learnandteachonline.com

I've been writing some fiction on my OPML blog, an experiment using paid posts as product placements within the story. (Except after doing it for a few days, my enthusiasm about the paid post aspect is waning.)

I'll be archiving the story here, using the Drupal book module.

Miss M responded to this morning's post about the West Wing characters by telling about a Slate story and podcast on other famous "Do it, already, willya" TV couples. I listened to it today. Only 10 minutes and worth a listen if you like this sort of thing.

Kate Aurthur, the Slate writer interviewed in the podcast, mentions Moonlighting and Cheers, too. I guesss Donna and Josh caused lots of people to think of these couples.

Guan Yang picked up on my Northanger Abbey reference, pleading the case for romance in response to my comment that I didn't like Catherine's hero worship of Henry.

Well, yeah, I know. It was romantic, and I wouldn't have a problem with the relationship at all had JA not stuck in her two cents about what was in Henry's mind. Had she left us alone to observe their behavior, I'd think they were perfectly sweet together, but she had to go and say that Henry loved her because she was so head-over-heels about him. Something's always bugged me about that.

I caught the new West Wing last night. (Did you know new episodes are replayed on Monday on Bravo?) I see what Dave was saying about Donna and Josh. I agree they shouldn't have done it. I guess what the story was trying to show is many people use sex to relieve stress or as a distraction, but I thought Josh and Donna were better than that.

Friends becoming more than friends is such a classic storyline, and such an audience pleaser when it's handled in a romantic way. This one could have been one of those perfect moments, and the producers wrecked it. I'm disappointed, but not overly so because I never felt the intense undercurrent with them that was so palpable with, say, Sam and Diane on Cheers, or Maddie and what was Bruce Willis's character on Moonlighting. Of Josh's love interests on the show, I think the one with the Mary-Louise Parker character had the most chemistry.

Maybe I never got with the Donna and Josh thing because it feels like mostly hero worship on her side, and that's no fun for me. I didn't like seeing it with Catherine Morland and Henry Tilney in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, and I don't like seeing it on the West Wing.

After commenting on my OPML blog yesterday about Les Orchard's brain dump post on outlining projects, I went off on a tear about Amadeus.

Mozart

When Les talks about not yet having committed to "paper" some of the work held in his brain, it reminded me of a scene in Amadeus. Simon Callow's character, who is producing The Magic Flute as a low-class vaudeville, demands the score and first is delighted to hear Mozart say it's finished. "Where is it?" he asks, and Mozart points to his head. "Here, it's up here," he explained. "Now it's all just scribbling. Scribbling and bibbling and bibbling and scribbling."

Not all of Amadeus was factual, but that aspect was, according to authoritative biographies. He was able to hear complete new works in his head, not just piano pieces or string quartets but full choral and orchestral pieces. Then it was only a matter of writing them down as though taking dictation.

The ability is shown or mentioned three or four times in the movie, the most thrilling one when he recruits Salieri to be his stenographer for the Requiem. Mozart is impatient that his nemesis can't scribble fast enough. That scene is an encapsulation of the whole plot of the movie (earlier a play): Salieri in obsessive and destructive awe of Mozart's complete originality. At one point Mozart describes that an instrument section (don't remember which) should map to a theme sung by the tenor section in the chorus. Salieri first doesn't even get it because it's so out of the box. Then you see the recognition dawn on his face. He sees what is meant. Beat. He's blown away by the genius of it. He's honored for the opportunity to be present at the creation, but all the while it's also about Mozart being what Salieri knows he never can be.

Can you tell I kind of like that movie? Now I want to watch it today. Want to come over?

I love my OPML blog. So much that I tend to post non-OPML things there. I'd just blog there exclusively, except that I want to find out more about what permanent hosting arrangements there will turn out to be.

I'll start trying to cross-post a few non-OPML items here. Ironically, Les sometimes has the same problem with a preference for posting to his OPML blog over his "real blog." I think part of the appeal is the ease of posting, and another part is the sense of community here. It's like a network of bloggers.

Couldn't sleep. An adaptation of an A.S. Byatt novella is on Encore. I'd never even heard of it. Looks odd and erotic. Angels and Insects.

Engadget has more on Origami. Turns out it's a teeny tablet PC that will run XP. Looking at the video I see now that it's quite a big larger than an Archos.

The Internet is wild with talk about it. I don't usually get that excited about gadgets but I think the physical scale is important for publishers. A device this size will make it possible for people to read books and longer articles while curled up in bed, or in my -- I mean, their -- big overstuffed armchair with a blankie. In other words, it's like a book.

You might argue that Origami and its inevitable sizealikes will fail because the RocketBook did. Rocket was just too early. Besides, it wasn't a PC in the bargain.

Think about it. The ability for a reader to take in actual paragraphs could change the nature of online content. All the best usability folks say people don't read online, they skim. Web writers have learned to say it short, preferably in quick sentences or bullets, but now that could all change.

Or more likely we'll evolve to having a continuum of content types for different device types and states of mind: starting from ultra simple and quick word and graphics for web pages viewed on cell phones... through a middle ground of essentially what we have today... up to copy prepared for leisurely digestion.

I'm getting visitors who find the site in Google searches on the new adaptation of Bleak House. That must mean there's a need for info about it. Maybe I'll put up a page of links. Would you participate in -- or just read -- a forum if I set one up? Or do you know of a discussion site that already has a good one going?

You can pre-order the video at pbs.org. Release date is Feb. 28. I put in pointers like this sometimes when I use an image or video clip; I figure it mitigates my "crime." We never had much trouble with copyright issues at Pemberley.com, the Jane Austen site I started but don't participate in anymore. I think if producers are smart they realize that fandom does nothing that doesn't spur sales. I mean think about it. How does a still photo from a TV mini series infringe on the series or tend to supplant the actual product? No, quite the opposite.

Along with the art director at work, I have been testdriving Adobe inDesign. Tonight I was looking for a long Word document to work with and in a search of all *.doc files on my hard drive I ran across a 1,029-page Word version of the text of Pride and Prejudice in 5"x5" pages with great big margins, yielding only a little dab of text on each page. Dated December 2004.

Now my question to me is: what was I doing? Novel in a little slide show? Wrong size for that novel on index cards idea from a long time ago. God knows. I'm intrigued.

On the inDesign front, I wonder how much longer it will be before Adobe integrates more of the Macromedia apps. inDesign to Dreamweaver would be nice. We use Quark at work now. I'm more at home with inDesign because it's reminiscent of PageMaker, which I used for a long time starting in 1986 on the Mac for a subscription newsletter I used to edit.