Quick reminder about Washington DC and St. Petersburg, FL

Hi all. I'll be at the DC Spring Antique Weekend from this Friday through Monday. The following weekend I'll be at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair.

If you are able to attend either fair, please let me know and I'll see there are passes waiting for you at Will Call.

I hope to see some of you. Thank you, as always, for your consideration.

Road Trip 2009 starts tomorrow morning. I'll be doing my best to post regularly.

Sometimes I worry less about the future of books...

Microsoft has released "Songsmith" (see their SHOCKING horrifying ad). It allows you to "sing" your own song and then IT creates the music to "fit" the song you have sung. I offer, for your consideration, "Creep" by Radiohead as orchestrated by Songsmith. I offer the original at the end both for comparison and to purge the first from your brain.

Gawker has down a nice piece about it here (with embedded iterations of St. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, Roxanne, etc). Slashdot's tech-intelligensia is duly unimpressed. My favorite quotation:

I checked the links. Now I feel so dirty.

Hey Microsoft, will you please stick with the business that you are good at? You know, Operating Systems?

Oh, nevermind.

It really is simply appalling. I think they are targeting the wrong market. My 7 and 11 year old would probably have fun with it...for a few hours...

I'm going to go listen to good music and read a good book and try to ever think about (or hear) anything by Songsmith.

As if bogus signatures aren't a big enough problem already...

The Guardian has published a short article on a currently unnamed publishing house that is actively seeking 14 people able and willing to forge the signatures of a soon to be published book. For this service, they will be paid $25 per 200 books signed. According to the ad, the project will run for two, eight hour days...based on those numbers, this could mean as many as 53,000 or so "signed" books. I guess it undermines the ebay fraudsters...

It used to be that you could at least count on publisher's signed copies to be legit...oh well.

I've lost a human (or, at least, his number)...

Here is hoping that the very nice binder who called me some time ago regarding Dr. Syntax might call me again. I have the set in hand, but as the dust settled from my recent spat of shows, I've realized I locate your contact information. It is a grey and foggy day...I should just go to bed.

Chaos at W#@$ette leads to a new blog and...

our first foray into web advertising. I have enjoyed and followed Wonkette (sorry, no link, still annoyed) from the early days when it was, you know, still Ana Marie Cox's baby. She basically sold it/moved on and it became part of Gawker Media's clot of blogs.

'ette was notable for its *very* snarky and "insider" DC/politico news. Funny, on point and on pulse with a serious love of the loathsome nature of DC and its resident political sleazebags and their minions. You know, the way news should be...

Anyway, they blew through a fair number of writers post-Ana (all male...at 'ette...urgh). Then the frequent poster, Anonymous Lobbyist, came "out" and revealed herself as Megan Carpentier and let us know that she had quite the lobbying gig and would be full time at 'ette. I had dropped back to check it about once every two days or so until Megan began writing...'ette was back. Sharp, funny, profane and just "back". Hell, Megan literally waterboarded a co-worker for our pleasure and amusement...and then destroyed the tape (luckily, there was a secret camera).

I was back to checking it at least twice a day and clicking through on many/most of the posts (i.e. generating money for the site). Then Ken Layne "came back" to 'ette and, in short order, fired the only 'ette at 'ette (it was not a gender thing, apparently, but a style thing....Megan wanted 'ette to be 'ette and Ken apparently wants it to be back in the "snooze" period). There was much gnashing of teeth (notably here) and much outpouring of support for Megan.

About two days ago or so, Megan, Greg Wasserstrom (also recently axed at 'ette) and Hunter Walker (of Gridskipper) founded a new snarky political blog, Cynics' Party ("Exposing hypocrisy, Espousing Profanity since January 24, 2008."). They are off to a great start from a content standpoint...but the off the blocks GoogleAds monetizing resulted in a horrifying amount of Ann Coulter (care, don't say it out loud or an angle looses its wings) and Newt Gingrich newsletter appeals (clearly a deep and disturbing flaw in AdWords).

Late yesterday they redesigned in a way the pushed AdWords "down" the page and added their own support ads. In support of their new venture (and in response to their *very* competitive pricing), I decided to run a wee banner ad on the site. It is our first online buy. How knows, with a bit of luck, it will drawn a new client or two...hope springs...er...eternal. Best of luck to Megan, Greg and Hunter.