Bookishness Reloaded

50 Shades of Grey and its ilk have been on the bestseller lists all year. Really long now and I'm wondering about it. They've basically made it a place for them to hang out. I don't know how any serious watchers of the bestseller list feel about it. I don't even know if there are serious watchers of the bestseller lists. I suppose, ultimately, there should be a few, and none of them should be surprised by what generally hangs out there. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with what hangs out there.

The whole 50 Shades debacle is the latest of an entire series of its kind. The ecosystem of modern publishing doesn't strike one as exclusively healthy – but there's nothing wrong with it, per se. Or so one thinks, ultimately the nonfiction lists aren't really super hopeful either. But there's also sometimes interesting stuff. Whether or not it's brewed by committee, exploits the zeitgeist, and has 'buzz' and 'word of mouth' and 'traction' are the great indicators of sales. Commercial success nullifies critical success and proves the naysayers wrong, inept, and out of touch. Or it should/might/doesn't, depending on how you feel about unlimited free market, incorporated.

The funny thing is, in this era dictionaries have actually created entries on mots célèbre that have no longevity or ultimate worth. I'm looking at you, 'frenemy'. The news crowed joyously about frenemy and friends getting into Webster and Oxford for the better part of a week, probably more than 12 months ago now. What increases the hilarity factor is that the conservative book set (most publishers, consumers, etc) actually sees the potential for twitter literature as a good thing. They might shit if it was considered to switch to a pure paperless market (which is sort of a scary idea when one considers it), but they will fill their own pages with the sort of meaningless colloquial twaddle that has no fundamental role in language. The white noise of language and of literature, and the much hyped 'echo chamber' effect of Twitter is involved somehow. Publishers bank on books that are too big to fail and they go to town whenever some book becomes so important that everyone needs a copy right now. They aim to remain relevant as opposed to fundamental. Language skills and general output are fucked enough without a neoliberal approach to neologisms.

So if you really think about the situation as it stands, the publishing ecosystem is a bit like every other large-scale market ecosystem: some smaller companies, independent organizations, and identities cling to the vestiges with varying success; by and large it consists of gigantic entities producing essentially a monoculture. So what? The incredible size and awesome power of these entities is something that should inspire us, their offerings are delivered with unthinkable force to vast numbers, on a scale that was relatively recently unthinkable. This is no minor business, even this allegedly 'dying' publishing industry.

There exists more written word than can be reliably processed by any one person. This condition is hardly new or revelatory, but it seems worth mentioning no matter how many thousands of years it's been true. Seeing as the human world still exists, and written word is still very essential to its development and even survival, the immense pile of written work should not merely be considered refuse. Some of it obviously stinks, but it's necessary.

Still. At this advanced stage the offerings aren't always on the level. The fact that one book hangs onto a bestseller list for months, in one country, means that not enough books are being shared, or that the market isn't dynamic enough, or anything because its actual value cannot be the ultimate monetary sum represented by its time on the bestseller lists. All of which is beside the point, I know.

Final Stretch Blues

Political bookies have not budged from their original odds. Despite various news articles and voter polling and other dirty chicanery, the conclusion of the great national game of elect-the-PM is not in doubt. The Opposition shift was the wild card, nobody had pools on that. My smug bets on Political Maverick Jack Layton and the NDP are withering before my eyes. I don't answer the phone anymore, and there doesn't seem to be anything to believe.

The final stretch of the federal election has seen various desperate acts. Liberals, formerly quite comfortable about being the Opposition's prime spokespeople, have made certain panicked attempts at stemming the NDP flood. That flood, incidentally, might still just have been a PR break backed by ineffable poll numbers and a questionably realistic spirit of change. Similarly, the Conservatives have gunned for the NDP and have recently pulled a final smear tactic that may sway voters who are willing to believe allegations AKA everybody who was going to vote Conservative or Liberal anyway.

But the thing about politics is that even when other parties begin to panic, and the slander is thrown around, there's still no clear picture about anything. It's nice that Harper and Ignatieff are sweating, but where will the new competitive spirit lead? More sameness? Independent actors can 'reveal events' that bring campaigns, burning, to the ground. My expectation? Harper is the obvious forerunner, but Layton has had the optics from day one – still there was an insistence on Liberal/NDP backbiting. Ignatieff seems to have held on to everyone who was a Liberal before the election. In a sense it doesn't seem like anything will change, which makes all the hullabaloo rather ironic.

There is the HST question, the deficit, Family Subsidies, and the global image of Canada to worry about – among other things that are downplayed in favor of 'optics'. Well we can't just forget the G20, which managed to alarm only Canadians while the rest of the world snickered, and in view of what happened in 2011 so far, was mostly a costly and pathetic spectacle. Who can we blame for that? Is it even important to ask that question?

Mostly I'm surprised that, all things considered, the only thing that has really changed since March is the weather. If anybody was crazy enough to attempt to transcribe the whole 2011 Federal Election into music, it would be a set of absurd repetitious notes – a monotonous cacophony. Morse code. SOS. Things destabilize. When the static finally clears, the television screen blazes proudly with blue light and a reassuring message, "Canada, we are here for you."

That's a Year

I sincerely doubt I'll be posting anything until 2011, so here is a list of predictions about 2011:

1. US political drama will continue to exceed all forecasted expectations.


2. Terrible storms will wreak more havoc on very specific shorelines.


3. North Korea will secretly retract into China without anyone's permission. China will withhold dumplings.


4. At least one person will be on a toilet at 23:59 on December 31st, 2010. 

4.1 - Anyone who passes out before 00:01 on January 2011 will be left in 2010 forever.*
(*Babies, small children, and narcoleptics are exempt)


5. All television shows will be in 3D in 2011. Anyone without a pair of special $200 glasses will be unable to watch anything.


6. Lists will be forbidden in 2011 by decree of Vladimir Putin, which is why I'm making my fist list article.


7. By mid-2011, even Mongolian sheep-herders will get sick of Auto-Tune.


8. Salmon will go extinct, most birds will grow a third wing, and all bears will crossbreed with sharks. This is all due to Global Warming and might lead to the extinction of humankind.


9. Someone's grandmother will discover Twitter.

10. All television programs which have titles beginning with "C" will be canceled.

That's all the nonsense I could think up on short notice, I'll be free of the internet for the next two weeks impersonating socially healthy people and getting drunk. If I get stuck in 2010 you will know by next September, because I'll be reposting old material. Goodbye, dear audience consisting almost entirely of web-crawling search-index bots, and a happy New Year to you.