Sorry for the lack of updates. Holidays and work have been really kicking my ass as of late. C’est la vie. On a brighter note, 10ZenMonkeys has thrown up a piece written by the late, great Robert Anton Wilson entitled, “Santa’s Crimes Against Humanity.”
An excerpt:
It wasn’t the first time Mr. Claus got the boot from a Christian congregation. Pope John XXIII threw the suspiciously merry old clown out of the Roman Catholic church back in the late 1960s. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have always denounced Santa for his unsavory pagan past. (They also recognized Christmas trees as phallic symbols long before Freud.) Many fundamentalists believe that all pagan gods are basically one false god — the same demon in different disguises — and they think the disguise is thin in the case of this particular elf. It only takes a minor letter switch, they point out, to reveal Santa Claus as SATAN Claus.
I sort of think the fundies have it right for once. Santa not only has an unsavory pagan ancestry but a rather criminal family history all around. Let me Illuminize you…
I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season.
RU Sirius over at 10ZenMonkeys.com has asked 10 writers what effect they believe that the Internet has had on writers and the writing community. Very interesting answers from some very interesting authors. I especially liked Douglas Rushkoff’s response, an excerpt of which follows:
Douglas Rushkoff: I’d say that it’s great for writing as a cultural behavior, but maybe not for people who made their livings creating text. There’s a whole lot more text out there, and only so much time to read all this stuff. People spend a lot of their time reading text on screens, and don’t necessarily want to come home and read text on a page after that. Reading a hundred emails is really enough daily reading for anyone.
The book industry isn’t what it used to be, but I don’t blame that on the internet. It’s really the fault of media conglomeration. Authors are no longer respected in the same way, books are treated more like magazines with firm expiration dates, and writers who simply write really well don’t get deals as quickly as disgraced celebrities or get-rich-quick gurus.
I think that Rushkoff’s thoughts apply to many different industries and that because of the democratizing effect of the Internet there are many more options than ever before. Whether or not this will hurt the conventional publishing industry severely depends entirely upon their response to and ability to adapt with the changing times. I believe that this is true of all preexisting entertainment and information industries.
