The Christmas Commute

The holidays can always be a little hectic. Tourists are out and about, shoppers are everywhere, and the crazies are all up in your face. Every time a year begins to come to its close, there is a resurgence of persons who all want you to "repent you sins" or "prepare to meet your god" because "the end is near."

They're in the subway stations, blocking exits. They're on the trains, yelling in your ears. And they're on the streets, causing roadblocks. And yet, as Mr. Bennett would say, I am unmoved.  Whether it's Catholic propaganda or weird religious cult propaganda or just crazy people propaganda, you're not gonna sell me on it. I don't know what it is about opening a new calendar that scares the crap out of these people, but they are convinced that the world will end when that clock strikes midnight, and that judgement day is upon us. I've got news for ya, pal: I'm already judging you. And I'm mentally hosing you down the sidewalk ahead of me to clear myself a path between the already superfluous tourists.

A lot of these folks wear weird costumey attire that they seem to claim is religious (I exclude the guy wearing the pharaohesque headgear in Times Square - he's trying to sell tickets to the Tut exhibit, not tickets to heaven. Maybe I judge these crazy people a little too harshly. Perhaps I should see them as really wonderful people who are just trying to save my immortal soul from the fiery depths of Hell. And maybe if my belief system involved a patriarchal male chauvinistic world view in which hatred is bad but hatred of that which is not papally approved is not bad, and in which autonomy is overruled by an equally patriarchal heavenly monarchy that will someday pass down judgment from on high, giving pie in the sky to some and hellish torture in some invisible place to others...then yeah, maybe I would appreciate that. Unfortunately for these would-be prophets, I think they're mostly bat-shit crazy and some are even quite scary in their lecturing. Especially in the confines of a closed train car.

Fortunately for me, I usually manage to get out of the city for Christmas. Florida, for the most part, is cool and calm and I have no need to fear being trapped in an enclosed space with a scary preacherman. But the airports are another thing. For one, when you travel alone, you have no idea who you're going to end up sitting next to. I'm usually very lucky in my lot, and can sleep through any on-plane insanity. But getting TO and then THROUGH the airport is another mess entirely. Not so many prophets and preachers, but this time of year there are a LOT of families and I have to wonder if these groups of loose resemblance are stupid, or perhaps have just never flown in the last 9.5 years since 9/11.

Fact: When you go through security, you must remove your shoes and place them in a bin and send 'em on through via the conveyor belt.
Fact: Most TSA agents will also ask that you remove sweaters, sweatshirts, hoodies, jackets, coats, hats, etc.
Fact: If you're carrying a laptop computer (or, nowadays, an ipad or ebook reader) you must place it in a bin by itself and place that on the conveyor belt.
Fact: the TSA now has restrictions on the amount of liquid you can bring through security (this includes NO SNOWGLOBES).

All of these facts are clearly stated on the TSA website, and on your airport's website (here, JFK International). Even if you're coming from another country (let's say you're from Mexico and you're flying on Aeromexico) you can check your airline's website in your own language and (in the case of Aeromexico) there are links for Qué puedes llevar and Artículos Restringidos. (For the record, you can access Aeromexico's site in English, Spanish (Mexico), French, Spanish (Spain), Japanese and Chinese).

With all of these resources, you would think a family of four would be prepared. Not. I get it....kids can be difficult. What I don't get is the parents who just ignore the rules entirely. Meanwhile, there I stand behind them in line: pushing my boots along the ground in my socked feet, jacket and sweater sitting somewhere around my elbows in preparation for being pulled off completely, scarf and gloves and cell phone and ipod all tucked into my purse, and laptop in-hand, ready to be tossed into a bin of its own.

MCO (Orlando International Airport, formerly McCoy Airforce Base...or something. I don't know. Read the Wikipedia article), when it's not as busy, has separate lines for different types of travelers i.e. your single business person who has a laptop bag and a jacket, then your family group, then a separate line for those needing special assistance. JFK has no such thing. Everyone is lumped into the same line, even if I'm ready before the 8 families in front of me. Not fun.


But less fun than an airport security line is Times Square the day before New Year's Eve. I returned to New York on Tuesday (on a VERY delayed flight, with bruises in my side thanks to the bitch I sat next to...sometimes my lot isn't so good) and today I decided to walk from my office on 39th street to the American Eagle store in Times Square, at 46th street. The seven-block walk took me 25 minutes thanks to the crowds.

Part of the issue was the leftover snow. Times Square employees were working to clear the curbs of mountains of snow, which forced the majority of the pedestrian traffic to bottleneck in the worst places. A second issue was The Naked Cowboy who, on this not too terribly cold day, was out and about doing his thing, creating a massive crowd on one corner that did not need more people standing there. I love me some Naked Cowboy, and I hope he got a lot of tips today, but it was kind of the last thing I needed. A final issue was the set-up for the NYE festivities. Since the midsection of Times Square was blocked with barricades and platforms, there was less space for people to be meandering around.

But far and above all of these perfectly natural causes was the stupidity of the people around me. I'm sure that I'm being harsh and that they're not all "STUPID" but I take pride in my ability to navigate a crowd, to forge a path, and to keep walking. I could not have moved faster through this crowd unless I had killed at least 6 people. Namely, the family of actually stupid women who were in front of me a good part of the time, who seemed completely oblivious to every other person around them, and who felt that, in the middle of the block, between a wall and a newsstand, where the bottlenecking crowd was tight, and where children were likely to get trampled, that RIGHT THERE was a good spot to stop, consult a map, turn around, and take pictures of the unlit ball currently awaiting its midnight fall.

I don't know where these people come from, but I'm officially boycotting Times Square until at least April. I just can't do it. On the walk back to the office, a similar group of assumed morons stopped in the middle of 42nd street (and I mean in the middle of the street) to take similar pictures. Is there no end to this commuter's nightmares?

The Times Square Bathroom Situation

From The Literary Gothamite:
____________________________________________________________________
It's happened to many of us. You're walking in or around Times Square - maybe just after work, or just after dinner, just after a movie, whatever - and you suddenly realize that maybe you should have used the facilities where you were last. But you didn't. And now you're in the middle of the big bad city, and you have got to go.

This has happened to me a few times - a matter of bad judgment, really - and so when I'm in a bind, praying that I don't wet myself, I know just where to go based on where I am at that moment.

Last night (Tuesday night) was very mild, very comfortable, so I decided to walk through Bryant Park after work. I had just gotten to 42nd Street, by the subway entrance between 7th & Broadway, when I realized the items in my shoulder bag had shifted, and were hitting my arm uncomfortably, so I stopped under the scaffolding to adjust. That's when I noticed a young woman (and obvious tourist, too) approach the NYPD Officer standing just a few feet away from me.

I heard her ask him where the nearest restroom was. His response was to look baffled, peer around in a few different directions, squint at her and say "there are no public restrooms." I could have smacked him. Instead I tapped the woman on the arm and directed her to what I believed the nearest restroom to be. It turns out there was one closer, but it had just opened and I didn't know about it until after I'd directed her.

Seriously, though? A cop standing in the midst of Times Square and claiming not to be aware of any bathrooms? Fail. BIG Fail. This is very useful information to have (and I don't have all of it, but I have quite a bit), so I'm going to share it with you now: where to find a bathroom in midtown Manhattan.

Note: if you're in the city and know of a public/free/cheap restroom - feel free to comment!

Starting at the bottom of the map: 

A. Manhattan Mall - There's a big 'ole JC Penny there now, and yes, there's a restroom (not *in* the JC Penny, but on Level 2, the next level above street level)! No purchase necessary!
B. Macy's - Restrooms are noted on the floor plans - definitely no purchase necessary.
C. Penn Station - It's not pretty, and you may wanna bring your own toilet paper, but these restrooms are well-monitored (for homeless people and sexual predators) and sometimes there's a line, but a bathroom's a bathroom. 

D. Lord & Taylor - Immaculate public restrooms. 
E. The Mid-Manhattan Library - you don't even need a library card to use the restrooms, which are on the 2nd, 3rd and 5th floors. The 2nd floor ones are usually locked, so I just go automatically to the 3rd floor (they're to the right when you get off of the elevators).
F. Grand Central Terminal - There are restrooms on both ends of the food court/concourse downstairs.
G. Bryant Park - on 42nd street, right behind the New York Public Library - small, but convenient.

H. Stitch - I only recommend this one if you're willing to purchase an alcoholic beverage. Stop by the bar as you walk in and order your drink, then head for the restroom across the way on the first floor. 
I. McDonalds - I really don't recommend this one, but if you're in a fix, it's there. 
J. Charmin - Charmin just opened this Times Square location. I haven't been in yet, but it's decorated with clouds and bears who look like they've really gotta go. And the staff are dressed up in lab coats, as if they're taking down scientific data about your Charmin experience, but really they're just glorified bathroom attendants.
K. Times Square subway station - this is great if you're in the middle of a commute. The restrooms are located near the elevator between the I-2-3 and the N-Q and S. Note: the station connects to the Port Authority, where there are also public restrooms on the concourse level.
K.5. (Because i forgot to label it before I started adding letters) Toys R' Us - only if you're brave enough to withstand children with idiot parents. Take the escalators up to the second floor and look for the signs indicating customer service/gift wrapping/restrooms - no purchase is necessary - also, no children are necessary.
L. Marriot Marquis Hotel - My favorite Times Square bathroom. Enter the hotel lobby via the revolving doors OR through the Starbucks, and take the escalator up to the 2nd floor OR take the elevators up to the 8th floor shopping concourse. Both levels have public restrooms.
M. I'm not sure what to call this, nor do I absolutely recommend that you use the bathroom here - it's a food court of sorts located at 705 8th Avenue, between 44th and 45th, and at any point in time it could have a Pizza Hut, a Church's Chicken, a Chinese place, a Juice Bar, a Nathan's Hotdogs, and an Arthur Treachers ALL in the one place...and they have a tiny little dirty bathroom through the back and down the hall...
N. Rockefeller Center - their public shopping concourse comes with public restrooms!
O. M&M World - no purchase necessary, but expect to purchase something...it's M&M World for gods' sake. Restrooms are on the top level. 
P. Bamboo 52 - This is another one where you may need to put in an order for a beverage and then hit the bathroom. Good news - they have edamame, and they're not terribly pricey. 

Q. D.J. Reynolds - Definitely plan to order a drink, here. They've recently classed the place up slightly - and by that, I mean the prices have gone up - and they're not too keen on freebies. 
R. Time Warner Center - There are 3 restrooms - 1) Whole Foods - basement level, hang a left when you get off of the escalator and circle through the dining area - bathrooms will be on the left, 2) Borders - 2nd floor of the TWC, right in front of you off of the escalators, and the restroom is inside the store - hang a right directly after the cafe, 3) TWC restrooms - go to the second floor and once off the escalator head North-ish towards Sephora, but stay to your left. A mall-restroom-like hallway will appear to your left.


I hope this helps!

Subway Journal: Overheard

I turned off my iPod as we approached the Parkchester station, wanting to make sure that I heard the PA system, just in case the train on the opposite side of the platform would be leaving first. Apparently, these two people had struck up a conversation a few minutes beforehand, and I was lucky(?) enough to hear the tail end of it. This was a latina woman with gorgeous dark brown hair done up, dressed for the office, and then a taller, white-ish, tattooed, dirty (there was actually dirt ON HIS SKIN), clean clothes and backpack though, and dirty greasy hair).

Man: So what did you do during the summer?
Woman: Well, I didn't want to really stop teaching, so I worked with this program that kind of assists young people who don't have a lot of opportunities, takes them to museums and things like that. 
M: Oh, cool. That's awesome!
W: Yeah, we--you know the Shakespeare in the Park?
M: Oh yeah yeah yeah I've been there. I used to sell tickets for them. 
W: Oh neat! Yeah, we took them to there, which was really cool, because the kids, you know, they don't get to see stuff like that. 
M: Awesome! Yeah the stuff there was really cool this year! Did you see-uh-Merchant of Venice or um...uh....what was....I don't remember what the other one was. Uh. Merchant...there was Merchant of Venice and um....Oh right the Winter Story.
W: Riiiight...no we didn't um, we didn't get to actually see a show there, but they did the tour and they got to see like behind the scenes and like see what it was about. 
M: Oh that's too bad, you didn't get to see...cuz the tickets...the tickets are free there, aren't they? 
W: I..........don't really know.
M: Yeah I think...I think they are. Yeah it's too bad. Um....the uh...
W: Wasn't someone famous in one of them?
M: YEAH! Al Pacino was in the uh Merchant and he played...oh crap the character's name is on the tip of my tongue....Aw man, I totally know it...he played...well so he lends - SHYLOCK! That's his name. Right, because they call him "shy shylock." So yeah Shylock lends this guy money to uh marry the woman of his dreams, and basically he's trying to get him to pay him back and the guy's like oh not right now, and oh later, and stuff, and so Shylock basically says well fine, you took too long, so now I want a pound of flesh! That's where that term came from - a pound of flesh - see he wanted...that's gross, right? That Shakespeare, he was a gruesome guy...the modern day Steven King, you might say 
W: Pretty gross!
M: Yeah that Shakespeare...he always wrote tragedies...or maybe it was comedies. One or the other. 
W: Yeah.
M: So we should get coffee sometime, I could tell you about my book, and we could talk more Shakespeare. 
W: Ah....um, I really shouldn't...
M: What--teachers aren't allowed to have coffee?
W: N--
M: Or is it books? Not allowed to drink coffee and read at the same time? 
W: No, I--
M: Or maybe it's drinking coffee, and reading, and talking about romance all at the same time.
W: No, I ah...it's another guy...is what it is. 
M: OOHhhhhhhh yeah that would uh....that WOULD cause problems.

Entitlement and the E-brake

Entitlement
It comes in various forms. From shouting your religious opinions to everyone in your subway car, to screaming at a customer service rep because they're not giving you what you want as a matter of policy, to jumping ahead of 900 people in line for a bus.

To those who shout their opinions, religious or not (I once had to hear a guy scream on a platform at 125th street about how the government covered up the real "Jurassic Park"), I say this: the only people to whom you are getting through are the ones who share your opinions. No one likes to be screamed at, especially at 8AM on the subway, underground, stalled between Hunts Point Ave and Longwood Ave. It's claustrophobic enough as it is, and no one wants you in their face before the coffee takes effect. It's not just the mornings, though. It's all the time.

I'm not standing in the middle of a subway car screaming my opinion of you. That's why I have a blog. That's why I use social networks. That's why sane people use flyers and advertisements. So don't stand in front of me screaming about how I have to let your god into my heart or else I'm damned like all of my fellow Americans. Honestly, given the choice between eternal damnation in whatever hell you've concocted in your head, and being screamed at by some psychopath on a mission, I'll take hell.

To those who scream at customer service reps because your personal wealth is equal to 100,000 times what I will make in my lifetime, congratulations. Now go clean up the oil spill in the gulf, and maybe then I'll make an exception for your self-entitled worshipfulness who was too busy to call and cancel their reservation within the time stipulated in the policy.

As to that line jumping business, I experienced that just today. I was at the beach and at 6pm they closed the water and told everyone to be on a bus by 7pm. Well there were 5,000 people there and everyone got on line for the bus, but the line at any given moment was 5 or 6 people deep and stretched almost all the way back to the boardwalk. The entire way, one of the women behind me was screaming to her family that if someone tried to jump her family in the line and get ahead of them, she would throw down. Pleasant. I get it - it was a warning. It didn't work, but it was a warning.

As we approached the entrance to the terminal (which is a fenced off single file queue space), a matriarch from at least 10 families behind us pushed her way up and ended up directly in front of me. There had already been a fight further up in the line when this happened, the police were involved, and I just wasn't in the mood to get into it. Honestly, if you're that desperate to get ahead, by all means. We'll probably be on the same bus, but I have no plans so you go on with your bad self.

The screamer behind me didn't even say anything. But one of her family members crept up to cut off the end of the jumping group and as she pushed forward, the mass behind me pushed into her and I was pushed into. Not cute. Don't push me. That's how riots start, that's how things get ugly. Do not fucking push me. I will push you back.

So anyway we get over towards the bus, another fight breaks out - and this one's ugly. Women from one family beating women from another family over the head with coolers. And while the police focused on that, I watched as 6 people leaped over the fence and cut the line ahead of them. Seriously? C'mon guys. It's a bus. The cops are there, the MTA will continue running buses until everyone is on one and you can go home. All it takes is a little patience, a little grace, and a little understanding of the fact that not everyone else will have those same qualities.

The E-Brake
When I worked ride & show at Universal Studios (Twister) one of the first things they taught you was to not pull the e-brake. It was this bright red button. I think you had to pull it, not push it. At least I'm pretty sure. If you pulled that brake in the middle of the attraction (the main show part of it) the whole thing would stop, it would have to reset, techs would be called, first aid might get called, and we'd be down for a good 40 minutes. The only time you pull that shit is if it looks like the cow is gonna swing off of her cabling and fall into the audience. Well, that and if the fire on the set for some reason doesn't go out and spreads....or if someone is dying. Even in the health cases though, we usually were told to call it in and let the show go on.

Subways have that emergency brake, too. And people sure do love pulling it. Especially on the 6 train. One time it was pulled and we were about 6 inches out of the station. Literally. The doors closed, the engine started again, we felt the car shift, and we stopped abruptly. At least I was sitting down and we weren't going fast. The next time it happened, we were between stations. And it was pulled when we were movin along. Stopped short. I was standing against a railing, and good thing, too because everyone went flying. No one seemed hurt, but people fell to the ground, coffee went everywhere, it was a mess.

The other day I was snoozing on the uptown 6 train ride after work and was awakened by the fact that the door next to me (between cars) was opening and closing. Everyone in my car was migrating to the next. My first thought was smelly homeless person. My next thought was oh god do I smell? My realization was that we had stopped and that it wasn't just my car, but all of the 8 cars behind it pushing through to the next car. Apparently, a train leaving 125th street had the e-brake pulled when there was half of a car left in the station. As a result, we couldn't pull fully on to the platform.

The train in front of us had emptied everyone out via that last door that could access the station. They had pulled our train up and were emptying all of us onto that same platform via the front door. Two subway train-fulls of commuters on the platform, and a 5 train pulling in across the way. It was 40 minutes before anything got moving. I don't understand why people do it. Is it like pulling the fire alarm - just for kicks? Is it malicious, in the hopes that someone will hit their head and die? Is there a mental disease that focuses on inconveniencing everyone around oneself?

And if the e-brake IS meant to only be used in an emergency, why is it accessible by everyone? What exactly is an appropriate emergency in which to use this thing? Perhaps, like many fire alarms, it should be encased in breakable glass. The perps might be easier to catch, then. Food for thought.

A Disney girl with a New York City commute

 Having grown up in central Florida, it is necessarily true that I've seen my fair share of theme parks; though "fair share" hardly tells the truth. We had annual passes to Disney World. We were there all the time. My mother made a business of it. As a result, we spent even more time there. By the time I left for college, I was jaded beyond belief. Yet, also necessarily, being the girl from Orlando now living in New York, one is required to answer all questions about all things Disney for all persons who've never been there. As a result, being away from it all has made the heart, of course, fonder.

It's in my head: the shows, the street music, the queue music; it's constantly playing in my head. Most constantly in my head - "Two Brothers," a song of the American Civil War featured in EPCOT's "The American Adventure." To appease my neuroses, I downloaded 3 different versions of the song from iTunes - a version by Shelby Flint (album: Shelby Flint Sings Folk), a version by Harry Belafonte (album: The Very Best of Harry Belafonte), and (my personal favorite of the three) a version by Ethel Raim and Ronnie Gluck (album: Songs of the Civil War).

But now, today, I can go a little further. I was determined to find the version featured in the show at EPCOT. I had no idea who the singer was, and I wasn't sure how to classify it. I had the option, of course, of ripping the audio from a poorly recorded video on Youtube, but the quality is pretty bad. I knew that I could troll some of the Disney boards and, surely, some Disney forum addict would know all the answers to all of my questions. But it turns out I didn't really need that.

 On Google, I searched "two brothers" and disney and american adventure. One of the first few links was a Wikipedia link which, as it turns out, did manage to tell me that someone named Ali Olmo (who, if I've done my research correctly, is also credited as Rita in the Spanish dubbing of Oliver & Company) sang the song for the EPCOT attraction, but that was really all it was going to tell me. One or two links below that was a link to a Radio Disney Forum where the song was being discussed. In that forum, I found a link here, to the sounds page of www.disneyworldfanatic.com. We have arrived.

Here are direct feeds and excellent live recordings that, for all intents and purposes, could narrate a film about my childhood. Thanks to this website, I can now play the soundtrack for the monorail while I'm on the train to work; I can ride the train home to the tune of Jeremy Irons narrating Spaceship Earth, or Paul Frees narrating The Haunted Mansion; I can walk to the tune of the Electric Light parade or SpectroMagic (which plays almost more dominantly in my head than "Two Brothers" and I'm not sure why). I know that some of these have been featured on the Sountracks of the Parks, but on none of those soundtracks will you find the entire audio recording of The American Adventure, Horizons and Star Tours.


I'm a dork. A bona fide Disney dork. And I'm in Disney dork heaven.

In E-Book Era, You Can't Even Judge A Cover

by Motoko Rich

Bindu Wiles was on a Q train in Brooklyn this month when she spotted a woman reading a book whose cover had an arresting black silhouette of a girl’s head set against a bright orange background.

Ms. Wiles noticed that the woman looked about her age, 45, and was carrying a yoga mat, so she figured that they were like-minded and leaned in to catch the title: “Little Bee,” a novel by Chris Cleave. Ms. Wiles, a graduate student in nonfiction writing at Sarah Lawrence College, tapped a note into her iPhone and bought the book later that week.

Such encounters are becoming increasingly difficult. With a growing number of people turning to Kindles and other electronic readers, and with the Apple iPad arriving on Saturday, it is not always possible to see what others are reading or to project your own literary tastes.

You can’t tell a book by its cover if it doesn’t have one.

“There’s something about having a beautiful book that looks intellectually weighty and yummy,” said Ms. Wiles, who recalled that when she was rereading “Anna Karenina” recently, she liked that people could see the cover on the subway. “You feel kind of proud to be reading it.” With a Kindle or Nook, she said, “people would never know.”

Among other changes heralded by the e-book era, digital editions are bumping book covers off the subway, the coffee table and the beach. That is a loss for publishers and authors, who enjoy some free advertising for their books in printed form: if you notice the jackets on the books people are reading on a plane or in the park, you might decide to check out “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” or “The Help,” too.

“So often when you’re thinking of a book, you remember its cover,” said Jeffrey C. Alexander, professor of cultural sociology at Yale. “It’s a way of drawing people through the visual into reading.”
In the bookstore, where a majority of sales still take place, covers play a crucial role. “If you have already passed that hurdle of having a customer be attracted to the cover, and then they pick up the book,” said Patricia Bostelman, vice president for marketing at Barnes & Noble, “an enormous battle has been won.”

But it’s a victory that will be harder to eke out if no one can tell whether you’re reading “War and Peace” or “Diamonds and Desire.”

Perhaps no other element of the book-making process receives as much input from as many different people as the jacket. First, a creative director comes up with an idea. (How about this image of an apple?) Then the book’s editor, author and agent have a look. (Can we enlarge the font size on the author’s name? And wasn’t an apple used for that book about vampires? This book isn’t about vampires.) The publisher of the imprint gets involved. (Vampires sell. I like the apple.) The sales force makes comments. (Isn’t there an economics angle? How about an apple with an orange inside? That’s worked before.) Even booksellers have an opinion. (What I really love on a cover is a pair of high heels.)

A good jacket is unlikely to save a bad book, of course. But in a crowded market, a striking cover is one advantage all authors and publishers want. To get a sense of the odds, in a random analysis of 1,000 business books released last year, Codex Group, a publishing consultant, found that only 62 sold more than 5,000 copies.

Even in the digital era, publishers believe that books need graphic representations — if only for the online marketing campaign. Regardless of the format, “they all seem to need what we know of as a cover to identify them,” said Chip Kidd, associate art director at Alfred A. Knopf. Mr. Kidd has designed more than 1,000 jackets for authors including Cormac McCarthy and James Ellroy.

The music industry went through a similar transition when digital music devices arrived, but it has pushed back by finding fresh ways to display CD cover art on the Web sites where the songs are bought and the iPod screens where they are played. Publishers have already had some experience tailoring book jackets for the digital world, since so many people now buy even their print copies online.

“We often get requests to make the type bigger,” said Mario J. Pulice, creative director for the adult trade division of Little, Brown & Company. “Because when it’s on Amazon, you can’t read the author’s name.”

As publishers explore targeted advertising on Google and other search engines or social networking sites, they figure that a digital cover remains the best way to represent a book.

Some readers expect makers of electronic devices to add functions that allow users to broadcast what they’re reading. “People like to show off what they’re doing and what they like,” said Maud Newton, a popular book blogger. “So eventually there will be a way for people to do that with e-readers.”

For now, many publishers are counting on the Facebook effect. “Before, you might see three people reading ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ on the subway,” said Clare Ferraro, president of Viking and Plume, imprints of Penguin Group USA. “Now you’re going to log onto Facebook and see that three of your friends are reading ‘Eat, Pray, Love.’ ”

Even avid online networkers rely on physical book covers in the real world. Heather E. Johnson, 32, who writes reviews on her blog, “Age 30+...A Lifetime of Books,” was recently at one of her son’s hockey games in Glen Burnie, a suburb of Baltimore, when she noticed a copy of Diana Gabaldon’s “Outlander” lying open on the bleachers.

When a friend returned to claim it, Ms. Johnson asked for an opinion. “She said it was fabulous,” Ms. Johnson recalled. As soon as Ms. Johnson got home, she moved the title up her “to be read” list.
“I don’t know that I would start a conversation with someone about something they were reading on an e-reader,” Ms. Johnson added. “It might not be something that they want anyone to know that they’re reading.”

Some digital publishers suspect that one of the reasons romance and erotica titles are so popular in electronic editions is because e-readers are discreet.

Book jackets, though, still matter.

Holly Schmidt, president of Ravenous Romance, an e-book publisher of romance and erotica, said that in one case the publisher was offering an anthology of stories about older women and younger men. The first version featured a digital cover image of a winsome woman. It barely sold any copies. The publisher put a new cover up online — this time showing the bare, muscular torsos of three young men — and sales took off.

The new cover “took a book that was pretty much a loser,” Ms. Schmidt said, “and made it into a pretty strong seller.”


The New York Times

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I know

I know

I don't post anymore. I suck. blah blah blah. I've had blogs floating around in my head for months that have never gotten written. Oh well. But I'm here. And I just wanted to share something.

This is a podcast from DIS featuring my mom talking about her business, Gifts of a Lifetime. She starts at about 19:20 and signs off at about 45:51. Enjoy!

PODCAST