It’s difficult to ignore the irony of this piece, however. Not least of all, as an online post, it requires the ‘power of our technology’ you are so quick to question.

Writing about writing, the claim:

‘[The words] exist in a flawed, but pure state. This kind of prose has a feral power that seems to be lacking from the things I type’

seems a little bizarre. Considering the typos and questionable punctuation I wondered whether this was in fact a first draft. If so, and in your defense, I disagree with Hemingway. The post is engaging and resonates with most people. I would just be a little more careful not to skim over the paradox.

MUST. CRANK. MORE. CONTENT.

Any chance we’ll get to hear it as a podcast? You’re “radio voice” almost as good as your writing.

Congratulations on nearly hitting the 50K mark. I got my traditional 800 words in before forgetting to keep up with it, then realizing it’s December 3rd.

I am re-writing a book that you encouraged me on a couple of years ago. The first version was well received, but now it needs an update. I would love to preview a beta version of your class summary when you’re ready to show it around. If it’s ready before I turn in my first draft I’m sure my editor will thank you, too.

Keep up the good work,
Joe

You didn’t think I’d torment you by not releasing it did you? Well, yeah, I guess you did.

What really sets me off is your creepy use of the “corporate” thanks. It’s just slovenly writing. What, exactly, are you thanking me for?

My usage/grammar-based response is that you are simply wrong. The Oxford English Dictionary and Garner’s Modern American usage both agree that “for free” in the sense I used it is just fine.

Which brings us to your use of the corporate “thanks.” It’s downright creepy. What are you thanking me for? For giving you a forum? Seriously, do you want people to be careful with their words or not?

To completing!

]=======[ ]=====[

You rarely see them in household use, but they’re common in industry.

I’m sure you’ve heard the story of the Cheap Plastic Thing being advertised via DRTV? The one where it’s sales skyrocketed after it went from $9.99 to $99? (No, I don’t have the case study handy. For now, Just trust me on this.)

I think the same applies to eBooks.

My personal entry point for purchasing an eBook from an up-and-coming or unknown author is $2.99.

If an author doesn’t feel that their book is worth at least that much, why should I consider it?

That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t grab YOUR next book at 99 cents – I know the quality of your work and that would be an absolute steal.

But again, price is an input into my Internal Decision Making Algorithm(TM).

Cheers,
Dirk

Thanks

Apart from my thoroughly illegible signature, I haven’t written anything in cursive since the Bush administration. The first Bush. At this point I don’t even remember how all the letters are made, and I’d rather like to keep it that way. The one thing I do remember about writing in cursive is that it takes absolutely FOREVER, and your fingers feel like they’re going to fall off, and an hour of drudgery later you get to the bottom of the first double-spaced page, which contains roughly enough words to make a small paragraph typed. I cannot imagine trying to write an entire book that way. It sounds like a clear violation of the eighth amendment to me.

So, umm, have fun doing that. I’ll be over here, immensely appreciating the fact that I’m NOT doing that. Ever.

more concerned about the growing percentage of the population that consists of people who feel they should be paid a large salary whether they do anything of value or not.

to be proven wrong. When we become Zimbabwe, remember this response.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Defenestration_of_Ermintrude_Inch

Also, loving these entries, keep ‘em coming!

Might want to name it something more generic – We know and love you, Patrick, but a lot of your target audience doesn’t yet.

I think this time I’ll just wait until the whole audiobook is finished, then I’ll set aside a weekend, download them all at once, and … nah. I’m not really in to delayed gratification.

I may be a stickler for grammar, but then again, I can’t write.

Any chance of seeing your two books in the iTunes Bookstore in the near future?

Congratulations & good thinking boy scout.

There is another related word, almost as good; skulking. Meaning to keep out of sight, typically with a sinister or cowardly motive.

Skulking has not yet been coopted by the internet so the impact remains undiluted.

Marc, you’re scaring me. O.o

btw, I’m trying out a new thing. Little essays on words. What do you think of it?

I agree with Patrick. Lurking summons images of gloom and fog and impending violence.

But yes, I think you’d smack it out of the park. Something like Terry Pratchett, with a hint more cynicism.

Ron Hubbard allegedly said if he wanted to make some real money, he’d start a religion.

Good luck,
-Joe

Listening to Tangerine Dream can be relaxing.

Force Majeure is a (an awesome!) Tangerine Dream album.

Accept the syllogism – it can’t be a coincidence!

We had to laugh at something, even if the only thing we could laugh at was ourselves…

Bring it!

Is it working?

Oh, and by the way, I can’t agree with your statement:

“The question isn’t interesting to me, because I can’t do anything about it in a meaningful sense.”

Yes, you can… Without “resorting to simple answers or crass fundamentalism,” there is a solid empirical tradition surrounding The Tibetan Book of the Dead that “stresses: ‘Know thyself in the bardo.’ This is important, because knowing oneself in the bardo is a state akin to acute worldly self-awareness and self-control, the ability to resist temptation and illusion. The ability to exert supernormal control and be reborn in a form, state, and condition one chooses. It is also about exerting self-awareness at a difficult time, the moment—immediately after death—when most awareness has fled and the residual being—call it the spirit, if you want—is being lured and tricked by all sorts of illusions and lingering fears. It’s about existing in a form and in a new dimension with all of one’s tendencies and psychological weaknesses. Tendencies and weaknesses cultivated over a lifetime.”

~Excerpted from my book: The Backward-Flowing Method: The Secret of Life and Death

Other than that, everything about your work is fine.

And isn’t it rather reassuring to know that “Big Brother” can’t read your keystrokes when you’re simply scrawling?*

BTW, what you call “feral power,” here on the Left Coast we call “chi.”

Very good essay, persuasive.

*I would like to join Paranoids Anonymous, but they won’t tell me where they’re meeting…

This as you stated is a very different book, in tone at least than HtSiE which grabbed me by the face and tossed me around the airport terminal I was sitting in listening to those very first words about Captain Song. That story made me it’s slave..no one since Douglas Adams and his H2G2 has done that to me.

As for the our quasi-dead hero and how he’s feeling about all this. It makes sence and I can slowly see him having second thoughts about his life as it was and his semi dead life as it is and I can almost see the wheels turning in his head when he has to deal with these issues that are actually way larger than he could wrap his head around.

Once I got it out of my head that this was not HtSiE and was never intended to be it sat so much better with me.

Thanks Patrick and I eagerly await the next chapter.

Thank you for the update. It saves me the trouble of scouring iTunes in vain.

Of course, it got better. Much, much better. Believe me, I killed 40,000 words of this and reworked it from the start. If it was merely typical violent wish-fulfillment, I would have shitcanned it myself.

But what happens when you take a guy who’s had those wishes and actually give him a chance to fulfill them? Now we get a chance to learn what he’s really like.

What happens when you get what you want? In fiction it’s either the end, or the beginning of a long journey of painful self-discovery.

Thanks for sticking with it.

SPOILER ALERT

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH DON’T READ SPOILER
where Dan opens fire on the Russian in the back of the disco and is mildly annoyed when he hits someone else (because missing is a pain). I honestly thought, “This is Patrick Maclean, but he sounds like the guy writing [INSERT STUPID VIOLENT 'SUPERHERO' PODIOBOOK I DROPPED HERE] instead. Where’s the guy who wrote HTSIE and the Seanachai?”

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH SPOILER ENDS

I kept downloading the feed but just saved the episodes and didn’t open them. Eventually, I gritted my teeth to finish the episode. I should have known that you would come around to life and its value, but up until then, it sounded like the typical violent wish-fulfillment that is so popular elsewhere.

I am hoping to see this pay off later in the story, and at #13 seeing signs of the McLean magic. Right now, I feel like I’m in Empire Strikes Back territory – at the time, I didn’t appreciate it in light of what comes later, but looking back I found it the best of the SWars stories. I’m hoping this pans out the same.

BTW, the best way to support you is to buy STORIES I TOLD MYSELF (I buy and give them away to interesting friends) and now UNKILLABLE if I like how it comes out, right?

It’s not that I don’t love slapstick. It’s just that my ideal configuration of the Three Stooges is Larry, Moe and Socrates.

Sometimes fiction just entertains and, actually, that can be enough. I like when it holds the funhouse mirror up and it can be so much more.

Again, with your “Comprehensive Sex Education Model” you are speaking as if people can be treated and measured like elements in a chemical reaction. This is not only morally wrong (for the same reason that Eugenics is morally wrong) but it is a colossal error of the social sciences. But the quicksand foundations of modern social science don’t trouble me as much as your discussion of Eugenics.

Eugenics was never a moral position. And your position appears to be that it’s not moral now because “science” has has deemed it so. Because some guy with two last names says it’s not? Simon Baron-Cohen may be right about that, but even if he’s wrong it’s doesn’t change the morality of the idea that a few people should be arrogated to a position of power where they decide who gets to breed or not. To live or die. Or, on the basis of a horribly flawed regression analysis, decide how other people’s children are educated.

Individuals are not atoms. They have free will. As such they should not me used as means. Is slavery moral? Science can offer no answer, only data. Especially not the social sciences. Seriously, do you know anybody who’s mind has been changed by the results of a regression analysis?

Take vaccination. We can know through germ theory that if we vaccinate a group of people it will stop the spread of, say, smallpox. We can measure that some small fraction of the population will suffer minor symptoms from the disease — and a very, very few may die. But can science say that it is right to force people, against their will, to be vaccinated?

These aren’t rhetorical questions? If you have answers, I genuinely want to know.

As for eugenics, a misapprehension of evolutionary science as being teleological is an ideological error. Professor Baron-Cohen makes the point that deviation from the norm is not aberrant, but a spectrum.

http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2010/12/professor-simon-baron-cohen-endorses-neurodiversity/

Eugenics isn’t a valid moral position (it was indeed a moral position at the time, as the theory was that to prevent future suffering of ‘suboptimal’ individuals, you had to cull them from the breeding pool now so that they wouldn’t pass on their genes to individuals in the future thus making them suffer, a ‘greater good’ argument), partly because of changes to morals, especially after WWII, but also because science has quite rightly pointed out that deviation from the mean is healthy in a population, and restricting diversity is actively dangerous.

>It certainly can measure the effect
>that choosing a certain criteria has.

Works for physics. Doesn’t work for the social “sciences.” Check out Hayek’s brilliant Nobel Prize speech “The Pretense of Knowledge”

Also, Thomas Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolution.”

It really comes back to Eugenics. Should one apply the principles of animal husbandry to human populations. I believe one should not. But you can’t find a scientific justification for it that looks anything like Physics.

I do believe that the Austrian School of Economics provides a tremendous scientific defense of individual liberty, but it proceeds on a very different basis than the physical sciences.

A “belief” in the scientific method doesn’t preclude belief in the possibility of things not-yet-understood including God/Allah/Yahweh/Krishna/[insert supreme being of choice here]. Not unless you arrogantly assume that you can answer questions that still elude the world’s top cosmologists, particle physicists and biologists.

Similarly, believing in a supreme being doesn’t preclude the possibility of evolution, mass extinction, earthquake prediction, the inflationary Big Bang model, or AIDS as a treatable viral syndrome, rather than a “gay plague”.

Furthermore, “religion” isn’t synonymous with “ethics” or “morality”. There are a great many moral, ethical people who rely upon neither science nor a particular religion to for their personal philosophy. Likewise, there are a great many religious people who consistently act in immoral, unethical ways (I’m looking at you, Haggards, Ayatollahs, child-abusing priests), suggesting that their philosophies do little to make them better people.

Science is a METHOD, not a belief system. And while religions can provide good ethics and morals, they can just as easily provide worldviews that are twisted and destructive. And they are certainly not the sole sources of philosophy.

So while I agree with part of your argument (i.e. “enough with the infallible power of science”), I think you’re also falling prey to the commonly held view that religion is NECESSARILY a better source of personal ethics and morals.

Dawkins and Hitchens are assholes; but Hitler was a Christian. Few (except the tatooed, skinheaded, Jew-hating fraternity) would argue that Adolf was therefore a more “moral, ethical” person, who despite all his faults, “stuck to his principles, bless him”…

However, if it is wrong that US contests do it, then it is also wrong that this contest does it. Your two-wrongs-make-a-right ethical foundation really isn’t defensible. But, again, I think you have a damn good point.

Otherwise, just remember that one can’t spell Pratchett without “Prat”

Kind Regards

Nick Asselberghs

I do find it odd that a company called TransWorld has a contest that only includes Two countries.

Unless you make sure that your London flat has a spare room for visiting Americans to stay with you free of charge.

Best wishes,
Joe Ahearn

(Something the secretarial students learned in 2 years takes over 2 decades and counting for an engineer teaching herself. Speed-building takes dedication.)

One of the reasons longhand is nice for writing is it forces you to slow down. I still remember the moment when I was twelve, writing the first draft of an English assignment, and realized my brain had slowed down to the speed I could write comfortably and neatly and feel the pen moving across the paper. It was almost meditative. That’s not to say I don’t crank out the scrawls most of the time, but it’s nice to slow down and enjoy the process of writing.

I’ve felt that this year has gone by faster than ever, which they say will happen as you get older. But perhaps that doesn’t have to be the case if we took more time to slow down, writing being one of them. What is it that is so hard about pulling ourselves away from all the action. I’ve come to this realization that one really needs to set aside some time to not be busy.

But the short list, to my mind, would be 10 Things you Want to hear a Zombie say.

But that’s just me. I don’t want to hear a zombie say anything.

http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DCAV0XrbEwNc

however, the back of my brain kept waiting for…

“they make money the old fashioned way….. they EAAARRRN it.”

;-D

Joyfully looking forward to Unkillable and hopefully more How to Succeed in Evil in the near future!

Doug

But the really interesting thing (to me) is why I left this fact out. It didn’t add to the narrative. Editing is more interesting to me than trees

(Oh, and incidentally: I believe that may in fact be the 3rd person. Just thought I’d mention it…)

Cheers!
-Jeff

For the podcast, do you already have a feed set up so I can catch it as soon as it is ready?

Will this be released all at once, or one podcast a day d’you think?

Thanks! Congrats! Keep it up!
Joe

I look forward to more of your amazing skill with the words and their ordering.

Darren

Mine, currently, is your “The Toughest Trees” article.

Also, and I’m guessing here, “impacts.” *shudder*

I actually own a das keyboard- Excellent looking thing, scares the bejesus out of anyone I invite over. Only problem is that the body and cord are actually pretty flimsy construction. I would actually recommend one of the Model M reconstructions over it- They have bodies you can drive a tank over and cords you could garrote a cow with.

Still, I’ll probably continue hammering onto my Das Keyboard until I finally shake its puny cord from its fragile body.

Cheers!
-Jeff

Hence your moniker of “raconteur” above?

I kid…’cause I love.

Been a fan since the original podcast days. Many thanks for many a laugh!

My Microsoft ergonomic is from 1994 and I love it. My son doesn’t because the split keyboard forces you to use both hands and the ink has worn off the important keys.

This keyboard has served faithfully for at least a decade and a half, all the way back to Prodigy, DOS, and 56K. It has given excellent service, but I have dreaded the eventual day when I will finally have to retire it.

Which is why this post fills me with relief: Now I know there is still a keyboard manufacturer that recognizes that we’d already gotten keyboard design right in the 80s. Thanks for sharing.

Sometimes I wish my Mac had one of these. Despite this inner urge to crank out words I am not able to write very much these days. I sometimes suspect it’s in part fault of modern keyboards. Then again, it might just be me…

Expensiveness, expensiveness etc all have the same problem. it’s not that you CAN’T do it. It’s that it’s almost always better to write use, expense and expanse.

I would also say, that if you want to truly exaggerate the extent (extensiveness?) of an expanse you are better off writing ‘expansivenesslessiosity’ than ‘expansiveness’

As far as your definition of utilize goes, I haven’t encountered that. But it is derived in English from the French verb utiliser. On general principles I avoid the fancy words that come from French.

May I rant about ‘utilize’? ‘Use’ is a perfectly good word. ‘Utilize’ means ‘use for purpose for which it wasn’t designed.’ I’ve seen ‘utilize’ utilized too often lately.

Sorry.

And then there’s lost time, but I think that involves aliens or obsession-inducing television series.

‘Me time’ – time that you often refrain from mentioning.

‘Quality Time’ – time that is utterly unproductive on purpose

‘Desperate Times’ – all time that is not quality time. Desperate times often follow go time.

Mario Time

0.5) Miller time

0.8) Time, gentlemen. Time!

After about 4 days of reading his posts, I got depressed. It was a litany of ‘standing in line for a burger’, ‘driving home from work’, ‘surfing the internet’. It wasn’t anything different than what I was doing. It was a reminder of how each day was slipping away, and I was spending it reading about him. There was *no* story being told, so I turned it off.

On the other end of the spectrum, I’m now at the same point with the news. Between talk radio and news web sites, I can read or hear the same scandal 3-4 times in the same day. And in the end, the news doesn’t change anything I do. I don’t go out and march, or call officials, or campaign. It’s a story, but it doesn’t *affect* me. It really doesn’t mean anything.

There was an awful speed metal band in the 90′s called Bad Religion, and one song was about the 24 hour news cycle. I always think of the line “it’s episodic currency that everybody needs.” I always think of that when I hear about a scandal, or a trial, or a disaster that doesn’t affect me or my loved ones. It’s Jerry Springer writ large.

(said the guy in the blog comments)

Thanks for sharing you hard work and wonderful talents!

BESTEST
David

http://feeds.feedburner.com/PatrickEMclean

BESTEST
David

Any plans for a new podcast? Please – pretty please with anchovies – - -

David
Karmiel, ISRAEL

“What’s in this coffee?” Y’know, it looks like he’s thinking “Damn, the word I want just sunk to the bottom of this cup.”

Great post. Good food for thought.

Congratulations, you’ve expanded from Evil Efficiency Consultant to Productivity Recommendations. Someone alert Merlin Mann and the rest of MacBreak Weekly.

The rest of your conclusion is spot on, and it works both ways. I grew up surrounded by well-educated people who spoke “standard English”. You can imagine how well I fit in at some summer jobs.

In that short time, perhaps 20 minutes, I feel you comunicated enough material to eliminate 453 hours I wasted in school not learning “good” english.

I’m 62. I taught myself over the years to be a better writer using three tools, a thesaurus, the delete key, and my brain. But, it was hard work and I did not have a clue as why it worked. Now I do. Thanks!

Whit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZS8HqOGTbA

Bullshit adjectives indeed.

One of my cousins in Finland has a farm north of the arctic circle. That’s where the ground is frozen year round. My dad took a picture of him in 1972, in his long johns. I mean, with a week of summer, why would you have summer clothes? And WTF do you grow when the ground is frozen year round? I mean, and make a living? Hay. For reindeer.

In January 1995, i went to the Philadelphia Zoo. Relatives had come over, and that’s what we decided to do. It was minus 4 with a wicked wind. We ran from building to building. The penguins were ecstatic. The ducks were swimming. It’s the only time i saw the Siberian tigers happy. But the reindeer herd went inside. I have a theory. Reindeer aren’t so tough that they can take the absurd cold of the arctic. They must be incredibly smart.

Check the link above.

Thanks Pat.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by PatrickEMcLean: ‘The Pomodoro Technique” and how I’m using it with my writing. It’s awesome. Might be the #NaNoWriMo help you need. http://bit.ly/1s9kSo...

I’m checking out the technique. I have a much better chance of getting hubby to take the kids away for 25 minutes than I did of convincing him I could write a book in thirty days. Thanks for the great tip.

But I powered through it. Now to see if I can read the link…

I time housework and exercise by podcast. The different lengths break up the routine without breaking the system.

Good luck!

Oh, and I’ve listened to enough of your podcast episodes to be able to hear your inflection in the text!

I was just going to skim the post, but at some point I went back to the beginning and had to read every word. Fascinating history of a tree I’ve never given a single thought to, so thanks for sharing.

You truly do have a way with words, my dear.

Speaking of, how soon can we expect more Vampire in My Face? Or even, dare I ask, more Evil?

I am in favor of most anything you do. As always your stories are wonderful. But I track you via MP3. It was only because it had been so long that I came to the site and found the video. While it was interesting to see you, the video did not really add much. Please put out an MP3 of anything you do.

—–Paul—–

Good to hear from you! I can’t wait to read the book. Times are a little tight, but I know that any investment in the Seanachai is always a good one. Keep up the good work. I think both your Evil and non-Evil work are great. I enjoy supporting it all the way.

Valium used….

Your podcasts have such extraordinary production value. When will I hear you on NPR??

good for us slow long writers!

Great work, as always.
Thanks.

I’ve recently come think that any reform is bound to fail unless it accounts for humans behaving like humans, i.e. dishonest, theiving, cruel, kind, generous, brilliant monkeys with guns and money.

Wait, wait, that does sound silly. How on Earth do you keep a politician honest?

Don’t get too hung up on these things—I know a guy who got so disturbed by it, that he went out and bought a new dog—not a wise thing at his age.

To ensure your sanity I will pLay for you.

You should check out P.J. O’Rourke’s ‘On The Wealth of Nations’, where he summarizes and analyzes the 1776 work by Adam Smith. It’s the best example I know of a great writer making economics funny and understandable.

-Patrick

Second – it looks as if GOD believes in Ayn Rand, even if she doesn’t believe in him.

Third – this is a really intriguing connection you’ve made. Perhaps the law of diminishing returns applies to pinball scoring and economics as well as just about every other darn thing in the universe. We use schtuff, whatever that might be, to fill us and need ever more to satisfy the cravings. More points. More money. Inflation right now is still relatively low. But our idea of what “a lot” of money is has changed drastically.

So, Austrian. It will certainly be an interesting next few years (and I think we would go pretty much the same route regardless of election results). I look forward with queasy anticipation to watching the descent of another republic from my ring-side seat. And I look forward to your commentary on it.

I really enjoyed the idea of people as both pinballs bouncing ’round and being scored by arbitrary, hidden and increasingly byzantine mechanisms, but that’s not really the point that your trying to make.
I particularly enjoyed the use of the pinball scoring sounds and their likeness to the sounds of poker machines, hence a reference to money, chance, luck and ultimately the game being fixed. Again not what your going for, but very popular themes.

I don’t know how you would go about adapting it for the style of a magazine. I would be nice if you told us who would be your audience – besides the gate keeping magazine editors of course.

And as long as your going to indulge my god complex I told Atlas that your of the Austrian school, he shrugged.

Patrick is an Austrian.

I posted this with a little bit of reluctance. I feel that there is something more to be done with the pinball analogy. I’m trying to figure out what kind of article it could make for a magazine submission. Maybe just on the idea of scores in pinball/video games. What do you think?

I would have called John Maynard Keynes almost the very defintion of a great popularist.

Great podcast though, I like the pinball analogy.

Also, while I’m yammering on, let me throw in a bit of support for “Me”‘s and Milo’s suggestions- I think you’ll get more donators with a mostly free model, (Gets new users hooked and interested in your style, and lots of free content is expected in a podcast) but I know if a subscription were available, I’d likely sign up for it. It would be rather convenient to have a $5/month subscription chipped directly out of my bank/paypal account.

Just my 2 cents.

Cheers!
-Dirkson

Just a quick question regarding membership subscription feeds, and forgive me if it’s been explained but I couldn’t find it easily:

as well as getting to ‘the good stuff’ once we’ve logged in as members, is there a dedicated feed for us we can pop into iTunes? My iPhone would be better fed for the addition.

Thanks!

And there’s no denying the fact that ‘pay and you can see this content’ is a different ethos to ‘pay (at no additional benefit to the payer) if you think the writer has created something great’.

And if you are paying a membership fee, you are not donating.

A great number of people seem to want to support the site by donating and we’re happy to be able to give them something in return for their support.

Good luck with the future of the site/’cast. You do good things, but premium (‘You pay for it’) content is not the way to go, imo.

I mean, it is as a way to make money but not to tell stories.

It’s good that you are keeping content to those who can pay for it.
A true storyteller ethos, that.

Fail.

BTW, heard about you from the other Patrick, PG, PJ, Tee, Something Holyfield. looking forward to hearing/reading more

Thomas

Look for a space for Good-Hearted Hospitable Creature. I found it unsettling, to say the least.

Thanks! O

Stuck with me. Not too sure why.

Hope things are going well.

So I registered, and donated (US$20, if I recall), but I’m now being told my subscription has expired. Any idea what’s going on? I figured I’d be good for at least 9 months to a year…

Cheers,
Jaye.

Anyone else who thinks they should be members and don’t see the “Thanks for donating…” text please let us know and we’ll fix you up.

- Have the first episode online for free.
- Attach a price to the second episode. Don’t make it available.
- Make the episode (or all episodes, if you like) available to anyone who has payed.
- Once you have achieved the ‘price’ set on the second episode, set the same price for the third.
- Rince and repeat.

Seems very appealing to me.

I’m seeing I’m a member, but I’m not seeing “Thanks for donating” text. Might be my own fault, I first registered as CVD1979 and then re-registered (to help answer your OpenID question, if you remember).

Looking forward to it all!

This podcast is both entertaining and educational. I didn’t know all that stuff about Saint Patrick, for example. I found out about your podcast at Thanksgiving last year, and listened to all the episodes in a row. It was awesome. Then I got my friend hooked on “How to Succeed in Evil,” then she got ticked off at me when it stopped! I thought you would be back eventually, and now you are. We are so happy, thanks for all your hard work on this podcast. Keep up the good work.

Rebecca

I *really* hope that, while you have subscriptions, it doesn’t turn into an elite group.
People who do not (currently) donate/new listeners are not going to be all that enamoured of a podcast that is to all intents and purposes not up to date. In my opinion.

I always thought that subscription services should be like goodies. Tempting and worthwhile enough to pay (extra) for, rather than being the podcast itself.

I like the donation model as opposed to charging for stories. Donors could get stories earlier if you want.

Regarding donations, I think you should put a regular monthly subscription as an option: $5.00 per month, $1.00 per week, whatever. I would subscribe if it were available. If you are counting on regular listeners to fill out a PayPal form every time they donate, I think your receipts will be less.

Actually… (see how I did that?) go with the zombie story first. Holyfield is a hack.

I rarely have time to listen to podcasts, except in bed before falling asleep. And this is where I have heard virtually all of your podcasts. In the dark, fighting insomnia again, my wife asleep next to me, ipod by my pillow. I sometimes fall asleep and listen again the next night because I don’t want to miss anything.

So… I have a strangely intimate relationship with The Seanachai.

St. Valentine’s Day
_ yep!

Thank you for coming back.

How I Gave Up Roulette – Because now that you mention it, evil probably does look and sound like Colonel Sanders. Also, ‘walls of pain’ is a perfect distillation of the logic, however you feel about it.

Bright Lights – ‘Who would shoot a guitar?’ ‘Maybe it *needed* killin’!’ Everything after that was just gravy.

I also second:

Candy – Because sooner or later we all need to get us some Strawburst.

War With Santa – Nothing says Xmas like tequila-fueled self-destrution.

Death of a Dishwasher – Geuninely moving/harrowing.

Succeed in Evil – Balm for annoyed minds. Listen immediately.

Of course I would be happy to hear you reading the phone book, but being more constructive I just want more of the same.
I was hooked with ‘Vampire in My Attic’ and stayed subscribed through the silence because of such stories.
‘Succeed in Evil’ is brilliant (I used to be British) and I would love more of it but not to the exclusion of other gems.

Good luck with the re-launch!

* NPR: This American Life – The latest n episodes (where n=1) are available for free. Older ones are available for purchase (on CD or in iTunes). Every so often they edit in a request for donations at the end of the current publicly available episode.

* Delta Park Project – (Part of this is from memory–it’s a locally produced pop-culture podcast that I have since unsubscribed from because the subject matter just isn’t quite my thing anymore.) They experimented with per-user RSS feeds. Not only would subscribers get extra content, they got it a few days early. Additionally, they had a couple of different types of shows on the site. Users could go to a control panel and select which shows they wanted to appear in their custom feed.

* Revision3/Diggnation – I’m not sure they are doing this anymore, but they had something set up where people that donate so much a month would get shows before everyone else. I think it was a Friday release (for weekend viewing) for donations versus a release on the following Tuesday or Wednesday for everyone else.

* Podshow/Mevio – Podcasts published through them get preroll/postroll ads automatically inserted. They also have some number of flagship podcasts that have ads worked into the show content (the host giving out a promo code or whatever) that seem to have more direct revenue sharing between the company and the content producer.

* Jay & Jack’s LOST podcast, Tiki Bar TV – They feature ads through Wizzard Media.

* A bunch of other podcasts – all of the episodes are free, but you can make donations or purchase swag (CafePress-type stuff or archive CDs/DVDs.)

Personally, I’m kind of partial to the This American Life model (maybe with “n” being more like 5 or 10) and the ones with advertising. I’m not sure that time-delay will work for The Seanachai, givin that your content is not as topical. I can see how ads might feel like “selling out,” but I don’t mind them, myself. The bills have to get paid somehow, after all.

Regarding swag–CD/DVD compilations, books, t-shirts, and whatnot–I don’t know if I represent our average listener, but I don’t usually buy any of that stuff (exception: your How to Succeed in Evil comic & disc.) In concept, I love it. In practice… I don’t wear shirts with logos or artwork (only solid colors for me), I don’t need yet another coffee mug or mouse pad, the reason I listen to podcasts/audiobooks is because I’m not a big reader, and the back-episodes of shows that I like I will generally keep around. Wow. Typed out in black-and-white, that seems kind of harsh. It’s not meant to be. It’s just meant to better illustrate my thinking and point of view.

I think one podcast that at least deserves an honorable mention is NPR’s Planet Money. As far as I know, this is strictly a podcast and not a radio program repackaged as a podcast. They’re really pushing to build community (Twitter, Facebook, blog) and often answer email/phone questions on the show. As best as I can tell, they’re funded by the good ol’ fashioned pledge drives, but the community being built up is the remarkable thing. I think it’s easier to ask for money from people when they feel they’re part of something. That is mainly why I point out Planet Money. While social networking websites do not do anything to directly influence your street-musician-with-donation-hat problem, it does help turn an emotionless and faceless “series of tubes” into a bit more of a street corner.

What method will ultimately work for you? I have no idea, but I can’t wait to find out! You are a great storyteller and I’d love to see everything work out well.

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: add_submenu_page() in /home/teapot50/public_html/wp-content/plugins/paypal-donate/paypaldonate.php on line 25

Love your work — I’ve been subscribed for years.

Cheers,
Karen

Enjoy the stories

Quick question?
Do you have any options for donating outside of PayPal?

Focusing on $1 is lightweight. You will probably get more people to donate $1 per pod cast rather than $1 per month even. Focus on the small amounts. As you talked about in your conversation, and it really holds true, there is so much free content out there that being forced to pay for content is unnecessary.

Most of us listen to pod casts to pass the time. If we had something more interactive to do at the moment we would probably choose to do that instead. For example, I listen while I’m at work. I get somewhere between 6 to 8 hours of audio feed per day. I have stumbled upon some pay sites that offer great promos. They all want $10 on up to listen. I flip over to a different web site and keep going. I have donated to a few websites that embody the “shareware” attitude though. They offer a place to donate and let you know where to find it.

Here’s a thought. Be a little bit like NPR (as you also mentioned). Ask people to donate 25 cents right now. One pod cast per week = $1 per month. Have a little 20 second blurb entreating them to keep sponsoring your work rather than having premium locked out content. Keep the new listeners coming and make the cost to donate so small it hurts more to listen to you ask than it does to pony up the quarter.

Best of luck!
-Dave M.

Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I enjoyed that method, and I’ve been a sponsor for some time. I would do the same for this in a half a second.

That way you won’t alienate the freeriders, but will have a chance every month to convert them into paying customers.

Also I’d like the option to pay for the year in one shot, rather than having to mess around with payment details every time I want to listen.

I’d sign up in a heartbeat.

I like when the podcaster steps away from their content and talk about the inner-workings of the show. This is sort of a behind-the-scenes or a DVD extra. Mur Lafferty does this well. You get a glimpse of the person behind the craft which is an interesting side-story unto itself.

My 2 cents as a fan & software engineer:

I’d like it if you avoided the “pr*ck” business model of holding content for ransom. It feels like an act of desperation and I think it would damage the listener relationship.

James Patrick Kelly did a subscription-based podcast through Audible so, I’m not sure of the mechanics but it can be done.

What I would like from the Seanachai: in additional to the content I’d love it if you could post an RSS feed with the comments linked to each post, much in the same way some forums do. That way I could keep track of new posts and keep an eye tuned for Patrick’s replies. This makes the Seanachai more of an interactive community and maintains my interest while I’m waiting for the next installment.

I might be in the minority here, but I’d be willing to put an unobtrusive Seanachai bumper sticker on my car.

Anyway, we stuck around for ages while you were gone, so you know we love you. So, use us as guinea pigs, because this is of course what people who write do to the people who love them.

To be the fly on the wall during your conversation with your friend is nice. One of the things you missed in all of what you said was “composition”, not the actual content, good as it is, your production quality is phenominal!

The “Vampire in my Attic” story is a good example, it’s brilliant content married with a brilliant production process and the result is a great piece! I can’t hear “Brandy” without cracking up now.

The “Randomness” of the topics is also a gem. The story of the Irish, contrasted with your vampire, contrasted with the *piss myself laughing* cautionary tale of hard drive crashes, these always leave me wondering what’s next.

Oh yea, hearing some of those outtakes like when they were working on your street add to the flavor and makes me feel like this Seanachai guy is one of “Us”.

As for bold thoughts? How about you let your listeners send you ideas and you pick one to do a short piece on? Not at random, mind you, and not necessarily (actually preferably not…see above) how they expected it to be done, mind you. Like…how about something involving the fact that in Arizona, USA, it is illegal to hunt camels. I bet you could do 5 minutes on that.

I’m very appreciative that you are bringing The Seanachai back! Thank you!

I swear, if you ever act on the urge to have a “we’ll be right back after these messages”, I’ll hunt you down and steal your microphone.

Essentially, should you decide, “Hey, maybe I’ll check that out”, then skip over Act II.

Yay.

While I’m here I might as well get the ball rolling on money-making, sorry…income-generating….schemes. How about for every dollar a person donates they get one entry into a prize draw for some Seanachai-related goodies? Like, say, a signed panel of original “..Evil” artwork, or some such? (although I’m sure a man of your inventiveness can come up with much better prizes..that was just an off-the-top-of-my-head idea).

Oh, and welcome back )

Campbell

All of the stories are great. I think you were really doing it right the first time! I like that I never know quite what the story is going to be about, but it’s usually very funny without smaking verbal cream pies in my face.

Keep up the good work.

Hlynnski

Yay for your return!

That’s what I like.
And, Mr. McLean, try listening to this episode from “This American Life”, another one of my favorite podcasts.

http://thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1196

Skip to Act III.
It’s one of the best stories I’ve ever heard from TAL.
I think you’ll like it.

But listening to your podcasts relax me and make me see everything in another perspective. I’m not saying they’re a spiritual experience, probably exactly the opposite. Very down to earth. I love that about your podcasts.

And the backgrounds are wicked!

I wholeheartedly encourage you to take us down your rat-holes of thought and let us gawk at the strange furry creatures we find there, maybe setting up a riding camp and letting people ride some of them for a while if there’s enough interest. In summary, write more about random ideas and flesh something out if you can find it in you enough.

The certain zen act of writing about writing should be done with care. Tips and workarounds to problems you have are always welcome and commentary on the task of structuring thought into a cohesive story is of particular value.

Besides that, I loved the short stories and 1-podcast “essays” you did. Personally, I think your writing lends itself to novella series, and I believe there is an opportunity there to try out different ideas in short formats to see if they stick (1-8 podcasts or so). The short format stories also prevents me from having a meltdown during a commute when confronted with too many cliffhangers in a row.

How about a few podcasts on writing? You are clearly not a hack.

Cheers – Dan

Above all, being entertained keeps me coming back for more.

More!

Thanks for all of it,
Anemone

Kinda embarrassing to pick the wrong word on a writing blog, eh?

Pardon the snark.

There. I said it. Yes, it’s worked out for some. Yes, it can provide fantastic motivation to hear from your audiences as you are working on the story.

But personally? I think it needs to be written first, edited next (with as many rinse-repeat actions as necessary) and then produced as a podcast novel. Or podiobook, as some call these.

But what could be interesting is this: a “follow me as I write this” podcast that accompanies the writing/editing process. Keep it short. Read choice passages that you are most proud of. Talk about where the plot is going, or where it changed. Tell us how this process fits in with your life. Show us these characters, and point out where they act up. Get us involved in the process of creating the story — then drop the story on us later. Sure, we’ll have a few spoilers. But our pumps will be primed to get the whole enchilada. And how’s THAT for mixing metaphors?

Your piece puts it into words beautifully.

Thank you.

Very, very well done.

Regards

Looking forward to your next ‘cast.

Sheesh.

Anyway, I’d love to see you exceed all of your wildest expectations. I haven’t free cash “Driver carries no cash, he’s married.” and I, as we’ve seen, haven’t enough free time to do the things I’ve promised much less the things I’d like to do.

With that said, I can only offer some loud-mouthed opinions. I don’t need a weekly episode from the Seanachai, I am more than content with one every two weeks instead. Why? A couple of them have been so good I listen to them over again. A piece of your work 10mins long is actually like listening to a 30min piece. If you’re a fan of the dialog of “West Wing” (when Mr Sorkin was still involved) you’ll understand.

Time to go do more work. TTFN.

Thank you for your hard work.

Calm down.

“In the podcast, he’s not really a character. He’s more of a force of nature. He has no foibles, no weaknesses and worst of all, I can’t hear his voice in my head.”

Kevin Spacey (If you haven’t seen the movie The Usual Suspects, I highly recommend it). But that’s who I immediately pictured in my head when I started to listen.

–
M

(Yeah, you should all listen, we’re going to have some fun!)

Juan Manuel

Ps. I got my comic thank you very much

–
Francis

fantastic work.

I like this direction, but I think a few more backstory elements need to be retconned.

Interesting themes, though, about holding superheroes responsible for their actions. Very much in the comic zeitgeist at the moment with Powers and Civil War touching on these very issues.

–
Francis

On final point my good man. Mr. Windsor, from my humble observation, does have foibles.
It is true that he is the ruthless master of his world. He’s preternaturally savvy and plans for every contingency. However, there are two major emotions that he wrestles with from what I’ve seen, and correct me if I’m wrong about this.
Despair and loneliness are the direct emotional results of being as ruthless and cunning as he is. Vice versa, it is because of his ruthless and cunning, that he is become more despaired and lonely. It is a lonely job up there at the top, and his power creates isolation for him from his fellow man.
This is a foible, for his unhappiness and his quest for vengence in regards to Mrs. Frapdraggle, has created in him a drive to succeed in evil. He is dedicated to vengeance, and to an extent, justice. He wants to eradicate inefficiency, and replace it with the order and stability that creates value. Truly, he is an economist’s superhero, even if he might be an archvillain.

So, in short, Bravo! I salute you sir! And I give my full apologies if I have carried on here like an errant schoolboy.
Cheerio.
-Sir Garrick

Anyways, I have a good chance on getting my first job soon, and with the job will come my first debit card. And with my first debit card will come the ability to purchase stuff online and donate money! And with that ability will come my donation of $20+ to this wonderful podcast/comic endeavor. I shall join the 1000!

Well, Lotus is a british car company, not italian.

Cheers, P.

I think the ideal solution is what you are doing now. Release a couple of episodes, then a prequel mini-series, then a couple more episode, and so on. Best of both worlds.

I just found this podcast a few days ago, and I’ve already listened to the whole thing through a few times, pure gold. Good luck with what your doing, it’s amazing.

What you have now would certainly fill up a 90min film without putting the pincers on yourself to leave things hanging just to address next week. There is an inherent look and post-noir-jaded taste to your world and this would be much more complete and satisfying to focus its delivery in a set unit (film) rather than just allude to in the Sally-come-often world of Sci-Fi TV (which this would fall into).

Go for the solid. Not the serial. Then you can alway broach a sequel, when you are satisfied with the material.

Just my view, but I’ve been caught staring at walls before.

Best,
Ryan

Good luck with this project. I hope we all get to see it as a TV treatment some day in the near future.

Tiff

P.S.

I also lost an hour as well although I believe the proverbial “They” took it. I’m not too concerned about it because I usually get it back in the Fall, but since “They” borrow my hour every year I’d like to know when I’ll be getting my interest on it……

When I flew back from Japan, I left Tokyo at 6:45 pm on Sunday, crossed the international date line, and landed in New York at 5:45 pm on Sunday. Not only was my travel instantaneous, but clearly, I have your hour.

And I’m keeping it.

With this comment, you’re down to 750. Feel free to delete it.

I understand that one book, with 300 equations didn’t sell a single copy. That’s because 2^300 is about 10^90. Thats more than the number of subatomic particles in the Universe. Since there clearly aren’t as many potential audience memebers as there are subatomic particles in the Universe, it isn’t a surprise.

The real problem is that i don’t see how any of this is going to get me the hour of sleep i lost to daylight savings time. And looking under the sofa didn’t help any either.

Frack.

The support of a knight and peer of the realm, bearing as it does the approval of the landed classes, can only presage enduring greatness for our going concern and further fan the flames of our creativity.

Please give Edwin’s regards to the tailors of Saville Row.

After several years of studying Japanese language the most relevant and useful phrase I learned to sputter to my sensei was, “Otearai ni temo i desuka”. It was detrimental to your health in her class if you didn’t know it

You must tell us all about it when you return….any incidents with Fubu….Geisha gone wild…come on, man….let me live vicariously!!

~Carmen

“Tiny Japanese people. Listen to me! You are very strange.”

This had me literally laughing out loud.

Do you speak much Japanese?

PS If you bring some Banana Pocky back for me I’ll be your best friend forever.

Keep us posted — I’ve been missing the podcasts and really enjoyed El Justiador pt. 1.

Yup. Just as George Lucas.

I used to write a lot on my Palm PDA. I got up to about 30 wpm with Graphitti. I can’t stand writing longhand — I really am one of those types who has to just say “screw it” and start typing. The first draft (with notable rare exceptions) is a bunch of junk, but my writing is a lot like making a pearl — I need that grain of sand to build on and polish, and sometimes I come up with something downright good.

Actually I take that back — the best stuff I’ve ever written practically came out of me in it’s final form, but that happens so rarely that I could never make a living writing that way. I took up blogging partly as an exercise to get me writing, for better or worse, on a regular basis.

But I’m catching up, and those tv spots are great!

Keep up the good work,
Anemone

Happy Holidays… hope things are better for you than last year ~ Christmas in Mexico on the lam from Santa musta really suxd~

Miss ur podcast

Sunny days

On the contrary, according to the old testament humans were given free will, and it is our CHOICE to take human judgement out of our OWN PERSONAL equation. The bible never says “Gods way is the only way, and regardless of what you believe its going to be forced upon you.” it says that God’s way can be the only way for your life if you choose to make it that way. Christianity, (again, contrary to popular belief) is about personal experience. Nothing matters but your own personal experience. In fact thats the one thing that someone must understand to understand bible-based christianity. Nothing matters, not your family, not your money, not your body, nothing… except you and God, and trusting that God will provide those things and your ability to keep/gain/lose those things.

“But the Christian story, having established an omnipotent deity, throws in the idea of a redeemer. Why the third party? Why doesn’t God just forgive us directly since he is able? Why doesn’t Superman just fly?”

There is no “third party.” I think mayhaps you’ve missed something in your study of the bible. There is God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are one and the same. Before Jesus was born, people who spoke to God spoke directly to God, and the needed to sacrifice something that was important to them (a lamb, grain, whatever) to sort of “clear the path” for God, to allow God to be in the presence of sinful man. Then Jesus was born — God in human form. He lived as a human, he was tempted as a human, he did everything a human does except sin. He was even depressed. He cried. He was angry and annoyed. He was human. Jesus was sacrificed, in the way a lamb was sacrificed before Jesus came on the scene, to make peace between sinful man and God, becuase God cannot be in the presence of sin. Think whipping boy. Jesus died, and was ressurected, and he ascended into Heaven, leaving behind the Holy Spirit. Thats the supernatural power of God. There is no “redeemer” party… there is only God.

“Christianity makes its deity omnibenevolent, but then inserts the idea of believers needing to beg and badger God with prayers to get him to cough up some of that benevolence.”

This is a complete and total fallacy….

Revelation 3:20 “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me.”
Matthew 7:7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, recieves; he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”

see? no begging involved. I could list other references, if you’d like but, this post is long enough as it is.

“Then there’s the God who created imperfect humans and then would punish them for being imperfect.”

Before Jesus died on the cross, God punished people for being imperfect. But Jesus was crucified, and that was all the punishment God needed to issue for all the sins of the entire world.
And furthermore, if you sin, all you have to do to have that sin COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN as if it NEVER EXISTED is sincerely know that what you’ve done is wrong and make a concentrated effort to change. Period.

“And yet Bible readers accept inconsistencies like these in the story because they’ve gone way beyond being mere readers.”

Have you ever take a literature course? Have you ever studied a complex work in another form of english? example, Shakespeare? read and completely understood anything by shakespeare? picked out all the puns that Mercutio makes in R&J? Or that Hamlet makes? there are a lot. Lots of references, lots of really perfect language where one word encompasses dozens of contextual meanings. How about Lord of the Flies? nearly everything in that book is a metaphor or a symbol.

Becuase thats what i do, and i can only speak for myself. So yes, i’ve gone beyond a mere reader, i dont just read the bible, i study it.

“And when believers can’t let go of the inconsistencies and nonsensical bits, there are theologians and apologists to explain it all away.”

Its not a matter of “letting go” its a matter of CHOOSING to believe it. There are also apologists for the government, and the president to explain his fuck ups away. Is the existance of the presidents fuck ups a fallacy?

“Too bad the stories we write don’t come with their own apologist to tell sharp readers they’re just too uninformed to understand that our flaws aren’t really lapses in storytelling, that the writer’s ways are not their ways, and that to question any of it will land them in hell.”

Serisouly, dude, i’m not trying to pick on you but you obviously have not read the bible, and if you have you have apparently NOT understood it. I suggest that you pick it up sometime becuase it really is an interesting read, from a literary standpoint. And you are really bitter towards chistians, did one of them put a tack in your chair? and why do you judge EVERY SINGLE CHIRSTIAN by what popular theory has taught you? I can tell you for a fact that the way most of the world — christian or otherwise — would define “christianity” is not even remotely factual.

I’m not totally disagreeing with you; there are wacko christians out there who read wayyyyy too into things and who go through a lot of meaningless motions or believe a lot of bullshit CHURCH DOCTRINE that many people mistake as biblical fact. But seriously, do some of your own legwork and stop believing hearsay.

Sorry for this HUGE post, patrick, but… ykno… i gotta do what i can, ykno?

If a reader makes the initial suspension of disbelief and buys into the fictional world you created, then should no further suspension of disbelief be required? Sure, you should respect the reader as a partner in the experience, but it’s your world and you get to decide to a certain degree what’s consistent or plausible. Is something out of character? Well, it was until you redefined the character with the new bit of information. Or what if the point is to create a narrator who’s nonsensical and inconsistent—a story told by a madman?

Getting back to religion, Christianity claims their diety is omnipotent and that his ways are not our ways. Well, right off the bat that takes away the reader’s right to declare anything the deity might do nonsensical or inconsistent (or immoral). In fact, that’s the intent of some branches of Christianity, to take human judgments out of the equation. God says _______________. Like it or lump it.

But the Christian story, having established an omnipotent deity, throws in the idea of a redeemer. Why the third party? Why doesn’t God just forgive us directly since he is able? Why doesn’t Superman just fly?

Christianity makes its deity omnibenevolent, but then inserts the idea of believers needing to beg and badger God with prayers to get him to cough up some of that benevolence.

Then there’s the God who created imperfect humans and then would punish them for being imperfect.

And yet Bible readers accept inconsistencies like these in the story because they’ve gone way beyond being mere readers. And when believers can’t let go of the inconsistencies and nonsensical bits, there are theologians and apologists to explain it all away. Too bad the stories we write don’t come with their own apologist to tell sharp readers they’re just too uninformed to understand that our flaws aren’t really lapses in storytelling, that the writer’s ways are not their ways, and that to question any of it will land them in hell.

Besides, the only way a story can “prove” anything is if it’s internally consistent. Like the idea that Superman can fly. Hobbits have hair on there toes. Animals can talk. These ideas are sheer nonsense. But once you accept one of these ideas, you can’t put Superman in a situation where he could just solve his problem by flying and not have him fly. They’ll be on it in a minute.

If that were always true, would there be any religion? It’s easy to tell a nonsensical, internally inconsistent story if the listener/reader really really wants it to be true.

Only recently discovered HtSiE whilst slumming on podiobooks.com. I love this series.. devoured all the episodes in two days! Please keep the episodes coming as my evil tutelage has just begun.

In Evil we trust,
Carmen

And, by the way, How to Succeed is the wittiest thing I’ve seen in a long time.

“This process of producing a book cost a fair amount of money. Johann Fust, who had helped finance Gutenberg, foreclosed on the loan in November 1455 and locked him out of the print shop once the process was refined. This act prevented Gutenberg from selling the books, which had comsumed five years of his life’s work and which was only a few months from completeion. Pete Schoffer, Gutenberg’s assistant, was brought in as a partner to Fust to manage the press. Together they finished printing approximately 180 Bibles and made a fortune once the Bibles were signed and sold the following August.”
~~”A Typographic Workbook” by Kate Clair and Cynthia Busic-Snyder

So, it just goes to show you….

something, I guess…

Gutenburg’s genius was two-fold. He discovered the alloy that melted at a low enough temperature, but expanded just enough as it cooled to make a completely clear character image. He also invented the recipie for the ink that would stick to the top of the characters without running off before he could get the paper on it.

Besides, even if the Chineese did have it first, it wasn’t them that pulled the Western world out of the dark ages. The credit for that, I think, rests squarely with Johannes G