Marta Salij on Harry Potter, in the Detroit Free Press:

The Half-Blood Prince is … not who I thought it was all through the book.

And, the sixth book in J.K. Rowling’s series about the boy wizard who’s chosen to save the world from the evil Lord Voldermort proves an interesting point: Many heads are better than one.

Because, you see, the online betting pools that had sprung up to wager on what would happen in the book were largely right, especially right before the book was released Saturday at 12:01 a.m.
…
That last part intrigues me, having read and reviewed The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki (Anchor, $14), last year. Surowiecki described how asking a vast number of lay people to predict something was almost always more accurate than asking a small group of experts.

And that’s what a betting pool is: a way to average many hunches.

For “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” some online sports betting sites had added pools on which major character would die in the sixth book — a plot development Rowling had announced. Several names had strong betting, but in the days and weeks before the book’s release, some pools, especially in the United Kingdom, shifted around one name.

I won’t tell you which name, because that would be spoiling the book for those who haven’t yet finished it. But those pools were right.

Inside information? Maybe, but then more bettors clearly saw the wisdom of that guess and put more money in that direction. That proves Surowiecki’s point: That many people, putting together their various sources of information, good and not-so-good, would come up with a more accurate answer than asking, say, a random book critic to predict the death.

Categories: Books, Surowiecki

If London children, in particular, are finding the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince terribly familiar—the Prime Minister paces his office searching desperately for a way to react to inexplicable deaths and unforeseen new dangers—they may be especially chilled by this exchange between the distraught P.M. and newly elected Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour:

“But for heaven’s sake—you’re wizards! You can do magic! Surely you can sort out—well—anything!”

Scrimgeour turned slowly on the spot and exchanged an incredulous look with Fudge, who really did manage a smile this time as he said kindly, “The trouble is, the other side can do magic too, Prime Minster.”

Whether you read it as Good People v. terrorists, opposing parties’ political machines, loose nukes, or whatever, it’s altogether true.

As for prisoners of Azkaban, some instances of unnamed sources quoted or cited in The Daily Prophet in the first 50 pages:

• ” ‘We’re not allowed to talk about it, don’t ask me anything,’ said one agitated Obliviator, who refused to give his name as he left the Ministry last night. Nevertheless, highly placed sources have confirmed…” “a growing number of the wizarding community” … “speculation is rife” … “some are going so far as to call Potter” … (“Harry Potter: The Chosen One?” p. 39)

• “Rumors of a rift…surfaced within hours of Scrimgeour taking office.” (“Scrimgeour Suceeds Fudge,” p. 40)

• ” ‘For obvious reasons, the Ministry will not be going into detail about its stringent new security plans,’ said the Minister, although an insider confirmed that measures include defensive spells and charms, a complex array of countercurses, and a small task force of Aurors dedicated solely to the protection of Hogwarts School.” (“Ministry Guarantees Students’ Safety,” p. 41)

Here’s an interview I did with Rowling in 1999. Speaking of books, I’m guest-hosting Michael Broder’s great Ear Inn reading series at 3 p.m. It’s at 326 Spring Street, west of Greenwich St. The readers are Gary Joseph Cohen, Adam Kirsch, and David Yezzi; the hash browns are scrumptious.

Is Harry Potter Evil? [Judy Blume, NYT via judyblume.com]
‘Harry Potter’ Author Pregnant; Will Deliver Baby in 14 to 18 Months [Andy Borowitz]
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone [Anthony Lane, New Yorker Film File]
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets [Michael Agger, New Yorker Film File]
Why American Kids Don’t Consider Harry Potter an Insufferable Prig [Daniel Radosh]

Categories: Books

is Sandra Alcosser, who’s published poems in The New Yorker and studied with the sorely missed Richard Hugo. Alcosser says: “The real work…is to uncover the state’s poetic legacy—the writing about landscapes, species, tribes and immigrant populations. To celebrate and honor the work that has come before, as well as the writing of contemporary poets…. Poetry expands the imagination of a culture. It suggests ways for society to become more humane and our world more liveable.” The Ravalli Republic’s full story.

Books by Sandra Alcosser [Amazon]
“Michael’s Wine” [Alcosser, Academy of American Poets website]
“Skiing by Moonlight” [Alcosser, Ploughshares]
Interview with Sandra Alcosser [Poetry Daily]

Well, once or twice, anyway. Here’s the whole story of Alice Quinn and the Persistent Poet, now celebrating its tenth anniversary. In 1995 I got very exercised about this. Now it’s just funny, not to mention actual magazine history. Bob Holman writes as introduction: “We proudly bring you yesterday’s eternal news today, the personal diaries of the poet who is our National Town Crier…” Here’s part of Sparrow’s first report in his diary of the time (all reprinted on Holman’s and Margery Snyder’s About.com poetry site):

I sit on the subway (the No. 6), approaching 42nd Street. In my lap I hold two rolled up posters:

GIVE OUR POEMS HOEMS

and

I’M DOROTHY PARKER
WITH A MAGIC MARKER.

I am heading uptown, towards the office of The New Yorker. Will any of the other Unbearables be there? Or will I be alone, an embarrassed ruffian in an unpopular beard, handing out flyers?

And, in fact, I have eight flyers, which I have xeroxed at the local candy store, in my coat pocket. They read:

How Much Misery
has been created by the rejection slips given out, daily, by The New Yorker? How many suicides have they induced? And worse, how many poets have been silenced? How many stopped writing sonnets and maritime ballads? How much writerly paralysis is directly invoked by these small 3″ x 5″ notes, which begin: “We regret…”?

The Unbearables have a resolution to this poetic blight — a suggestion that is both fair and militant. We demand, and suggest, that The New Yorker publish once a year all the poetry that is submitted unto it. This yearly 5203 page poetry issue will be the first egalitarian literary journal in history. Finally, great poets like Mark Strand will coexist with awful poets like Claude Hollister-Melnode. For once, readers will see how delightful great poets are, and how nauseating are poetasters. And perhaps, by a miracle, we will find another poet as brilliant as Brad Leithauser.

Let us begin! Poetic utopia is within our grasp, if we act quickly!

I’m for nothing if not timelessness. Enjoy.

The Battle of The New Yorker: A Diary [About]
Sparrow! [bio and links at iPoet.com]

Categories: NYer, Poetry, Quinn

Many years ago, the Louisville Courier-Journal hired my dad as a reporter (the police beat and books, if I’m not mistaken) for a spell. This week, they make another good call in singling out Alex Ross’ excellent blog:

The Rest is Noise (www.therestisnoise.com)—Speaking of downtownish perspectives, you’d have a difficult time finding any critic who writes more persuasively about difficult new music than Alex Ross, the music critic of The New Yorker magazine. His blog is a somewhat more freewheeling affair than his New Yorker column and often references other blogs in discussions of myriad subjects. You get the feeling that Ross has a superb ear—he doesn’t describe as much as re-animate—and he treats contemporary music with a depth, respect and passion that are rare and refreshing.

Music Blogs [Louisville Courier-Journal]

Everyone’s saying it. Just for instance, Dave Morris in the ever-bright Eye:

Back here in North America, mixtapes are like, so hot right now. For bringing them to the attention of the hipsterati, you can thank Sasha Frere-Jones [blog] at The New Yorker [here’s the link], the Pitchfork singles column and DJ Nick “Catchdubs” Barat, the latter of whom has lately played No. 1 spinna to everyone from M.I.A. to A-Trak. Whether or not you think glossies like The Fader (where Barat is also an editor) ought to be criticized for acting like they invented hip-hop culture, you may still take a step back upon seeing the title of Barat’s Saul Williams (pictured [see link]) mixtape, called Real Niggery Vol. 1…. More.

I’m also intrigued by this Morris note:

How to make hip-hop: sift two parts creativity, one part boredom and add a wealth of cheap, outmoded technology. Stir, bake for a couple of decades at high heat, and voila — bona fide street culture. Judging from their blank cassette museum (see Totally Wired, May 19, 2005) and now DJ Artyom, pioneer of the cassette turntable, dare we suggest that Russia is going to be the site of the next happening music scene? Artyom’s set-up looks basic, but his mixing gets better as his Love Sex Music tape progresses. We don’t know what a Russian “Rapper’s Delight” would sound like, but it’s only a matter of time before we find out. (www.soundresearch.narod.ru/engcassettedj.htm)

[From Artyom’s site: “You can download and listen to samples from this tape. I apologize for curvature in the first mix – it because Donna Summer strongly groaned :-).”]

Just today I was thinking about new Russian music and how I don’t have any. If you have recommendations, please send them.

The New New Yorker [Sickamore, MixtapeMurder]
Mixtape Mania [Chantelle Fiddy’s World of Grime]

Categories: S/FJ, NYer, Music

We’re just fans, originally uploaded by emdashes.

One of the great things about being a girl is that if you praise someone who’s praised you, and then it turns out you both admire a third person, and a fourth person, Scott McLemee, was the one who started it all, and everyone praises everyone—even then, no one can really call it a circle jerk.

Hence, my smooth palms’ warm but unbesmirched applause for both Minor Tweaks, which I have written about several times already, and whose clever proprietor, mild-mannered redhead Tom Bartlett, I finally met in D.C. this weekend over organic goodness in Dupont Circle; and also Tom’s recent recommendation, The Comics Curmudgeon. The brainchild of writer/editor (and, so far, stranger to me) Josh Fruhlinger, who (says his bio) has been “reading the entire comics section every day for as long as he can remember,” the C.C. is indeed all about reading exactly those parts of the funny pages you scan with mesmerised and often lonely fear—not to mention sometimes rewarded hope—and, this being the ’00s, reading into them on many levels, all witty ones. Fruhlinger reprints the strips (from “Beetle Bailey” to “Mark Trail” to, careful readers will be happy to see, Sally Forth) under discussion on the blog itself, which I can’t really do with the entire New Yorker, fortunately for everyone; think of all the accent-code keystrokes! Those really can make you blind.

Anyway, C.C. is just splendid, and I’m officially adding it to Check Every Day. A short list, indeed so short it can be recited in moments, meaning that those on it can consider themselves such adorably fun virtual company that I bet even Colby Christofferson, undisputed and long-reigning 1979-84 Madison, WI, dream date, would seriously consider taking them to the ’83 spring dance. Theme: ’57 Chevy Café. Don we now our pegged pants and circle pins! Pins.

Infrequently Asked Questions [Minor Tweaks]

Don’t panic! The headline below (from MSNBC) is a little scary, but it’s about now-vaulted legal obstacles, not technological obsolescence. Truly, the only bearable form of digital archive for magazines like The New Yorker and National Geographic, whose layout, typeface, art, and ads are fundamental to both enthusiasts and historians, are fully scanned pages, not incomplete and typo-ridden plain text (hello, Nexis!). I especially like the sentence that almost implies that the NYer could no longer resist the new century once Mad bravely showed the way. Since The Complete New Yorker is going for $63 on Amazon (on sale Sept. 20, much too far away), there should be a two-for-one deal for $125. I’d buy it, and I know I’m not alone. Throw in the ’50s issues of Modern Screen, and I’d be happier than a bucket of steamer clams.

Only one concern (besides the dough for all those freelance pieces to which I signed away my rights; where has it gone? gone with the wind): I know the NYer archive’s searchable, but can one copy and paste (obviously, within all those delightfully blurry limits), or is this hard, forbidding PDF-land? There’s only one way to find out, and it’ll be from the thrillingly named Vince Pingel. I hope he can revive his prime-time P.I. show now that he’s getting the attention he deserves. How does the theme song go again? “He delivers your wishes as quick as Kris Kringle/He makes desperate housewives wish they were single/When jailers’ keys jingle and bitter hearts tingle it’s Vince…Vince Pingel!” Hum a few bars and I’ll fake it.

New Yorker DVD archive is almost history before it starts

Business doesn’t always follow the blueprint.

Nobody knows that better than Vince Pingel, managing director of Western Blue Print, a 100-year-old Kansas City company.

In October, Pingel’s handiwork will hit the masses in the form of “The Complete New Yorker,” a $100, eight-DVD set of all 4,109 copies of the iconic magazine, which Western scanned for posterity.

The release will cap a seven-year struggle to start the project, which was besieged by a U.S. Supreme Court decision, insurance questions about shipping priceless original copies to Kansas City and the magazine’s skepticism about making money on the archive.

Both parties declined to give the value of the deal.

The groundwork for the project began in 1997, when a small Lenexa company owned by Pingel was creating industry buzz after scanning all 1,200 issues of National Geographic for a 32-disc CD-ROM set.

That project opened up the possibility among publishers that they could tap a new revenue stream selling historical copies. Pingel scanned MAD magazine’s catalog, and The New Yorker called.

It was enough to persuade Western Blue Print, Kansas City’s dominant blueprint producer, to buy Pingel’s company, Document Automation Development, in 1999.

But in 2001, the Supreme Court handed down a decision against The New York Times, disallowing the electronic distribution of archived stories done by freelancers who had copyrights on the material.

Pingel knew the lawsuits against National Geographic would come in droves considering all the freelance work in the copies he scanned. Worse, a contract that would have indemnified his company was never signed.

Pingel and the company’s lawyers braced for the worst.

“I just hoped we would never be named,” Pingel said. “I thought: ‘This could be huge. This could kill us.'”

In the summer of 2003, The New Yorker’s general counsel, Edward Claris, called Pingel. National Geographic had been sued 26 times but had never lost. And Pingel’s company was never named as a defendant.

The courts were making a key distinction. The Kansas City firm had simply reproduced the entire contents of National Geographic. In contrast, The New York Times lifted text from its stories and reformatted them on the Web.

Pingel said this was a technical decision National Geographic made in 1997 to scan the entire page — ads and all — instead of lifting searchable text, which proved costly and error-prone. Had they gone down the latter road, the courts may have considered that reformatting like The New York Times.

“I was lucky,” Pingel said.

That brought The New Yorker back to the table. Claris had long sought to offer up a digital collection of the magazine, which includes such gems as a profile of Adolph Hitler in 1936 and poems by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

“It’s an amazing treasure trove,” Claris said.

New Yorker DVD archive is almost history before it starts [Charlie Anderson, MSNBC]

Categories: NYer, Archive, Magazines, Law

Done with the book. Now there are just more questions. As my friend Elizabeth has noted, though, since it takes place more or less in the present and concerns a lot of well-known people, one can keep discovering more details to partly mask the pain of having finished reading. And, of course, the life continues, and we can read Wilsey’s funny, sassy, wry notes in McSweeney’s on his ongoing and occasionally surreal book tour, or google something else and happen on his skating rhapsody/memorial from September 2003. It shares a few observations with a long passage in Oh the Glory of It All, then takes off into an analysis of Tony Hawk, Thrasher magazine, and skater ethics (follow the link for the whole piece):

The steepest hills in San Francisco—where I grew up and learned to skateboard—lead up to and around Russian Hill, which isn’t a hill but a series of hills. The steepest of these crests is in the middle of Filbert Street, between Hyde and Leavenworth.

The road seems seems to disappear mid-block, like an incomplete section of elevated freeway. It looks as if the street is dangling 300 meters in the air. When you drive a car up to the lip, it drops too steeply to see over the hood. The drop is demarcated by two yellow-and-black signs that say: “Steep grade ahead, buses and large trucks not advisable; sharp crest, 10 miles per hour.”

My best friend, a boy named Blane Morf who is now dead, got a skateboard while I was away at boarding school. When I came home for summer holidays—on probation for a D-minus average, largely attributable to the fact that I was harassed mercilessly for being from San Francisco (making me a “fag”)—I discovered that he was a skater. Blane didn’t know any other skaters, since there weren’t many others. And, even if there had been, the kind of person who is drawn to skateboarding is the kind of person who is not given to sociability.

Skateboarders are lonely. Skateboarders are not well loved. I was lonely and not well loved. I tried his board. He taught me a few things. It was no fun watching while the other skated. He begged me to get my own. I got some money out of my mother (guilty about boarding school), went down to the skate shop, and bought myself a skateboard. Then I climbed to the top of Russian Hill.

I set down my board, stepped on, pushed off. My plan was to roll the whole slope and use the flat to slow down gradually before the intersection. I had no back-up plan. The acceleration was instant. In a matter of seconds, I was moving faster than my legs had ever taken me. After 10 meters, I was moving faster than I’d moved outside of a car. Faster.

Wilsey ends the book saying that he can’t wait to write about something besides himself. (As Delmore Schwartz once said, “Someone’s boring me. I think it’s me.”) That’s good. Then I hope he writes some more about himself. The book, nearly 500 pages as it is, isn’t long enough for the things he still has to say. If Wilsey were writing this he’d acknowledge the corniness of the metaphor as soon as he typed it, but it’s also true: If you can haul yourself up to this kind of crest, only then do you get to fly down, shrieking with gladness at being so free to plummet and crash, to beat the record, to steer, wobble, and sing.

Get thrashed [London Review of Books, via Fairfax]

Categories: Wilsey, McSweeney’s

“Abuse! I mean, we don’t know that there’s been any abuse. They get three square meals a day, we give them Korans, they’re allowed to pray five times a day, no one’s getting beheaded as far as I know…. There’s a big difference between being tortured and being uncomfortable. Call me crazy, but I don’t think if you tried to kill my brothers and sisters in the Trade Towers that warrants a four-star hotel.”
—Rick Roberts on Guantanamo Bay (close paraphrase), Savage Nation

Not long ago, the day the story of Edward Klein’s ridiculous The Truth About Hillary broke, a different host on the same station (New York’s WOR 710 AM) refused to dignify Klein’s allegations with detailed discussion, and kept the commentary limited to the implications for her campaign. There’s also been some genuinely good parenting advice (no, not spanking). We need to note these honorable moments. “Aren’t you sick of what passes for political discourse in this country?” asked Roberts today. Yes. No matter how polarized things get, there’s still common ground it would surely serve everyone well to re-establish. Not caving in—recognizing where we aren’t at odds.

Categories: Radio, &c.