CAA Class of 2011

Tonight, Jack Dunphy, Seth Kaplan and Caroline Kenworthy, among many noteworthy artists, graduated from Chicago Academy of the Arts, full of honors and accolades.

Readers of these humble blogposts would have already been introduced to Jack Dunphy, grandson of yours truly.  He is a regular teenager as well as an extraordinary filmmaker, having also dabbled in or made forays into writing, acting, graphic arts, sculpture and stand-up comedy.  The "regular teenager" is not a disparagement, but a wonderment, since he seems to have started life with the thoughts of a man aged 60 and has managed to grow younger in outlook as he has grown older in years.  I guess now he has to start growing up again.  Jack was given the Headmaster's Award, for greatest growth and potential as well as commitment to the Academy and to the arts.  This is not the last that the world has heard of Jack Dunphy.  And, I hope Jack knows I am not just saying that because I love him very much (I hope he knows that I as well as his grandfather love him very much), and will support him in all that he wants to achieve.  He will continue in Chicago at Columbia College.

I do not know Seth Kaplan, but have witnessed his work live at tonight's Commencement ceremony and in Jack's films.  He was honored with the Music Department's Award as well as the Academy's Community Service Award.  He also wrote, among concertos, operas and jazz pieces, a song about a squirrel that has become a great Academy insider anthem (not being an insider, I have to take everyone's word and screams for it).  He appears not only to be very talented, but personable and generous with his time.  He is another name to note.  I am not sure where he will be continuing, but wish two things: for me, to get a chance to hang with him and for Seth, all the best of good luck.

Let me also talk more about Caroline Kenworthy, to whose extraordinary voice I was first introduced during her Senior Presentation on 31 March 2011.  Remember the name, lovers of poetry and all literature.  I forgot it (in my early onset way) when I talked about her in April, during our Open Mic Poetry Night.  Crisp, insightful words precisely and intricately arranged together like pearls and precious stones sewn among silk and velvet in a headdress -- that is how I would describe Caroline Kenworthy's poetry.  One thing about a writing program, one learns the different poetic forms and she can write just as elegantly within the parameters of an elegy as in free form, or maybe I should say it the other way around.  Too many writers today -- third-rate hacks like myself, for instance, can only write free form or lyric and not even very gracefully.  She was saluatorian of her class (as well as the Media Arts Department Honor Awardee) and gave the most amazing speech tonight on words, beginning with the philosophical posit that words have no meaning, and going on to discuss how unsettling that is to someone who has heard, spoken, read and written so many of them.  She talked of how (Frindle-like, although she never mentioned this Clement book) words, like "Academy," "Artist" and "Student," have the meaning upon which we agree they have.  She choked us all up with her finish on how linguistically impossible it could be to express her gratitude to the school, its teachers and staff, and her fellow students, but since we have all agreed on a meaning, she could, "Thank You."  She continues at Sarah Lawrence College.  Wishing you the best of luck, Caroline.

I had asked for a copy of the poems and prose excerpts she read for her Senior Presentation that March night, but have not received it yet (it was to come through that oh, so reliable medium of teenagers "I'll give it to Jack to give to you.").  I have a feeling I will need to wait for the published, printed bound copy.  I also have a feeling that we won't be waiting long.

What is the Opposite of Fiction?

Launching off a controversial but best-selling memoir by Augusten Burroughs was a very interesting piece on NPR the other morning about memoirs and whether they are supposed truth.  Memory is faulty.  Viewpoint is exactly that -- a point in a multi-dimensional world.  Who was it who said that facts are simply the version that most people agree upon? 

And in the case of the Robisons, it's he-said-he-said -she-said.  (You know the "facts" are going to get a little skewed when Augusten Burroughs's mother knows her son (and of course refers to him in her book) as Chris Robison.

When many write a memoir, they may consult their journals or their scrapbooks, but not police blotters, school records or plat maps.  This was the uproar over James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, one of Oprah Winfrey's few stumbles when she tried to uphold the value and impact of the story rather than the veracity of the contents (mentioned in this radio piece).  He mis-remembered (or over-dramatized) an easily verifiable (or discountable) account of an event of his arrest and detainment.

What my late father-in-law Charles Dunphy always used to say and his sons still uphold, "Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story."

Between complete truth and pure fiction are writings called memoir and written records called history as written by the victors and survivors, and then, something called good literature.  "Pure" fiction can often come in the form of science fiction, alternative reality, fantasy and fairy tales, believable only with a substantial suspension of life as generally encountered.

A blithe description of complete truth, though, is much more difficult to give.  Truth is in the eye of the beholder.  Sometimes, it's not truth; it's sincerity.  If a person says, "I love you," must it be true or is it simply what he sincerely believes to be true?  You might argue that this question is not fair, because it's not objective.  But, my friend, neither are memoirs.

This Is Not About the Book

So, time marches on and Books on First had on 11 April made a decision that for the time being, we would not be offering Google's independent bookseller's e-book solution on our website.  We are not philosophically against electronic forms of books.  We were just wondering whether this is a set-up for the next Borders scenario.  Borders, as some would recall, has been a contender in the bricks-and-mortar bookseller world.  It believed it could be a contender in the internet world by becoming partners with amazon.com.  Amazon.com co-opted all of Borders online customers and left it in the dust. 

Then, we reversed the decision approximately a month later.  We will be biting the bullet, taking the plunge, and all those good metaphors.  Why?  This is a defensive measure, taken by all bricks-n-mortar booksellers, not thinking they're going to become successful clicks-n-mortar booksellers, just hoping to survive as retailers of books (along with coffee, puzzles, games, toys, knick-knacks, antiques, electronics, stationery, plants, engraved invitations, clocks, jewelry, eyewear, lamps, sandwiches, chocolate and whatever else necessary to keep the cash coming in to pay for the rent, the website, the friendly and knowledgeable staff, the sponsorship of the local Summer festival, etc, expected of a local business.  We are not alone..  I am having to decide to become a member of facebook just to be able to see and to post on the wall of Fans of Books on First on facebook, since we a) don't have any one person with enough time or "passion" to keep it moving along, and b) feel a little out of the loop on what our fans are doing on facebook.  We have customers coming in to say they were disappointed that an announcement of the latest change in live performers was not posted on facebook. Geez, get with it people and follow me on Twitter, so I don't have to become of the billions of people needing to worry about facebook data-mining my privacy!  After all, Brenda put up a You-Tube video of celebrities' kids towing a Funki Trunki (your child can have one, too, right here from Books on First).  I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't signed on to facebook.  All this social media is just too much.  As one blogger has said, "But does it generate more revenue?"  Prove him wrong, folks.  If you're a fan, come buy something at full price (or at least the 20% off hardcover as well as the $2 clearance item).

Re: signing e-books, what is an author to do?  Well, per a recent NY Times item, there are a couple of options, one can sign digital photographs and e-mail them to fans, or get a new app or software that would allow you to write on a "page" of the e-book.  We still have the question of platform.  How valuable is this signature if it may be continuously reproduced and sent to others for printing?  And, how cool is it to carry something like that around to show others versus having it on one's shelf or wall to be "discovered" by friends, family or that second date as she wanders around the newly cleaned apartment thinking she was going to find only etchings, but instead seeing a signed photograph of a famous author with his arm around the guy with whom she would now accept a third date?  Just thoughts.

This is Phishing.

Here are three e-messages panting for me to open and let loose something viral (or bacterial) and definitely fraudulent. An FBI agent told me that there are still hundreds of daily victims for what I call "the bank in Lagos" fraud, in which someone offers to share a lot of cash with you if you'd only help get it out of Nigeria, just when we would believe nobody falls for that old trick anymore. This would be as good a time as any to use my word. The frauds perpetuate, mutate and set down roots in fresh ground like adnascentia, ready to trip up more than squirrels. It's a rough world out there. Be careful.
P.S.  For more on "adnascentia" and how to save a word, go to my 8 August 2009 blogpost.




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Music Tonight!

Do not miss this great treat!  Al and Jeannie Brown return – vocals, keyboard and stand-up bass sending up some great straight-ahead jazz (think Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Cole Porter, et al.).

See you at 7pm for Sauk Valley's best pass-the-hat live entertainment here in a coffeehouse atmosphere (not to mention surrounded by books and Melissa & Doug toys) at Books on First.

In Favor of the Printed (on Paper) Word Part Two

Dan Savage, an openly homosexual writer, with a syndicated column on advice and commentary on relationships and sex, started the It Gets Better Project to help teens who have been bullied for any reason, but mainly because they are gay, lesbian, bi-sexual or transsexual.  He was recently asked on an interview on Radio Q (by host Jian Gomeshi) why publish a book after launching such a successful website.  His response was very interesting and a reason for printed hardcopy books.  He said (and I paraphrase) that not everyone has internet access and moreover, sometimes it takes a book to exist and be there, ready and available to reach a person at the right time and the right place.  It's a matter of discovery, of serendipity.  All these "search" engines are for searching, not for discovering new writers, new ideas, new viewpoints.  Unfortunately, someone - for instance, a library? -- needs to buy that book to have it available.  However, getting it published and printed is the first step.  The next step now is to make it available, as it is here at Books on First.