IDYLLOPUS PRESS IS A VALIANT LITTLE ROWBOAT

A couple have questioned, aware I was hit hard with some evil cold-flu combo, if this is why the blog has been silent. And this is partly the case, it’s partly due to that Big Ol’ Walrus of Reckoning that thwacked me hard and nailed me to the bed.

My blog also went down this week for some reason. I contacted my webhost and they revived it but when they did so it revived with some problems and I was in bed and unaware that all the plug-ins had been automatically switched off which meant a flood of evil spam coming in. I was able to see to it eventually (there are other problems to address as well) but I accidentally ended up deleting some comments made by friends as spam as well as loads of evil spam.

Big Ol’ Walrus of Reckoning.

Anyway, I haven’t, for now, any fresh or worn insights to post.

I’ve no updates on fiction.

I’ve got no updates on art.

That’s all.

I’m being distracted right now by Elia Kazan’s “A Face in the Crowd”. Staggering film. Had never seen it before this week.

Nice little write up on Heston in this week’s Creative Loafing. Audio included is “Brand New U”. If you’re interested in learning a bit more about this up-and-coming West Indian soul artist Marty’s been recording the past few years, head over and read and have a listen. Nice guy and is out there working hard spreading the music around. He’s doing a Bob Marley tribute with Julie Dexter (Marty worked on her last album) this coming Saturday at Sugarhill.

“Brand New U” features Sasha on guitar, another artist Marty has spent a good amount of time recording. Raphael is on percussion. Julius Speed plays Rhodes. The Freeman Brothers play horns.

Smith’s Olde Bar has been holding a Songs for Kids Foundation “500 Songs for Kids” benefit. Which is quite a marathon. 500 bands/artists are given a different greatest sing-a-long song to play. 50 bands/artists play a night! Imagine. Equipment is already set up but some bands still drag in their own. Non-stop sing-a-long entertainment.

You are assigned your songs.

Thus it was that Marty was down there last Thursday (well, Thursday before last now) playing “Mandy” with Matthew Kahler and there was no room to complain over the fact it was “Mandy” because this is a cool benefit that helps a number of different charities for kids.

“Mandy”.

Christ.

I participated by purchasing the song so Marty could learn how to play it. I did my part. And I was sick, sick, and coughing my guts out and had a fever still so you know this was a real effort for me to have to download that song since Marty, who engineers and produces music, hasn’t quite figured out how to manage iTunes. So, give me some credit, please. Though not much. Except I was really really really sick at the time and having to drag my sorry butt out of bed to download “Mandy” was an ordeal.

I can imagine that Matthew and Marty did well with Mandy, and Marty says that Matthew killed it, people loved it.

Marty did double duty as he was down there again tonight with Heston. Their song was “Heard it Through the Grapevine”, which is difficult to do without a band and make it groove, Marty says, but they did it and had the whole room singing.

Unlike “Mandy”, Marty’s been playing “Heard it Through the Grapevine” for about 35 years, but never in e flat minor before.

The next to the saddest of all keys.

Marty tells me the cool thing is whenever there’s an original artist from the area, the original artist is coming in to do their song, so Cracker came in from Charleston to do a song and Sister Hazel came from where-ever, and Kevin Kinney flew in from New York to do his song then went straight back and Ce-lo is coming in tomorrow night to do a song.

He says Jill McAllister of Arlington Priest (did “With a Little Help From My Friends”) tore up “Dock of the Bay” tonight, jumping up and taking the place of an artist who didn’t show up.

Josh Rifkind organized the event which is run smooth as can be and that’s no easy feat for a benefit of this scale and type.

Two of my nieces are from an orphanage in Chengdu, in the Sichuan Province, and a nephew is from an orphanage in Hanzhong in neighboring Shaanxi Province. Both orphanages were damaged by the quake but thankfully none of the children were harmed. Still, they are in need of relief–water, food, gas, diapers–as with a number of other orphanages that received significant damage.

The executive director of Half the Sky Foundation, Jenny Bowen, today announced that Ford Motor Company will be matching every gift to Half The Sky’s Children’s Earthquake Fund.

From the webpage at Globalgiving:

Half the Sky Foundation and China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs (the government agency responsible for disaster relief) have set up a Children’s Earthquake Fund that will provide direct aid to the thousands of children in welfare institutions and in the community who are suffering in the wake of devastating earthquakes in Sichuan Province and Chongqing. Donations will be used to provide emergency and long-term relief to children affected by the disaster.

Their funding goal is $500,000 and they’ve to date received $89,255.

Please consider making a donation.

H.o.p. was reading his “National Geographic Kids” magazine the other night and yesterday got up and asked me about a cute rabbit he’d seen in it, which he believed was like the Microsoft Agent, Peedy the Parrot, only this creature would text-to-speech “email and blogs!!” which he thought was great. “Can I get it?” H.o.p. asked, thinking this was downloadable text-to-speech software and would place a funky bunny on his desktop. So, I looked at the article and saw how he would easily have misinterpreted it as being just text-to-speech software, when instead it is Nabaztag, a wi-fi toy, which will read web text and emails and tell you the weather and play music and do other stuff, what stuff dependent on whether you’ve forked over for the $99 or the $199 model.

What was interesting to me was this little bunny was offered up in the National Geographic Kids June/July issue on the Cool Inventions page.

It’s a handful of ten year olds that aren’t going to go running to their parents, pleading, “I want this cute bunny, please, please! I NEED that cute bunny!”

Across was a full page ad for the movie “Tak”.

There are lots of full page ads and I give a rundown below.

Page 1, cover.
Page 2, full page ad for Yogos Sour Bits candy.
Page 3, table of contents.
Page 4, Guiness World Records, a few facts.
Page 5, Wii Boom Blox video game full page ad.
Page 6, Cool Inventions page with a paragraph on the Nabaztag Digital bunny (which in effect is an ad). Also a Centerfold folding electric guitar and a Die Moto green motorcycle.
Page 7, full page ad for the movie Tak.
Page 8, Sports Funnies shorts.
Page 9, full page ad for toppstown.com virtual sports cards.
Page 10, Weird but True shorts (statements).
Page 11, full page Pop Tarts ad.
Page 12, The Green List, 6 tips on being green.
Page 13, full page ad for call2recycle.org.
Page 14-15 Amazing Animals article, with an ad insert at this point for a subscription to National Geographic Kids.
Page 16-17 Naughty Pets shorts.
Page 17, 1/3 page ad for “The Edge Chronicles” books and online game.
Page 18, Wildlife Watch.
Page 19, full page ad for “Space Champs” movie.
Page 20, Bet You Didn’t Know (7 statements)
Page 21, full page ad for Pokeman trading card game.
Page 22, Video Game Central, a National Geographic article (description and playing tips) on the PC game, “Nancy Drew, Legend of the Crystal Skull,” and the two Nintendo DS games, “Professor Layton and the Curious Village” and “Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Warrior”. So, essentially it’s an ad for those three games.
Page 23, full page ad for Wii’s Emergency Heroes game.
Page 24 Happiness article, 10 tips for being happy.
2 page (4 sides) insert ad at this point for Wildlife Explorer game cards.
Page 25, the happiness article continues.
Pages 26-27, Jack Black article.
Pages 28-29, article on “Kung Fu Panda”, a new movie in which Jack Black stars.
Pages 30-31, Bamboozled, some facts about pandas.
Pages 32-33, Amazing Pet Rescue, short article.
Page 34-35, Secrets of Stonehenge article.
Subscription card insert here for National Geographic Kids.
Pages 36-37, article on the new movie “Wall-e”.
Page 39, Fun Stuff, a game.
Page 40, several cartoons and a 1/3 page ad for “Gregor” books.
Pages 40-41, Car Trip Fun ideas.
Page 42, What in the World, game.
Page 43, 1/3 page ad for Yogos fruit snacks and the movie “Tak”.
Page 44, Art Zone.
Page 45, Art Zone continued and a 1/3 page ad for the book “Savvy”.
Page 46, Funny Fill-In on Safari game.
Page 47, full page Legoland ad (chance to win trip).
Page 48, back cover, full page ad for the Disney movie “Camp Rock”.

About 25 percent of the magazine, which costs $19.99 for 10 issues ($15 for 10 if ordered online from National Geographic), is devoted to advertizing, and that’s not counting the inserts.

I explained to H.o.p. that the bunny was a fairly expensive product, and though he’s a fan of novelty he felt he’d been duped, especially when I told him the price tag, and said no he didn’t want it.

As I looked through the magazine, I realized the lay-out and font styles and sizes and coloring/graphic choices for the “articles” and ads render them in many respects, at least emotionally, siblings. There aren’t clear boundaries that a child may use to distinguish between what is ad and what is content, so the ads come close to seeming to be content, and content is fuzzily warm-warmer-hot close to being promo.

Still, when I then sat H.o.p. down and asked him to go through and point out all the ads to me, he did so easily. However, he also selected as being ads, the Jack Black article on pages 36-37, the following two page article on the “Kung Fu Panda” movie in which Jack Black stars, and the two page article on the movie “Wall-e”!