The temperature will supposedly plummet sometime after my interview tomorrow morning, but that's okay because I'm back in the old office on Friday, Monday and Tuesday, my final three obligatory days according to my severance agreement. My 50th birthday is on Sunday but as Robin's on deadline we'll probably wait until after our anniversary (on Tuesday) and celebrate everything on his 46th birthday (Thursday), when we're both finally free. It'll be nice to finally be able to relax with nothing outstanding from the former job hanging over my head. I really want to get back into actual writing. I haven't had the energy to do much more than my weekly ComicMix column, the latest installment of which went up this morning. All this "my life and welcome to it" chitchat is becoming boring, even to me. Here's what caught my eye from other blogs recently:
• Lots of good stuff coming out of the WGA strike. Aside from direct strike-related sites like Speechless and blog posts like LowerManhattanite's latest, the job action has indirectly inspired essays like Ted Rall's Future Imperfect, which was in response both to August Pollak's revelation that the deep-pocketed and for-profit Huffington Post isn't paying him (nor, apparently, any of their bloggers) and to the Jaron Lanier op-ed in the NY Times admitting that, after all, entertainment piracy is by and large not friendly to the people who create that entertainment. As Ted notes, "I've already been through this give-it-away-for-the-exposure crap before. It wasn't any more fun in the 1980s than it is now." And as Colleen Doran notes in another must-read essay on the subject, "I don’t need pirates to upload my work for me and show it to people. I can put it up myself if I want to. And I did. Pirates didn’t make any sales for me." Mikhaela wishes there were a cartoonist/bloggers union. And someone whose link I cannot find so I cannot credit them observed (and I paraphrase), "Information may want to be free, but art and entertainment ought to be renumerated." Unless a professional writer or artist deliberately sets out to give away all their stuff for free, thus choosing not to defend their trademarks and copyrights, it's just not fair to steal other people's ideas and not compensate them. Never was, never will be.
• Susie Madrak finds a fascinating article about the underground world-builders of Valchiusella.
• Yet another reason to despise conspicuous consumerism during a holiday season that's supposed to be about the evils of conspicuous consumerism -- the kinds of things people do to, for instance, their children in pursuit of their useless bits and bobs.
• I'm so proud of what Val has done with my old Industrial Strength Women list! She's going to be updating my Women Doing Comics behemoth as well. When I left Friends of Lulu I promised myself I would only return under very specific circumstances, when I once again felt the group was moving forward in a positive direction with solid planning and transparency and a leadership that cared more about the organization's goals than about... well, be that as it may, Val, Marion and the current Board have me wanting to re-up, and anyone who knows my history with FoL knows that's saying something.
• Hey hey, Kenneth Quinnell reminds us, they were the Monkees! Head remains one of my favorite movies, even though I seem to be the only one in my social circles who seems to "get" it.
• Lastly, this has been another edition of What Digby Said. Because she's the Digbyest!
And so to bed!
• Lots of good stuff coming out of the WGA strike. Aside from direct strike-related sites like Speechless and blog posts like LowerManhattanite's latest, the job action has indirectly inspired essays like Ted Rall's Future Imperfect, which was in response both to August Pollak's revelation that the deep-pocketed and for-profit Huffington Post isn't paying him (nor, apparently, any of their bloggers) and to the Jaron Lanier op-ed in the NY Times admitting that, after all, entertainment piracy is by and large not friendly to the people who create that entertainment. As Ted notes, "I've already been through this give-it-away-for-the-exposure crap before. It wasn't any more fun in the 1980s than it is now." And as Colleen Doran notes in another must-read essay on the subject, "I don’t need pirates to upload my work for me and show it to people. I can put it up myself if I want to. And I did. Pirates didn’t make any sales for me." Mikhaela wishes there were a cartoonist/bloggers union. And someone whose link I cannot find so I cannot credit them observed (and I paraphrase), "Information may want to be free, but art and entertainment ought to be renumerated." Unless a professional writer or artist deliberately sets out to give away all their stuff for free, thus choosing not to defend their trademarks and copyrights, it's just not fair to steal other people's ideas and not compensate them. Never was, never will be.
• Susie Madrak finds a fascinating article about the underground world-builders of Valchiusella.
• Yet another reason to despise conspicuous consumerism during a holiday season that's supposed to be about the evils of conspicuous consumerism -- the kinds of things people do to, for instance, their children in pursuit of their useless bits and bobs.
• I'm so proud of what Val has done with my old Industrial Strength Women list! She's going to be updating my Women Doing Comics behemoth as well. When I left Friends of Lulu I promised myself I would only return under very specific circumstances, when I once again felt the group was moving forward in a positive direction with solid planning and transparency and a leadership that cared more about the organization's goals than about... well, be that as it may, Val, Marion and the current Board have me wanting to re-up, and anyone who knows my history with FoL knows that's saying something.
• Hey hey, Kenneth Quinnell reminds us, they were the Monkees! Head remains one of my favorite movies, even though I seem to be the only one in my social circles who seems to "get" it.
• Lastly, this has been another edition of What Digby Said. Because she's the Digbyest!
And so to bed!
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