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We (by which I mean Danny, Becca, and I) went to see Singin' In the Rain at the Castro Theatre last night. Somehow Danny and I had never yet seen anything at the Castro: it's one of the grand old movie palaces of yore, decorated in over-the-top Byzantine gilding, with an organ that comes up in the middle of the stage to play incidental music before the film starts. Wonderful.
And the movie. I love this movie--we all do, and quote from it lavishly.* This morning, when I said something over in Facebook-land (referencing what I think was Jim MacDonald's comment that, if SF is the intersection of technology and society, Singin' in the Rain is one of the great SF movies) I realized that publishing is in a sort of Singin' in the Rain moment. Of course, in SITR, the technological leap is clear cut: movies go from silent to sound; merriment ensues. In the current state of publishing we've gone from words-on-pages, distributed...well, in different ways...to words everywhere, on screens, on pages, on e-readers, published by Big Publishers and indies and hopeful self-publishers, in a world where the technology is moving faster and faster, and not toward refining what now is (in the sense that movie technology became about improving the sound and picture quality of the artform) but toward what may be coming up (story delivered directly into that chip in your head! edible books! dogs and cats living together...).
It is an interesting time to be a writer. Or a publisher, or in any sort of publishing work. Print, despite the catastrophizing, is still the way most consumers of prose get their fix. There are reports coming out about the possible physiological downside of reading on screen. Who even knows where we'll wind up. But I find Singin' in the Rain to be a little comforting on that score. At least, unless it turns out that I'm Lina Lamont and not Don Lockwood.
And the movie. I love this movie--we all do, and quote from it lavishly.* This morning, when I said something over in Facebook-land (referencing what I think was Jim MacDonald's comment that, if SF is the intersection of technology and society, Singin' in the Rain is one of the great SF movies) I realized that publishing is in a sort of Singin' in the Rain moment. Of course, in SITR, the technological leap is clear cut: movies go from silent to sound; merriment ensues. In the current state of publishing we've gone from words-on-pages, distributed...well, in different ways...to words everywhere, on screens, on pages, on e-readers, published by Big Publishers and indies and hopeful self-publishers, in a world where the technology is moving faster and faster, and not toward refining what now is (in the sense that movie technology became about improving the sound and picture quality of the artform) but toward what may be coming up (story delivered directly into that chip in your head! edible books! dogs and cats living together...).
It is an interesting time to be a writer. Or a publisher, or in any sort of publishing work. Print, despite the catastrophizing, is still the way most consumers of prose get their fix. There are reports coming out about the possible physiological downside of reading on screen. Who even knows where we'll wind up. But I find Singin' in the Rain to be a little comforting on that score. At least, unless it turns out that I'm Lina Lamont and not Don Lockwood.