dick and his movie “This Film is Not Yet Rated” at a free screening at USC. The screening is sponsored by the USC Free Culture club, a campus organization dedicated to promoting liberty, openness, and access to information.

Kirby Dick has graciously agreed to present the screening of his movie, which I reviewed in September. This Film is Not Yet Rated is the best documentary I’ve seen all year, the kind of thing that inspired outrage and sympathy. It tells the hidden story of the MPAA’s rating board, and its systematic discrimination against sympathetic portrayals of gay sexuality and sex in general, and its tacit support for ultra-violence.

The ratings board is shrouded in secrecy, and exists, supposedly, to forestall Congressional censorship of the film industry (an eventuality as unlikely as it is unconstitutional). The board’s membership is secret, as are the names of the appeals committee that is meant to watchdog the organizing. The whole, secretive mess was established by Jack Valenti in his capacity as head of the MPAA, and so it bends over backwards to help filmmakers from the major studios (while shafting indies).

Dick’s documentary revolves around his efforts to unmask the identity of the secret censor board. He hires a private eye and sets her to work (the CSI elements of the film are really juicy — it’s fun to see how private eyes really work). Threaded around this are interviews with filmmakers who’ve had run-ins with the board, and, as a climax, Dick’s own Orwellian adventures in submitting his documentary to the censor board whose identities he has uncovered.

I can’t wait to meet him — one viewing of This Film is Not Yet Rated turned me into an instant, lifelong fan. I hope to see you there!

Where: University of Southern California, Los Angeles: University Park Campus, George Lucas Instructional Building, 108

When: Thursday, November 30, 2006 : 7:00pm to 9:00pm

Link