I’m currently obsessed with…

1. Vampire Weekend 
2. Krav Maga
3. Getting Things Done by David Allen
4. Guerrilla Marketing for Writers by Jay Conrad Levinson
5. www.MoonPittsburgh.com
6. Johnny Bunko

[What to expect from the upcoming Vampire Weekend backlash] [Born Ruffians]

MoonPittsburgh.com goes live… finally!

The Moon Handbooks Pittsburgh companion website has literally been in the works for something like 10 months now, and finally - FINALLY! - it’s now live and online. I’d be much obliged if you’d take a minute to check it out, and also if you’d be kind enough to let me know what you think.

As for myself, I’m more or less in love with it. In fact, not only is it a storefront selling discounted and autographed copies of the book - it’s also a fantastic online guide with a great Pittsburgh-places directory. I’m in the process now of gathering together a bunch of merchandise ideas (T-shirts, tote bags, etc.), so you can count on there being all sorts of great stuff for sale on the site before too long.

Please feel free to get in touch if you’re a creative Pittsburgher with something you’d like to sell on the site; assuming there’s a significant enough interest, MoonPittsburgh.com will soon be acting as a retail store for all things Pittsburgh, like books and gift items.  

I have a new mobile number…

Q) When you’ve had the same phone number forever, and then you change it, how should you best go about the process of informing everyone who needs to know?

A) I don’t have the slightest inkling of an idea. We’re sort of past the age of sending out mass e-mails, aren’t we? After all, I don’t even know the majority of the people in my e-mail address books.  

Anyway, the point is, I finally decided to get a new mobile number. I thought it might be nice to have one with an area code that accurately reflected where I currently live. If you’d like the number, kindly send a request via e-mail, or simply call me on my old number, which will be active for another two weeks or so.  

Upcoming: U.S. stamps celebrating American journalists

For some reason, I find this incredibly exciting — the U.S. Postal Service apparently has official plans in place to release five stamps immortalizing American journalists “who risked their lives reporting some of the most important events of the 20th Century.” (In other words, these journalists were all foreign correspondents.) The first-day-of-issue date is still unknown, although a release-date ceremony for the stamps will be held at the National Press Club in Washington DC. The following is from a United States Postal Service press release:

 The U.S. Postal Service has released the images for an upcoming series of stamps celebrating American Journalists. The stamps honor Martha Gellhorn, John Hersey, George Polk, Ruben Salazar and Eric Sevareid. Other journalists who have been commemorated on stamps include: Edward R. Murrow, Ernie Pyle, Walter Lippman, Henry Luce, Nellie Bly, Ida M. Tarbell, Ethel L. Payne, Margueritte Higgins and publisher Adolph S. Ochs.

To view and download images of the stamps, click here.

Marriage Without Monogamy, Part Four

My fourth essay in the “Marriage Without Monogamy” series went live on the Tango Magazine website a few days back. And this is interesting: In an especially smart and cunning effort to up my readership stats, the editors have apparently changed the essay’s title from “Marriage Without Monogamy, Part Four” to “Open Relationship Dos and Don’ts: Is it still an open relationship if you’re restricted by a long list of rules?”

And just in case you’re wondering what’s so brilliant about all that, the answer’s simple: Any-damn-thing posted online that contains the term “open relationship” is practically guaranteed instant popularity. Seriously. Actual editors of actual online magazines have said as much. And yet sadly, this entry in the MWM series has not yet been picked up by the Huffington Post, as my first, second, and third pieces were. I suppose it’s still possible that’ll happen sometime this week, especially given the story’s new SEO-friendly title. I’ll post a note here if that happens.   

And speaking of the Huffington Post, I’m putting together my first piece for them today. It’s about the current changing nature of marriage and relationships, which is more or less the same general ground I’ll be covering in all my future HuffPost pieces. Assuming this one goes over well and they ask me back, that is. Wish me luck!

Oh yeah guess what? The lovely and talented sex journalist/educator Tristan Taormino gave me a little shout-out on the website for her new book about creating and sustaining open relationships, “Opening Up” (Cleis Press).

Unbelievable book deals for lucky bloggers

Not even a month before this week’s all Thomas Kohnstamm news, all the time, it seems the blogosphere was exploding with book news of a much more positive sort. I’ve only discovered this recently, but apparently two hugely popular blogs, Stuff White People Like and I Can Has Cheezburger, have both landed book deals with beyond-ridiculous advances. In the print media universe. Get this: On March 20, The New York Observer reported that the “Stuff White People Like” book was sold to Random House for at least $350,000. 

For those of you who don’t work in the media or publishing industries, you’ll simply have to take my word for it: This is an incredibly high advance. And that’s to say nothing of the fact that the book will be based on a blog that is currently less than three months old! Initially, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe this was nothing more than a well-executed media prank. And yet here’s a thoroughly-reported New York Times story about both deals. Here’s an interesting quote from that story:

Blog books are far from a sure thing at the cash register. Gawker.com spawner the book, “The Gawker Guide to Conquering All Media,” which has sold fewer than 1,000 copies since its release in October 2007. A book based on a popular Web site focused on fashion disasters has sold 2,000 copies in its first seven weeks of release, according to Nielsen BookScan.

According to Sara Nelson of Publishers Weekly, Random House will need to sell approximately 75,000 copies of the “Stuff White People Like” book, just to earn back it’s advance. And here’s another interesting point from the story: Media wunderkind Kurt Andersen is apparently involved with the project on some level, and may have been somewhat instrumental in securing the deal in the first place. What was it about the site, you might wonder, that impressed Andersen so much? Ambitious bloggers, take note:

Mr. Andersen said what impressed him about White People’s prospects as a book is that it was already sort of unbloglike. The site is not chockablock with links to other material, but with what amounts to a series of daily essays. “It’s more like a book he’s putting out serially on the Web,” Mr. Andersen said. [New York Times, link]

Middle Eastern entrepreneurs featured in Gulf Life

The current issue of Gulf Life magazine, which is the in-flight magazine of the Bahrain-based Gulf Air, has a fantastic feature-package (complete with photos) about a number of incredibly industrious Middle Eastern entrepreneurs. (Or entrepreneurs with Asian-themed businesses.) Each piece is only a few hundred words long, and the entire package can probably be read in ten or twenty minutes. But if you’ve only got time for a few …

1. Check out ”The one-rupee entrepreneur“, a piece about Mumbai’s many coin-operated public phone businesses. One call costs only two US cents! [Story by Jerry Pinto]   
2. Also read this piece about Shehab Hamad, a culture, fashion, and lifestyle entrepreneur based in Dubai. Hamad runs Dubai’s 9714 multimedia collective, where everyone from musicians to video-artists to poets regularly perform. The article, by the way, was written by former Lonely Planet authors Lara Dunston and Terry Carter. Also check out the website of Five Green, a sleek and modern Dubai boutique owned and operated by Hamad and his sister. 
3. Possibly the most unique free agent in this series, however, is Tobias Moss, the owner of a London taxicab service called Karma Kars. According to the story:

“Its fleet consists of four imported Indian Ambassador cars, each lavishly decorated and boasting interiors that feature flowers, beads and dazzling upholstery.”

In other words, the sort of taxi you might see on the streets of Delhi or Calcutta. Even better is the fact that Moss, who claims to have traveled to India once a year since 1968, has even more Indian-themed business ideas in mind: “I will write my autobiography,” he says in the article, ”and I would love to open a Karma Kafe in London and a boutique hotel based on Karma Kars, with themed rooms, all different and in mosaic.”

Close-up photos of the various Karma Kars’ exteriors and interiors are available for vieweing on the company’s website, which is where I found the photo above. That’s the interior of Moss’ ‘Monsoon Wedding’ model, by the way; look closely and you’ll see Moss himself peeking through the back window. Other available kabs include the ‘Goa Sunset,’ with red interior; the ‘Ab Fab Kab,’ with gold glitter interior; and the ‘Moon Palace,’ which was specifically designed for weddings with its cream and gold interior. As Moss’ British contemporaries might say, Brilliant! [Story by Kathryn Miller]

Inspiration/Information for free agents

A couple interesting news stories today that should inspire and educate solo-workers and other free agents …

First, from the front page of today’s Philadelphia Inquirer, a decent profile of jazz musician Elliott Levin. At the ripe old age of 54, Levin has now been hustling obscure avant-jazz gigs for over 30 years. Here are two quotes from the story, which was written by the Philly-based freelancer music journalist David R. Adler: 

Philadelphia jazz artists may face a shortage of available bookings, but Levin seems to find every last one. “Man, I really do hustle,” he says, “but that’s what I’ve had to learn to do to survive playing music.”

Guitarist Rick Iannacone, a creative partner of Levin’s for decades, allows that his friend’s openness toward any and all gigs could be perceived as overzealous, even unfocused. “Some would say, ‘Why play with these cats, or with those cats?’ But the thing about Elliott is he has no agenda except to share music.”

[Elliott Levin's Official Website]

* * *

Also, freelancer and Salt Magazine co-founder Catherine Price hands out financial advice and tax tips to the Free Agent Nation. [Salon, click here]

Dan Pink’s Johnny Bunko update

Free Agent Nation author Dan Pink alerted many of his fans yesterday to a number of interesting promotions and tie-ins associated with Johnny Bunko, his recently-published book. Johnny Bunko, if you haven’t heard about this yet, is a business- and career-advice book produced in the style of a Japanese “manga” comic. Pink wrote the story, and a wonderfully talented illustrator by the name of Rob Ten Pas (that’s him, with the ballcap and the goatee) did the artwork.

The story itself aims to share with readers the six great secrets of career success, and after devouring an advance review copy in under an hour, I can attest to the fact that it does the job quite well. If you’ve been exposed to Dan Pink’s work in the past, and you’re now wondering whether or not Johnny Bunko might be worth it’s cover price, I’ll say this: If you consider yourself to be the sort of person who has creative career ambitions, and yet you still can’t seem to figure out how to survive comfortably outside the confines of a corporate 9-to-5 job, you might want to buy the book. (You might also want to buy two or three other creative career guides, starting with Carol Lloyd’s Creating a Life Worth Living, and possibly Barbara Sher’s Wishcraft.)

And for those of you who absolutely can’t get enough Bunko in your lives, check out the Bunko Facebook group, and keep your eyes on the website for information about upcoming contests, and possibly even a Bunko T-shirt. I’ll be wearing mine with pride.     

Lonely Planet author Josh Krist’s Memoirgate response

Just a quick note to alert anyone who has arrived at The Labor Party looking for information about the Lonely Planet/Thomas Kohnstamm scandal that writer Josh Krist, also a Lonely Planet author, has written in with a comment of his own. To read the comment in its entirety, simply scroll down to the very bottom of the post that sits directly below this one, and then click to read the comments. If you’d rather not be bothered with all the scrolling and clicking, however, here’s a synopsis:

Hi Dan, I personally am miffed about the whole thing … I think he lied about lying — in other words, yes, he greased the truth about how carefree and fun-loving his research trips were to make the trips read more Hunter S. Thompson-like. I just read his interview over at World Hum, and to me, it was deception on top of deception … So, I can understand why people feel ripped off. Travelers pay us to be honest, trustworthy, and thorough. Thomas, no matter what the “real” story might be, is apparently none of those things, or, not enough. My dad has a good line: Not only should we avoid impropriety, we should avoid even the appearance of impropriety — because the second often leads to the first.

Josh also links to a wonderful article by Tim Wu about the importance and necessity of guidebooks that was published last April on Slate.

Perhaps not surprisingly, a relatively large number of guidebook writers, some who are affiliated with LP and others who aren’t, have been weighing in on the Kohnstamm Kontroversy via their personal weblogs. I’ve found two so far that should be considered required reading for anyone interested in understanding how this scandal happened in the first place, or for that matter, anyone interested in learning the truth about how the guidebook industry really works. 

The first is Zora O’Neill’s Roving Gastronome blog. Zora writes for Moon Handbooks, Rough Guides and Lonely Planet. This is the post of hers you’ll want to read first. It’s titled The Thomas Kohnstamm Affair: A Long Rant on What It’s Really Like to Be a Guidebook Author.

Next, read Lara Dunston’s Decoding Lonely Planet’s explanation. Dunston’s post, while amusing and fairly spot-on, is also rather snarky in tone. It’s therefore worth bearing in mind that after contributing to more than 25 books for Lonely Planet with her husband Terry Carter, the couple have both chosen to end their association with the company. Lara and Terry are both extremely prolific travel writers, and today they maintain the Grantourismo travel blog.