Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

Lisa Canter (“Lisa’s Room”) took this great photo of the wild array of business cards here…almost as diverse an assortment as the wild array of people here….

Getting to San Jose from Cambridge, MA was a trip, in (almost) the worst sense of the word.

Our airplane sat on the runway for 6 hours (2 in Boston, 4 in Chicago) — I didn’t bring enough fun things to do for a 12-hour trip, but fortunately I was sleep-deprived enough to get entertainment value from my dreams.

I started a public photo pool over at Flickr for BlogHer 2006, add yours if you’ve got them!

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Happy May 2 birthday to Dave Winer! (And thanks to Halley for reminding me.)

In other May 2 news, today is the day of Leslie Gore’s birth, J. Edgar Hoover’s death, and the first sighting of the Loch Ness Monster.

Today’s also the day of the first just-plain-bookstore-appearance for Fantastic Realities, at the Harvard Coop Bookstore at 7 p.m. World Scientific managed to get us some advance copies for Frank to sign after he gave a bunch of public lectures during April. (And I’m happy to say that every single book sold out, every single time!)

But a public lecture is, by now, pretty familiar–while a bookstore “appearance” is brand-new and strange. So I’ll be having cold feet all day today, despite the warmth of those beautiful birthday candles. Frank won’t though; he never worries about stuff like this.

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Update: Thanks to all who came–it was a lot of fun, the Coop’s Richard gave a charming and enthusiastic introduction, Frank read a few short chapters and a couple of poems, I read just a little bit from my blog, and all but two of the books on display got signed and taken home. Next time, maybe I’ll imitate Frank in not worrying about stuff like this…

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I went to a book talk at the Harvard Coop tonight (admittedly to check out the venue–Frank is giving a talk there tomorrow night.)

I came away with a new, optimistic critique of amoral globalization that goes beyond the usual “warmed-over Marxism, self-indulgent postmodernism, or insular fundamentalism,” to quote Harvard lecturer Adam K. Webb, author of Beyond the Global Culture War.

Webb gives a passionate though scholarly argument for social justice and the civilizing power of shared traditions. Like some others in the audience, I’d be more enthused about strong traditionalists (e.g. the Christian Right) if they fought economic wrongs instead of obsessing about other people’s sexuality. But whether or not I end up agreeing with Webb (I bought his book), I was relieved to hear some new thoughts on troubling issues that very much need new solutions.

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Meanwhile, here’s what I learned about Harvard Coop book-signings:

• Although the official starting time was 7, most of the audience arrived between 7 and 7:10. Wisely, the reading wasn’t started until then.
• Richard (I don’t know his last name), who works for the Coop, gave an interesting and knowledgeable introduction before Adam Webb began. Apparently, he introduces all the speakers.
• Webb didn’t read from his book–he gave about a 20-minute summary of its arguments, and then took questions.
• The crowd was a mixture–curious people like me plus a bunch of Webb’s students who sat near the back. Richard says that the size of the crowd is unpredictable–he’s seen as few as 2 people and as many as 50.

I’ve been reading about book-signings on the web–one of the things I’ve seen recommended is to make bookmarks about your book. So I did spend quite a lot of today designing one for Fantastic Realities, but now I’m not sure how appropriate it would be to bring to the Coop.

Anyway, if you’re in the Harvard Square area on Tuesday, May 2, 2006, at 7 p.m., Frank Wilczek and I will be up on Level 3 of the Harvard Coop Bookstore, talking about Fantastic Realities, and I’ll give you one of my bookmarks if you want one.

If some bloggers come, it’d truly be fantastic.

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Einstein once tried to cheer up a dejected parrot by telling it jokes. Years later, Sci Am podcaster Steve Mirsky claimed he found the parrot (there’s some uncertainty here) and tape-recorded its memories:

“How do I order beer in a bar? I say ‘Ein stein for Einstein.’ Hey, Parrot, what’s the difference between a wild boar and Niels Bohr? When I say that God doesn’t play dice, a wild boar doesn’t tell me to stop telling God what to do. I hate that. So what do you say to the man who developed the exclusion principle? You say, ‘Pauli want a cracker?’ Wolfgang Pauli, get it? Hello, is this thing on? Testing, one, two. Hey, Parrot, I had a dream where I made love to Rita Hayworth for an hour. Well, for her it was an hour. For me, 35 seconds. That’s relativity. Okay, Newton is standing on the shoulders of a giant…

Steve’s sense of humor might be one reason people love his podcast…

I’m looking forward to hearing how his podcast with both Frank and me will turn out–it’s due May 3. Anyway, it was fun meeting Steve backstage at the NYC book party…and, as for his podcast–subscribed!

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Each chocolate cupcake is topped with a tiny photo of the front cover of Frank Wilczek’s new book Fantastic Realities…thanks, Dorian! I’m pretty new at this book-tour thing, but here’s a short list of resources the new author gets asked for, again and again, by people planning to host a public lecture, a book-signing, or some combination of the two: A photograph of the author A photograph of the book’s cover A link to the book’s page at its publisher and/or at Amazon A short biography of the author A short description of the book Blurbs (short excerpts from reviews of the book) Real authors also have press kits for reporters, but Frank and I aren’t quite so professional yet.

Wow–Fantastic Realities got its blog-launch yesterday–thanks to Luboš Motl, whose energetic efforts pushed its Amazon rank up from #136,000 yesterday morning to an overall rank of #24,099 yesterday and #7,389 so far today….

If this continues, Fantastic Realities should hit number one at Amazon sometime during the night and go into negative numbers by the time it’s officially published–which is tomorrow.

Tomorrow, Frank and I head to NYC for the book’s official launch in real space and time. Then on Friday, Frank is giving a talk and signing some books at CUNY’s Graduate Center, Fifth Avenue at 34th Street–3:30 p.m., it’s free if you don’t buy a book there. The hometown launch is a talk and book-signing at the Harvard Square Coop Bookstore on May 2, 7 p.m. It seems like only yesterday that I was just force-fitting this blog’s saga of Nobel adventures into manuscript form (goodbye to reverse chronological order!)

Most of the book, however, is assorted short pieces by Frank, who goes around winning awards for his science writing when he’s not getting Nobel Prizes or packing his suitcase.

I’ll be blogging more practical details as we go along with this adventure, because it’s my firm belief that many a blog out there ought to end up as a published book–or (like mine) as a part of published book.

Yes, it’s a lot of work, but it’s also great fun.

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The New York Academy of Science is collecting book-recommendations from its members–I loved Frank’s wide-ranging list of twelve, with a short blurb about each. Vikram Seth and Dale Carnegie as well as Richard Feynman and Hermann Weyl–Power, Sex, Suicide (by Nick Lane) is one of his more recent finds.

Isn’t that on a shelf near Naked Conversations?

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Wow, the beautiful galley proofs came today, shaped just like a book–I flickred 6 photos with the tagline “New Wilczek baby has its father’s face.”

Meanwhile, running on the same brain circuits, Scott Johnson is planning an Ookles launch world tour! Yes, Scott J and Ookles and I are coming soon to a city near you–assuming you live near a city we’re coming to. More in the Ookles blog as the story develops.

And oh yes, just a little tiny extra–Frank and I are leaving for England today. First Liverpool (you can expect some Beatles blogging), then Cambridge. I hope very much to get down to London on Feb. 7 to lend support to Suw and Cory and all the other fine Open Rights Group ppl networking at … 01Zero-One? Okay, I’ll find it somehow.

Not to mention that Amity and Colin just got back from New Zealand where they saw keas and kakas (sp?) and swam with dolphins whose fins look like Mickey Mouse ears. I haven’t heard enough of their stories yet.

So if Frank Paynter wonders why I didn’t blog Bush’s State of the Union spinny speechette–this will have to serve as my excuse.

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…a new book by Frank Wilczek that includes a big chunk of my blog! This is a project that’s moved with lightning speed, from meeting Dorian Devins in June to the mass of proofs now on our dining room table. They’re beautiful. I’m in shock. And World Scientific has made everything so easy. Is there a book deal in the future of your blog? In my case, of course, it helped to be married to Frank…but, the way it all happened is something others could clone. It was much easier than what Biz Stone describes in his (excellent) “How to Get a Book Deal with Your Blog.” When Dave Winer was in town, I was telling him that, for every blog that is in itself raw material for a whole book, there must be 100 that would be a good half-book, quarter-book, or maybe 2-per-cent-book. (Don’t you think that any book about Google would be better if it included the counterpoint of Dave’s blog acerbities, just for instance?) Does your blog have a future as part of a book? What book? Tell me! In fact, tell the world! Anyway, I’ll be blogging my further adventures with Fantastic Realities.

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