Disqus - Latest Comments for Michael57

Re: Some people say that there’s a woman to blame, and I agree that it’s her own damn fault

Michael57 — Wed, 29 May 2024 17:09:41 -0000

If we had a working press in this country, someone would already have located and published the work order or receipt for the installation of the flag pole. Does his name appear? https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

Re: The Politics of Glory

Michael57 — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 13:43:05 -0000

No justice (Little Feat in the Hall), no peace.

Re: The recession that never was

Michael57 — Sat, 03 Feb 2024 23:56:57 -0000

I don't pretend to understand the economics, but people I know at Fidelity (who aren't partisan at all, except in favor of money) said all last year that the inverted yield curve was strongly predicting a recession. https://fortune.com/recomme...

Re: The plain meaning rule of interpretation

Michael57 — Wed, 27 Dec 2023 00:23:33 -0000

Absolutely correct, but the connection to Kafka was obscure then and now.

Re: The plain meaning rule of interpretation

Michael57 — Tue, 26 Dec 2023 18:24:14 -0000

Shakespearean fish, not ancient, but the idea remains valid, and Yeats's critique of modernity was 100 years ago. Now the fish is up on the wall--it's Billy Bass.

Re: The plain meaning rule of interpretation

Michael57 — Tue, 26 Dec 2023 14:10:19 -0000

I went to a talk by Derrida at Johns Hopkins 40 years ago. Stanley Fish brought him to town. It was supposed to be a talk about Kafka, and I was naive enough to bring a notebook and a pen to record the thoughts of the great man. After 20 minutes of rambling discourse on Freud, Fleiss, and noses (!), anything but Kafka, I put down my pen, stood up, and left academia.

Re: LGM Classical – Conducting

Michael57 — Tue, 11 Apr 2023 22:21:38 -0000

I thought it was a very fine movie, and I've been meaning to watch it a second time, to be sure I understand what happens in the final third. A lot of depths to it and not well understood by most of the reviewers.

Re: A most profitable cancellation

Michael57 — Sun, 29 Jan 2023 11:06:20 -0000

Yeah, this is an excellent comment by Abigail Nussbaum. I'm one of many professional booksellers who loved the book pre-pub, and who were totally blindsided by the vicious backlash to how it was published. The book itself was a thriller with a real heart, and the author didn't deserve the pummeling she got. Sure, the writing wasn't always great, but as with Dragon Tattoo, you're not there for the fancy prose, you're there for a story, and both of them delivered.

The publisher has been very open about all their mistakes in how they rolled the book out--and there were so many mistakes --the mind boggles. Don Winslow's blurb alone ("Grapes of Wrath for our time") was enough to launch a thousand Myriam Gurbas. I have PTSD just thinking about all this again, and I wish Pamela Paul had kept her yap shut. But these people just can't do that.

Re: Sam Alito’s woman problem

Michael57 — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 11:43:22 -0000

The way I remember it is that Dem senators did bring up Alito's right-wing character and the likelihood he would vote to end Roe, but they didn't have the votes to do anything about it. Obama, Kerry, Clinton, Schumer, all protested, and it didn't matter. The media played it down as politics as usual. Hillary, Teddy, Kerry, Reid, Durbin, Biden, all the leadership wanted to filibuster, but they only had 24 votes for that.

Re: Favorite Novels I Read in 2019

Michael57 — Wed, 01 Jan 2020 12:03:50 -0000

So many of these recommendations came from independent bookstores, and the links all go to Amazon. I get the economics of it. This site won't support itself. But for the new year, there's a new way to link to books and benefit independent stores while earning a hefty affiliate commission--better than Amazon's--for LGM. It's called Bookshop, and it's launching soon. Here is the link: https://comingsoon.bookshop.... I know the people involved--please let me know if you'd like for me to put you in touch with them.

Re: Impeaching Trump

Michael57 — Fri, 19 Apr 2019 10:45:09 -0000

Impeach Barr for obstruction of justice.

Re: Warren and native identity

Michael57 — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 22:11:13 -0000

The Republicans will find a way to attack any candidate we run. They especially don't like Senator Professor Warren because she calls them on their bullshit so effectively. It's perfectly fine with me if she wants to say she's proud of her great-great-grandma--who am I to judge either way? Here too many on the left are joining in an argument that the other side cooked up in bad faith. It's just the essence of how we lose.

Re: “DELETE UGH.”

Michael57 — Fri, 29 Dec 2017 10:34:26 -0000

I wish I had the patience (or tolerance for bs) to give it a thorough read. But my initial impressions are: Ivers is a conservative, but a professional. Publishing is a proud profession, with traditions and rules. He may have gone into the project thinking that Milo was a performance artist in the way that Ann Coulter is, and expecting to have a solid author-editor relationship with him. Those hopes appear to have been dashed early and often! The right-wing war on expertise doesn't play favorites, and Ivers found himself almost against his will playing the part of the establishment square defending traditional values against the onslaught of a troll. JUST LIKE THE REST OF US. I hope that more right wingers will throw up their hands and join us at the barricades like Ivers & Max Boot.

Re: “DELETE UGH.”

Michael57 — Thu, 28 Dec 2017 17:26:20 -0000

With the exception of a few misguided suits, everyone at S&S was delighted when this sank into clusterfuckery. At least everyone I know there was glad the book was cancelled.

Re: “DELETE UGH.”

Michael57 — Thu, 28 Dec 2017 17:10:30 -0000

Scalzi is good on this. https://twitter.com/scalzi/...

Re: “DELETE UGH.”

Michael57 — Thu, 28 Dec 2017 16:47:23 -0000

I'm in the book business, and I guarantee you that 99.9% of Simon & Schuster employees were annoyed or disgusted that they had offered a contract to Milo. It's a big company full of book people. The Threshold division is there to "meet the needs of a particular market." They don't love that market. That said, Milo's encounter with an actual professional editor is funny as hell and should be required reading for everyone in the business. "DELETE UGH."

Re: House lawmaker: Black Lives Matter is a ‘domestic...

Michael57 — Thu, 14 Jul 2016 14:13:22 -0000

You won't convince Fred. No matter how many examples you come up with, they will be quickly excluded from his definition of a Tea Partier. This is known in philosophical circles as the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

Re: John Heilemann Makes Lindsey Graham Joke on ‘Morning Joe;’ Edited Out of 8am Reair

Michael57 — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 15:32:21 -0000

Are you guys suggesting that Heilemann is a liberal, just because he did this on MSNBC? Please.

Re: The Coming Book Wars: Apple vs. Amazon vs. Google vs. the U.S. - Peter Osnos - Business - The Atlantic

Michael57 — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 10:17:07 -0000

Why don't you just take that argument to its logical conclusion and when you want to read a book just go shoplift it?

Re: I Am the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, or, Amazon is a knockoff factory

Michael57 — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:57:18 -0000

Please believe me when I tell you that the free and easy, no barriers world of self-publishing you propose is like a vision of hell to me. I own a bookstore. I know all too well that there is too much dreck out there. But I look at our current system as something like a canal between oceans. Without the locks and dams and barriers that publishers (and bookstores) provide, you really would get a sudden flood of terrible books that would make today's batch of terrible books look like a puddle. Readers really would not be able to find the good books. Self-published authors come to us all the time. I know. I know what it would be like. Suddenly feeling like Cassandra, here, so signing off. But one last thought: what Amazon is doing is something no publisher had the imagination or the lack of shame to do: they are monetizing the slush pile. They have found a way to make money off total crap. My hat is off to them even as they doom our civilization.

Re: I Am the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, or, Amazon is a knockoff factory

Michael57 — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:22:19 -0000

I agree with the gender bias concerns, but they can be addressed inside the traditional publishing model. If your data is based on reviewing and reviewers, then self-publishing will not solve that problem but will have us all drowning in a sea of dreck.

Re: I Am the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, or, Amazon is a knockoff factory

Michael57 — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:03:52 -0000

We'll all be happy if Amazon finds another Proust. So far the best they've done is Konrath and Hocking.

Your second paragraph doesn't match my experience. None of the characteristics you mention are barriers to publication with traditional publishers, who really do run the gamut. Though marketable and salable are essential, aren't they? If that is not the case then the project truly is "vanity."

Re: I Am the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, or, Amazon is a knockoff factory

Michael57 — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:25:25 -0000

Calling curation a form of censorship is an assault on culture, really. I think that small quiet voice you're hearing is Amazon's marketing department and you should ignore it. Unless you also want finger painting in the Louvre.

Re: Jeff Bezos Should Send Eric Holder a Christmas Card

Michael57 — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 10:33:46 -0000

A remedy to that situation was suggested to Amazon in 2010, by Macmillan, and rejected. The idea was called "windowing," and under it, the cost of an ebook would go lower over time to mirror the transition from hardcover to paperback to mass market. Amazon wanted to sell everything at $9.99 immediately. Macmillan correctly saw this as a radical devaluing of the product that would ultimately victimize consumers, writers, other retailers, and publishers: i.e., the entire publishing ecosystem except for Amazon.

Two questions: 1) To whom was the wealth transferred? and 2) Are you a victim because you can't buy a steak for the price of a cheeseburger?

Re: Jeff Bezos Should Send Eric Holder a Christmas Card

Michael57 — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 09:44:08 -0000

"What you had was a wealth transfer from consumers to the various publishing houses." Actually, not so.

Amazon paid more per unit to the publishers under the wholesale model than they did under the agency model. If you only want to focus on price, then let's be clear about this. 30% of 13.99 is $4.20. When an ebook costs $13.99, then, the publisher collects $9.79 and Amazon gets $4.20.

But under the wholesale model, the list price of the e-book is, say $25.00. Amazon buys it at $12 -- that's what the publisher makes. Amazon sells it at $9.99 and loses $2 per unit.

So, to recap:

Agency model: publisher makes $9.79, Amazon makes $4.20.
Wholesale model: publisher makes $12, Amazon loses $2.

Now: tell me where the transfer of wealth from consumers to publishers has occurred, and I will give you one American dollar. Tell me where Amazon has been victimized, and I will give you two.

The only way that Amazon is a victim under the agency model is that they are being forced to stop selling below cost and start making money, which you might think would be the goal for any company that is not actively pursuing a monopoly rather than profits.