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February 28, 2006
Jon Stewart as Enabler?
First off, let me say that I adore Jon Stewart. My life is truly richer since we broke down and ordered a satellite package that would bring him back into our lives on a daily basis. In fact, on vacation, my daughter (another devoted fan of his) and I not only watched "The Daily Show" each day but took advantage of my father-in-law's cable modem to watch all the interviews we'd missed (pre-satellite dish) that are archived on the "The Daily Show" website.
But here's the enabler part -- and the realization comes from Jon Stewart himself. Last night, interviewing Jon, Larry King asked him: "Who in this administration fascinates you the most?":
"STEWART: The American people for their just utter patience. And everybody, it just seems like I just don't know what it's going to take. What else, you know, there is this whole -- my mind has been blown just so consistently by this administration's insistence on their own competence without ever sort of delivering kind of any sort of evidence to that. I think at this point everybody just kind of rolls their eyes like, ah, those guys are at it again."
Then King asked him if he was happy that the American political scene (on both sides of the aisle) was so bizarre these days because it was such fodder for political comedy. Here's Jon's answer:
"STEWART: Yes, I prefer not the fodder. I'm not -- we're not the guys at the craps table betting against the line. I would -- we'd make fun of something else. If public life, if government suddenly became inspiring and moved towards people's better nature and began to solve problems in a rational way rather than just a way that involved political dividends, we would be the happiest people in the world to turn our attention to idiots like, you know, media people, no offense."
(You can read the transcript of the interview here: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0602/27/lkl.01.html)
Well, writing this, I realize "the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves." And that's why -- off his show -- Jon Stewart is quick to take us all to task for what we're not doing, what we're not demanding of our leaders. So in a sense, Jon is enabling me to sit back and laugh at a crazy world, but he's not making me sit back and do nothing. The answer, as always, is to get out there and "be the change you want to see" (Gandhi).
But it's still comforting to know that America's great wits have always despaired of politicians:
"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress." Mark Twain
"I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat." Will Rogers
Posted by Marcy Ross at 9:51 AM | Comments (0)
February 27, 2006
Du Bois in Great Barrington
Tonight we watched a documentary about the life of W.E.B. Du Bois, the famous scholar-activist, in a cinema only a few steps from where Du Bois and his mother lived at the top of Railroad Street. The cinema was sold out—unbelievable for a documentary here—because suddenly Du Bois is hot. The carpetbaggers were there, but there were also the stalwart people who have worked for decades to give Du Bois proper acknowledgement in this hometown he loved.
I felt gratified, because it was my wanting to see the documentary that brought it to town. Back in December I went to the History Producers Congress in Rome. I thought of a documentary of Du Bois as a possible project, because of David’s work, and asked David if there was something already. He called Rachel Fletcher, who called Barbara Zheutlin who runs the film series, and who found the film and brought it to us tonight.
It was a good film, too, and helped me understand the complexities of Du Bois’s life choices. I was fascinated to see clips of his meeting Mao and speaking in China, and I don’t think Du Bois will be at the top of my film projects list, though it would be interesting to try something different. Some day. In the meantime, there are a couple of books on the African American community to bring out, and a website to set up.
We had another small town moment, going to Castle Street Café because Pearl’s was closed. The lovely waitress there remembered exactly what both of us drink, though we haven’t been there in a year or more.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 9:14 PM | Comments (0)
Jolly curlers
I'm on the losing side, it seems, when it comes to deciding whether Berkshire Publishing should be skipping and hacking. Liz Steffey, our intrepid squash-playing China EA, has already enlisted author and curling expert Morris Mott as our remote coach, and put together a list of important dates coming up in local curling, as well as a reading list! I grew up, early on, in Minnesota, so the consensus is that I should be taking to this sport with rather more enthusiasm. I do like the idea of team tshirts, though, and at this time of year in New England anything that helps us get through till spring is welcome. But you won't call me a "jolly curler"--the title of a sidebar we included in the Berkshire Encyclopedia of World Sport.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 4:08 PM | Comments (0)
February 26, 2006
Streaming radio for dummy
I'm feeling dumb. In a midwinter craving for music, I first discovered the wonders (and dangers) of buying via iTunes. Then--quite a few downloads later, with today being, somehow, a Sunday for both Vivaldi and Springsteen--I remembered hearing about something called radio.
I forget about radio, because we live in the mountains and reception is bad. Every once in a while we talk about trying new antennae, but there isn't all that much worth listening to within range. Now, without a whole lot of trouble (just a little work to get the right players installed and working with Mozilla), I am now listening live to BBC Radio 3, and I have a selection of U.S. classical stations to sample, too. Hurrah for the Internet!
Posted by Karen Christensen at 2:10 PM | Comments (1)
February 25, 2006
"A Many-Splendoured Thing" and the Community in Popular Culture database
I’m charged up about the popular culture databases we’re developing--we have a couple online, and they’re great, but bigger things are in store—because I keep picking terrible movies. Now I am not exactly known as the popculture diva, but I ought to be able to do better than this. Last night’s failure was in a good cause: learning more about China. A Chinese-Dutch doctor called Han Suyin was a sensational success in the early ‘50s with a book about her love affair in Hong Kong during the days when the Communists were taking control of the mainland. It’s a beautifully written book and has many sensitive observations about China and Chinese perspectives. When I discovered an old Penguin copy of A Many-Splendoured Thing in a bookshop in London, I was terribly excited and thought I might revive this wonderful memoir. Only later did I find that it had been turned into a multiple Academy-Award-winning movie, so it was hardly obscure. And that’s what we watched last night, Love is A Many-Splendored Thing, made in 1955. It was dreadful. David was quite right to comment that the heroine’s lines were non-stop echoes of an American “Confucius say.”
I can’t count the times someone has said, “Have you seen….?” and I’ve had to say, “No, but I’ve the book.” This is yet another case where my advice is to read the book and forget the movie. Click here to visit one of our popular culture sites, this one of books, movies, TV shows, and drama related to community.
Incidentally, HAN Suyin returned to China and went on to write favorable biographies of MAO Zedong and ZHOU Enlai. (I’ve capped the family names, a style we are thinking of using in our China publications, because many Asian people use western name order or switch between the two, and we want to ensure that we get it right. The author was Dr. HAN.)
P.S.: I just checked on Amazon and it looks as though the book is out of print! Maybe there's something in my idea of reprinting it, after all.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:43 AM | Comments (0)
February 24, 2006
Google isn't perfect
On the mantelpiece in my office (yes, dear reader, I have a fireplace in my office: one advantage of life in a building that I've heard described as "like something out of a Raymond Chandler novel") is a blue gumby clock that the people at Google sent me. It came with a note apologizing for the delay in uploading our books or converting files.
I find this reassuring. Even huge, rich, and very smart Google can't figure out how to handle books. I'll smile at the London Book Fair next week when I see the signs telling publishers to "leave your books with us" to get them into the book search program. I've tried at least three times to get one of our encyclopedia--the one on Human-Computer Interaction, ironically--into the Google Print program. We mailed a set; it went missing. We uploaded PDFs according to instructions, twice. Still no go.
What happens to the missing books? Google isn't, surely, selling them on eBay, and I can't imagine employees sneaking them out of the building under their jackets. I think it must be like socks, which disappear into another dimension. That's what happens to books at Google.
Here are a few lines from the latest Google email:
Dear Google Book Search Partner,
If you do not submit books to Google Book Search in PDF format, please disregard this message.
If you have used the PDF Uploader in the past, or plan to in the future, please read on.
We have discovered that some PDFs with spaces in their file names or not properly named with the ISBN according to the naming convention, have not uploaded successfully to Google Book Search. For more information on our file naming guidelines, visit https://books.google.com/support/partner/bin/answer.py?answer=20028&topic=332.
We are now releasing a new version of the PDF Uploader which corrects that problem.
However, if you have uploaded PDFs in the past, and your PDFs were not named according to our guidelines, we may not have received your files.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 9:39 PM | Comments (0)
What the world thinks about America
Our new website, www.LoveUsHateUS.com, is humming with thoughts from around the world. In fact, the discussion is so lively that we're going to set up a forum, in addition to the current arrangement that features comments separately (along with quotes from famous authors--from Edith Wharton to Jon Stewart). Please, join the conversation.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:46 AM | Comments (0)
February 23, 2006
The history of curling--and maybe the future of sports at Berkshire Publishing
My lack of appreciation for the sport of curling has not gone unnoticed. While everyone else in the office is getting ready for the open house at the nearest curling club (they have even named our team--it's called the "Skippers" according to the sign on the office bulletin board), I am holding out for sports where you hit something, or someone.
But curling is obviously much loved. Our expert on the subject has written for us for many years, and I am happy to share his superb coverage of the topic. Tomorrow I will post a couple of our great photos: of a women's curling team and a venue in western Canada. I am delighted that we have such excellent coverage of a sport that's attracting attention in the Winter Olympics, but I have to admit that when Cassie said I could be the coach or manager if I didn't want to play, I didn't feel a whole lot better! Here's a quote from Morris Mott's excellent article, posted here for the benefit of all the people curious about the history and culture of this newly popular sport: "The attractions of curling are much like those of bowling and golf. Recreational players can be confident that serious injuries almost never occur to participants. They can be confident as well that even a novice can expect to make a few shots." You won't catch me bowling, either.
Curling, by Morris Mott
Curling is a team sport played on a long, narrow sheet of ice. It incorporates the basic principles of lawn bowling or horseshoes. Each of four members of a team has a counterpart on an opposing team, and in alternating fashion the members of the teams throw (slide) objects toward a target. The target is a group of concentric circles called a “house” at the far end of the sheet; the largest of these circles is 12 feet (3 meters) in diameter. The objects that are thrown are round “stones” or “rocks,” which must be less than 44 pounds (20 kilograms) in weight, less than 36 inches (1 meter) in circumference, and less than 4.5 inches (11 centimeters) in height.
After each player has made two throws—after a total of sixteen throws—an “end” (similar to an inning in baseball) has been completed, and at this time one point is awarded to a team for each of its stones that lies both in the house and closer to the center of the house (the tee or button) than any of the other team’s stones. If neither team has a stone in the house, the end is “blank”; however, most ends result in one team counting between one and three points. A new end then begins, with players throwing toward the house at the other end of the sheet. A match is normally complete after ten ends. However, extra ends are played to break ties, and in recent years
clocks have been introduced to speed up play, and occasionally a match is terminated because one team has used all the time allowed for its total of eighty throws.
The sheet of ice on which the game is played is called a “rink.” The rink is 146 feet (44 meters) long, although only 132 feet (40 meters) are in play. As one moves down the sheet eight lines are encountered, each drawn straight across the ice, and many of the rules of the game preclude or allow particular activities within the specific sections of the ice created by these lines. The width of the ice varies from the 14 feet, 2 inches (4.2 meters) commonly found in Canadian curling clubs to the 15 feet, 7 inches (4.7 meters) used in other countries and in international play. The side boundaries are identified, often with wooden boards, and stones that touch or strike the boards are removed. The only important consequence of using the different widths is that in Canada one stone can fit in the space between the side boards and each house at the line drawn across the ice at the middle of the house (the tee line), but in other countries and in international events, two stones can fit there.
Teams
A team of curlers, often also called a “rink,” is composed of a “lead,” a “second,” a “third”(sometimes called a “vice skip”), and a “skip.” The four members throw their stones in order, and in the usual pattern the lead alternates with the other team’s lead in throwing his or her two stones, then the second does the same, then the third, and finally the skip. Normally, though not necessarily, the skip throws last because usually he or she is the best shot maker on the team or at least the best shot maker under pressure. For this reason, and because the skip is given the responsibility for calling the shots that a team will attempt as an end unfolds, the skip is the most important member of the team. This explains why usually a team will be identified in the skip’s name.
Shots
If one reduces curling shots to their essential purposes, only four types exist. The first is the draw into the house. The second is the hit, a faster-running shot designed to take out (remove) an opponent’s stone(s). The third is the guard, a stone thrown with quiet weight that stops in front of the house (but it must be within 21 feet or 6.4 meters of the tee line to remain in play). The fourth is the tap-back, which might involve raising a guard into the house or simply moving stones to more advantageous positions.
A curling stone is thrown from a “hack,” which is now a rubber foothold but once was essentially a hole hacked into the ice. Two hacks are at each end, one for left-handed throwers and one for right-handed throwers, and each is 126 feet (38 meters) from the middle of the house at the far end. The curling stone is held by a handle, and as it is released the thrower imparts a spin or turn to the stone. If the thrower twists his or her elbow and hand out on release, then an “out turn” has been used, and if the thrower is right-handed the stone will rotate counterclockwise as it moves down the ice. If the thrower twists the elbow and hand in on release, then an “in turn” has been used, and it will rotate clockwise, again if the thrower is right-handed. As a stone moves along the ice toward the far house, and especially as it starts to lose speed, a stone thrown properly will move across the ice as well as down it. This fact means that a curler almost never throws directly at his or her target. A well-played curling shot is one that has been thrown with not only just the right amount of weight but also just the right allowance for sideways movement.
All of the players hold a curling broom or brush (the brush has become far more common since the 1970s), and this piece of equipment has different functions. The person throwing the stone holds the broom or brush in the nonthrowing hand and uses it to help maintain balance through the delivery. The skip uses his or her broom to provide a target for the thrower; when the skip is throwing, normally the third holds the broom. Almost always the broom is placed to the side of the true target to allow for the sideways movement. The other two members of the team use their brooms (brushes) to affect the speed and direction of the stone after it is on its way. Essentially, they sweep or brush in front of the stone and thereby cause it to slow down at a less rapid rate than it would if they were not sweeping. Just how sweeping affects speed is a matter of some controversy, but it seems to do so in several ways. It removes debris from the path of the stone, although in modern indoor rinks about the only debris that creates problems is the straw or hair left by other brooms or brushes. It affects speed also by temporarily heating the ice directly in front of the moving stone and thus creating a slicker path, and perhaps by creating a bit of an air vacuum just in front of the stone.
Attractions
The attractions of curling are much like those of bowling and golf. Recreational players can be confident that serious injuries almost never occur to participants. They can be confident as well that even a novice can expect to make a few shots. For competitive players, the rewards can be the fame that comes with victory in prestigious club, regional, national, and even world championship events. The rewards also can be the valuable merchandise or, in recent years, substantial amounts of money awarded to victors. The most important reward, of course, is the knowledge that a player has achieved excellence in a sport that rewards coordination, skill, concentration, stamina, strength, strategy, and teamwork. Finally, for both recreational and competitive players, one of the attractions of curling is that it is a sport with many natural breaks in the action, and the time can be used for socializing with other players and even spectators.
Origins and Early Development
Games in which an object is thrown or rolled or slid toward a target are thousands of years old and have been played in many parts of the world. However, the game we would recognize as curling, featuring stones and brooms and houses, probably appeared during the sixteenth century, perhaps in northwestern continental Europe but more likely in Scotland. Certainly the Scots were responsible for the early development of the game, if not for its first appearance.
The early games of curling were played with stones that were simply held in the hand, although sometimes grooves or small holes might have been added to provide a better grip. The caliber of shot making must have improved dramatically during the seventeenth century when players began to use rocks with handles. The caliber of shot making improved still further during the latter half of the eighteenth century, especially as round stones became more common, and triangular or oblong ones became less. During the eighteenth century curling clubs began to proliferate. People established clubs for many reasons, but among the reasons were the desires to recognize meritorious play and to schedule regular competitions and social occasions for members.
Until early in the nineteenth century members of Scottish clubs curled with stones of differing weights, and perhaps even shapes. They used sheets of ice of assorted dimensions and a variety of rules to govern delivery, sweeping, and etiquette. Then, during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, improved transportation networks allowed curlers from different towns or districts to compete against each other, and standardized rules and regulations became desirable. The result was the formation of the Grand Caledonian Curling Club in 1838. This club was really an association, not a club. It became the Royal Caledonian Curling Club in 1843. It adopted and then promoted key rules that remain in effect today: Participants should not interfere in any way with an opponent’s delivery; each team should have four players; each player should make two shots per end; only circular stones should be used; the sheet of ice should be 138 feet (42 meters) from “foot-score to foot-score”(the hack lines).
As the Scots were developing curling, they also were beginning to export it, often by emigrating, sometimes just by traveling. By the end of the nineteenth century the sport had been introduced into several countries, especially Canada, where in specific regions iron or wooden stones might be used. By the turn of the twentieth century curling in Canada was played mainly with “granites,” and the sport was more popular in Canada than anywhere else in the world. This is still true today; Canada has about 1 million curlers, perhaps forty times as many as any other country.
Canadian Prairie
The region of Canada that especially took curling to heart was the Canadian Prairie, which was settled between the 1870s and the 1920s by peoples of European ethnic origins. Curling quickly became probably the most popular participant sport among them. Part of the reason for this popularity was that a significant number of newcomers were Scots, people already familiar with the sport moving in either from Scotland itself or from an eastern Canadian province. Another reason was that the basis of the Prairie economy was commercial agriculture, and winter was a slow time of the year. Finally, especially on the eastern part of the region, excellent natural ice could be maintained for three or four months each year, much longer than in Scotland or eastern Canada. The indoor, natural-ice curling rink was not invented on the Prairie, but it soon became far more prominent there than anywhere else. In small towns little two- or three-sheet sheds or “rinks,” often joined to an indoor skating rink, were built almost as soon as schools or churches were, and in cities larger structures with perhaps eight or ten sheets were quickly constructed.
Canadians on the Prairie not only curled more often than people in other parts of the world, but also curled more seriously and more skillfully. Beginning in the 1880s the better curlers began to gather for bonspiels, which are curling tournaments of several days’ duration at which prizes are offered to winners of events. The most skilled Prairie participants also introduced techniques and practices that made curling a better test of athletic excellence. In particular, they developed the shoulders-square-to-the-target delivery, a type of delivery that was facilitated by the permanent hacks that players could build in indoor rinks. On their temporary outdoor surfaces the Scots had used portable footholds (crampits), which encouraged a shoulders-sideways-to-the-target delivery that was not as efficient. With the squared-up delivery came improved accuracy and a style of play that featured hits rather than draws. Finally, during the 1920s the serious prairie curlers also worked hard to establish a Canadian (men’s) championship event. It was first held in 1927, and prairie curlers dominated it until the mid-1970s. This championship was called the “Brier,” after a product manufactured by the sponsor, the Macdonald Tobacco Company. The Brier has been sponsored by other corporate entities since 1979, but it still goes by the same name, and it remains the most keenly followed national championship event in the sport.
Artificial Ice and Growth in Popularity
During the last half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, Canadians and especially Prairie Canadians nurtured the old Scottish game of curling to new levels of popularity and athleticism. However, not until after World War II, with the availability of artificial ice, did the sport become truly international.
Artificial ice is created when a thin layer of water is sprayed onto a cold, hard floor, usually a surface of cement. The floor is cold because brine is pumped through pipes laid just below the floor surface. The sprayed water freezes, and the ice remains hard and true even if the air in the building is quite warm. Artificial ice was invented in England late in the nineteenth century, and it quickly began to have an impact on skating and ice hockey, but not until the prosperous 1950s and 1960s could large numbers of curlers in Canada and elsewhere afford to join clubs that installed an artificial surface. Then the technology began to have immense consequences.
One consequence, especially in Canada, was that more women began to participate. A few women had curled earlier, but the more comfortable, heated, artificial ice rinks drew women by the thousands, and by the 1970s and 1980s curling in Canada was truly a mixed sport. Another consequence was that curling could become much more popular and much more competently played in the moderate to warm weather regions of Canada. Finally, artificial ice led to internationalization. In the United States, in Scandinavian countries, in Switzerland, Germany, and other European nations in which the sport had been established earlier, curling now became much more popular. It also gained a small following in such unlikely nations (given their climates) as Australia, Bulgaria, Mexico, New Zealand, and Japan (in some of these nations the sport was not completely unknown prior to World War II). By the turn of the twenty-first century curlers competed in about forty countries around the world.
World Championships
Another reason for the rise in popularity of curling after the 1950s was the example of athletic beauty and excellence exhibited by elite players in world championship competitions. Almost always these competitions have featured a strong Canadian team, but competitors from other countries, notably Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States, have won frequently. An unofficial annual men’s world championship event began in 1959; it was sponsored by the Scotch Whisky Association. In 1966 the International Curling Federation was formed, partly in an attempt to have curling accepted as an Olympic sport. During the next few decades the federation (in 1991 it became the “World Curling Federation”) helped to establish and then to oversee an annual world women’s championship (first held in 1979), a world junior men’s (1975), and (in 1988) a world junior women’s championship (junior curlers can be no more than twenty-one years of age). In 2002 it established world senior (fifty years of age or older) championships for men and for women and a world wheelchair curlers’ championship (wheelchair curlers use a stick to push the stone). These world championship events are, of course, preceded by national championship events in the individual countries.
Television
Since the 1980s many of the national and international championship events have become popular on television, as have other events in both North America and Europe that feature “professional” curlers (the money that curlers can win is not enough to live on year around, but it is substantial). Various curling organizations, including the World Curling Federation, have introduced or promoted initiatives to make curling a more attractive sport for live audiences as well as TV viewers. Among these initiatives are the use of clocks to encourage teams to quickly decide on a shot and then play it, the use of microphones on players so that the television audience has access to discussions about strategy, and especially the use of the “free guard zone” rule to increase the likelihood that the early stones thrown in an end will remain in play and that the last few shots will require great skill.
The Future
Curling likely will grow in popularity both as a participant sport and a spectator sport. Since 1998 it has been an “official” Winter Olympic sport; this designation assures exposure all over the world. In western Europe and in North America demographic trends suggest that recreational, easily learned, sociable sports such as curling will thrive. The sport is easily televised, and, as the Sports Network in Canada has discovered, a large demand for televised curling exists among retired people. Artificial ice has allowed the sport to be introduced in many warm weather countries, and the fact that curling has recently gained a few followers in Israel, Spain, and Greece suggests that this pattern will continue. Curling is enjoyed by men and women, by young and old, by highly competitive athletes as well as by people who want mainly a reason to laugh and talk with friends.
Morris Mott
Further Reading
Creelman, W. A. (1950). Curling past and present: Including an analysis of the art of curling by H. E. Wyman. Toronto, Canada: McClelland and Stewart.
Kerr, J. (1890). History of curling, Scotland’s ain’ game and fifty years of the Royal Caledonian Curling Club. Edinburgh, UK: David Douglas.
Kerr, J. (1904). Curling in Canada and the United States, a record of the tour of the Scottish team, 1902–1903, and the game in the dominion and the republic. Edinburgh, UK: George A. Morton.
Lukowich, E., Ramsfjell, E., & Sumerville, B. (1990). The joy of curling: A celebration. Toronto, Canada: McGraw-Hill Ryerson.
Maxwell, D. (1980). The first fifty: A nostalgic look at the Brier. Toronto, Canada: Maxcurl Publications.
Maxwell, D. (2002). Canada curls: The illustrated history of curling in Canada. North Vancouver, Canada: Whitecap.
Mitchell, W. O. (1993). The black bonspiel of Willie MacCrimmon. Toronto, Canada: McClelland and Stewart.
Mott, M., & Allardyce, J. (1989). Curling capital: Winnipeg and the roarin’ game, 1876 to 1988. Winnipeg, Canada: University of Manitoba Press.
Murray, W. H. (1981). The curling companion. Glasgow, UK: Richard Drew Publishing.
Pezer, V. (2003). The stone age: A social history of curling on the prairies. Calgary, Canada: Fifth House.
Richardson, E., McKee, J., & Maxwell, D. (1962). Curling, an authoritative handbook of the techniques and strategy of the ancient game of curling. Toronto, Canada: Thomas Allen.
Russell, S. (2003). Open house: Canada and the magic of curling. Toronto, Canada: Doubleday Canada.
Sautter, E. A. (1993). Curling—vademecum. Zumikon, Switzerland: Erwin A. Sautter-Hewitt.
Smith, D. B. (1981). Curling: An illustrated history. Edinburgh, UK: John Donald Publishers.
Watson, K. (1950). Ken Watson on curling. Toronto, Canada: Copp Clark Publishing.
Weeks, B. (1995). The Brier: The history of Canada’s most celebrated curling championship. Toronto, Canada: Macmillan Canada.
Welsh, R. (1969). A beginner’s guide to curling. London: Pelham Books.
Welsh, R. (1985). International guide to curling. London: Pelham Books.
World Curling Federation. (2005). Retrieved March 4, 2005, from http://www.worldcurling.org/
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:08 PM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2006
Community at the Coffee Shop
The most disconcerting part of my day is when I step outside, onto Main Street. In the office, which is on the second floor of a big brick building, I'm surrounded by staffers talking about China (and curling), about a sale to India (and curling), about the catalogue for the London Book Fair (and curling).
Then I step outside into small town New England, where I'm not a global publisher but Tom and Rachel's mom, and a former School Committee member whom some people will never forgive for not toeing the line. Nonetheless, I'm a proponent of the tired but still worthy phrase, "think globally but act locally." Now that we're starting work on a Community Building Handbook (Ray Oldenburg, an author I have never met but have admired for over a decade, has agreed to edit it with me) it seemed that I should try to do something locally. Something other than walk to Pearl’s for a drink after work, that is.
So I’ve started going to a knitting group at the Coffee Shop every other Wednesday night. These are the new cool knitters--knitters who blog as we chat and look up patterns online.(Yes, Great Barrington now has wifi.) It’s a wonderful break, a chance to be with a completely different group of people, and has been just the encouragement I needed to pick up a daunting project I started last winter: an afghan that’s a map of the whole wide world. Now that I think about it, maybe my knitting and my publishing aren’t so different after all.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 9:05 PM | Comments (0)
February 19, 2006
What are e-books good for?
Interesting article, from way back in 2004, about e-books and how they can coexist quite happily with print books: "Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books" by Cory Doctorow.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 3:11 PM | Comments (0)
February 18, 2006
Libraries should be about books: the UK debate
Libraries are a hot topic in the UK, and it's a good thing. A good thing for people who live there and for Berkshire Publishing, too. We're in the process of setting up a UK Advisory Board, to help our new representative, Ben Manning, who is a former editorial staffer who was with us on an 18-month traineeship. Adam Hodgkin, founder of xrefer, has joined us, and also Tim Coates, former managing director of Waterstone's and now a tremendous advocate for the value of public libraries. Here's this week's editorial from the Bookseller magazine, "Libraries should be about books."
Posted by Karen Christensen at 8:29 AM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2006
Debating Google, "The elephant in the room: values and the public good"
My latest contribution to the Google Debate, hosted by Electronic Publishing Services in London, has just gone up. Comments on "The elephant in the room: values and the public good" are most welcome. Here's how it starts:
One of the amazing things about U.S. politics of late has been that people vote for leaders who make their lives more difficult and dangerous. George Lakoff, a University of California linguist who has been trying to get the Democrats to pay attention, writes, “People do not necessarily vote in their self-interest. They vote their identity. They vote their values. They vote for who they identify with.”
We need to remember this when we look at the Google Library debate.
It is in the ordinary person’s interest to have systems that reward creators and innovators, scholars and analysts. Their work makes life better and the future brighter. But unless we publishers and authors do a better job at the one thing we should do supremely well—communicate—the people at Google, the techies, will win in the realm of public opinion. Because, so far, they are using the English language more effectively than we are to touch people’s sense of identity and values.
Read the whole article.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 9:55 AM | Comments (0)
Mao & me?
The collegiality and friendship of our authors is the heart of the work we do, and all of us relish our contacts with people all over the world. They make us laugh, teach us words in their languages, and encourage us in our new efforts. The response we're getting to our new China efforts is especially important; the attention we're paying to the cultural context and social implications of globalization, and the fact that we are going to present the Chinese perspective, is being validated across the board, by all kinds of people, western and Chinese. But it's a challenge, creating new types of publications, and I'm up to my ears. I apologized to one wonderful author for being slow to let him know about something. He wrote back, "With you in charge, I am at ease, as Chairman Mao used to have it about Hua Guo Feng."
It's been a beautiful balmy week in Great Barrington, and everyone's seemed brighter. When I was a kid in California I didn't understand the comments I'd hear about, "missing the seasons," because California has seasons, too. But living in a cold climate really is different. There a sense of relief when you realize spring isn't so far away, and even here--in New England--people may smile on the street. But we're aware, too, that winter's coming back: it isn't truly springtime here till April, maybe even May. In the office there's a flurry of activity as Carrie and Rachel organize all the library submissions that have come in over the last few days of the nomination process. We'll shortly post information about what's happening next, and we'll be announcing the winning entries at PLA in March.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:26 AM | Comments (0)
February 14, 2006
A Valentine for America?
Love is in the air! Not only is this the closing day for Libraries We Love nominations, but it's the launch of a website we've created to gather information about what people around the world think about the United States. We chose daisies to reflect the mixed feelings people have, and the uncertainty Americans feel: Does the world love us? Or love us not? Visit the site and join in the conversation.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:35 AM | Comments (0)
February 13, 2006
Deluged in Great Barrington
We're deluged but, no, not with snow. The big blizzard skirted the Berkshires. It's beautifully wintry here, and everyone got to work but Joe, who happened to have gone to New York for the weekend. He called at 11.30 and said it had taken him five hours to get from Long Island to Grand Central Station. What we're deluged with is amazing submissions for Heart of the Community: The Libraries We Love.
Tomorrow is the closing day--Valentine's Day--and as our authors know there's nothing like a deadline! We had 14 submissions today, by regular mail and Express, and Fedex, and UPS. They're splendid, too, seeming to get better by the week.
The photos here show today's submissions, and also an especially beautifully presented submission from last week. We're going to be putting the all of them on display at the Public Library Association conference in Boston next month, and that's when we will announce the winners, to be included in the book. But every library will have another chance to be featured in the 2007 (and future) calendars, and we have more excited plans for making this on ongoing database of ideas and successes.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 2:41 PM | Comments (0)
February 7, 2006
Good content will triumph
Interesting comments from the famous Davos conference about how to start a 'new media empire. My ears perked up when I saw the headline. Hm, media empire? My little operation isn't at all imperial, but I'm plagued by the question of what a publishing company should look like in the twenty-first century. As I get more involved in the world of blogs and wikis and RSS, I ask people in the know to point out successful business models incorporating these new communications tools. So far, though I'm seeing plenty of interesting and thought-provoking stuff, there's nothing that looks at all like a sustainable model for what I have in mind. Too much that's advertising-driven, for one thing. (I volunteered, during my first Research Committee conference call with the Society for New Communications Research, to start polling members of the advisory board about "limits to advertising." I plan to talk to an economist, too. The PR and advertising professionals on the call agreed pointblank that there is a limit; the whole wide world economy can't be based on Google ads.)
My favorite quote from the Davos articles was by Shelby Bonnie, CEO of CNET NetworksProducers, who said that good content will be rewarded. "The successful media empire of the future will regularly send their audience to the best stories by their competitors." There's a sign above my desk that says, "It's the content, stupid." And that's what we believe.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:25 PM | Comments (0)
February 6, 2006
Wikis, global perspectives, and peanut butter
Wikis are getting a lot of attention in encyclopedia land, and they're definitely an interesting tool. Not for everything, but for some kinds of collaboration. We have, for example, set up a wiki to start work on a definition of "a global perspective."
I'm more and more involved in marketing and PR and thought this was a clever way to get me to spread a little word of mouth on the wiki tooth we've just started using, PBwiki--as easy, they said, as making a peanut butter sandwich. And I think they're right. Here's the pitch (this'll get me double space at our free Berkshire wiki): Get a free wiki at PBwiki.com.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 3:18 PM | Comments (0)
February 5, 2006
Our national sports holiday
Today is Super Bowl Sunday. I don't know what the equivalent is in any other country: a single day, a winter Sunday, that has its own food and community rituals and is also the peak event of the year in TV advertising. More pizza is ordered, and presumably eaten, on this day than any other, and if anyone's keeping count, I'll bet the same thing is true of nachos--the newest national snack food. In my house, it's Italian sausage subs this year; Tom the nacho maker is now away at college.
For those who want the full story of the Super Bowl, I'm going to include the article from the Berkshire Encyclopedia of World Sport. Given his enthusiasm for the event, I shouldn't have been surprised to see that David coauthored it! Our regional team, the New England Patriots, won three of the last four Super Bowls, but they're not playing this year. Apparently we are rooting for Pittsburgh, because it's closer than Seattle.
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl, the championship game of American football, is the most watched, written about, and talked about single sports event in the United States today. It has become a national ritual, and Super Bowl Sunday is akin to a national holiday-marked by gatherings of family and friends, food, drink, and betting on the outcome. The competitors are the winners of the National Football and American Football conferences of the National Football League playoffs.
An American Institution
First played in 1967, the Super Bowl is traditionally staged on a Sunday evening, and is seen by more than 130 million television viewers alone in the United States. Advertisers, who paid as little as $75,000 for a thirty-second commercial for the telecast of Super Bowl I, now pay $2.5 million for the same thirty second commercial. Apple Computers introduced its first ever line of Macintosh computers with a Super Bowl television advertisement in 1984.
The NFL estimates that in 2004 almost one billion people viewed part of Super Bowl XXXVIII in 229 different countries, and the game was broadcast in twenty-one different languages. Some 3,000 media credentials are typically assigned for a Super Bowl, including 400 to international journalists. The game's number is traditionally referred to in roman numerals, although that practice did not start until the fifth Super Bowl.
The game is played at stadium site that is picked years in advance of the actual game date. No team has ever played a super bowl in its home stadium. Super Bowl games are usually awarded to stadiums in the southern part of the United States, to help insure good weather since the game is played in either late January or early February, although on a few occasions the games has been played in more northern locations that had a domed stadium. In all, eleven different cities in the United States have hosted a Super Bowl, with New Orleans hosting the most with nine. Cities are competitive in bidding to host the game, since the economic impact from just one Super Bowl can be as high as $250 million.
The day has become so popular-more pizzas are sold on Super Bowl Sunday than any other day of the year in the United States-that some consider it a de facto holiday. In 2004, more than $81 million in bets were placed on the Super Bowl in the state of Nevada, where gambling on professional sports is legal. Privately, it is estimated that several billion dollars is actually wagered on the game illegally. Part of the Super Bowl tradition is the elaborate halftime show featuring top entertainers. The 2004 show was controversial when singer Janet Jackson's breast was bared; the 2005 show featured former Beatle Paul McCartney and was much tamer. Commercials have become an integral part of the television broadcast as well, with major corporations vying to produce the most creative, innovative, or amusing commercials-which are then widely critiqued in the media on the day after the game.
History
The game was originally known as AFL-NFL World Championship Game, and came about because of competition between the two competing professional football leagues-the American Football League founded in 1960 and the National Football League founded in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association. It took the NFL name in 1922. The game didn't actually become the "Super Bowl" until 1968, before the third championship game. Legend has it that the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, Lamar Hunt, who's team played in the first ever Super Bowl, came up with the event's name after coming across one of his daughter's favorite toys, a super ball. The game's number is traditionally referred to in roman numerals, although that practice did not start until the fifth Super Bowl.
The Chiefs played the Green Bay Packers, coached by Vince Lombardi considered one of the league's most legendary coaches, in Super Bowl I, played 15 January 15 1967. Today, the trophy given out to winning team is called the Vince Lombardi trophy. The Pete Rozelle Trophy-named after the man who served as league commissioner for almost thirty years and is largely credited with spurring the growth and popularity of the National Football League-is given out to the Most Valuable Player in the Super Bowl.
Far from the popular event it is today the first Super Bowl only attracted 61,946 fans, almost 40,000 short of capacity at the Los Angeles' Memorial Coliseum, although every game since has been a sell out. Green Bay won the first game, 35-10, led by quarterback Bart Starr and receiver Max McGee-who only saw action in the game because of an injury to starting wide receiver Boyd Dowler. For the entire season, McGee had caught only four passes for 91 yards, but in the newly created title game, he hauled in seven passes for 138 yards and two touchdowns. Each Packer received a "winner's share"-a monetary reward for being on the victorious team-of $15,000 each, while each Chief earned $7,500. By comparison, the 2004 winning share for each member of the New England Patriots was $68,000, while the members of the losing Carolina Panthers each earned $36,500. The most inexpensive ticket to the first-ever Super Bowl was $6; the most inexpensive ticket price for the 2004 game was $350.
Seventeen teams have won the Super Bowl:
Dallas Cowboys 5
San Francisco 49ers 5
Pittsburgh Steelers 4
Green Bay Packers 3
New England Patriots 3
Oakland/LA Raiders 3
Washington Redskins 3
Denver Broncos 2
Miami Dolphins 2
New York Giants 2
Baltimore Colts 1
Baltimore Ravens 1
Chicago Bears 1
Kansas City Chiefs 1
New York Jets 1
St. Louis/LA Rams 1
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 1
The New England Patriots have won three of the last four Super Bowls. This is considered a near-amazing achievement given efforts by the league to develop parity among teams. The most significant Super Bowl was the third when the New York Jets of the AFL beat the heavily favored Baltimore Colts of the NFL y the score of 16-7. The victory had been publicly guaranteed by Jet's quarterback Joe Namath three days before the game. The victory made the AFL the equal of the NFL, and the next year the leagues merged.
Brian Ackley and David Levinson
Further Reading
Bayless, S. (1993). The boys. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Green, J. (1991). Super bowl chronicles: A sportswriter reflects on the first 25 years of America's game. Masters Press.
Konner, B. (2003) The super bowl of advertising: how the commercials won the game. Bloomberg Press.
Weiss, D., & C. Day (2002). The making of the super bowl: the inside story of the world's greatest sporting event. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 5:27 PM | Comments (0)
February 4, 2006
Writing softball history
I was trying to find something about the Canadian badminton player with whom I share a name, and instead found myself quoted about the history of softball on the International Olympic Committee's website. The article says I claim softball came to England because of the film "A Touch of Class." Not at all: softball appears in the film because Americans had brought it to London already!
Nonetheless, it's always nice to be quoted, especially if they spell one's name correctly (the IOC does), and this brings back happy memories. I was involved in starting the first UK softball association and co-managed a women's team called the Artful Dodgers. I was made manager because I was no athlete and certainly no ball thrower--but I did know the rules. We had players from the US and Canadia, Colombia, and Britain, and had a great time in Regents Park, and afterwards in the pub. I saw a photo the other day that reminded me that the pub, the Allsop Arms, actually paid for tshirts for our team.
And why was I looking for my Canadian namesake? Because we'd sent a review copy of our new Berkshire Encyclopedia of World Sport to Brian Coutts, who chooses "Best Reference" for Library Journal every spring. He mentioned in an email that he had looked up western Canadian sports like curling, and that brought to mind the email I once received from a potential badminton author who assumed I was that Canadian champion. Another connection: Brian said our photo of the curling rink was exactly like the one he remembered from his youth. Author Morris Mott, who has written for us for years now, sent that photo at the last minute; how nice to think that it brought back memories for a library colleague now in Kentucky.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:42 AM | Comments (0)
February 3, 2006
Who's blogging, 2006
If you're a regular reader, you probably realize that I did not join the US Army in 1966. That was David Levinson, who spent his Army career working in a psychiatric hospital in North Carolina. Here are the other people you'll meet on the Berkshire Blog:
* Marcy Ross, Editor, has worked on Berkshire reference publications for over five years. She is our sidebar maven and an amazing source of pop culture trivia. Marcy scouts out global information better than anyone; she's always bringing great new stuff to our attention.
* Carrie Owens, Developmental Editor, is responsible for the Libraries We Love and also works on an array of new project ideas. Her background in the film business in LA brings us a welcome new perspective, and she loves boooks just as much as we do.
* David Levinson is a cultural anthropologist who started by studying homelessness on the Bowery in New York City. His professional research has focused on social problems--perhaps inspired by those early days in the Army psychiatric hospital. We cofounded Berkshire in 1998.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 8:35 AM | Comments (0)
February 2, 2006
Pouncing online
I’m fascinated by Internet metaphors. I’d heard about drama llamas and sad pandas (my son called me once because his sister IMed that I was a sad panda), but today there’s a new one: to pounce. Rachel "pounces" on people to get them back to the website she is adminning (yes, that’s apparently a verb). That is, you type a message to a long-lost friend that says simply, *pounce.* Then they reply and you get them back.
Would it work, I wonder, for late authors or customers we want to order our next title?
I love the House at Pooh Corner feeling about all this. Tigger bounced, of course, and I am sure he would pounce, too, if he got online. (And heaven knows what trouble Pooh would get into in cyberspace.)
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:50 PM | Comments (0)
Anthropologist to the rescue
In her Wednesday column in the New York Times the hot redhead Maureen Dowd opened by suggesting that the White House hire an anthropologist. I am an anthropologist. I’ve offered them my services. Or, more accurately, I’ve offered to share reliable information my publishing company has about what people in nations around the world think about us and why they think those things.
We’ve made this offer twice. To Sec. of State Rice. And to Asst. Sec. Karen Hughes, shortly before she became our ambassador to the world. Based on the silence that followed, I doubt they will follow Dowd’s advice now.
Here’s a bit of what they are missing. Most nations base their opinions of us mainly on what we have done for or to them lately. And, since the opening of the Iraq War, what we might do for them or to them in the near future. While many nations admire much about us, trust is low and fear is high. We are most popular in Eastern Europe (we are better than the Russians – who isn’t?) and in some former French colonies in Africa (we are better than the French – again, who isn’t). Behind these gross generalizations is a great of variation across nations and over time in each nation.
Our books on this will be out later in the year but we thought we’d be good citizens and give the government a head start. After all, they accepted my offer when I volunteered for the army in 1966!
Posted by David Levinson at 11:33 AM | Comments (0)
February 1, 2006
SIIA gets better
Already today's better. The sun is shining. A guy from Yahoo! had some real stuff to say (and there were questions). And the nice Hispanic woman in the ladies' room showed me some cold medicine when I walked in this morning. We had a chat in Spanish (I was surprised to find that she did not speak English).
Now we've got a panel about B2B content, which wasn't so relevant to our business of the past (100% library reference) but certainly makes sense when it comes to what comes next at Berkshire: popular and professional online information, ditto for books, and also our "China hand" newsletter, Guanxi. What I learned is (1) people love free content and (2) people in this business have a hell of a time distinguishing between different types of content. Like many publishers and librarians, they don't want to use the word "quality." Why? Because we're not sure we really offer something special? In other industries, there's no problem talking about tradeoffs between quality and price.
The next session was an interview with Jim Buckmaster, CEO of craigslist. Shock in the audience, I guess, at his lack of interest in maximizing revenues. The interviewer from Fortune magazine seemed unable to grasp that you can choose not to maximize profits but still make plenty of money, pay people market salaries, and have enough and then some. He seemed to think it was a choice between blatant nonstop capitalism and a hairshirt lifestyle. Clearly not, with a staff of 19 and profits in the millions of dollars. Enough for most people, I should think, and then some.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 11:57 AM | Comments (0)