Is Babar an orphan?

I have a category of bookmarks I call Society and Culture. Usually links that get tagged this way for my use are political in nature, or social occurrences that likely would not or could not have occurred in another era. Examples of the former are the recent report from the New York Times titled One Sperm Donor, 150 Offspring, and another NYT’s article The Limping Middle Class.

Today though, I added a bookmark in this group to a story about Babar, that grey elephant I loved so much as a child. In reality, Babar’s reality that is, Barbar is an orphan. And in this time in our world, Barbar and other published works in a certain nether-land are about to become orphan works.

This story is about orphan works in the publishing world. And Barbar is about to become an orphan again, or at least was on the list to become an orphan work. Given that Barbar’s heirs (the author that is) are still very much alive, The Story of Barbar has been pulled from a proposed orphan works list. Is this really fair to authors and publishers? That a work still in-copyright but for which rights holders cannot be found can be declared an orphan work with a limited time frame. Perhaps an author or publisher wishes to remain anonymous or unreachable for personal reasons. Can or should their works really become “public”? Maybe more works should be declared orphan works so that more people can have access to and enjoy them.

My reptile brain needs help – Enter Vitamin R

I am using this Winter break to put a brake on some of my habits and focus in a different way. Vitamin R is a Mac OSX collection of tools to help manage attention, maintain motivation, and Get Things Done (GTD). Highlights of this simple to use tool include voice prompts, built-in white noise, and planned breaks! Tell me what tools you use to Get Things Done.

Cram 9

One of my poems has been selected for publication in Cram Volume 9: Poetry In The First, better known as Cram 9. Selected for publication was my poem titled ‘Submission’. I was preparing a letter with questions I had about submitting poetry to a journal. Some of the guidelines for publication seemed unclear to me. Here is an example…and I wonder how you would react to knowing that a journal gives notice that they do not respond to entries unless they plan to publish your poetry. I wanted to be clear with other venues I submit to because some do not accept simultaneous submissions. Anyway, instead of sending off my letter to clarify the submission policy, I wrote a poem, and submitted it elsewhere, to Cram 9!

Advance copies of Cram 9 will be given away, FREE, to people attending The Printers’ Ball at Columbia College, 1104 S. Wabash Ave. The official release party and reading will be on Sat. Aug 14, 7 PM at Cafe Ballou, 939 N. Western Ave. Chicago. I’ll be attending a Perseid Meteor Shower Party in rural VT that eve and will not be able to participate in the reading…darn!

Be sure to check out either of these literary events.