BilmBlog500

Many of you have maybe read about the Google settlement.  In the "better to beg forgiveness than ask permission" kind of way, Google went to many big college libraries, got their OK to start digitizing their entire collections, and then the publishers and authors go to Google and say maybe you should have spoken to us before you started to do this.  The upshot is that Google has already scanned the books and the settlement would allow Google to do pretty much as it pleases with them with authors having the right to opt out and with Google forking over around 2/3 of the money it gets to publishers and/or authors as the case may be for the money it makes.  Some people have objected to this very strongly.  In order to determine who gets the money, the masters of the Book Registry the settlement establishes may have to look at contracts to see who has electronic rights, so it starts up a new Big Brother with rights to peer into all of our agreements.  The court sets Google up wit...

So I'm looking over a change in account terms for my AmEx card and see some new language on telephone communication. If I call AmEx from any # for any reason, they want to consider this to be permission to inundate that phone # with "special marketing offers."  It can be my land line.  Or my cell line.  It can be a friend's phone # or a relative's phone # if I'm traveling and my card stops working while I'm visiting John-Boy Bilmes.  "any number you give us or from which you call us, including mobile phones."  They can call.  They can send me text messages.  They make it very clear that I "agree to pay any fees or charges you incur for incoming calls or text messages without reimbursement." Furthermore, I can't ask them if they call to remove me from their calling list.  Oh no, the only way to do this is to go and log on to their web site.  That way, I can stop getting phone calls only if I give them my e-mail address.  Then they ca...

I had a great time last year taking the high ro ad , so I wanted to do another English Country Walk on this year's trip to London.  The ruler of the walk David Wenk was kind enough to swap the scheduled walks for the weekend so that I would be able to do my preferred walk to Bodiam Castle onthe Saturday. We met up at the London Bridge station to take the train out to Robertsbridge.  It's also possible to take that train from Charing Cross or Waterloo East, but this gives a few extra minutes.  David and I were joined by a Czech and a Slovak who David knew.  When we detrained at Robertsbride I did an extra side walk to recycle some newspapers at this beautiful bin. We then headed off into Robertsbridge proper where we stopped in at a small used bookstore on the high street, and then we headed off into the countryside.  Passing along the site of an abandoned rail right of way which some  volunteers are hoping to return to service for a tourist steam train I snapped this nice pi...

The past couple of years for my London Book Fair trip I'd taken Eos to London , one of the three business-class only airlines across the Atlantic that went belly-up from late 2007 thru summer 2008, Eos just a couple of weeks after I got back last year.  This year I flew business on Delta, choosing them largely because they were offering a 5PM flight back for the price other airlines charged for the 10AM return from Heathrow.  The late departures are very popular with the road warriors who can do a full day of business in London and then head home and the airlines charge accordingly (though now it looks like they're happy to take less money than you might think any time of the day or night; I'm checking American right now and finding what a year ago would have been shockingly low prices if I wanted to go back to London in June). Delta seems to have taken lessons on schedule updates from Amtrak, which has this nasty habit of pretending that a NYC to DC train won't be dela...

T he Voyager imprint at HarperCollins UK has been getting behind Peter V. Brett's THE PAINTED MAN in the nicest possible way, and their paperback edition went on sale with a really big push with perfect timing for me to admire while I was over this past week for London Book Fair.  The picture on the right was taken at the Borders UK flagship store on Oxford Street, and a similar display was at the Borders in Islington as well.  The picture on the left comes from the Waterstone's flagship store at Picadilly Circus, where we could see the number of copies on the display slowly dwindle over the course of our week in London.  It's a great book, available in the US under the title the WARDED MAN, and Peter just got big press in the Daily News and on the local cable news channel. In other bookstore notes, Borders UK which was sold in a leveraged buyout a while back is no longer using the Borders US inventory system, so I wasn't able to read inventory stickers on this trip.  ...

A few minutes before our first London Book Fair appointment.  The Green & Blacks mini-bars are ready for visitors, the catalogs are stuffed, the table is in readiness, and I don't get to move for the next 9 hours.  Let the great adventure begin!

The Cripple of Inishman, seen Sunday afternoon January 11, 2009 at the Atlantic Theater (NY) Mainstage,  2 slithy toads. Reasons To Be Pretty, seen Saturday afternoon April 11, 2009 at the Lyceum Theatre, 3 slithy toads. Irish playwright Martin McDonagh has written one of the best plays I've ever seen, The Pillowman, which I like enough to have seen once in London, twice in NY, and once in DC, and will happily go to again if given the opportunity.  Let me know if it's playing on a stage near you, and we can do an outing.  This year he received he an Acadamey Award nomination for his very pleasant comedy In Bruges.  At the dawn of his career, he wrote The Cripple of Inishman, which was first presented in NYC ten years ago in a production that was not admired, and which now returns in a production first presented at Ireland's Druid Theatre, and which was received quite rapturously.  Enh.  Meh. McDonagh's plays specialize often in cruelties of a sort, and the Cripple is in...

I Love You, Man.  Seen Sunday afternoon April 12, 2009 at the Regal UA Kaufman Astoria 14, Auditorium #6.  2 slithy toads. Sunshine Cleaning, Seen Sunday afternoon April 12, 2009 at the Regal UA Kaufman Astoria 14, Auditorium #8.  1.5 slithy toads. It's been a busy time of year and I wanted to do some relaxing stuff over the weekend to kind of recharge before the more busy-ness of getting ready for and heading off to London Book Fair.  I wish I could have done better than these two OK comedies. Let's do Sunshine Cleaning first, becauses that at least is a movie I'll remember.  For the wrong reasons, but I'll remember it.  Amy Adams has been generally delightful in almost every role she's been in beginning with the little indie movie Junebug a few years ago, and including an Oscar nomination for Doubt and the lead role in Enchanted.  Here, she's charming us as Quirk #1 in a 4-Quirk family.  Her dad is played by Adam Arkin, so of course he'll be quirky.  Her s...

With business becoming more successful, my current 1BR has gotten more and more "cozy."  When Steve Mancino, Myke Cole and Peter V. Brett helped paint 2+ years ago in part of it and I threw out a lot of stuff in the process of moving things around and back into place, I'd guessed that gained me another 2 years of comfortable enjoyment.  With that 2-year clock ticking, I started looking at 2BR seriously last summer and came very close to buying a really nice one right in my own building.  But after having an accepted offer, another buyer came in a week later offering $4K more and 50% down, and my dreams were short-lived.  Nothing to be done about it really.  Even though I had a sense that True Blood would put more money in my pocket this spring, it's not a good idea to buy real estate with money you hope to have in eight months. I picked up the search again several weeks ago when a quiet time for my JABberwocky existence gave me a little house-hunting time, and I had ...