may gas

No matter how poor and "unparticipating" American workers get, it always seems like we cling to our automobiles. We call this want a necessity, and I've heard that even in Manhattan, where supposedly no one ever drives, most still own a car.

I remember the shock of first arriving at Temple University's campus for teaching and graduate classes in the late nineties, and my late twenties, having only been a driver and car owner for two of the eleven years I was eligible for such, and seeing the sea of student cars on campus. I learned to park in the gravel lot near Anderson Hall, which was full of aged clunkers and economy makes just like mine. 

It's been reported that the average car on the road today is nine years old, and I would not be surprised if the median vehicle is still getting older although my understanding is that favorable lease terms have helped get new auto sales booming again. Anyway, in old or new cars, we are still a driving people, and so many will be cheered by this May dip in gas prices to below $3. For some, commuting to and from work on wages already lost to transportation costs, it will feel like a blessing.

until they print more

Until Atticus Books prints more, this appears to be the last copy that already exists and would not be sent to you from Australia.

If anyone out there happens to stumble upon this blog, I have a few left that I could send direct.

Of course, once they print more, the usual discounts will be all over the web and readily available at a bookstore near you. Bezos, of course, is taking orders as we waste our Saturday on social media and surfing online.

a dead pynchon is as dangerous as a live one

Has Thomas Pynchon passed away, or is the twitter feed just playing tricks on me?

So my favorite living writer is dead. Is this true?

Rest, if possible, in peace.

Okay, this late breaking word just in that the Thomas Pynchon news may not be true because it was posted by a faux Delillo tweeter.

I'll leave you then, tentatively, with life, even more so, for TP.

In summary, let's plagiarize it as death on the installment plan but with 30% more life and heightened anticipation installed free of charge.

On the death topic, more than ever, we're all copycat criminals, no?

always like that

And this very brief blog's answer, is that no, there was a time before e-books, and so this particular method of fleecing the writer, or any artist, is relatively new, but there have always been meaner fish out to gobble the innocent artists among us.

 

I'm thinking of Jack Kerouac and plenty of other famous writers (indeed, I don't have a list, but I'd assume many female writers had their financial winnings gobbled up by their husbands and fathers long before capitalist strangers could feast on their literature), along with Motown singers, who sold plenty of books or records in their lifetimes, even into the hundreds of thousands or more, and yet died broker than broke. On Mom's couch or Uncle Sam's bill or a combination thereof or worse.

So, yeah, no e-books, no e-scams from amazon, the publishing world, or anywhere else, but there have always been ways to screw the writer. And screwing the artist, is as American as apple pie, or at least as capitalistic as Christmas, or as full of cinemagic as the bright lights over Hollywood, or something like that.

Author's Guild

Meanwhile, over at the Author's Guild, Scott Turow reminds us of how hopeless it is for all but the chosen few of the publishing world. Among writers, too, the middle class is rapidly disappearing, and winner-take-all, what I call the Michael-Jordan economy, seems to be the law of the land. And its literature.

Of course, whenever I bring this topic up with anyone, the usual first response is, more or less, "But hasn't it always been like that?"