Dave Winer, as always, has some interesting things to say about Web 2.0, Google and Silicon Valley. But, as a publisher, it was his paragraph on publishing that caught my eye. Don’t miss the whole article, Like a BloggerCon, but here’s the extract :

The publishing industry has done more to support my vision than Google ever has, in fact Google has fought me, at a petty, immature level, based on being incompatible, if you can imagine that, where the publishing industry adopted RSS as-is, without trying to change it or break it. They say the publishers are clueless, I think it’s Google’s management that desperately needs to find its place in the world. I criticize the NY Times, god knows they deserve it, but when I call Martin Nisenholtz, he takes the call, and we work together, in productive ways. This is the east coast way of doing things. It’s something Silicon Valley, which is run by immature men, needs to learn.

The publishing industry is currently under attack from Google Print, which wants to digitize almost every book in existence using a blanket “opt-out” interpretation of copyright law. Authors of books have to object post facto to ensure their works are exempt. Of course, the cost-benefits work both ways for the author, but republishing a work without express permission is against the spirit of copyright law, and should be condemned.

Mr Problogger

Darren Rowse, Mr Problogger, has posted on his site about his recent illness, which apparently affected his eyesight. He asked how would a problogger cope with blindness.

One comment on the post, from his friend Tim reads thus :

I’m a friend of Darren’s and just wanted to let people know that he’s actualy quite sick. His wife took him to hospital today after he took a turn for the worse. I’ve heard he’s actually lost sight in one eye, has been having blackouts and is in a bad way. He’s been admitted and they are doing tests. I’m sure his family would appreciate your thoughts and prayers at this time.

So it seems a lot more serious than at first thought. I would like to wish Darren a speedy recovery. He’s a vital figurehead in the problogging community. I hope he’s picking this up on his RSS feed in his hospital bed, surrounded by grapes, his wife and his family.

Update: The latest news via Jeremy Wright, Darren’s colleague in b5media, is that he’s on the mend, after a well-earned rest. Great news.

Syntagma Media Logo

Recap : I’ve now moved all of the content I want to retain from the Blogspot SYNTAGMA. So this blog is now ready to crank up (don’t misinterpret the word “crank”).

The logo shown above will also be hoisted into the header at some stage, and a bit of redecoration done. I’m a fairly spartan character, so don’t expect an Oriental Bazaar!

I awoke this Sunday morning with a curious image in my mind. It was the Sphinx.

In that blissful hypnogogic state between sleeping and wakefulness, I began to receive images and intimations about its meaning. Of course, we now know that the Sphinx is much older than the pyramids it seems to guard. So it has a very ancient message for mankind.

This is what I learned from this thought-stream : the Sphinx has the body of a lion and the head of a god. There is no essentially “human” part to it, yet it represents the nature of humanity.

If that seems a bit opaque, the answer is that humans are provisional creatures having the attributes of both animals and gods. Each one of us is on a path which rises from the ground of nature, beyond what we think of as human, to a kind of divine status above the mundane confines of this Earth.

People can be classified as less or more developed by reference to the Sphinx. We all know folk who are almost indistinguishable from animals. Their humour is based on sex and bodily functions, and their aspirations don’t rise much higher. These people have their centre of gravity right down at the tail of the Sphinx. Others, further up the body, have rather more cerebral or emotional attributes.

But the highest humans are centred up in the head of the god. These are the ones ready to pass beyond the physical to the various spiritual realms, which themselves are progressive. Each of us has an imperative to lift up those who are below us in the chain, as the price of further progress.

The way to get on top of this process is to become aware of it : to make the unconscious conscious. Then we can ourselves aim at higher consciousness. If we don’t do this, the process will force it on us ~ and this will be very painful. Being forced to reject earthy and physical modes of being is a kind of death. We all die many times in a single lifetime. By taking control of our progress, we avoid these distressing adjustments which “nature” makes from time to time, and we move onwards to our destiny.

So, there you have it. Quite a “dream”, but, as with all such Grade A visions, very useful for the future.

Now, where are the Sunday newspapers?

After reading, and mostly enjoying, The Da Vinci Code I thought I would try Dan Brown’s other religious thriller : Angels and Demons.

This is actually a more gripping tale than Da Vinci, with settings inside the Vatican and the European research centre, CERN. One problem emerges from a back-to-back reading of the two novels : they have almost identical plots.

The hero of both is Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor of religious iconography. In both cases he’s woken by a strange request to hightail it immediately to Europe to sort out a brutal, ritualistic murder, in which various symbols play a mysterious part. In the two novels, the daughter of the murdered man plays a central role (the sex interest). In each case the plot’s main feature is to track down shadowy organizations (the Illuminati and the Priory of Sion), both holders of arcane knowledge that threatens the Roman Church and …

The plots are driven by a series of ingenious clues, containing codes and allusions which only a person of Langdon’s specialty can solve. Naturally he does so, and the novels move to inevitable, breathless, and breathtaking conclusions. For all the craft and guile with which they are written, both are as formulaic as any television soap opera.

Dan, you wouldn’t be using one of those computer programs for plotting a bestselling novel would you? If you are, could you please tell me which one?

The slightly daft way we British go about spelling our own language raises its head again. Occasionally I get taken to task by denizens of these shores for adopting the “ize” convention. “Are you an American?” they cry, as if that’s the gravest insult they can think of. If you don’t know what the “ize” convention is, here is an example : recognise or recognize.

The ize way is unquestionably from the land of stars and stripes, right? Non, Monsieur. It traces its origin back to 16th-century England, and, moreover, it is recommended by Oxford University and its imprint, the OUP. If you look carefully at spellings in most books published by major British publishers, you’ll find the “ize” convention in use. Curiously, newspapers almost always use “ise”, as does most of the population.

Those of us who don’t mind standing in the traditions of 16th-century England (remember Shakespeare?), use “ize” but also the other British conventions. For example, travelling, rather than traveling ~ though the latter does save on printers’ ink; cosy instead of cozy (why?), and got before gotten (another old English usage). But we also prefer hooligan (Irish) to larrikin (Elizabethan, but used widely in Australia). The old Empire sometimes has the edge on us, I feel.

But, to return to the “ize” convention : why should we adopt it over the weaker “ise” form? I call to the stand our star witness : Inspector Morse. Addressing Sergeant Lewis, who, not surprisingly, used the “s” way, he cited the Oxford English Dictionary and proclaimed that “ise” was “completely illiterate”. I rest my case.

I’m reminded of this book by all the recent talk about payment options for blogging, and the half-hearted skirmishing between hobby and probloggers. I want to end this piece with a quote from the book which will please the hobbyists as well as sustain the probloggers through the hard times of their trade. Impossible? Wait and see.

First, the book. The Way of the Peaceful Warrior was written by Dan Millman back in the 1980s, but republished in 2000, its 20th anniversary. Although it’s nominally a novel, the narrator is Dan himself, and the story is structured around the salient points of his life. The hero though, is a mysterious night-time service-station attendant whom Millman calls Socrates. Soc teaches Dan how to be a peaceful warrior and reach the greatest goal in human life : Enlightenment.

At first nobody wanted to publish Peaceful Warrior. It languished for years and was rewritten more than once. Then it took off. Someone saw the “mojo”, picked it up, and ran with it. When it emerged in the bookshops it spread by word of mouth like wildfire. It’s now subtitled : The Book that Changes Lives”. I won’t disagree with that. Read it if you can.

So, here’s the quote intended for my fellow bloggers, whether they’re in the pro or hobby camps. It’s a blend of Mr Micawber and Gotama Buddha :

“Happiness is … to cultivate a simple lifestyle of few desires ; that way you always have enough money. Full attention to every moment is my pleasure. Attention costs no money. … That’s the advantage of being a spiritual warrior ~ it’s cheaper. The secret of happiness is not in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to need less. … I finally released my expectation that the world should fulfil me ; then disappointments vanished. You just do whatever is necessary to live in the everyday world under your own conditions. In this way you can attain a profound sense of freedom while living a very ordinary life.”

Just to vary the mix a little, I’m going to devote some posts to a subject I value well : Cornish authors. They are surprisingly underrated, though they include such well-known bestsellers as Daphne Du Maurier and Derek Tangye.

Denys Val Baker is rarely heard of nowadays, but if you ever come across one of his books : acquire, read and enjoy. They are utterly delicious and rib-ticklingly funny.

Denys Val Baker (1917 - 1984), owner and editor of “The Cornish Review”, was the author of twenty hilarious autobiographies. Titles of these included, The Sea’s in the Kitchen and The Petrified Mariner, which give you a flavour of them. He wrote in the 1950s through the 70s, and was a full-time professional author, by which I mean he was always broke. Nevertheless, he managed to buy an enormous old tramp steamer, MVS Sanu, and, with no sailing experience whatever, took his large brood of wild children and long-suffering wife, Jess, on incredibly dangerous voyages. He was on the rocks more times than Jack Daniels.

Denys lived in Penzance, Land’s End and St. Ives in Cornwall, and was usually seeking some means of financing his next outrageous project. He was an adventurer in the grand English tradition, though always amusingly shambolic.

In the old days, when libraries were libraries, you could find his books on the shelves. These days they’re not so easy to come by, though Amazon has a good listing of second-hand titles, mostly at premium prices. Denys would have been proud. If you want a long, desperately humorous read, do seek them out.

His character never allowed a moment to pass without doing something absolutely beyond the pale. When I lived in Penzance we occupied a house across the road from his, though he had been dead for a decade. I noticed there was no blue plaque on his house, which is a pity, though everyone remembered him in the library, where he did most of his research. His son still runs a print business in the town, and his wildest daughter, Demelza, lives there too, no doubt a little older now. What a sprite she was when she was younger.

Denys was one of the old school of writers. He spent a lot of time in London, mostly in the literary pubs around Soho where he hung out with the likes of Dylan Thomas and other luminaries of the scribbling fraternity. But his heart was in Cornwall, as was most of his written output. He will be best remembered for his twenty or so “autobiographies”. Gerald Durrell is probably the nearest comparison. Let’s hope he will not be totally forgotten, especially in the county that inspired his best work.

Crosbie Garstin is best known for his trilogy of novels about the Penhales family, published before the last war by Heinemann. The Owls’ House, High Noon and The West Wind are all cracking adventures set in Cornwall and on the high seas in the days of sail. China Seas, his last book, continued the genre, and was made into a Hollywood film.

Garstin was an interesting character, a true adventurer and traveller. He served during the first world war in King Edward’s Horse and was commissioned on the battlefield in 1915.

His early years were spent working in lumber camps in Canada, as a ranger in Africa, a miner on the Pacific coast, and as an army horsemaster and intelligence officer. He was, by all accounts, a very private man (I can’t find a photograph of him on the internet) and, at the age of 40, he bought “Rosemerryn”, a house in Cornwall, near Penzance. The fictional home of the Penhales family, “Bosula” ~ the Owls’ House, is almost certainly located on the site of Rosemerryn. Set in the Keigwin Valley, six miles south-west of Penzance, the valley drains the Penwith backbone of tors into Monks Cove, the physical setting for the novels.

Just down the way, towards Penzance, is the fishing port of Newlyn, which doubled-up then as a world-famous artists’ colony, boasting its own art movement. Garstin wrote this elegant rondeau about Newlyn Hill :

On Newlyn Hill the gorse is bright;
Upon the hedgerows left and right
Song-dizzy birds the Spring-time greet;
The bluebells weave a purple sheet;
Primroses star the lanes’ green night.
Across the Bay each moorland height
Glows golden in the evening light,
And Dusk walks violet-eyed and sweet
On Newlyn Hill.

A swarm of lights, pearl-soft and white,
A fairy-lamp-land exquisite,
Opens its star-eyes at the feet
Of hills where shore and wavelets meet;
Then dreams come, mystic, infinite,
On Newlyn Hill.

It’s difficult to get hold of Garstin’s books now, but I managed to entreat copies of the trilogy from Penzance library’s reference section a few years ago for a writing project, and I wasn’t disappointed. Sadly, he has rather sunk without trace in recent years. Not even the Cornish remember him, except for a few beavering upcountry literatis like myself.

In 1930 he vanished without trace. Nobody really knows what happened to him. Some say he faked his death and went back to the East where he had spent his youth. It seems likely though that he drowned while rowing back to a friend’s yacht after a party. The boat overturned and a woman friend survived. His body was never found although he was a strong swimmer. Presciently, the final page of his last book, China Seas, written in his study at Rosemerryn overlooking a bank of rhododendrons, has this death scene :

“Heavily he sank beside her … felt her arms go round him clinging desperately as to the last refuge in a yawning sea … A bank of rhododendrons with crimson flowers … fading fast, fading away.”

Even better, at the conclusion of his trilogy, the death of his hero, Penhales, drowning in the sea off the Twelve Apostles rocks in Cornwall, is one of the best death scenes in all literature :

“The boom of the surf was the deep roll of drums. The wind blew with the sound of trumpets, piercing, exultant. The phantom clippers dipped their gilded beaks, most stately, the ghostly soldiers tossed their lances, ‘Come on, old comrade,’ they cried. ‘Fear not! Death is but a pang and life immortal. Ride on with us, ride on forever.’”