Category Archives: publishing

Hither and Thither and Whether the Weather

Posted on by
3

Jack’s weekly guest blog on something all Scots know a great deal about– bad weather


The last few days have seen me driving around a fair bit and, since we’re in the season of changing weather, checking the forecast pretty regularly. About four or five years ago we had a devastating tornado roar through the town taking off roofs and throwing big trees around like matchsticks, so a tornado watch alert has become a bit more of a big scary thing for me. More recently Wendy almost got caught in a very bad one that roared through East Tennessee and up into Virginia killing many people and practically destroying a number of towns and communities.

News reports starting coming in of serious damage and multiple deaths over to the South West of us a few days ago with indications that those tornado bearing storms were heading our way. On Monday the first local warnings began to appear and I went into ‘check the interactive map’ mode. Sure enough – there it was – a big angry looking swatch of red and yellow heading straight for us!

But there’s something odd about the way we sit behind the Cumberland Mountains that seems to regularly affect what happens to storms as they approach us from that direction. This one did what many do and split into two halves just before it got here. All we got was a brief gust of wind, very dark cloudy sky and a short blast of rain and that was it. One half went North of us towards Norton and Wise and the other half went South towards Pennington Gap and Duffield.

Later on Monday I had to go to an event near Pennington Gap and saw downed trees, scattered branches and flooded fields.

In Scotland, where I lived most of my life, although the weather can be unpredictable it’s rarely extreme. It does have storms and frequent high winds but rarely anything that would be life threatening.

It’s tempting to think that we are seeing the effects of climate change but I haven’t lived here long enough to know what the typical weather pattern is in this part of the world so my jury has to be out on that.

There is one Scottish saying that seems appropriate however – Ne’er cast a cloot ’til May be oot (don’t divest yourself of any clothing until after the end of May)

The Monday Book – 21 DOG YEARS: doing time @amazon.com by MIKE DAISEY

Posted on by
Reply

I picked this book up at my friend Tina’s independent bookstore in Neenah, Wisconsin (home of the late lamented and dearly loved Annaboo-Bookstore Kitty).Daisey

The book appealed to me on that same guilty pleasure level one feels when a high school friend e-mails that she has news of your ex: he’s fat and just lost his job and moved back in with his parents. That kind of thing.

21 Dog Years isn’t so much kiss and tell as kiss and punch. Daisey, a stand-up comic, leaves very little to the imagination on how weird it was to work for Amazon in the late 1990s. And how little respect he has for the company. So of course I loved it. :]

But beyond that, Daisey has a unique way of cramming too many words into a sentence; this makes you read them in a kind of fascinated concentration with the way he writes. His constructions are magnificent. Perhaps too magnificent, as the book (which is sold on Amazon – HA!) has been described as “truthy” at best. It’s a combination of monologue, wishful thinking, and things nobody says aloud. It’s not all factual, but oh so much of it is accurate.

His timing is a little strange, and that’s saying something for a stand-up comic, I suppose. You can’t always tell WHEN he is in his book, or sometimes what he’s talking about in specifics, but clearly coming through are the feelings of frustration and workaholic dedication for no reason to someone and something that isn’t dedicated to you. And you get some really, really funny vignettes. It’s easy to tell this book grew from a comedy show.

Then, in the last few chapters, all the vignettes and snarky comments and fun “take THAT ya bastard” humor hits its stride–like watching Stephen Colbert take down a pontificating guest so well, the guest doesn’t even know he’s being done. Daisey nails the twenty-first century work ethic, the Rise of Big Corporations, and a few other things about being a wage slave that just sing. He writes emails to Jeff Bezos (never sent) that ask such good questions, you long for a response. “What’s the line between irrational exuberance and fraud? (pg 170)” “Would it have been so hard to build a cool and quirky bookstore instead of a soulless virtual megamall? (pg 208)”

Those who like humor close to the white-hot fire of “Hey, that’s not funny” truthiness and sarcasm rapier-sharp–not to mention those of us sick to death of Bigger is Better B.S.–will enjoy Daisey’s take on life behind the walls of Corporatedotcom.

PS If you’re interested, here’s a rebuttal about Daisey: http://gawker.com/5894525/what-else-has-mike-daisey-lied-about