Re: May the shade of Ashton Clark hover over your right shoulder and guard your left.

On Sun, 4 Feb 2001, Norton wrote:

> >> but you might do your
> >> readers more of a service
> >
> >Than drawing their attention to it? To discussing and interesting
> >part of the book?
> 
> The point you are missing is that the addition of the link will result
> in more of a service being done to your reader than is being done now.

Well, I didn't *quite* miss it, I just don't know how much of an
improvment it is.

It's really a bit of weird rigidity on my part spawned by the way our CMS
works. When reviewing a book, we can enter an ISBN and have an automatic
link to Powells under the title. I didn't think of it as a book reveiw,
and wanted to point to the page I did.

> My statment is not about diminishing what you have already done, it is
> about an easy way to enhance that.

Yes, I understand. I don't think it's all that much of
enhancement. <shrug/> I feel weird that way.

Again, I really don't understand why our readers can't just go to abebooks
themselves.

Now if there were an online version of Nova, I'd gladly point to that.

> >Actually, in case you were wondering, I did consider pointing to
> >powells, abebooks, et al, but the nature of used books is to go
> >out of stock, eh? So pointing to possibly transitory links didn't
> >seem quite worth it.
> 
> The first link in that set I e-mailed you (
> http://dogbert.abebooks.com/abe/BookSearch?ph=2&an=Samuel+R.+Delany&tn
> =nova ) lists 211 copies of the book you discuss for sale, and it is
> not tied to a particular copy or version of the book, so I don't think
> it is as transitory as you seem to worry that it is.

Yes, that's absolutely clear. 211 is plenty :)

> Even if it is, the choice is whether to curse the darkness or light a
> candle.

This is bizarre. I'd do better to post links for all the Delany books I
cite in the article (I probablly will, when I get around to it). If your
message was simply, "Hey, Nova's pretty easy to get ahold of, let folks
know." that's one thing. It *still* doesn't alter my points about the
out-of-printness of it. But to paint me as somehow being a force of
negativity instead of a enhancer of humanity just goes way over into sheer
rudeness. I mean, talk about bringing out the big guns over
*nothing*. Sheesh.

"There's a typo which, if you don't fix, you shall be a disgracer of the
name "Delaney" and curse your poor readers to the savage pain of reading a
misspelling. Shame! Shame!"

"The grammatical infelecity with marred your article was such that if you
do not change it now, your name will forever more belong to the ranks of
Bush-inspired faith-based education reformers!"

You would have done *me* much more of a service if you were encouraging
rather than weirdly obsessed. I flatter myself that finishing the article
I was working on (about Audre Lorde) would have been a greater service to
my readers.

But, to get you off my back, I added this:

"(Afterword from Febuary 4th, 2001: there's this guy, "Norton", who
insists that I point to the Abebooks search for Nova, so that I "light a
candle instead of cursing the darkness" (paraphrase). I thought this was
so funny and sad that I just had to add it. I don't really see the large
added value (especially odd is the tension he puts between my "merely
bemoaning" and "lighting a candle" -- is pointed to Abebooks such a big
deal? does pointing to it somehow redeem my article from nilhilism?).

Oh well, I guess I can move on from cursing the darkness (a really
interesting turn of phrase, all things considered) to just being bitter."

I *dearly* hope this satisfies you!

Now *please* leave me alone about this.

(Note: I'm not *sure* how torqued off I am about this. I'm
oscillating. So take it all as humorously intended, if a bit edgy.)

Cheers,
Bijan.