Updates

This post will be an update on things I've mentioned in previous posts, anywhere I have new information or developments. A lot of issues from before are awaiting follow-ups, so rather than spend the rest of eternity pursuing them, I'll digest what I've found here.

- In addition to opening its new offices, The Onion recently launched a website with various types of multimedia. The site garnered a snarky review from the New York Times, in which the reviewer ragged on The Onion for staying small and being from the Midwest, and which I found to be in pretty poor taste. I personally don't think The Onion is that funny, but they strangely seem to be one of few newspapers with their bases adequately covered these days.

- For the record, contests in the entertainment industry aren't a bad idea across the board. Some segments of the industry, such as theater and music, place great value on awards and honors. The mistake often lies in thinking that all forms of entertainment work the same way, i.e. thinking that because American Idol works for singers (and honestly, that competition is a TV show first, second, third, and fourth, and a singing contest fifth of lower) that it will work for writers as well. Any contest should be evaluated for reputation and usefulness within its own industry.

- Subsequent reports about Steve Jobs's decrying DRM indicate that he is probably full of crap, just throwing out rhetoric in order to shift heat from himself onto the RIAA and its member labels. He's right that DRM doesn't work to stop music piracy, but that's mainly because at this point it isn't about stopping piracy, it's about stopping competition. Putting DRM on iTunes songs is about making it so that iTunes customers have to buy iPods. Since Jobs's announcement, Apple hasn't shown any signs of becoming less anti-competition, or of removing DRM from the media it owns. Spoke too soon. EMI has agreed to offer their mp3's DRM-free through iTunes, albeit for more money than the standard versions. Mark this as the day the record labels wised up just a little bit. UPDATE: Microsoft is now planning to offer DRM-free tunes as well. I'm sure that the awesomeness of this development will sink in sooner or later. I think I'm still experiencing a little bit of disbelief at this point.

- No further information came to me about the New York International Children's Film Festival that was of particular note. However, I did get some more extensive info on the Chicago International Children's Film Festival, a similar event in its 24th year. Documentation on this one is a little more extensive, including a clause in their promotional material specifying that the festival is a non-profit operation. Power to the organizers of these events, but it doesn't look like they're exactly making a chunk of change on them. Also , if you want a little bit of context for Beckman's comment about chicken fingers, do a little research on Richard Williams's The Thief and the Cobbler, a film that was acquired by Disney and Miramax in the early nineties and bastardized into this.

- Algonquin's guerrilla marketing stunt for its upcoming Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England is surprisingly paying off for Algonquin; in fact, they've booked the author for a speaking event at the Edith Wharton House, the same place that called the cops when they received Algonquin's oddball letter. Good news for them, but I should point out that the folks at Algonquin are the publicity masters behind the bestselling Water for Elephants. They can pull this stuff off if anyone can, but we shouldn't kid ourselves that sending inflammatory (oops... bad pun) letters is a good tactic for anyone to use.

- I can't find any evidence of My Boys condoms turning up anywhere else at this point. I can't even figure out who's leaving them around. For the moment, these little guys are still a mystery.

- On the subject of getting an actual job, I'm afraid I made one mistake: Beth Ineson's first work for a publishing house was at Yale University Press, not MIT. Sorry, Beth.

- I should clarify that I don't think Powell Books's short films are a bad idea. If you only pay attention to Powell's comments and the way they're going about it, I think they're doing things right, not expecting to make a profit or replace author tours altogether. The NYT just spun it in a really idiotic way, and that's what I have a problem with. Considering what kind of part the Times plays in the book business, they often seem to have a phenomenal misunderstanding of it.

On that note, I've discovered that no, unfortunately, I cannot presently afford to stop reading the NYT. No matter how many specialty publications I read, there's some stuff I'm just going to miss if I don't have the daily paper in front of me. The Boston Globe is not a viable alternative. I may check out some other major dailies, but for the moment it seems I'm stuck. On the bright side, though, I've found that I can easily do without BoingBoing, which, although it's the most linked-to blog on the web, isn't nearly as good a source about entertainment as I originally thought. This is welcome news, because I find BoingBoing rather annoying. It's like a cross between Wired and Adbusters. And I like Wired, but I hate Adbusters.