I felt the need to stand up and protest, personally, against Wall Street executives, highly respected by their peers, who bring in enormous amounts of filthy lucre and could care less about the negative repercussions on you or me.  And, honestly, there had been so much bad publicity and ridicule of the protesters who were on Wall Street, including some belligerent comments I overheard from guests at a get together for Republican Cornelius Kelly in Montauk the night before, that I just wanted to see for myself.

Although it had been decades, really, since I had joined any sort of protest rally, thanks to George Demos, the Conservative Republican Candidate for US Congress in New York’s First District, and his press release admonishing protesters not to defecate on police cars, litter, sell drugs, or smash windows, I knew how to comport myself. (As a precaution, of course, I used the bathroom at home.)

I parked about one-half mile away from town on RT 114. I was excited as I walked to Long Wharf.

There were very young, cute children holding placards and yelling, “We are the future.” Professional photographers were everywhere zeroing in on the most interesting signs being displayed by the crowd of about 200. It was a beautiful, sunny, windy day, and I did not notice anyone lifting his leg on a police car.

I felt I was helping to make history at a grassroots level. Doing something more than arm-chair complaining.

Suddenly, the crowd was directed to move to just in front of the windmill at the start of Long Wharf, and a young man stepped onto a makeshift platform and took control. This would be Matt – a smart and articulate guy who is still in college and working on a school project about community organizing as I recall. He’s a “facilitator.” We met last winter at Ashawagh Hall.

Matt can facilitate all he wants, but he cannot get me to play Simon Says with him.  I will not raise my arms high and wiggle my fingers if he asks me if I agree with what he is saying. I will not point my hands down and wiggle my fingers if he wants me to join the crowd in showing my displeasure with something someone says. I will not cross my arms, or make small pyramids with both hands, or curl my thumb and forefinger in the shape of a “C” to express myself. Simon, er,  Matt says, “Now’s the time to wiggle your fingers.”  I think not.

The other problem I had was that instead of a microphone, we were expected to repeat—loudly– every word a speaker spoke.  “I am Matt.” Chorus: “I am Matt.” “We are here to…” Chorus: “We are here to…”  Simon, er, Matt says, “Walk over this cliff.” Chorus: “Walk over this cliff.” And I will not parrot what someone else says. The last time I repeated every line that was spoken to me was during my wedding ceremony when the minister said, “Repeat after me.”   And we know how that worked out. Love, honor  . . . and say what?

So, I took a step back. And I saw others take a step back. But I also saw folks take a step forward. The man in front of me (clearly a ringer) echoed the speakers’ comments as if a human bullhorn. More ringers enthusiastically used the hand signals when requested. Somewhat hesitantly, others joined in.

The dubious few remained on the periphery of the crowd occasionally glancing at each other. We had hoped to support this new form of protest, but it was very off-putting and not a little alarming. This an attempt to manipulate and control, rather than have a forum of intelligent and spontaneous protest.

On a positive note, I did notice there was a weathered stock in front of the windmill in Sag Harbor. Stocks, you may recall, were devices used in the medieval times to physically punish and publically humiliate scofflaws. Locals tossed dirt, rotten eggs, spoiled fruit and vegetables, fish, guts, and poop at the person clamped in the stock.  Yes, I’d like to use medieval-type stocks on Wall Streeters. They have filled their pockets with enough publically traded stock already.  And if we can’t drag them out of their homes on the South Fork (because that would be illegal) and clamp their respective heads and hands in stocks in front of the windmill at Long Wharf, why don’t we immortalize the Occupy the Hamptons rally in Sag Harbor by placing a giant plaque in the shape of a stock certificate at the foot of the stock by the windmill on Long Wharf:  This stock is dedicated to the men and women in our community who are responsible for worse recession since the Great Depression.  And let’s list their names.

Written by Lynne W. Scanlon and originally published as “Not Willing to Play ‘Simon Says”‘ in the October 10th, 2011 Edition of “The East Hampton Press.”

Happy Holiday and a big thank you to everyone who bought my book The Cure for Jet Lag over the past year and helped put Back2Press Books on the map. I think it is about time to back-burner my shameless self-promotion efforts for the holidays and call it �party time.� So this is just a quick note of thanks to the travelers who have bought, read, commented and/or reviewed The Cure for Jet Lag in response to that shameless self-promotion. Extra thanks to

• Joe Sharkey of The New York Times
• Erik McLaughlin, MD, MPH, AdventureDoc.org, Expedition/Travel Medicine/Global Health
• Arash Kardan, Featurestravelblog.com
• Lola Akinmade, Matadorgoods.com & Matadortravel.com
• Alan Goldsmith, Bikester.com.

And special thanks to the nice folks who have taken the time to write glowing reviews on Amazon.com and over at my website The Cure for Jet Lag.

The original book, Overcoming Jet Lag, was a blockbuster before it was allowed to fizzle and go out of print by Berkley Travel Books. (Don�t get me started!) It took me a solid year to overhaul the original edition and bring it up to date. A daunting task, really, because my co-author Dr. Ehret passed away. So it is very rewarding to know that travelers think I did a good job revising, updating, and redesigning The Cure for Jet Lag. (Let�s hear it for larger typeface!)

I hope my coauthor, Dr. Charles F. Ehret, world famous chronobiologist and the world�s leading authority on how to prevent jet lag, would be proud, too. He was the best co-author with whom I ever worked. It wasn�t easy nosing through 30 years of Dr. Ehret�s scientific papers and translating� arcane material into the page-turning, bodice ripper that is now The Cure for Jet Lag. But with Dr. Ehret�s guidance, I got the job done.

And since I�m sending out an all-encompassing thank you, I want to thank� Mark, my brother, for the enormous amount of help this very smart and generous guy provided by line-editing the book when I was beyond bleary-eyed. And how about my terrific graphic designer, Kris Warrenburg of Cyan Design in East Hampton, NY? If you are putting together a �print on demand� book and self-publishing, she�s the go-to designer. Kris made working with the POD printer look easy, and it was not, believe me. The specifications required by the printer baffled me and put me into a near mental breakdown with frustration, and I know a lot about book production from my years as a publisher at AdWeek.

As the holiday approaches, I hope you will keep my book in mind as a gift for friends, family, and colleagues. It’s available, as you know, on Amazon.com or at my website The Cure for Jet Lag.�

Happy holiday and happy travels!

All the best,

Lynne

PS While I’m thanking people, thank you to all the people who routinely visit this blog and have racked up over 700,000 page hits this year. A special thanks to those who have left comments after my postings. OK, that’s it, I’m all thanked out.

9 Feature-Length Movies, 4 Shorts in 3 Days

Nonetheless, I managed to make it to a first-day reception by sponsor RoC Skincare at The Hedges Inn in East Hampton, where, on the porch, I breathed the same rarified air as Alec Baldwin, Marcia Gay Harden and Isabella Rosellini; indulged myself at the open bar; and snared a big, quilted, gold-colored tote bag containing RoC Skincare �Deep Wrinkle Night Cream� and �Deep Wrinkle Daily Moisturizer,� all before plunging into the darkness of the local United Artist Cinema in East Hampton Village.

Huey, Dewey & Louie it Ain�t � Film Shorts Force-Fed

• Striking a Chord: About 20 years ago an article in The New York Times reported on the power of music to lift clinical depression. When I mentioned this article to my father, a psychiatrist and neurologist who always kept his jumper cables close at hand on the off-chance that he might be asked to apply some electro shock therapy, he remarked that if it were true that music had such therapeutic properties, that could be the most important discovery in psychiatric medicine in his lifetime. Striking a Chord, a 38 minute film short about US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, tears your heart out, even while you�re tapping your toes to Nell Bryden and her band as they entertain the troops. Through the �healing power� of music, the band transports the troops out of the danger zone and back to the safety of United States and home, if only for the duration of the concert. [Director Susan Cohn Rockefeller]

• Mary Last Seen: Thirteen minutes of me silently screaming at the teenage girl in the film: �GET AWAY FROM THIS GUY. DO NOT TAKE YOUR CLOTHES OFF AND GO SWIMMING WITH HIM. DO NOT WALK IN THE WOODS WITH HIM.� [Director Sean Durkin]

• Loop Planes: I have no idea what that title means. Eleven minutes of a Columbia University graduate thesis film with an �awesome twist� as per 16 year old Ryan Cassata who scored the film and helped introduce this oh-so politically correct film about Nick, er, Nicole. [Director Robin Wilby]

• Further Lane: Well, if you know where Further Lane is in The Hamptons, you know it�s all about grand shingled homes and big — some would say inappropriate — white box homes designed by the likes of architect Richard Meier (who now lives in a grand shingled home). I �know� the kid in this 13-minute film. By that I mean I�ve lived in The Hamptons long enough to have seen local kids who literally press their faces to the picture window of the big homes, look into grand rooms, and then resume mowing the lawns of the wealthy summer residents. Noah Fleiss, playing Brick, works all the sexual angles in response to Further Lane�s enticements. [Director Mesh Flinders]

Films of Conflict & Resolution, Spotlight Films, World Cinema Narrative Films, World Cinema Documentary Films

If you want it, HIFF has it . . . and I saw it.

Just Drag Him Out and Shoot Him Film

• Accidental Terrorist: (No, not �tourist.�) Forty minutes of �is he or isn�t he� a terrorist. Why would a smart Danish young man, raised in a modern Muslim family, take to extremist activities that result in a six year jail sentence?� Guilty? Not guilty? Justly sentenced? Unjustly sentenced? Wrong place at the wrong time? More important: do I care? Abdul Kadir, interviewed in his cell, is a just a bit too sanctimonious and annoying to earn my sympathy. During the Q&A after the film, the director spoke about a kid’s need to �belong� as a motivating factor. Lost soul? Please! We�ve got plenty of that ilk in the US worrying about self-actualization and hunkering down in smoke houses. But they aren�t strapping on suicide vests. [Directors Miki Mistrati & Nagieb Khaja]

Modern Gothic Crime Tale Film

• Small Town Murder Songs: We�re immersed in a small Mennonite town in Ontario for 75 minutes in this noir film. I spent the entire time wondering whether the local chief of police would crack and revert to his violent ways before the end of the film. The chief, hardly a romantic type, is somehow involved with two pretty women, and gives off vibes just as revolting as those of the snaggle-toothed killer. Lots of anguish sprinkled with darty-eyed praying. [Director & Screenwriter Ed Gass-Donnelly]

What�s It Going to Take to Get Them to Leave Home Film

• Tiny Furniture: If you relate to self-entitled college graduates going no place fast (perhaps they are in your house, eating your food even as we speak), this is the film for you. If your 22 year old spawn still wants to crawl in bed with you and call you mommy, you don�t need to buy a ticket to this 98 minute film: you�re already living the life, 24/7. Slackers, layabouts, mooches. I found this film a scathing indictment of indulgent, non-confrontational, spineless parents. This film was billed as being in the tradition of a Woody Allen movie. OK, if you say so. [Director Lena Dunham, who also stars in the film]

Sometimes It�s Just Over Film

• Blue Valentine: A sell-out crowd jammed this theatre to watch Michelle Williams� and Ryan Gosling’s characters go through what probably half the audience has already endured (if divorce stats bear out), the disintegration of a once optimistic and good marriage. It�s a harrowing feature film in the �Spotlight� category at HIFF. I couldn�t help thinking that the only difference between the very blue-collar characters in the movie and those of us watching it was that we could afford a divorce attorney and a knock-down drag-out fight for assets. 114 minutes that fly right by. Polished, professional film. [Director Derek Cianfrance]

A Horror Film for White Collar Men over 50 (Title stolen from Erik Davis�s review on Cinematical)

• The Company Men: I�m crying my eyes out when Ben Affleck watches his Porsche being driven away by its new owner. Whaaaaa! Whaaaa! Affleck plays a fast track, cocky manager who gets derailed during the greatest economic downturn in the US since The Great Depression. This star-studded, big screen movie includes Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper, and Craig T. Nelson as �swinging Dicks� (Wall Street argot!) in the ship building business and, surprise, Kevin Costner, as a good guy construction company owner. It�s tough to feel sympathy for people who have everything and lose some, as opposed to people who have little and lose all. [Director John Wells]

The Only-One-Good-Line Film

• Kisses Chloe: �Turnaround and bend over.� A 94 minute chamber drama, which, by definition, is a dramatic piece that is played out on a single, usually claustrophobic, set. What woman in her right mind would bring her boyfriend into the house of a known relationship wrecker, even if the crackpot, loser wench is her friend? And how much vodka can three people drink without acting drunk? Beautiful Hamptons� scenery as a backdrop for endless vacuous dialog about personal sexual histories. Like I care. Check, please! [Director Stephen Padilla]

My tailbone is killing me. But my face is positively glowing. Thanks, RoC for the anti-wrinkle cream! And thanks 18th Hamptons International Film Festival for the press pass.

Note from Lynne W. Scanlon: Is it possible that the economy is picking up a bit? I�m noticing a flurry of activity over at my Get Published Web site. If you are ready to step back into the publishing fray with your book, click over to the Get Published site and pick up some hints. I�ve been really busy the past few months in anticipation of a step up in the publishing marketplace. Did you see the AOL Travel article in which my book The Cure for Jet Lag gets a BIG mention? My philosophy is to work harder and faster and relentlessly in order to be ready when the market is ready for you.

One friend, a local artist (no names, please!) and author of several books that actually sell; the other friend, Maralyn Rittenour, the former director of the EH Historical Society and a woman who spent two years at Christie�s in New York City; and I, who had a roommate who slept with at least ten well-known LA artists, were arguing: Does all art in The Museum of Modern Art and The Whitney Museum of American Art deserve to be there? Do local museums and galleries around the country, such as The Parrish Art Museum in Southampton and Guild Hall of East Hampton, offer really great art — when billed as such — or are they just touting good art or, heaven forefend, actually displaying �bad art� promoted by fawning, opportunistic, inbred art buyers, critics and curators to attract wide-eyed, thumb sucking, parvenu clients and donors.

Whew. Quite a verbal slugfest.

Still smarting from the hissing and spitting the night before, on Saturday evening I headed for The Parrish Art Museum�s exhibit of �Fairfield Porter: Raw � The Creative Process of an American Master� to see �great art.� The plan was to hear a �spirited exchange� between philosopher, writer and independent curator Klaus Ottman and American painter and sculptor Eric Fischl, to have a little wine and cheese, hobnob, and to get to view not only Porter�s paintings, but his sketches, and drawings as well. After The Parrish, I�d slip over to Joe Strand�s solo exhibit and reception at 4 North Main Street Gallery, also in Southampton.

My friends and I would perform a postmortem on the weekend�s gallery openings and receptions at the next Wolffer Estate Candlelight Friday.

Flop Sweat at the Fairfield Porter Reception at The Parrish Art Museum

When 250 or so pieces of art are donated to a museum by the heirs of the artist, I�m inclined to wonder if the works have been dragged out from behind the old boiler in the basement and donated because it�s too much like work to tag sale them. Yet, who am I to judge the man �who produced some of the most lucid art criticism and commentary of his time� and was the �most important American realist painter from 1949 until 1975?� Right. I can�t. But what I can do is weigh in on the disappointing �spirited exchange� between Ottman and Fischl that took place before the wine and cheese were served. Trust me, it is a kindness to the participants to describe the exchange as deadly dull. Whoever selected this duo failed to make certain these smug guys did their homework. Their lack of preparation was an insult to the audience, some of whom might actually have been there for more than the wine and cheese. (I for one will think twice about dropping $100,000 on a Fischl because of his lack of respect for me as an artists� groupie. Oh, wait, that was my former roommate.) Not only did Ottman admit within the first three minutes that he was no authority on Porter, but Fischl said he had never read anything written by Porter and that Porter hadn�t influenced Fischl one bit. Their half hour of awkward dead silences and banal time-killing gum flapping was torture for them and amounted to intellectual waterboarding for the audience. Fischl nervously licked his lips while Ottman squirmed and said to Fischl, �You�re not making this easy for me,� as the flop sweat puddled around their feet.

Thanks. I�ll glance at the 40 Fairfield Porter�s on display, take a sip of wine and a bite of cheese, and move on to my next reception for an artist with a pulse whose startlingly colorful digital collages make Fairfield Porter�s landscapes and family portraits look like they need a good Ajaxing.

Joe Strand�s �Second Chance� Exhibit and Reception

In contrast, nothing but bright lights and dazzling digital photography at 4 North Main Street Gallery! If I weren�t such a cheapskate, I�d buy a Joe Strand: Perhaps that choo choo train (Coming of Age, $1650) barreling through my study would be a good choice or maybe even the old Mercedes reminiscent of the 300 SL Roadster my father once owned (Gull Wing Mercedes, $1600) might work too among my eclectic wall hangings, one or two of which were donations from those LA artists. My

argumentative artist friend from the debate at Wolffer Estate joined me and actually deigned to describe one of the pieces as good (Ghosts, New York City, Halloween, $2000): �Strand produced a work with an evocative figure in an evocative space that wasn�t reminiscent of something I had seen 100 times before. It was fresh.� Halleluiah!

Where�s the Secret Sleuthing Curator?

I know that the warring, er, competing Artists Alliance of East Hampton and The Artists and Writers of East Hampton offer studio tours for their members once or twice a year. Member-artists can throw open their front doors and actually attract a parade of art lovers, nosey neighbors and house snoops. Artwork does change hands. Which is why the show-stopping question posed at the Wolffer Estate last Friday night provoked a table-wide silence: �When was the last time a curator from Guild Hall or The Parrish Art Museum took the tour?�

I really don�t know the answer to that. Do you?

Note from The Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): When I was a group publisher of developmental product at AdWeek (The AdWeek Portfolios, AdWeek’s Winners Magazine) in NYC and traveled around the country to AdWeek’s various offices and expos, I occasionally issued an open invitation to local illustrators, photographers and graphic designers to bring their portfolios. (Head ‘em up and move ‘em out!) I would see the first 15 who responded. (After 15, everything became a blur.) Believe me, those days were long days for me, but very exciting for the 15 people who felt they had won the lottery. On occasion I was really surprised by the quality of a portfolio, and said so.

I feel really strongly that culling through what is called in publishing the dreaded slush pile, potentially pays big dividends, not only because you just might find a fabulous talent, but you prove you are truly part of your local artistic community.

Ok, let�s admit it. Jane Austen has not been allowed to rest in peace. Quite the contrary! That poor woman has had �Janeites� pouring over her personal letters, peeking into her dresser drawers, and analyzing every word she ever wrote until her death in 1817. When it comes to knowing everything knowable about Jane Austen, as Mick Jagger said about his excesses: �Too much is never enough.�

I Felt So Guilty Reading Jane Austen’s Personal Mail

But somehow I got over that. What a treasure trove on display at the Morgan Library exhibit “A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy.” And what a crazy quilt of sentences filling every inch of the page. First left to right and top to bottom. Then the paper turned upside down and sentences written in between the first sentences. Then the paper turned sideways and more sentences written cross-wise across all the other sentences. Yet, this “cross-hatching” technique is completely readable. Amazing! When I think of the paper we waste today. Jane (may I call her that? Everyone else seems to) puts us to shame.

Yell: FIRE! Pull the Alarm and Run Screaming from the Theatre. It’s Cornel R. West and Fran Lebowitz Opining About Jane!

Tucked in the corner of the exhibit and hidden behind a catty-corner screen ran a short documentary about Austen titled “The Divine Jane: Reflections on Austen.” The �noted Italian� director Francesco Carrozzini was specially commissioned to film interviews with artists and scholars such as Siri Hustvedt, Sandy Lerner, Colm T�ib�n, Harriet Walter, and . . . Cornel West and Fran Lebowitz???!!!

West is, per Wikipedia: �the American philosopher, author, critic, actor, and civil rights activist, as well as a prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America.� This self-professed “Jane Austen freak,” teaches in the Center for African American Studies and in the department of Religion at Princeton University. Who is he to hold forth on Jane Austen? (You remember West? Didn�t he storm out of Harvard after President Lawrence Summers questioned grading standards in West�s Black studies courses? ) West has zero credibility with me on the subject of Jane Austen. She isn�t even remotely in his subject area. Yet, for some reason that eludes me completely, he opens and closes the documentary and expounds on her “diverse corpus.” I’m thinking Sparknotes.

Was this an attempt at a PC choice? Black and male? If so, surely there were other more appropriate people with a well-known appreciation of Victorian (whoops, Regency Period) �sensibilities� than Cornel West. We’d be better served if Cornel West pontificated about David Mamet’s play, Race, now on Broadway.

And I�m not too crazy about the selection of American author Fran Lebowitz, either, to hold forth on �our� Jane. Here�s what Wikipedia says about Lebowitz: �Born and raised in Morristown, New Jersey, Lebowitz is best known for her sardonic social commentary on American life through her New York sensibilities. After being expelled from high school and receiving a GED, Lebowitz worked many odd jobs before being hired by Andy Warhol as a columnist for Interview. This was followed by a stint at Mademoiselle. Her first book was a collection of essays titled Metropolitan Life, released in 1978, followed by Social Studies in 1981, both of which are collected (with a new introductory essay) in The Fran Lebowitz Reader.�

For more than twenty years she has been famous in part for not finishing “Exterior Signs of Wealth,” a long-promised novel purportedly about rich people who want to be artists, and artists who want to be rich. Recently she has made recurring appearances as Judge Janice Goldberg on the television drama Law & Order. No doubt she works on the novel between takes.

Those credentials certainly qualify her as an authority on Austen, don’t they? Who chose Lebowitz and why? Lebowitz said she would not even want to meet Austen, and that Austen is only popular because she is misunderstood. The tape is replete with psychobabble, yet Lebowitz gets a round of applause after her interview.

Janey, Janey, How We Miss You

Despite my aversion to the documentary, the exhibit, which opened in November 2009 at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City, is spell-binding. (Yes, it�s true! I don�t want her to die either!) It runs through March 14, 2010. You�ll rub elbows with other Janeites (a notably civilized group the day I visited) and get a chance to view more than 100 works, including Austen�s early illustrated editions (Pride & Prejudice, Emma in three volumes), personal letters (including an excruciatingly painful one from Austen�s sister upon Jane�s death) and related materials (such as an etiquette book from Austen�s era), many of which The Morgan has not exhibited in over a quarter century.

Fork over the $12 admission. What a deal!

Note from The Wicked Witch of Publishing �: By the way, if you haven�t been to The Morgan Library & Museum since 2006, don�t plan on entering through the grand doors of the original building at 33 East 36th Street off Madison Avenue. A carbuncle, er, new addition with modern entrance (designed by Francisco Piano) has been grafted onto the side of The Morgan�s beautiful National Historic Landmark building with the result that there is now a big glass enclosed entrance located on Madison Avenue.

The Cure For Jet Lag by Lynne W. Scanlon and Charles F. Ehret, Ph.D., was published more than a quarter-century ago. Yet it could well represent the future of book publishing.

A Springs trio teamed up this year to issue an updated version of the book using the print on demand�or POD�process. Indeed, with a growing number of writers making use of the POD method, Publishers Row may be moving from Manhattan to the East End, which for many years has already seen its share of writers, editors, and agents.

�This area is a hothouse of creative types, from writers to artists who can benefit from print on demand books,� stated Lynne Scanlon, the co-author of The Cure For Jet Lag.

�These folks will gravitate to POD not only because it is the most expedient way to produce a book, but because literary agents and editors could care less about un-established writers these days.�

But don�t the authors of books published in non-traditional ways risk acquiring a sort of stigma as not really being professional writers, thus giving agents a reason to steer clear? �Good luck finding an agent if you don�t already have one,� Ms. Scanlon said. �That�s the Catch-22 of publishing.�

Her career in publishing has included being a marketing executive with Barnes & Noble and a book publishing consultant in addition to an author. In 1983, she collaborated with Charles F. Ehret, Ph. D.,� who had been conducting research underwritten by the U.S. government to reduce the problems associated with long-distance air travel. The original goal was to make the U.S. Army�s rapid deployment forces more effective.

Dr. Ehret himself served in the Army�s 87th Infantry Division and won a Bronze Star and Purple Heart in the Battle of the Bulge. With Ms. Scanlon doing the writing for lay readers of the results of Dr. Ehret�s research, Overcoming Jet Lag (the original title) was published.

It was a success when issued by the Berkley Publishing Group, selling more than 200,000 copies worldwide and remaining in print for more than 20 years. Sales eventually faded, but problems with jet lag did not. Last year, Ms. Scanlon wanted to release an updated edition of the book, but did not want to wait the 18 months or more it would take a traditional publisher to have new books on shelves. There was also a financial incentive: After publishers and agents and book wholesalers get their slices of the pie from a $20 book, the author�s slice may be as thin as $3.00.

Ms. Scanlon worked out an arrangement with with Dr. Ehret�s estate and founded Back2Press Books, which specializes in republishing titles that have sold in excess of 100,000 copies. Naturally, The Cure for Jet Lag would be the company�s first effort. There would be no long editing and production process nor any danger of printing thousands of copies that might not sell. The new edition would be printed on demand and be readily available on the internet (www.thecureforjetlag.com) as well as at the major chain bookstores and selected shops.

What is POD, other than the dreaded form of the infestation in �Invasion of the Body Snatchers?” The plain language answer is that it is a digital printing technology that allows a complete book to be printed and bound in minutes. This makes it easy and cost-effective to produce books in small lots rather than in large print runs. What has long bedeviled traditional book publishers is the practice of �guestimating� how much a title will sell: if the prediction is wrong, a publisher has to warehouse or even destroy tens of thousands of already-printed books.

Companies providing POD services are proliferating. This makes book publishing more democratic, in that almost anyone can publish a book. But, just as any person with access to the internet can produce content, there is an emerging Wild West atmosphere, thanks to POD, in which . . .� well, almost anyone can publish a book. Services range from a bare-bones outfit like lulu.com, which provides free online templates that allow an author to upload and format a book, to more expensive packages that include editing, cover design, marketing, and other extras.

Ms. Scanlon already had the know-how and a proven product, so she put together her own team. After she completed her rewrite, Rob Anthony, who is also a Springs EMT, did the search engine optimization and Web site development through his company East Hampton Web Services, Bob Anderson, Sr., handled proofreading, then the book was handed to another local, Kris Warrenburg, who runs Cyan Design and who has designed more than 60 books in San Francisco and for the last 11 years in East Hampton. A major task was a new cover, and it didn�t matter that the majority of the sales of The Cure for Jet Lag would be on the internet.

�The cover is always crucial, no matter where it is marketed,� Ms. Warrenburg said. �Just as with products you buy at a department store or grocery store, the packaging can have a great effect on the buyer. Attractive, compelling, well-designed book covers can win a sale over plain or uninteresting ones.�

For the rest of this very smart article, please click over to The East Hampton Press.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing: I’ve been very busy working on the promotion and marketing for The Cure for Jet Lag and haven’t posted much over here at The Publishing Contrarian. Sorry! It’s been a hectic six months. And as I have often written: without marketing your magnum opus goes nowhere!

Note how Sulzberger is characterized in attributed and unattributed descriptions in Bowden�s article called �The Inheritance� in the May issue of Vanity Fair:

His buck teeth give the impression of puerility. He listens impatiently and impulsively interrupts. He makes stabs at humor. He is long winded, affected, fussily articulate, eager to impress, insubstantial and slightly glib. He exaggerates. He has hit-and-miss witticism. He�s arrogant, not especially intellectual and a Star Trek Fan. His mind wanders. He�s a prince-in-waiting. He has the personality of a 24-year old geek. He�s provincial, sarcastic, uses poor judgment and lacks conviction. He�s condemned to stand apart from others. His career has progressed in prodigious and unearned ways. He�s timid. His efforts are half-hearted. He�s a light-weight. He�s out of his depth, fails to impress and elicits pity. He doesn�t always wear shoes in the office. He promotes people based on how �fun� they are. As a reporter, he was competent if unspectacular. He hides behind barbs. No weight seems to adhere to him. He has no radiance (power). He�s not deeply respected. He�s a lightweight cheerleader. He has a high-pitched and zany laugh. He�s overmatched. He looks dismayingly small. He�s shrinking. He�s childish. He�s goofy. He�s steered his inheritance into the ditch. He�s squandered billions. He�s the wrong person at the helm. He�s an unappealing and stereotypical figure. He�s weak and pampered. He�s a diluted strain of the hardy founding stock. He�s a man who sees himself as both journalist and business manager, but who, in fact, is fully neither.

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Backstabs AND frontstabs.

And Mark Bowden presumes to call the target of his castigating article, �Arthur.� I’ll bet that’s �Mr. Sulzberger� to you from now on, Mark Bowden.

Bowden’s article is long-winded and full of poorly weighted contradictions. (Whoever edited his article at Vanity Fair: You�re FIRED!) On the one hand, he portrays Sulzberger as a failure-in-waiting for making bad decisions, even though, according to Bowden, everyone felt those decisions seemed smart at the time. On the other hand Bowden reluctantly agrees that poor, dumb bastard Sulzberger had the foresight to create what is now �the best newspaper Web site in the country.�

Look, I am assuming that it is just a matter of time until we all become weaned from our coffee-and-newspaper-to-go mornings and check in with increasing frequency to The New York Times online. Bowden, who is 58-years-old, must be stuck in his own personal time warp and typing away on his old Smith Corona if he doesn�t �get� this. As Peter Osnos, former Washington Post reporter said to Bowden, �Arthur has . . . re-invented the newspaper on several levels and positioned it for the future.�

Say What? It�s a Myth that Good Journalism Sells?

Bowden also accuses Arthur Sulzberger Jr. of buying into the �myth� that great journalism sells. Myth? If the Chairman of The New York Times is wrong about a newspaper’s quality of journalism being of value to attract readers, then Mark Bowden, former Philadelphia Inquirer staff reporter for over 20 years, should not have been taking a paycheck. If Mark Bowden doesn’t think a newspaper’s reputation has value, he should stop boasting in his online bio about his book, Black Hawk Down, being on The New York Times Best-Seller list for over a year.

At Last, A Little Credit for �Young Arthur�

Bowden agrees there are �crushing forces at work in the newspaper industry that are certainly not Sulzberger’s fault and that are affecting every other decent paper.” Bowden also says that Sulzberger had �presided over a decade of unprecedented prosperity.� Bowden even uses the word “visionary” with regard to Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.

So why humiliate Arthur? (I don�t think he�d mind ME calling him Arthur! I�ve got his back; I�m not driving him to the window ledge.)

Although Bowden disparagingly describes Arthur as having a strongly held belief that excellence in journalism will prevail and that the money will follow, Bowden also states that Sulzberger is �the best defender of quality journalism� and a man �whose convictions regarding journalism are beyond reproach,� and a man who is �clearly smart,� and �eager to defend reporters� freedoms . . . �

Hey, Arthur Sulzberger sounds like a guy for whom Mark Bowden, aging journalist, might like to work.

Good luck with that now, Mark!

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Am I one of just a few Times’ readers who would miss the print edition terribly? One of my favorite quotations seems apt here: “You’ll remember not the words of your enemies, but the silence of your friends.” — Martin Luther King

Unfortunately, I did not have a good time. Not at all. My problems started when the audience was packed in like sardines into too narrow seats and too tight rows. I felt straight-jacketed. I couldn’t move an inch. I fell into an even uglier mood about twenty-minutes into the play when a woman seated a few seats to the right of me in the row in front of me actually pulled out her cell phone, opened it up, and began to whisper-chat — until the man sitting directly behind her rapped her on the shoulder and told her to HANG UP. (More about that later because it got ugly as the audience stood up at the end of the play.) So maybe this play just got off to a bad start with me . . . or maybe not.

Lose the Maine Accent, PLEASE!

Desire Under the Elms takes place somewhere in New England. I vote Maine because I couldn�t understand half of what the actors were saying due to their heavy Down Easter accent. Charming in the Pine Tree State, no doubt, but not good on the New York stage. Could the director, Robert Falls, please fix that?

The play is staged inside the house and on the lawn of the Cabot property in 1850. Old man Cabot�s family business is supplying stone for stonewalls. Now, having been brought up in New England where stones are literally everywhere, I know a thing or two about stonewalls. (In fact, just last summer I helped a friend rebuild a collapsed stonewall. My job was to wield the level while he stacked. As a kid, I fell out of a maple tree on to a stonewall that surrounded OUR property, and I have a nasty scar on the back of my head to prove it.) In order to build a foundation for a house or clear fields for crops or create fences for animals, New Englanders recycled the stones from their property. So I ask: Why would the father Ephraim Cabot (Brian Dennehy) and his three sons Eben (Pablo Schreiber), Simeon (Daniel Stewart Sherman) and Peter (Boris McGiver) spend a lifetime hauling stones to sell to others? That would be like bringing coal to Newcastle.

ONeill�s storyline is as gripping as his plays titles are intriguing: A 76 year old, widowed farmer brings home a young third wife, Abbie, played by Carla Gugino. Let�s see: three sons, new stepmother, family business. Could we be talking inheritance issues here? You bet.

Just Another Bunch of Nasty Characters With Whom to Spend an Evening at the Theatre

The patriarch of the family is a hard, hard man, and things get very nasty very quickly. The problem I am having is that just like in Neil Labute’s play, reasons to be pretty, the characters may be well-acted, but they are so inherently unappealing and unsympathetic that you lose interest in them. The sons lick their dinner plates. (Whose idea was that?) They sleep on the floor or the kitchen table. (Whose idea was that?) Their physical movements are jerky and frantic. (Whose idea was that?) Yuck.

Tabletop S~E~X and S~E~X Al Fresco

Also, I was a little put-off by the simulated s~e~x and the n~u~d~i~t~y on stage. (I�m not spelling those words correctly because if I do, a tsunami of p~o~r~n~o loving people will descend on my Web site and clog my stat counter.) Did they add to the story or were they supposed to be titillating? This was a one-act play. To my mind, there�s usually a reason when a play doesn�t have an intermission, and that�s because the author and/or director sense that large portions of the audience will bolt for the parking garage.

You could tell the audience�s attention was drifting throughout the play. There was coughing and people glanced about the St. James Theatre while the play was in progress. There was very polite — well, ok, a little more than simply polite — applause when the curtain came down and the actors came out to take a first and second bow, but hardly the kind of response that blows the roof off the top of the theatre.

The fun part was when we began to exit our row. The woman with the cell phone turned to the man who had tapped her on the shoulder and began to berate him. “Don�t you touch me! How dare you touch me!” Touch her? He should have grabbed that cell phone and smacked her upside the head with it. Then you would have heard the wildly enthusiastic applause that was absent from the curtain calls.

Vintage has published three of ONeill�s plays, in a single volume: Desire Under the Elms, Strange Interlude, and Mourning Becomes Electra. It would be much more interesting to read Desire Under the Elms than see this production. That said, the production is still in previews and previews are where problems get sorted out, right?

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing: Ok, this is the end of my tear through Broadway for a while! Don’t forget if you are flying this spring, click over to my other Web site to buy my book, The Cure for Jet Lag! I’ve also added a blog to the site. The new version of the book has gotten excellent reviews!

Wow, I�d love to see that play. Too bad I didn�t.

That�s why I was so disappointed in Neil Labute�s play in spite of its original theme about how Steph (a hairdresser) would handle being blindsided by the knowledge that her boyfriend (a frozen foods employee) really doesn�t find her particularly good looking.

It�s Not OK for White Collar Playwrights to Dis Blue-Collar Workers

Some of the best, most dependable guys I know are blue-collar, hands-on workers. Who ya gonna count on when your car is buried in a snow bank at two in the morning and you need somebody to haul your sorry you-know-what out of there? Who ya gonna count on when the toilet tank breaks and water is pouring through the ceiling? Who ya gonna count on when you need someone who can MITER? (Oh, yes, I know, YOU can miter!) Well, you get the idea.

So aggressive and offensive were three out of four of the characters’ attitudes and dialogues throughout the play that I found three out of four of the characters just plain repugnant. Sorry, Mr. Labute, but I could care less about Greg and Steph. It wasn’t just the potty mouths. It was the in-your-face, disrespectful and spiteful exchanges between longtime friends and current lovers. Is this really the way men who offload frozen vegetables from the back of trucks think and speak? Is this really how women associated with working men talk to them? I don�t think so. And grabbing your wife�s butt in the lunchroom, even if she is working in the same company, will get your butt frogmarched straight into the street. It’s the law, Mr. Labute. In the city and in the suburbs. You don�t get away with that kind of behavior anymore. Not in 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006. Not on the 19th floor or in the mailroom. Not in the city. Not in the suburbs. Yet, according to the playbill, Reason to be Pretty takes place not long ago in the outlying suburbs. I don’t think so. And I also don�t think a character in 2009 would say, “How’s tricks?” This play definitely does not work for me.

Great Reviews? What’s Up with That?

Can you believe it? Here are some of the reviews of Reasons to be Pretty:

“Wonderfully acted . . . freshest dialog.” — Ben Brantly, The New York Times

“. . . highlight of the season . . . .” — Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press

“Ferociously funny.” — John Simon Bloomberg News

“Best new Broadway play of the season. ” — Richard Zoglin, TIME

“5 Stars.” — Elysa Gardner, USA Today

Yes, some of the exchanges were very clever, even poignant, but Steven Pasquale�s handsome, though thuggish character, Ken, was retro and unfunny. Carly, played by Piper Perabo, was the picture-perfect, night-shift security guard, but a stereotypically vacuous, blond creature. The only character with an air of civility about him was Greg, played by Thomas Sadowski. The playwright had him reading Poe and Hawthorne during lunch hour at 3 AM. So I guess he really wasn�t blue-collar after all. And the girlfriend, Steph, played by Marin Ireland was just plain vulgar. Who would abide that harridan anyhow?

In “A Note from the Playwright” from the preface to Reasons to be Pretty, Neil LaBute states, �I have a profound respect for work and workers and communities that live from paycheck to paycheck. The worst day I have had writing is better than the best day I ever had working in a factory, and the people who do it, year after year, because that’s life, and food and rent and child support must be paid, have all my respect.�

Well, yes, Mr. Labute, then show some respect for them.

(Reasons to be Pretty: A Play by Neil Labute was published by Faber & Faber in 2008.)

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): And now to something important. What do you think of my new look and photo? The brilliant nephew, who also manages this site for me, took the photo last weekend. Let’s hear it for a little “soft focus!”

It�s All About Me! Yet Again!

This year I was doubly interested in the topic of digital publishing because of the enormous amount of time, energy, and money I spent developing a commercial online publishing presence in 2008 for Back2Press Books and publishing my first print and soon-to-be eBook, The Cure for Jet Lag. As excruciatingly boring, painful or vague as most of the titles of the individual seminars were:

• Copyright in Today�s Digital Age
• XML in Practice: Formats, Tools, and Techniques
• What�s Your Mobile Strategy?
• Optimizing Distribution + Maximizing Control + Channel Transformation = The Perfect Trifecta for Publishers
• CEO Roundtable: The Changing Role of Publishers
• Making an Impact with Travel Content
• Smart Women Read e-Books
• Extending the Publishing Ecosystem, Sharing Greater Wealth
• Authoring Challenges in a Multiplatform World

I was breathless with excitement to cram in as many seminars as I could.

KEYNOTES THAT MADE ME CRAZY MAD.

Stop stealing my property you s.o.b!

One of the keynote speakers was Cory Doctorow. He�s all over the internet, speaking, blogging, writing, etc. Doctorow railed about Digital Rights Management (DRM) being a bad thing. Hey, I love free too. And I can understand giving some things away as an enticement to sweeten the deal on a book purchase (print or digital), but let�s NOT give the main product away or allow people to STEAL it by illegal downloads in the hope/expectation that the content will become viral and then, maybe, others will buy it. This is madness. (Yes, I know all about illegal downloads in the music industry.) How about I let myself into Doctorow�s apartment because he hasn�t locked his front door and steal his monster flat screen TV so I can watch some digital TV?

Cory, listen to me, Big Boy: Most authors do not have the requisite gene to promote themselves and their products as smartly and thoroughly as you. Jeez. Their knees would knock at the thought of venturing onto a stage. As elder-statesman Jason Epstein, co-founder of On Demand Books and a developer of the Espresso Book Machine, said in his mesmerizing keynote: most authors do not want to do anything but write, and it�s an �alone� endeavor that does not involve leaping about on stage or developing ancillary byproducts to offset the loss of income from stolen property. Making me even angrier, the final keynote, Nina Paley, AKA �America�s Best-Loved Unknown Cartoonist,� showed a trailer of her absolutely beautiful, romantic and award-winning cartoon-short, and spoke at length about how she endorses �open content� and welcomes theft (my word) of her images and concepts by anyone and everyone. (Fine, turn a frame into a place mat. Enjoy. Go ahead. Let the filmmaker starve to death.) I�m not buying it. Nope. What she is trying to do is find a film distributor and since she has not to-date, frustrated, she must be doing everything in her power to attract attention in the HOPE that a film distributor will buy the rights. What else can she do? She asks for donations on her Web site, and she does get them, but by her own admission, not enough to stop her from holding out her tin cup. Right. I think I�ll leave my car on the street, doors unlocked, key in the ignition, on the off-chance that will encourage someone to buy my house. I�m in high-dudgeon over this one.

O�REILLY GIVES GOOD LUNCHES

One of the most exciting parts about TOC2009 is you never know with whom you are going to sit at lunch time. True, there�s that awkward moment when you approach a table, tray in hand, with only one empty seat and everyone chatting away, and have to ask: �Do you mind if I join you?� Last year I sat next to a woman from “Publishers Weekly.” We have kept in touch AND met up again this year to chat about PW’s downward spiral and firing of Sara Nelson, Editor-in-Chief. This year I plunked myself down at a table full of Random House suited-up execs and the more casually attired Random House geeks. (Not talking to each other.) The Lightning Source fox who stumbled into my table full of Random House hens clearly could hardly contain himself . . . and didn�t. As a note of interest, the man sitting to my right at the table had just lost his job at another major pub house. His friends at Random House had paid for his ticket to TOC2009. Nice. Very nice. This gesture is just another indication how important networking can be at TOC.

I’ve got a backlog of work to catch up on. So for now, let’s call this TOC2009 Part I, and I’ll try to blog again with more comments re the various seminars I attended. Yes, I attended lots of seminars, including Smart Women Read eBooks (which should have been titled “Box of Books and Bag of Diapers”); Making an Impact with Travel Content (where I exchanged business cards with two panelists); and CEO Roundtable (where one of the panelists, Eileen Gittins, Founder, President & CEO of Blurb, told about riding a rocket fueled by “crafters” into the digital stratosphere in just two years — fellow panelists, Tim O�Reilly, Founder of O�Reilly Media; Michael Hyatt, Pres & CEO of Thompson Publishing; and Bob Young, CEO of Lulu, did collective double takes when they heard Gittin�s stunning stats.) Say what? Huh? She had how many millions of glue-gun-wielding visitors to her site everyday?

Don’t you want to know about the opening night party at Zanzibar; the jaw-dropping silence that filled the Marriott’s Broadway North auditorium as we watched the video of The Espresso Book Machine 2.0 — essentially an ATM for books — automatically print, perfect-bind, and� deliver a single volume in less time that it takes Starbuck’s to produce a fancy cup of� . . . espresso; and the tension-filled last ten minutes of TOC2009?

You betcha. Wink. Wink.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Make sure you read Comment #4 from Brother Rene. We live for comments around here, so feel free to leave one! Thanks.