Alex Kudera's Blog, page 131
October 16, 2013
without money
In tonight's random walk through the internet, I met this Irish man living without money and these American and mostly private-sector folks losing their incomes and near-term purchasing power because of the government shutdown (which, as of this writing, does not appear close to ending).
While the former is depicted as almost heroic in his agrarian life off the grid, the latter is a good reminder of what would happen to the rest of us without an income. The articles' combined effect could guide me to more time among the affordable fruits and vegetables of the supermarket but most likely won't result in my creation of "a compost loo to make ‘humanure’ for my veggies."
While the former is depicted as almost heroic in his agrarian life off the grid, the latter is a good reminder of what would happen to the rest of us without an income. The articles' combined effect could guide me to more time among the affordable fruits and vegetables of the supermarket but most likely won't result in my creation of "a compost loo to make ‘humanure’ for my veggies."
October 14, 2013
nobel exuberance
"Irrational exuberance" Robert J. Shiller winning the Nobel for Economics is a contrarian indicator that gets us to DOW 25,000 by the end of the current Presidential term, but because the correlation between rising stock prices and jobs growth is far from guaranteed in near-term America, this won't necessarily help most of us.
(This is not investment advice or a recommendation to lose money so as to indulge in freedom as an expression of "nothin' left to lose"; furthermore, it should not be read as a "tell" indicating a suicidal impulse on the part of the author or any recommendation to readers to commit such. You're welcome to go ask Alice and get back to me on all this.)
(This is not investment advice or a recommendation to lose money so as to indulge in freedom as an expression of "nothin' left to lose"; furthermore, it should not be read as a "tell" indicating a suicidal impulse on the part of the author or any recommendation to readers to commit such. You're welcome to go ask Alice and get back to me on all this.)
October 9, 2013
so much for the "like" world we live in. . .
Andrew Wylie: "Unless you’re a terribly bad writer, you are never going to have too many readers."
Robert Bausch: "Readers who put down books because they don't like the characters are not very good readers, so you don't want them anyway. I've heard editors at major publishers say they do not want a particular book because the character is not 'likable,' so the philistines are on the march and it's clear the woods are burning. But it's a rigorously stupid idea that we should 'like' the characters we read about. If that were actually true, we could instantly eliminate fully half of the world's great literature and forget about it, starting with Richard The III, and coming forward to Portnoy and 'Rabbit' Angstrom."
Robert Bausch: "Readers who put down books because they don't like the characters are not very good readers, so you don't want them anyway. I've heard editors at major publishers say they do not want a particular book because the character is not 'likable,' so the philistines are on the march and it's clear the woods are burning. But it's a rigorously stupid idea that we should 'like' the characters we read about. If that were actually true, we could instantly eliminate fully half of the world's great literature and forget about it, starting with Richard The III, and coming forward to Portnoy and 'Rabbit' Angstrom."
October 4, 2013
Number 2 and Number 3
So along with this week's discovery of Passenger, who has more or less been anointed the Bob Dylan-in-Residence of L.U.S.K., and no doubt something bad will befall him because of it, I also noticed that according to Amazon kindle-store ratings, free e-book
The Betrayal of Times of Peace and Prosperity
rose as high as #2 in Humor and #3 in Short Stories, both within the wider category of Literary Fiction.
I make no sense of this.
I make no sense of this.
October 3, 2013
passenger
i've pulled my millions out of inflation-linked bonds and poured it all into the Passenger ETF. i've got him solving The Middle East by 2018, Global Warming by 2023, and busking us all to an era of world peace and global satisfaction by 2028.
time to get on it, Mike.
but first, to review, here's the biggest gig of your life.
time to get on it, Mike.
but first, to review, here's the biggest gig of your life.
September 26, 2013
Adjunct Gilmour?
I'd never heard of David Gilmour before his unfortunate descent into toward-dead-white-maleness (or would that merely be a transnational voyage through middle-aged Caucasia of the heterogametic sex?), but by now, of course, I have of course been subject to numerous notifications of his indecency, idiocy, sexism, racism, homophobia, and more.
And I've chimed in with my own two cents, too. Under one facebook update, I wrote, "word on the street is that Hemingway, Mailer, and fifty Dirty Realists are gonna go after this guy hard for not being mentioned in the interview. . ." The poet who originally posted was kind enough to give me a "like" for that.
But, also, of course, curiosity did indeed get the better of this cat, and so I searched for him where they can hopefully, or unfortunately, find us all, in this case Amazon's Canadian store. Low and behold, it does seem as if negative publicity effectively sells books.
According to amazon.ca, as of this writing, Gilmour's book rankings are 261 overall in Canada, 21 in literary fiction, and I look once more to see he is already sliding to 339 and 29, so ignorance, or honesty?, alone does not keep us at the top. He also has a couple one-star reviews from his new "fans," both published originally at the wider-webbing Amazon.com site.
It is what it is. For at least fifteen seconds, that is.
Also, now that it's established that he is a mere "instructor," just like so many of us who do assign the Kincaids and Walkers and Paleys and Jins and Krasikovs and more, the sad truth is that Mr. Gilmour is possibly in need of additional funds in this late stage of his life.
Impossible in Canada, the land of universal health coverage?
So in this sad way, it could just be, from north of the border, another bleak story about the writing life, income, and contingent employment.
Okay, now I'll just sit back and wait for someone to prove Gilmour is a man of means by posting a photo of the Canadian literary giant climbing into his rugged manly man's 4 x 4 V8 made-tough pick-up truck after another hard day of boxing with the bull in Marcel Proust.
And I've chimed in with my own two cents, too. Under one facebook update, I wrote, "word on the street is that Hemingway, Mailer, and fifty Dirty Realists are gonna go after this guy hard for not being mentioned in the interview. . ." The poet who originally posted was kind enough to give me a "like" for that.
But, also, of course, curiosity did indeed get the better of this cat, and so I searched for him where they can hopefully, or unfortunately, find us all, in this case Amazon's Canadian store. Low and behold, it does seem as if negative publicity effectively sells books.
According to amazon.ca, as of this writing, Gilmour's book rankings are 261 overall in Canada, 21 in literary fiction, and I look once more to see he is already sliding to 339 and 29, so ignorance, or honesty?, alone does not keep us at the top. He also has a couple one-star reviews from his new "fans," both published originally at the wider-webbing Amazon.com site.
It is what it is. For at least fifteen seconds, that is.
Also, now that it's established that he is a mere "instructor," just like so many of us who do assign the Kincaids and Walkers and Paleys and Jins and Krasikovs and more, the sad truth is that Mr. Gilmour is possibly in need of additional funds in this late stage of his life.
Impossible in Canada, the land of universal health coverage?
So in this sad way, it could just be, from north of the border, another bleak story about the writing life, income, and contingent employment.
Okay, now I'll just sit back and wait for someone to prove Gilmour is a man of means by posting a photo of the Canadian literary giant climbing into his rugged manly man's 4 x 4 V8 made-tough pick-up truck after another hard day of boxing with the bull in Marcel Proust.
September 25, 2013
orizont, encore
A few days after I read that Philadelphia poetry will be well represented in a future issue of Contemporary Literary Horizons, my current print issue arrived from Romania. It features poetry and prose from Chile, Romania, England, Germany, America, and beyond.
Thank you, Dr. Daniel, for your contribution to global literature.
Thank you, Dr. Daniel, for your contribution to global literature.
September 23, 2013
ban the books and can the poor
Although started-small-but-went-viral "The Death of Adjunct Story" is most specific to adjunct-instructor and retirement-age poverty as well as coverage gaps in Medicare and Medicaid, there's news that working-age poverty and poverty for full-time workers have been increasing during the recent "recovery." But if you're living in this country, you probably didn't need me to tell you that, and you don't have to be Warren Buffett to know that inequality is getting worse.
In other news, Ralph Ellison's 1952 National Book Award winner Invisible Man was banned in Randolph County in North Carolina, and school board member, Gary Mason, stated, "I didn’t find any literary value."
But I doubt this relates to any current poverty trends. Unless it does. A lot.
Back to Pittsburgh, based on what one-time three-rivers-area contingent Dave Newman, the novelist I just exchanged interviews with, wrote, a scary aspect of Duquesne adjunct pay is that it could be high for the Pittsburgh area. In relation to what he wrote in Raymond Carver Will Not Raise Our Children , I asked Dave whether an adjunct teaching three courses would actually earn only $9,000 total per year while his full-time, but non-tenure-track, officemates could earn 30K with benefits. Dave responded:
Second, what’s sad about my novel is that those numbers were pretty accurate at the time for an adjunct teacher in Pittsburgh. I think Duquesne pays $3500 per class now but that’s a recent increase from $2500. I think Robert Morris pays $1750 per class. Community colleges pay around $2200. It’s insane. You really could go from being a lecturer making 30 grand to teach a 3/3 load to teaching a 3/3 as an adjunct and making $12,000. It’s scary. Again, I can’t imagine anyone thinking this is acceptable, but the general consensus is: oh well; what did you expect, dummy; if you don’t like it, go to Wall Street; then they’ll accuse you of being a Wall Street scumbucket.
This reminds me of how, because I was conscientiously trying not to exaggerate, some of the pay numbers for university presidents and athletic directors are too low in Fight for Your Long Day .
Back to the wealth gap, one of my main points of curiosity about Philadelphia was that we had two of the first university presidents (or CEOs) to earn over a million dollars in annual compensation, this in the 1990s, and we had entrenched poverty throughout the city. So in my particular contingent experience in Philadelphia, it was always easy to see, highly visible in train stations and city parks and libraries and other public places, that many of us adjuncts were doing better, in terms of total pay, than plenty of folks surrounding us. That's how bad it was, and is, out there, so to speak. My observations about such extreme inequality were significant enough that grim but comic absurdity became natural circumstances for Protagonist Duffleman once one factored in egregiously high college tuition and much of what we're taught about America's great wealth, freedom, and democracy from K through 12.
In other news, Ralph Ellison's 1952 National Book Award winner Invisible Man was banned in Randolph County in North Carolina, and school board member, Gary Mason, stated, "I didn’t find any literary value."
But I doubt this relates to any current poverty trends. Unless it does. A lot.
Back to Pittsburgh, based on what one-time three-rivers-area contingent Dave Newman, the novelist I just exchanged interviews with, wrote, a scary aspect of Duquesne adjunct pay is that it could be high for the Pittsburgh area. In relation to what he wrote in Raymond Carver Will Not Raise Our Children , I asked Dave whether an adjunct teaching three courses would actually earn only $9,000 total per year while his full-time, but non-tenure-track, officemates could earn 30K with benefits. Dave responded:
Second, what’s sad about my novel is that those numbers were pretty accurate at the time for an adjunct teacher in Pittsburgh. I think Duquesne pays $3500 per class now but that’s a recent increase from $2500. I think Robert Morris pays $1750 per class. Community colleges pay around $2200. It’s insane. You really could go from being a lecturer making 30 grand to teach a 3/3 load to teaching a 3/3 as an adjunct and making $12,000. It’s scary. Again, I can’t imagine anyone thinking this is acceptable, but the general consensus is: oh well; what did you expect, dummy; if you don’t like it, go to Wall Street; then they’ll accuse you of being a Wall Street scumbucket.
This reminds me of how, because I was conscientiously trying not to exaggerate, some of the pay numbers for university presidents and athletic directors are too low in Fight for Your Long Day .
Back to the wealth gap, one of my main points of curiosity about Philadelphia was that we had two of the first university presidents (or CEOs) to earn over a million dollars in annual compensation, this in the 1990s, and we had entrenched poverty throughout the city. So in my particular contingent experience in Philadelphia, it was always easy to see, highly visible in train stations and city parks and libraries and other public places, that many of us adjuncts were doing better, in terms of total pay, than plenty of folks surrounding us. That's how bad it was, and is, out there, so to speak. My observations about such extreme inequality were significant enough that grim but comic absurdity became natural circumstances for Protagonist Duffleman once one factored in egregiously high college tuition and much of what we're taught about America's great wealth, freedom, and democracy from K through 12.
September 22, 2013
worse for millennials?
These are some random URLs that suggest, strongly, that millennials are not entitled, spoiled, or lazy, but rather are facing an extremely difficult job market:
http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/10-reasons-millennials-are-screwed-generation?akid=10928.253246.PDBPOz&rd=1&src=newsletter895979&t=3&paging=off
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/08/01/a-rising-share-of-young-adults-live-in-their-parents-home/
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/53-percent-of-all-young-college-graduates-in-america-are-either-unemployed-or-underemployed
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101015287
http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/10-reasons-millennials-are-screwed-generation?akid=10928.253246.PDBPOz&rd=1&src=newsletter895979&t=3&paging=off
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/08/01/a-rising-share-of-young-adults-live-in-their-parents-home/
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/53-percent-of-all-young-college-graduates-in-america-are-either-unemployed-or-underemployed
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101015287
September 17, 2013
Dave Newman responds
Novelist-trucker-teacher-father Dave Newman included some great lines in these responses to my interview questions. Excerpt, you ask?
On writing and the married life:
I didn’t ever plan on marrying. I figured it was an either/or situation. You either wrote, which required hours of reading and writing, or you got married, which required hours of marriage stuff, whatever that was. Then I found myself in Vegas, getting married to a woman I barely knew, and I was unbelievably happy about it. My wife is awesome, and she’s a great writer, and we support each others’ writing in every way possible. It really speeds up the process to know you have someone in the other room who wants to read your writing, not is willing to, but wants to. We both have three published books now. We had a combined total of zero books before we were married.
Be sure to check out the full interview at Karen the Small Press Librarian.
On writing and the married life:
I didn’t ever plan on marrying. I figured it was an either/or situation. You either wrote, which required hours of reading and writing, or you got married, which required hours of marriage stuff, whatever that was. Then I found myself in Vegas, getting married to a woman I barely knew, and I was unbelievably happy about it. My wife is awesome, and she’s a great writer, and we support each others’ writing in every way possible. It really speeds up the process to know you have someone in the other room who wants to read your writing, not is willing to, but wants to. We both have three published books now. We had a combined total of zero books before we were married.
Be sure to check out the full interview at Karen the Small Press Librarian.
