About vooks, digi-novels and hybrid books

You must have heard of it - the vook is here. A vook (video + book), also known as a digi-novel, combines videos with electronic text that can be read/viewed online or on an iPhone or iPod Touch. Simon & Schuster was the first publisher to for it with the release of four vooks.

Early September 2009, Anthony E. Zuiker (creator of the television series “CSI”) put the vook firmly on the map with his "Level 26: Dark Origins”. The novel is published on paper, as an e-book and in an audio version. Readers are invited to log on to a Web site to watch brief videos that flesh out the plot.
Brian Tart, publisher of Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Group USA, which released “Level 26,” said he wanted the book’s text to be able to stand on its own, but the culture demanded rethinking the format.
“Like everybody, you see people watching these three-minute YouTube videos and using social networks,” Mr. Tart said. “And there is an opportunity here to bring in more people who might have thought they were into the new media world.” Readers of “Level 26,” which Mr. Zuiker wrote with Duane Swierczynski, have mixed responses to what the publisher is marketing as a “digi-novel.”
“It really makes a story more real if you know what the characters look like,” commented Fred L. Gronvall in a review on Amazon.com. The videos, he wrote, “add to the experience in a big way.”
But another reviewer, posting as Rj Granados, wrote, “Do you really think cheesy video vignettes will IMPROVE the book?”

“Everybody is trying to think about how books and information will best be put together in the 21st century,” said Judith Curr, publisher of Atria Books, the Simon & Schuster imprint that is releasing the electronic editions in partnership with Vook, a multimedia company. She added, “You can’t just be linear anymore with your text.”

Another vook is “Embassy,” a short thriller about a kidnapping written by Richard Doetsch. It uses a video snippet that resembles a newscast reveals that the victim is the mayor’s daughter, replacing some of Mr. Doetsch’s original text. He said that the new editions should not replace the traditional book. He has written a forthcoming novel, “The 13th Hour,” that he thinks is too long to lend itself to the video-enhanced format. The new editions, he said, are “like dipping a novel into a cinematic pool and pulling it out and getting the best parts of each.”

Jude Deveraux, a popular romance author who has written 36 straightforward text novels, said she loved experimenting with “Promises,” an exclusive vook set on a 19th-century South Carolina plantation in which the integrated videos add snippets of dialogue and atmosphere. But the use of video clips to provide atmosphere, including fluttering shots of cernuous willows and Southern mansions don’t work so well. The text was produced separately from the videos, which makes the clips feel not only redundant, but distracting as well.

Not all authors are charmed by the idea. Some authors resent the idea of mixing mediums. Walter Mosley stated: “As a novelist I would never ever allow videos to substitute for prose. Reading is one of the few experiences we have outside of relationships in which our cognitive abilities grow, and our cognitive abilities actually go backwards when we’re watching television or doing stuff on computers.”

Personally, I like to snuggle to with an old-fashioned printed book. I love the smell and the sensation of turning pages. For me, video images would distract me - I like to use my own imagination to "picture" the story and its characters. I do see a future for vooks of the classics, such as "Ab Urbe Condita" and "La Chanson de Roland". Funny enough, I didn't see marketeers in the high-tech sector jump on it yet. A vook would be a great format for technical brochures and white papers and an amazing marketing tool.

Agassi’s amazing memoir collaborator

After reading the first chapter of “Open”, Agassi’s autobiography, I was amazed by the use of language. J.R. Moehringer paints a vivid picture of the painful memories of young Andre, using powerful prose. (The complementary first chapter can be found on BookArmy). For those of you not familiar with Moehriner, he is a Pulitzer Prize winner and wrote for the New York Times and Financial Times. He also wrote his own memoir “The Tender Bar” about his fatherless childhood that caught the eye of Agassi.

They started collaborating and taped 250 hours of sessions- a number any psychoanalyst would be jealous of. Moehringer was able to get inside Agassi’s head – not an easy thing to do. He read Freud, Jung and mythology to better understand the former tennis champ. Finding the right voice for telling the compelling story posed a challenge. Moehringer decided use the opposite of Bertrand Russell’s style and go for a stream of sentences in the present tense without any use of quotation marks.
The result is nothing short of stunning. To quote Janet Maslin of the New York Times: “The ease with which Mr. Moehringer slips into telling someone else’s story is both compelling and spooky”. I wholeheartedly agree – just read the first chapter.

You might wonder why Mr. Moehringer is not mentioned on the cover or on the title page. Before you draw wrong conclusions – it was Mr Moehringer’s own choice. To quote him: “The midwife doesn’t go home with the baby”.

That may be so, but Mr. Moehringer deserves accolades for giving Agassi such a powerful voice.

(Image courtesy of the New York Times)

Plain speaking, Aussie-style

Australians are known for their plain speaking, and their Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is no exception. Even post 9/11, many politicians are still bending backwards to be PC. Not so in the largest democracy Down Under.

Just look at the speech of Australia's PM below:

"IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT.

Take It Or Leave It. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali, we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians.

This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom.

We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese,Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society . Learn the language!

Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing, political push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.

We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us.

This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, 'THE RIGHT TO LEAVE'. If you aren't happy here then LEAVE. We didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted."

Whether you agree with his sentiments or not - isn't it just great to live in a part of the world where you are able to express your opinions and for others comment on it without the fear of prosecution (or worse)?

Reality Blurred

The fine line between reality and fiction becomes increasingly blurred. It's harder and harder to find out what is real, or what is staged for the tube viewers.

Striking examples include the infamous Balloon Boy, remember? Aptly named Falcon, the Heene boy was reported to be soared off in a balloon. The caper kept half of the globe glued to the TV screen, hoping that the boy would return safely to his (as it turned out) dysfunctional family. After a spellbinding moment when the landed balloon was empty of any life form (human or otherwise), Falcon turned up in the attic of his home. Proving the old movie adage "never work with kids and animals", he let slip during an CNN interview "you said we did it for the show". Turned out that his parents (who appeared on the reality show "Wife Swap") used the hoax to score their own reality show.

Then we were entertained by the "Tariq and Nichaele Salahi" -soap opera, remember, the couple who crashed Prez. Obama's first state dinner (and boasted about it on Facebook). The couple auditioned for Bravo's upcoming " the real housewives of DC" - but are reportedly not selected. They might get their day in court so to speak - they have been subpoenaed by the House Homeland Security Committee. Let's hope for them that Court TV will broadcast it.

And now we are mesmerized with the Tiger Wood-sage, that is brought to us via a slew of media 24/7. He was able to knock the Climate Summit in Copenhagen off the headlines. Who cares about global warming and depleted resources when you can gobble up info on Tiger's growing number of bimbos? It's the stuff reality shows and soap operas are made of - drama, illicit love trysts, medical emergencies, and large sums of money changing hands......

While children are being chastised (and pushed into therapy) for having an invisible friend, their parents are glued to their TV screen to find out more about scandals in real-time. The rest of the household, especially their teenage daughters, go on dreaming about vampires and werewolves.

It makes you wonder if your own little life is real or fiction...

The Astérix-phenomenon – how a little Gaul conquered the world

The US has Mickey, but the French gave the world Astérix. Fifty years ago, René Goscinny wrote and Albert Uderzo illustrated the first Astérix story for the magazine Pilote.

Half a century later, our favorite Gaul is still going strong. On 22 October, the 34th strip album in the series came out to celebrate: "Asterix and Obelix's birthday - The Gold Book".

You have to understand that comics are perceived differently in Europe than in the US. Especially the French and the Belgians take their Bandes Dessinées (BD, “drawn strips” or comic strip books) very serious indeed, and Astérix is part of this cultural heritage. In the last 50 years, 325 million Astérix strip albums have been sold in 107 languages.

What made our little Gaul such a success? It is based on the concept that modern-day France sees itself as beleaguered by the imperial forces of the US. So what better way to address this angst than by having a cunning little Gaul routinely and successfully outwitting and beating the cloddish forces of Caesar’s Rome?

Each comic book starts with “The year is 50 BCE and Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely. One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders.”
It makes anyone who had to read Julius Caesar’s “de bello Gallico” (in Latin, mind you!) in high school chuckle…. The stories poke gentle fun at other countries, including the UK, Belgium, Spain, Greece and Switzerland - to name just a few.

The original French text has wonderful name puns for the various Gaulish and Roman characters, usually ending in "ix" for the Gauls or "us" or "a". It was quite a struggle for translators to make sure the humor was not lost in translation. The chief Druid, who mixes the magic potion, is "Panoramix" in French, "Getafix" in the UK and "Readymix" or "Magicmix" in the US (localization is in overdrive here!). The village chief is "Abraracoucix" in French, "Vitalstastix" in the UK, and "Macroeconomix" in the US. The fishmonger's wife is "Ielosubmarine" (Yellow Submarine) in French and "Bacteria" in the UK and the US.

Astérix is a short, cocky, clever, and hyper-energetic Gallic leader. Sound familiar? No, he doesn’t have a tall, glamorous wife of Roman origin. But Astérix has become part of current French politics. François Fillon, the French Prime Minister, is a sworn enemy of Xavier Bertrand, the Minister of Labor. Fillon accuses Bertrand of bearing malicious tales to President Nicolas Sarkozy, and thus refers to him (in private) as "Tullius Detritus". (Tullius Detritus is a Roman agent, who can divide the best of friends and families with a couple of ill-chosen words).

You have to understand that Astérix was created in the time that Charles de Gaulle was the French president. He saw the world as La France vs. the Rest of the World. The idea of the Asterix creators was to gently mock this French insularity.

In a delicious twist of fate, Astérix became as much a global brand as Mickey did. Up till now, our village-dwelling, Roman-bashing Gaul is the only serious competitor of America’s favorite rodent, including his own theme park outside of Paris.

Even more ironic is the fact that these ultra-French characters were created by children of immigrants: Uderzo's parents were Italian and Goscinny, who passed away in 1977, came from a Polish-Jewish family.

Little Astérix, his faithful pal Obélix and their posse of friends were cooked up during a 30-minute brain-storming session in a council flat in Paris. Who would have known that they would conquer the world by resisting the Romans?

It looks like we will enjoy our Gauls for many years to come. Mr Uderzo sold rights to the series to the publishing conglomerate Hachette, and he has appointed three young artists to take over when he dies.

Astérix also gave birth to a wonderful urban myth. On April 1st 1993, the UK newspaper “The Independent” claimed that French and British archaeologists had unearthed the remains of Asterix's "indomitable" village on a headland near Lannion in northern Brittany. The excavations at Le Yaudet had uncovered coins marked with images of wild boar, the favorite food of Obélix. Although the newspaper later reported that it was an April Fool's joke, an urban legend was born. In 1999, the Collège de France, the country's most prestigious academic institution, asked the French archaeologist Patrick Galliou to give a talk on the dig – much to his amusement. He was mentioned in the spoof article as one of the archaeologists.

For the numerous fans all over the world (myself included) - happy L Astérix!

The fishy tale of the Israeli mermaid

Every summer, most of the time during August, an alien/monster/mythical creature-story pops up.

This year, we enjoyed two: the Israeli mermaid and the Mexican alien baby (more on that one in my next blog post). It was for surea nice break from the overexposed Michael Jackson story (although he sort of fits in the alien scheme of things….)

Let us concentrate for now on our elusive mermaid. She was spotted in the Bay of Haifa during sunset, jumping and doing all kinds of tricks before disappearing. Sound like your average dolphin to me!

However, the small town of Kiryat Yam (“sea resort” in English, located just North of Haifa in case you are too lazy to google it) was quick to offer a cool million US$ to anyone who can supply proof.

Nice PR stunt if I ever saw one and uncannily similar to the whole Loch Ness spiel.

SKY news (UK) and ABC (USA) featured the news, as did other global media. Of course, our mermaid is a comely young woman. Funny, there are never sightings of ugly old fat mermen…..Maybe they dwell in an elderly cave home somewhere at the bottom of the sea and are not allowed to swim out?

Eyewitness Shlomo Cohen claimed, "I was with friends when suddenly we saw a woman laying on the sand in a weird way. At first I thought she was just another sunbather, but when we approached she jumped into the water and disappeared. We were all in shock because we saw she had a tail." Wow, our Shlomi must have been heavily under the influence!

I am still trying to figure out how a fishtail-impaired creature can jump up and dive into the sea in a New York minute. She must be one hell of an athlete, that one!

Strangely enough, our Shlomo did not take a pic with him mobile phone – a standard accessory for almost all Israelis. Pity, it would have made him an instant millionaire. May be he didn’t follow through due to the old Scottish joke (when two fishermen caught a mermaid, one of them immediately threw her back into the water. When asked “why”? he responded “how?”)

While the main media are debating the issue, the Weekly World News had the best coverage on this fishy subject. They quoted one resident as saying, “we are so shocked that they have begun showing up here. They usually observe below the surface, but we think this year they may be looking to spend the holidays with local residents.”

Another witness said: “Those mermaids are usually so snobby, always drumming up excitement and then leaving to go back to the depths of the sea as soon as they get some attention. I hope they choose one or the other before they start upsetting the locals.”

“They just looked like pretty ladies with funny feet to me,” said one elderly resident. “But if they want to observe the holidays with me, I’d be happy to have them!” This laudable sentiment was not shared by one woman who snubbed: “They need to go back where they came from. They are scaring the children and bringing too many strangers to our shore. It’s disrupting the peace.”

The article went on stating that town officials have begun erecting small pools of water in local synagogues in hopes that the mermaids will feel welcome to spend their holiday (Jewish New Year) with residents. “We’ll do what it takes to make the merpeople feel as though they can come together with us as a unified people…of sorts.”
That’s the spirit! No word from the religious authorities if they consider our marine creatures Jewish or not. Ah well, for sure the reform jews will welcome them with open arms!

The whole story reached a new entertainment level (at least in my eyes) when the Israeli online newspaper Ynet claimed that an American organization claiming to defend the rights of mermaids is threatening to appeal to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. I would love to preside over this one as a judge! I would encourage the whole court to conduct a "descente en lieu" (for the legal eagles among my readers) - let's have beach party on the shore of Kiryat Yam and wait for the mermaid to join!

Interesting enough, the organization is Brooklyn-based "Mermaid Medical Association" (MMA). How mermaids can effort US medicare is a mystery to me - even if Obama's health plan reform goes through. No word from the mermaid what her stand on this issue is. According to the local yellow pages, there is a medical service organization on 1704 Mermaid Avenue (Coney Island). My educated guess: the organization took their name from the location, not from the sort of patients they treat! No word from the PR office or managing director of the "official" MMA. They are quite likely thanking their lucky stars for this free publicity windfall......

(Since there is no picture available yet of our Israeli mermaid, I used the painting of J.W. Waterhouse for illustration)

Sonata Twitterata

It’s no secret that I love social media, like most writers. I am on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

(Feel free to contact to me on any of these social platforms!) I gave MySpace a pass – I test drove it, and didn’t like the spam I got.

Twitter is the latest Hot Thing – until something else comes around. It seems that everyone is tweeting to some extend: individuals like you and me, celebrities, and companies.

The tricky part with Twitter is that your “mini-blog posting” must be limited to 140 characters. This poses a huge challenge to the best of us. Tweeting about simple things is easy “going on vacation”, “still stuck in traffic”. If needed, a link or a shortened link (TinyURL) can be added in case you read a great article you want to share (or, as in my case, entice Twitterati to go to my recently published short story "Revenge will come....."– hint, hint!)

In case you wonder, yes, you can follow anyone you want to your heart’s content without being a stalker….hurray for cyberspace!

But I would never have thought that Twitterati could be such a source of amusement! (The word Twitterati is my invention; sounds a heck of a lot better than “twits” – ask any Brit for that connotation! The singular form is Twitterarus (m) or Twitterata (f) – Julius Caesar would have been proud of this. Come to think of it, he probably would have tweeted about his good-for-nothing relatives and of course about De Bello Gallico from the Forum Romanum, during senate meetings, and from the battle fields).

US politicians (already an ongoing source of media fodder for global comic relief) have embraced Twitter as well. It should come as no surprise that the two most prominent political Twitterati are…..Sarah Palin and Arnold Schwarzenegger!
Let’s start with our “I’ve gone fishing” Alaskan huntress. She twittered: “& mamma bear doesn’t look 2 anyone else 2 hand her anything; biologist say she works harder than males, is provide/protector for the future”.

In response, Durer’s rhino promptly quipped: “We have learned today that: bears are Real Americans that don't ask for or take handouts; and male bears are deadbeats and just sit around the forest in their boxers eating salmon and drinking berry juice.”

OK, her tweet might be a bit simple, but at least she is clever enough not the address major issues – or is she? Think again: our favorite pit bull with lipstick decided to respond to a new report on ethics charges against her on Twitter. She happily tweeted: “Re inaccurate story floating re:ethics violation/Legal Defense Fund;matter is still pending;new info was just requested even;no final report.”

My dear Saraleh, please listen to your legal team and don’t tweet about such sensitive topics! You should have stuck to your original statement calling any allegation that the defense fund accepted any inappropriate donations "misguided and factually in error." (That’s my advice as a lawyer – free of charge!)

She is not alone in her twitter blundering – our Ahnold is not far behind. Under his watch, the California deficit is a staggering $26 billion (try to figure out how you would spend that kind of dough to enhance your lifestyle!)
After negotiating a deal that will (hopefully) close the gap, Schwarzenegger posted a puzzling video message on his Twitter page. In it, the governor is wielding a huge knife, talking about selling state cars signed by the "celebrity governor." Even Aaron McLear, the governor's press secretary, couldn't explain the knife: "I don't know why he is holding a knife. The message is in what he is saying, not what he is holding in his hand."

L.A. residents were heavily underwhelmed by both A.S. and his prop, as illustrated by the comment of local Giovanni Matallane: "he should be focusing on other things besides signing cars and holding a knife ... and being on Twitter."

Matt Littman , a political speech writer and blogger, was even more explicit: “7.3 billion in education cuts ... Kindergarten through college teachers are getting laid off and he wants to talk about signing cars at an auction ... Why doesn't he sign their pink slips?" and ended with the suggestion that the best way for our Arnoldus Twitteratus to proceed, would be to quit – Sarah Palin-style.

Wiser politicians stick to distributing press releases and friendly editorials on their Twitter account. Clever and proper, but hey, what would be the fun of that?! Don't we all love a mishap that could "launch a thousand" tweets?