The revolution will not be televised, but Skywalkers will

The strangest part of “Skywalkers: A Love Story” on Netflix is that it is more love story than a how-to on 21^st-century Internet attention-getting. It’s both, really, but love story trumps likes and NFTs.

Ivan and Nikola are two people in search of likes in the cyber universe. To do that, they climb to the tops of the world’s tallest buildings, perform for the camera and drones, and post it all online. “Rooftopping,” it’s usually called. But now “Skywalking”  is in the film co-directed by Jeff Zimbalist and Maria Boukhonina.

Skywalkers Ivan Beerkus and Angela Nikolau make money through NFTs (but don’t ask me how). It’s illegal what they do, trespassing at least and could be a danger to their own lives and those of rescuers and pedestrians below. My thought was this: don’t these two have anything better to do? I mean, what good do they do for humanity? If I sound like an old geezer that’s because I am. These rooftoppers were damaged during childhood, neglected and maybe worse. But come on – stunting on top of tall buildings is the best you can do?

My attitude horrified my family. “It’s a love story – pay attention!” That was my daughter. “It’s incredible what they do,” asserted my son who used to free-climb the ancient granite rock formations of Vedauwoo in Wyoming. “My God,” my wife said something like this: “You sacrificed your Favorite Son pedigree to be the writer you dreamed of being.” She was the most upset and it chastened me because I truly was not thinking clearly.

It was a love story. It began as a spree but then the duo became concerned for the other’s welfare. Ivan didn’t want Nikola to fall from a great height and die. Nikola seemed shocked by this and after a lot of turmoil   including a break-up, she reconsidered, discovered she didn’t want him to fall from a great height and die.

Many of their skywalker friends had already died. Death became real and it was no longer a lark. It was deadly serious. That’s what makes their conquest of the world’s tallest building in Dubai so glorious. They did it, discovered each other along the way.

Roll the credits. There they are performing in the Dubai sky and a batch of songs roll with the credits. One song catches my attention. It sounds like a hymn and I don’t get it because The Good Lord is named in the lyrics and and I hadn’t seen any gimme that old-time religion in this documentary. The music was beautiful. I scanned the credits for the music and discovered “Stand on The Word” by The Joubert Singers. I went to YouTube and listened many times.

It’s a rousing hymn, as gospel as can be. Looking for the lyrics, I came across a link to “David Byrne’s Desert Discs,” a list of songs from his BBC Radio Program he would take to a desert island if he ever got the “Cast Away” treatment and didn’t have Wilson to talk to. “Stand on The Word” by The Joubert Singers (studio recording) was on the list with “I Wanna Be Your Dog” by The Stooges and “The Revolution Will Not be Televised” by Gil-Scott Heron. That’s some list, Mr. Byrne.

The “Skywalkers” will be televised. And now it’s all over but the critiquing. They are all over the Internet. Some have the same issues with it that I do. From Wikipedia:

"Nell Minow, writing for RogerEbert.com, rated the film 2 out of 4 stars, describing the protagonists as "two careless adrenaline junkies taking ridiculous risks to get likes on social media" and criticizing them for being 'completely self-centered.' "

Co-director Zimbalist said this:

“There’s a danger to romance,” Zimbalist told Netflix’s Queue. “It crushes us. It breaks our hearts. It breaks our hopes. Here, that danger is material. If the love falls apart, if the trust falls apart, it’s life or death. That felt like such a potent way of taking this amorphous sense that we all have in our romance and externalizing it and making it tangible.”

I get it. Well, I got it, with help from my family.

But back to “Stand On The Word” and God’s role in the soundtrack.

Curiosity took me to Google and it sent me to the Red Bull Music Academy. Musicians probably know this source but dorky 75-year-old bloggers do not.

Aaron Gonsher wrote on RBMA on May 20, 2016: “The Tangled History of the Joubert Singers’ “Stand On The Word.” He tracks its known history:

"In 1982, Phyliss McKoy Joubert was working as the Minister of Music at the First Baptist Church in Crown Heights, New York, when she gathered a group of musicians to record the gospel album 'Somebody Prayed For This.' 'Stand On The Word,' the album’s opener and the first song Joubert had ever written, was performed by a group of sweet-voiced children that she christened the Celestial Choir, and it stood out as a tinny yet remarkably addictive assertion of God’s omnipotence."

Decades of mixes and remixes followed. One was allegedly done by the legendary DJ Larry Levan of the Paradise Garage in NYC. He featured it as a late-night disco tune.

That’s how he works

That’s how

The good Lord, he works

Gonsher sums up the song’s origins this way:

“Stand On The Word” remains a worship song regardless of whose fingerprints are smudged on a remix….The chorus rising in one voice, splitting into call-and-response, and its exhilarating piano lines can’t be seen as anything but gospel music….It doesn’t matter who received the revelation first – only that it was eventually transmitted. And if so, that’s all there is to it: That’s how the good lord works.

Yep. As the song says. As the singer sings. Skywalkin’ all the way.

"The Weight of a Body" collection now available in print version

The print version of my book is now available to order on Amazon. "The Weight of a Body: A Collection of Short Stories" features 12 stories set (in no particular order) Wyoming, Colorado, and Florida. The collection was originally published by Denver's now-defunct Ghost Road Press and I decided earlier in the year to republish it as an e-book and now a print version. Here's the cover:

The act of republishing on KDP Amazon entails formatting, design, and editing. I formatted my MS Word files on Draft2Digital (D2D). I then brought that over to KDP to transform it into an e-book. It took me awhile to read an e-book on my Kindle and even longer to make one. My guide through the process was writer and critique group colleague Liz Roadifer. Read her books here. 

Here's a teaser from the opening story, "Roadkill:"

The shapes grew out of the smoke and fog -- three pronghorn antelope, running hard. Matthew Kincannon mashed the car's brakes and swung the wheel hard left. He missed the first two, collided with the third on its white-tufted rump which rose like a balloon before its rear legs smacked the windshield, its hooves scraping the glass like sharpened fists.

This won't be my only project on KDP. Stay tuned for news about my second collection later this year. Most of those stories are set in Wyoming and Colorado. 

Welcome to e-book land w/update

Friend and writing colleague Liz Roadifer is my mentor to the e-book world.

She has formatted five of her titles and they are featured on Amazon. To access, write Liz's name in the Universe of Amazon search box and there you are. The books are in five different categories: suspense, fantasy and young adult. I have read them all in manuscript form because Liz and I are members of a local critique group, Cheyenne Area Writers Group or CAWG. You won't find a listing for us on or off the Internet. We're not so much a secret organization as a nondescript one. Members are five now and we meet via Zoom every two weeks to critique one another's fiction projects. Members have come and gone over the past 20 years. But all of us, past and present, are published thanks in part to the good graces and fine eyes of CAWGers.

Most of my colleagues write what's labeled as genre fiction, a category MFAers are taught to loathe. Silly MFA programs. I wrote a suspense novel back in the day which never sold even though I had an agent I met at a writing conference. It taught me a lot mainly that I wanted to be a better writer. So I left the corporate world for the academy and the rest is history. I now write better than I did in my 20s and 30s. How much of that is due to maturity and voracious reading and how much is due to writing workshops is hard to say. Let's say 50/50. 

So here I am, formatting my first book of stories for Kindle Direct Publishing. Rights for the book reverted back to me after my press folded. I have a few print copies flitting about but have resisted the e-book world. I have written another book of stories and a novel, still unpublished. I am putting them all online. I've been writing on Blogger for 16 years, having signed up on a whim in 2001. I've posted almost 3,600 blogs. I used to be part of Blogger's AdSense program but never made any money. It requires you to have ads on your site and I found some disturbing and others stupid. 

So now I am signing on to the largest corporation in the known universe, the people who gave us spaceships, delivery drones, and free shipping. The KDP program is easy to learn and widens the audience. What's not to like? I'm almost finished with the formatting stage and ready to release it into KDP's care. It would be wrapping it up right this very minute but I am blogging instead. I spend too much time on my blog but it does give me a platform for promotion that not everyone has. Platform, of course, is the thing that all writers must have these days. Writers you see on TV usually have a platform or they wouldn't be on TV. I saw an interview with George Saunders on Stephen Colbert a few years ago and went out and bought "Lincoln in the Bardo" and his wild story collection, "CivilWarLand in Bad Decline." I love those stories. It was fantastic to see a real author on the airwaves. We need more of that.

So back to e-booking. Kudos to Liz for her persistence and patience. The book should be available soon, just in time for Christmas and the next Covid lockdown. 

UPDATE 12/6/21: "The Weight of a Body" Kindle edition now available on Amazon.

The "Poetry Apothecary" prescribes plenty of poetry and art

How have the arts been impacted by the pandemic?

Bigly.

No surprise, since the creating of art can be a solitary act but it's enjoyed with others. We gather for concerts, dance performances, plays. We gather in museums and galleries to appreciate the visual arts. We read singly yet gather for talks and book signings by writers. We gather in book clubs to celebrate our favorite writers and maybe drink some wine.

This is the summer of ungathering.

Many arts groups, not content to start planning for 2021, have come up with creative ways to reframe their events. Impromptu performances from city balconies. Zoom collaborations. Drive-in concerts.

I wrote about one of these groups this week for WyoFile's Studio Wyoming Review.

The coronavirus cancelled the annual June Jackson Hole Writers Conference, one of the most esteemed events on the country’s literary calendar. Since planning is done years in advance, staffers scrambled to put conference sessions online for free (registration is usually around $375) and only charged fees for critiques offered by faculty.

Matt Daly, assistant director of the JHWC, came up with the "Poetry Apothecary" that showcases visual arts and writing. The show is up at the Center for the Arts gallery until the end of July. The JHWC web site features a video tour (updated regularly) of the exhibit along with two other videos featuring artist/poet collaborations.

Daly proposed “Poetry Apothecary” well before the pandemic but needed to do some fancy footwork to adjust to the times. As he was helping to redesign the conference, he also was installing the show at the Center for the Arts. As anyone who works in the arts knows, fancy footwork is part of the job.

Read my Studio Wyoming Review article on the show on WyoFile. It was posted yesterday in a slightly edited form. 

All articles need editors. As one, I have revised, reframed, and rejected many stories. I tell young writers to expect changes to everything you write. My daughter Annie recently submitted a script to the True Troupe. The acting company is reviewing play scripts for the fall. Annie read one of my old short stories and transformed it to a one-act. She asked me to be thorough in my critique. I was. What I wasn't prepared for was Annie's interpretation of my story. She condensed and rearranged it. I had the chance to experience my work anew. She had workshopped my story before I had a chance to edit her. 

One of my Dad the Editor lines is "it's not finished until it's finished." She obviously was paying attention. My story, 15 years on, was still being finished. And it won't be finished yet. If the troupe adopts the script, the director and actors and crew will workshop it again. Lines may be dropped and lines may be added. Characters may change or disappear altogether. It's a wonderful process and not one for the faint of heart. 

Take some time to read Studio Wyoming Review. It's supported by WyoFile and grants from the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund and the Wyoming Arts Council. 

And then there's this:

From noon to 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 23, “Prescribe,” a livestream "Poetry Apothecary" reading, will be presented in the Center for the Arts Mainstage in Jackson. Medical professionals read poems as acts of healing. Masks and social distancing will be in effect.

A dry spell comes into the life of every blogger

It's been more than a month since I posted here. I guess I could say that I'm in the midst of a dry spell. That wouldn't be accurate. I've written some blog posts on healthcare and politics that bored me so much I couldn't finish. So, I turned my attention elsewhere. wrote five feature articles for Artscapes Magazine. I started a piece for Studio Wyoming Review on Wyofile. I revamped the last section of my historical novel and almost finished it. I discovered halfway through the last section that the narrative didn't make sense in its present form. Maybe I should have waited until I actually finished because finishing is the goal. But no -- I had to be different. I do have most of a final chapter, my third attempt. I have read about other authors who begin the book and write the final chapter so they know where they're going. Those are the same writers who outline the book before they write. They're called plotters.

Writers like me are called pantsers because we write "by the seat of their pants," making up the story as we go along. I believe I'm in that group due to my early training in daily and weekly newspapers. Sports reporting, especially, makes writers write down what they know because there is 20 minutes to deadline. It's a handy way to learn writing as you always have the score to fall back on. "Cheyenne Central shellacked Cheyenne South Friday night 52-0 to cinch its record at 10-1 and win a trip to the high school boys' football regional playoffs." All the 5Ws are in there. I used fun action verbs -- shellacked and cinch -- that aren't usually seen elsewhere in daily news writing except in election season. That lede gives you a gateway into the rest of the story that you will keep writing until time is up. Often the ending can trail off into noweheresville as you throw in stats or add a lame quote from the winning coach or quarterback. You're finished. On to the next game!

Ledes aren't always easy to come by in feature writing. You're lucky if some attention-grabbing quote or fact can be fished out of your notes. You really have to dig sometimes, depending on the pizazz of the interviewee. In fiction, I usually start with an image. In my novel, I wanted to put my two main characters on a train together. Nothing too exciting about a passenger rail car in 1919 Colorado, although there are train fans out there who might disagree. My characters, however, are so different that they clash in interesting ways that might (you never know) lead to romance somewhere in the middle of the book. It works for me. No telling if it will grab the interest of editors.

I began writing this because writing is something I am invested in. Not so politics and healthcare. I love to read and talk about those topics. Debate them, too, as long as its a two-sided contest. But tackling these topics rally requires some research. The Internet is key to that. I know which sources to turn to for facts and which to turn to for snark. I like both, so sometimes I turn to opinion pieces in newspapers such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Miami Herald. Carl Hiaasen of the Herald is the best columnist in the USA. I also look to conservatives mouthpieces such as the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and others. For liberal snark, you can't beat Wonkette. I often wonder where Hunter S. Thompson would have plied his trade on the WWW. The Trump Era was made for him.

In conclusion, let me state that I needed to write and post something that interests me so I can move on to the next things. Finishing the novel. Watching the NFL conference finals. Eating lunch.

See you in the funny papers.

Studio Wyoming Review makes first appearance on WyoFile

Studio Wyoming Review debuted this week on WyoFile, Wyoming's online news source that covers  "people, places and policy." And now, the arts.

Camellia El-Antably wrote the first SWR "guest column" last week about Touchstone Laramie. This every-other-year exhibit, now in its sixth iteration, is unique in that it features many of Laramie's artists during a weekend-long event (Nov. 11-13) at a local motel. It may be Wyoming's first pop-up gallery and it does pop-up in a big way, by clearing an entire floor of furnishings and replaces them with art and artists. I won't tell you any more. Best to go read Camellia's column.

Camellia and I worked together for many years at the Wyoming Arts Council. There's a new crew at the WAC and they have come up with some innovative programs the past year, including the Wyoming Independent Music Initiative and Health and Wellness in the Arts. If you have any involvement with programs with health and wellness components, go fill out the WAC survey. You will feel better for it. I did. You might say that every arts program supports health and wellness, especially mental health. I agree, but I was an arts worker for 25 years and had the privilege of seeing that in action. And promoting it. Now I'm retired and get to enhance my mental health by writing every day. I may show up on the e-pages of Studio Wyoming Review. You never know...

Chris Cillizza's The Fix taps Gregory Nickerson of Wyofile as the "best political reporter in Wyoming"

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post's "The Fix" political blog likes to make lists. In August 2011, hummingbirdminds was named one of the best state-based political blogs. He was looking at blogs on the left, right and in-between. He apparently thought it was intriguing that Wyoming had some liberal bloggers.

This week, Cillizza listed "the best political reporters in 50 states." The lone choice for Wyoming was Gregory Nickerson of Wyofile. You're not surprised if you've been reading Greg's articles. They're now getting syndicated. The Wyoming Tribune-Eagle featured one on this morning's cover. "Wyoming independent? Not really" explores our ruggedly independent state's reliance on federal funding. There's this:

Wyoming is significantly dependent on federal money. Wyofile's calculations show that the state relied on federal money for 41 percent of its spending for the 2011-12 biennium.

And this:

Other states may get more dollars, but because Wyoming's spending and population are small, few states are more dependent on federal funds.

One of many interesting facts:

Government employment is an important sector in Wyoming's economy -- the largest workforce in the state, in fact.

Here I have to divulge that I'm one of those government workers. Nickerson goes on to write that if you add up those employed in federal and state government along with those in the public school, college and hospital sectors, you get 64,000 souls which is 20 percent of the state's workforce.

I have lots of company. As columnist Paul Krza (a Rock Springs native) pointed out years ago, the state would be more fairly represented by a worker carrying a briefcase than it is by its iconic bucking bronco symbol.

Speaking about symbols of the Old West.... We like to play up the cowboy myth but the reality is far different. As Sam Western wrote in The Economist back in 1998:

"In real life, the famous Wyoming cowboy was an itinerant, landless, poverty-stricken soul, dependent upon the rancher for bread and shelter."

Sam is from Sheridan County, which is also Greg's home county. They breed some iconoclastic scribes up in the north country. Greg is also a product of the county's Young Writers Camp, once held every summer near story but being resurrected this summer at the Spear-O-Wigwam Mountain Campus in the Bighorns. I met Greg and other campers when I delivered my son to YWC back when he was in high school. A lot of talented, feisty kids came though YWC and now are making their mark as adults. It's especially gratifying to see them survive and thrive in Wyoming's tough labor market. Yes, our unemployment rate is low, but if you're not in the energy or tourism industries, it's hard to find a job. It's always gratifying to see young creatives making a difference.

Congrats to you, Greg. We eagerly anticipate your next article.

UW Crushes Facebook site goes dark after hateful post targets Laramie prog-blogger

My friend and fellow prog-blogger Meg Lanker-Simons in Laramie was attacked online this week. Here's what an unidentified person said on the Facebook page UW Crushes:

I want to hatefuck Meg Lanker-Simons so hard. That chick that runs her liberal mouth all the time and doesn't care who knows it. I think its hot and makes me angry. One night with me and shes gonna be a good Republican bitch.

This is verbatim. There are so many things wrong with this that it's hard to know where to start. Would this person countenance someone saying this about his sister, wife, girlfriend or mother? If not, why is he saying this about someone else in public? He must think that such comments are OK. Where did he learn that? At home? From his UW pals? Talk radio? These attitudes are in plentiful supply on the web and on conservative talk radio. Sure, some of these words are not allowed on the airwaves. But hateful anti-women messages spew regularly from the big mouths of Limbaugh and Hannity and even women commentators such as Ann Coulter.

The UW Crushes site no longer exists on Facebook. The attitudes, alas, continue. After the story broke, Meg received a barrage of hateful anonymous comments on her Tumblr site, Cognitive Dissonance. I won't repeat any of them here. For the first time ever, Meg had to block anonymous posts. That's saying something for the most outspoken liberal blogger in the most conservative state in the U.S.

We always want to know who's to blame when these things happen. UW Crushes was not an official UW web site, although it carried the university's name and featured its logo. The UW administration had distanced itself from the site that posted "crushes" involving university students. That made it a throwback to the original Facebook at Harvard, if the "Social Network" film can be believed. It seems a stretch to blame UW for the transgressions of one person who may not even be a student. The site's administrators confessed to being engineering students too busy to monitor every status update. One wonders if they will be too busy to monitor the computer systems, nuclear plants and bridges they will be building after graduation.

We could blame Wyoming's conservative culture. Conservatives have had a particularly tough time keeping their prejudicial attitudes to themselves. Remember all of the dumb things Republicans said in the most recent election cycle? Remember Akin's "legitimate rape" and Romney's "47 percent?" Even big-time conservatives like Bobby Jindal have told their colleagues to quit being so dumb in public. That didn't stop some of our Republican legislators for saying stupidisms about the LGBT community during the civil unions debate at the 2013 session. Women in the Equality State continue to experience inequality in the workplace. And they continue to be slapped around at an alarming rate by their menfolk. Violence, alas, is an American as apple pie and is served up often to women.

Wyoming is not the only place in the world where some men profess a need to rape women into docile, compliant serfs. But it's the place I call home and this kind of attitude must stop. I have a wife and a daughter and some day will have grandchildren and I don't want any of them to be subjected to violence.

Simpson's Plaza at the University of Wyoming is the site of a demonstration against UW Crushes and rape culture in Wyoming. It will be held on Monday, April 29, 11 a.m.

Kittens and hummingbirds just don't mix

Thanks to Dave Lerner at Cheyenne Network for making hummingbirdminds one of his "Weekly Net Pics" in the Trader's periodical that comes out every Friday at a grocery store or liquor store near you (I get mine at Albertson's on Yellowstone). I'm in good company, with blogs by liberal hell-raiser Rev. Rodger McDaniel and Arts Cheyenne, the local arts council. I can't wait to check out Angi Harper's kitten blog and Michelle Davis's family blog. I like blogs of all kinds, especially if they have kittens. I would have kittens too but they don't mix very well with the minds of hummingbirds.

Tale of a Wasted Youth, Part One

News comes from afar (OK, I read it on my laptop) about the demise of the Boston Phoenix. The late great alt-weekly was not alt enough for the 2010s. Its wise-ass editorial attitude was no match for multitudes of snarkmeisters on the blogosphere. Its advertising dollars migrated to Craigslist and a whole roster of Boston area web sites.

As is the case with most alternative newspapers, the Phoenix rose out of the sixties counterculture in 1966. Its rock-and-roll soul made it a must-read for a 21-year-old college dropout like me who was trying my luck in the big city. On my way home from my night-shift hospital job, I would drop a quarter in some longhair's palm to claim my weekly copy. It was fat with articles and music listing and bar ads and personals.I would take it back to my shabby walk-up on the cheap side of Beacon Hill (there was such a thing in 1972) and devour it while sipping a pre-Starbucks coffee and scarfing down a few doughnuts. Articles covered local politics, the antiwar movement, music, drugs, food and a 1,001 other topics.

 I'd read a variety of alternative papers during my cross-country travels: Atlanta's Great Speckled Bird, the Village Voice, the Berkeley Barb, and others whose names I can't remember. They were a refreshing change to the stodgy daily papers with their reliance on the 5 Ws and deference to all sides of an issue. Phoenix writers took a stand on the left (or at least the iconclastic) side of most issues which was just fine with me. After a lifetime of Catholic school and two years of college ROTC, I was fairly new to the counterculture. I wanted to roll around in it. I was openly living in sin with a wild Protestant girl namd Sharon, growing my hair long, smoking pot whenever I felt like it and reading alternative weeklies from cover to cover. I was hauling around bedpans at night at a local hospital, but a guy had to make a living. As soon as Sharon and I saved up enough, we were hitting the road again. At least that was the plan.

I lived in Boston from August through March. I read every issue of the Phoenix and its cousin, the Real Paper. I briefly flirted with the idea of becoming a nurse. My boss thought I was pretty good at hauling bedpans and wondered if I'd like to pursue a higher calling of administering enemas and starting IVs. She said the hospital would pay for it.

Unfortunately, the Phoenix was ruining me. I'd always wanted to be a writer but didn't know how to start. First the nuns and then the U.S. Navy said I should major in something practical, something in the sciences. Medicine, for instance. Or marine biology. But after a steady diet of wise-assery courtesy of the Phoenix and then Rolling Stone, I started writing in a journal. I made pithy observations. I recorded snatches of conversation overhead in local bars. I began to chronicle the break-up of my relationship with a wild Protestant girl who wondered why I was spending so much time scribbling in journals. She finally packed up and went back to school at UConn, leaving no forwarding address. I packed up my journals and Phoenix copies and headed back to Florida. It took me awhile to actually publish something. I then started writing feature stories for the Independent Florida Alligator in Gainesville. I free-lanced for some regional and national mags. I graduated and went on to write sports for both Denver dailies and then manage a weekly alternative newspaper called Up the Creek that got its start as an advertising sheet from suburban softball leagues and saloon-sponsored wet T-shirt contests. I wrote a wise-ass column and features about street gangs and local politics and religious cults and sports. I had a small staff of good writers, although they didn't stay around long. It wasn't the Phoenix but, hey, you take what you can get.

I publish short stories and essays in literary magazines. I've written more than my share of press releases and business articles. I've been prog-blogging since 2005. I can't say I have hordes of devoted readers. But I write what I want. I believe it was A.J. Liebling who said this: "The free press belongs to those who own one."  I don't own Blogger but I do lay claim to my little part of the blogosphere. I provide an alternative voice within the Wyoverse. I could fold at any time. But it won't be due to stodginess or lack of advertising. One day, I may just decide to fold up my tent and go home.

Thanks for the memories, Boston Phoenix. I haven't read you regularly in 40 years. But just knowing that you no longer exist makes a hole in the creative universe.

Listen live tonight as Radio Meg counts down the top 25 albums of 2012

Meg's fab tunes & prog-talk now available from Boulder to Birmingham, Tehatchapi to Tonapah:

Tune into 93.5 KOCA tonight, 10 p.m.-1 a.m. and keep your dial locked for fab music + Legit Conservative + d-bag o' the week. Our special guest tonight is fellow music aficionado Cameron L. Maris, who will help us count down the Top 25 Albums of 2012! Oh, and don't forget to send The Legitimate Conservative some questions -- it IS the last show of the year! Listen online and talk to us in the live chat! Check out http://myradiostream.com/cognitivedissonance to listen at 10 PM and http://chat.myradiostream.com/FSHs11p6864/ for the chat! Taking your requests for songs, dedications & d-bag nods til 8 PM. Laramie Civic Center, rm #255

Laramie artist asks readers to step out of their political comfort zone for new takes on creativity

GRACE, Felicia Follum, 24"x36", $150 

Laramie artist Felicia Follum made this poster to celebrate "grace," and also to help us think about what it means. She also asks her readers to design graphics based on the upcoming election:

All right, to kick off my Art+ Creativity Prompts I figured I would start with some election inspiration.  So many people seem to be fueled by the politics surrounding us though we never really step out and look at the 2012 election (or any other for that matter) from the other side or analyze the benefits of the opposition. Regardless of results, we need to learn to honor and support our country/president even if we disagree. Since this post is a little late in the game I am offering a couple alternative options. 

She's requesting a bit of grace from all of us. Read the "alternative options" at Creativity Prompt: Political Promo. And then turn loose your creativity.

Slate asks: What if UW President Tom Buchanan had given a speech defending "Carbon Sink?"

From an Oct. 31 article by Michelle Nijhuis on Slate Online about the "Carbon Sink" brouhaha at the University of Wyoming (the controversy that wouldn't die):

The University of Wyoming, like most public universities, has a mission statement that calls for academic freedom and free expression. University donors are supposed to further that mission, not try to restrict it, and university leaders are supposed to defend it.

What if President Buchanan had given a speech...? He could have acknowledged the reaction to Carbon Sink (taking care to first learn its name), and acknowledged the economic and political power of the coal industry in Wyoming. He could have acknowledged the science -- some conducted at his own university -- that demonstrates the connections between coal power and climate change, and climate change and forest decline. And he could have said that while coal is useful and important, it’s equally important to not only acknowledge its costs but also work to reduce them. He could have pointed to existing university programs aimed at doing just that, and called on the legislature -- and the industry -- to fund more.

It wouldn’t have ended the controversy. But it might have opened the conversation.

Nijhuis also explored another controversy over public art, this one at the University of Indiana at Bloomington. A student group demanded the removal of a Thomas Hart Benton mural that shows KKK members in robes. The KKK almost took over the state of Indiana. Benton was just trying to show his state's history, major warts and all. This controversy ended when the UI President made a speech, refusing to remove the mural, calling on UI students and faculty to use it as a teaching moment. Which they did.

Imagine that?

It's Enzi and Barrasso who deserve jeers for their votes against veterans' jobs bill

WyoDems Communications Director and long-time Wyoming reporter and editor Brodie Farquhar posted this on Facebook:

Today's Casper Star-Tribune properly "Cheered" a recent jobs fair for veterans with their weekly Cheers/Jeers column. Yet so far, aside from one letter to the editor, the CST has been entirely silent about the fact that Enzi and Barrasso voted against a veterans jobs bill. That in itself deserves a "Jeer."

Beet Street wants you to help spread the word about the Arts Incubator of the Rockies

My arts pals at Beet Street south of the border in Fort Collins, Colo., are looking for some savvy online types to spread the word about the Arts Incubator of the Rockies (AIR). I wasn't shocked to learn that there are some 280,000 artists and creatives in the Intermountain West. In fact, that number seems a bit low to me, as I sometimes feel that there are 280,000 creatives in Wyoming alone and they are all trying to call us at the Arts Council on the same day!

I manage the Wyoming Arts Council presence on AIR and I also signed up as Mike Shay, writer. I encourage you to sign up too and, if you're willing, to sign on as a catalyst for the AIR site. The web site, a collaboration between FoCo-based communications company Rocket Jones and marketers One Tribe Creative, is user-friendly. I already tried to break it and didn't succeed!

Here's what Beet Street has to say:

Now that we've launched the amazing AIR website, we need to activate the 280,000 artists and creatives who live in the Intermountain West. Help us build a strong regional arts community by spreading the word about all the AIR programs and website tools. If you love talking to people, we need you!

Help show that our region loves to collaborate and learn together! We need 25 volunteers to help reach out to both local and regional artists, creative businesses, and cultural organizations. To really get our community engaged, we want to get 1,000 free and 300 paid members signed up before the end of the year.

An information and orientation meeting will be held on Thursday, October 4 from 5:30-7 p.m. at the Beet Street office (200 W. Mountain Ave., Suite A). Please RSVP by October 1 to Kerry Miller at kmiller@beetstreet.org and please describe to us in a few sentences your experience/skills and why you'd like to volunteer for this project.

Introducing the brave new (and often perplexing) world of e-publishing

As I mentioned yesterday, my writing pal Mary Gillgannon conducted a program about publishing and e-publishing tonight at the library.

We heard about Mary's path from traditional publishing (and early success) to kind of a publishing black hole that coincided with the corporatization of the publishing world, and then the advent of digital publishing. 

About a year ago, she decided to transform her backlist titles into e-books. Most were not in electronic form, so she had to pay to get them scanned and formatted, and then new covers created. She tackled the "painstaking editing process" which included some revision as "after 15 years, you want to change some things," presumably because you're a better writer.

She then launched the books into the digital world. 

She promotes them on her own web site and through organizations such as Romance Writers of America and Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. Since many of her titles are either "Celtic Romance" or "Regency Romance," she often wears period costumes when she reads and signs her books. The colorful green dress she wore Thursday night she bought at the Renaissance Festival in Colorado.

She spent an entire year entering the e-book realm.

"I didn't have time to write," she said. "I became a publisher instead of a writer."

She is back to writing now and now has a new self-published book to her credit. It's called "The Silver Wheel: A Novel of Celtic Britain." It was a book that she tried to sell to traditional publishers. Editors and agents told her that it didn't fit neatly into any category. It was too long. The ending was too depressing (lots of people died). They thought that her heroine was weak.

So she went back to the drawing board. She changed the working title to "Sirona," the name of her heroine. She got rid of the lead male character. As a result, the book became more Sirona's book than anyone else's. 

Still, it didn't sell.

"I decided to put things back in that I took out," she said. "Then I had the book I wanted."

She was selling copies of "The Silver Wheel" Thursday night. It's a beautiful book. I bought a copy for my wife, Chris. I'd read it in a previous incarnation as a member of our shared critique group. It had changed, but because I know the quality of Mary's writing and storytelling skills, I told Chris she would like it. 

Among our critique group members, Mary is leading the charge into this new technology. She's selling books, too, but not the ones she thought would be hot properties. 

"My Regency Romances are selling at a faster rate than the other books," Mary said. She's sold up to 200 titles of one of her Regency titles, while the other romances limp along in single-digit sales figures.

But she's in it for the long haul. She's spent quite a bit of time and money in this pursuit. She's beginning to make that money back, slowly but surely. 

She's discovered a few surprises along the way. When you get your book on Amazon, it's offered five days for free. As it sells, it moves up the "free list." People notice the author's name and book title and also figure that the book is worthwhile so they "take a chance" on it. Often they will actually buy the next title in the series. And they may refer their friends to the series and those people may buy both titles. 

"It's a bizarre marketing technique, but it works, " she said.

Mary has noticed that the promotion of her books is a never-ending task. Of the half-million books on Amazon, 13,000 are historical romances. 

"To be noticed, you have to have a presence on the web," she said, noting that she's upgraded her web site and provides direct links on it to her books on Amazon. At this point, she doesn't sell directly from her web site.

Meanwhile, the hunt continues for traditional publishers.

"I still have a couple books that I'm trying to sell to publishers. But even if they decide to publish them, they will expect me to heavily promote them. Authors can't just sit in their offices and write any more."

She has eight more finished books that she could put out as e-books. She also has more than a dozen book proposals at various stages of completion. 

"My challenge is to live long enough to do all this," she concluded.

AIR's goal is to connect the creative community in the Rocky Mountain region

Beet Street, just down the road in Fort Collins, has announced that its new Arts Incubator of the Rockies (AIR) web site is up and running. As part of my job at the Wyoming Arts Council, I was involved in the planning stages for AIR. I invite you to check out the web site -- and to become a part of this innovative effort to "bring the Intermountain West creative community together in an exciting new way." I enrolled in the site at the Wyoming Arts Council when it was in the beta stage. Today I signed up as a writer. Check it out at www.airArtsIncubator.org. 

To get the most out of the AIR web site, become a member today! Free and paid memberships give you access to: 

• The Knowledge Center - home to the newest, best, and coolest resources available to help you in your creative endeavors. You can search by topic, discipline, file type, or just type in keywords. You can also help out the entire AIR community by uploading the articles, videos, podcasts, and blogs that you love too

• The Opportunity Center - where you'll find job listings and internships, calls for artists, details on auditions, funding, and much more. This is also the place to find or post a great opportunity in the Intermountain West. There are powerful search filters for you to locate specific opportunity types, disciplines, state specific information, and application due dates. Paid members get access to more details about each opportunity and reduced rates to feature a listing

• AIR Share - accessible to paid members - allows you to receive feedback on your work in progress, help someone solve a problem, and get to know your AIR community. You can also comment, recommend, bookmark, and upload as many files as you want. This is truly a collaborative tool. Just imagine the possibilities it will open up for you in creating new markets for your work, networking opportunities for collaboration, and so much more  

• The Member Directory - use your membership page as a new marketing tool to tell your story and share your creative prowess. You can find other creatives throughout the Intermountain West, connect with new people and places, be inspired by other's work, and display your own. Paid members can upload unlimited audio, video, and files of work           

The regional calendar - find a workshop, performance, or community event in your town or throughout the Intermountain West region. You can search by event category, date, state, or keyword. Paid members get discounted rates to feature events, but all members can submit events. The regional calendar can be your guide to all things art in the Intermountain West region. You can also market your amazing arts and culture events throughout the region by using the calendar.

Check out the new Wyoming Democratic Party web site and blog

The new Wyoming Democratic Party web site is a lively change from the old static site. It was launched yesterday during the grand opening of the new WDP headquarters at 1909 Warren Ave. in Cheyenne. Read Ken McCauley's "push back" against against Republican Sen. John Barrasso's recent radio address blasting the Supreme Court's ACA decision. In the "Featured Democrat" section, read about retired airline pilot Patrick Vann and his bid to re-energize his fellow Goshen County Dems. There's a comprehensive list of county parties with contact info. Find Democratic Party candidates running in this year's elections. There's a blog by Communications Director Brodie Farquhar that will need constant feeding -- you know how those blogs are! Links to political articles and op-eds in WY media outlets. Make sure you check it out and add your comments. Find the WY Dems on Facebook and Twitter, too.

Wyoming Dems open new HQ in Cheyenne

From the Wyoming Democratic Party: 

The Wyoming Democratic Party has moved its headquarters and staff from Casper to Cheyenne. For the first time in a decade, Party HQ will be just a few blocks from the Capital, ready to support our Democratic Legislators. To celebrate the move, come for a chili cookoff, see our new website, meet staff, candidates and friends for an afternoon of fun! Beginning at 3 p.m. on Saturday, July 7, 1909 Warren Ave.

BTW, I've seen to the test site of the WDP's new web presence. A vast improvement, with actual up-to-date material and a place for us prog-bloggers to sound off. Come to the party tomorrow and check it out.

Check out Nancy Sindelar's e-newsletter for progressive happenings around Wyoming

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