Friday 24 August 2007

"The name in a hundred indexes"

I think I put my foot in it. I have gotten into the habit of avoiding being stuck on panel discussions with comicbook people. Last year I was asked to be on a radio program in a three way discussion with the nitwit who put on the "Heroes and Villains" show of Australian comic art at the State Library of Victoria, and I said I'd only be in it if they wanted to talk to me on my own. So it didn't happen. Now, with the Melbourne Writers festival I decided to head off any of this 'gang' mentality (let's invite a gang of 'graphic novelists') by saying I'd much rather find myself talking to real authors about books and life instead of 'What is a goddamn graphic novel, part 2,479'. So now I'm on a panel with the immensely illustrious Victoria Glendinning and Brenda Niall, who have both written significant biographies of historical literary figures. Campbell is oot o' his depth and in a state of agitation. I'm reading Glendinning's book on Leonard Woolf in preparation for this adventure:

Leonard and Lytton agreed to write each other once a week, and to keep each other's letters. What they both had in mind already was posterity. When Leonard came to write about his college years in Sowing, he was nearly eighty years old. Thoby Stephen was dead. Lytton Strachey was dead. Saxon Sydney-Turner was dead. Clive Bell was dead. Maynard Keynes was dead. G.E.Moore was dead. Their names were and are famous for whatever it is that each of them became famous for. (Saxon is famous for being their friend. His is the name in a hundred indexes.)

oh to be the name in a hundred indexes!

(Here's an interview: The lady vanishes- Aug 18- Sydney Morning Herald.)
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MY BLOG is nothing important. It doesn't even talk about big stuff. Just books mostly, and according to a recent survey, One in four Americans read no books last year -Guardian Unlimited -(AP)- Aug 22.

But this pece by Michael Skube, Blogs: All the noise that fits- LA Times-Aug 19, dismisses the entire blogosphere as worthless.

Jay Rosen retaliates in the same paper on Aug 22-The journalism that bloggers actually do.-
In an email exchange, the author tells Marshall, "I didn't put your name into the piece and haven't spent any time on your site." Huh? Turns out an editor stuck Marshall's name in there because the column didn't have enough examples in it. Skube agreed to the script change, but this meant he had no idea what his character was saying.
Dan Gillmor, a former newspaper man, calls it "journalistic malpractice." And it is that. Also pedagogical buffoonery. In Skube's columns, there's a teacher who doesn't believe in doing his homework - any homework.
So I did it for him. I asked friends in the blogosphere to help me put together a list of examples that would confound Skube if he knew of them, but possibly interest his students. Blog sites doing exactly what he says blog sites don't do: "the patient sifting of fact, the acknowledgment that assertion is not evidence ... the depiction of real life."

He follows with an impressive list of journalistic achievements within the blogosphere.
(via Mark Evanier)
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Use of the speech bubble in business logo: Trevor Elliott lines up sixty examples.: Here is just a fraction of what’s going down out there in Web Bubble Logo Land. This is what happens when the perfect symbol, a symbol so good that it does all the thinking for you, gets together with a sea of designers who aren’t thinking enough.
(link via Journalista)
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10 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

As linked from Mark Evanier's site, here's a URL...

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-rosen22aug22,0,4771551.story

...to an article that has a thing or two to say about Mr Skube's article.

24 August 2007 at 01:23:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Eddie Campbell said...

yup, thats the one I quoted above. you must have scanned at very high speed.

24 August 2007 at 02:13:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oops, not my day today, think I'll go and lie down for a bit.

24 August 2007 at 03:57:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Hayley Campbell said...

All bloody amateurs at campbell.blogspot. I mean, you didn't even make it a live link! Pfffff.

24 August 2007 at 04:21:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Eddie, your out of line slagging off Kevin Patrick, who is an utter gentleman, and has never badmouthed you, despite yourpetty public attitude towards him.

David Bird

24 August 2007 at 06:15:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Hayley Campbell said...

'e trea'ed you well, even when you was aat of ordah!

24 August 2007 at 06:49:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That grinding noise you can hear is the sound of numberless professional hacks gnashing their teeth as their territory is encroached upon by amateurs. Diddums. And bollocks to 'em. (Being an amateur I can't be arsed crafting a more considered response right now.)

I posted a link to that speech bubble feature a few days ago but you must have missed it.

24 August 2007 at 09:45:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Eddie Campbell said...

John,
sorry, missed it... been distracted last couple weeks.

David,
If you think my public attitude is petty you wouldn't want to hear my private one.

24 August 2007 at 18:15:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Anthony Woodward said...

I saw Chester Brown on a panel in Canadian writers festival. He was put with two other authors of historical fiction, his being 'Louis Reil'. They talked about the way they went about writing their works and such. No nonsense about what is a graphic novel?

24 August 2007 at 21:36:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Eddie Campbell said...

Anthony,
Brilliant.

watch out for my saturday post. I come back to this subject.

24 August 2007 at 21:46:00 GMT-5  

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