THIS MODERN WORLD

Roy Edroso leads the way.

Hi Mr. Tomorrow;

Just wanted to drop you a note about the Christmas ornaments, which I ordered a while back and received late last week. Not only are they larger than they appear in web photos, but they are also much cooler. Much MUCH cooler. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay cool. And probably underpriced, too.

Also, congrats on your move to Tarcher Penguin. If nothing else, at least you’re with a publisher that has “Penguin” in their name.

Warm regards,

Eric

Glad you like them, Eric. I think the Great Lakes people did a really amazing job — and I agree, for the work that goes into each one, they’re way underpriced.

The link to order them is over to the left. I’ll try to put some more pictures up later, to give a better sense of the proportions.

I’ve been doing work in public for a long time now — fifteen or twenty years, depending on how you judge it. And there’s a thing that you go through, when you’ve had absolutely no voice at all, and suddenly you find that you have a small voice that a few people are paying attention to — you tend to overestimate the level at which your newfound voice is being broadcast. It’s a heady experience, when you first go from being completely obscure to being ever so slightly less obscure. You’re the center of your own storm. And being at the center of your own storm — seeing the references to your work, receiving feedback from total strangers — can fool you into thinking that the storm is really, really massive.

But you know what? It’s just not. You’re at the center of your own storm, and your neighbor doesn’t even know it’s raining out. And this is the thing that you learn, and learn to make your peace with. Unless you are on the very top of the ladder, you’re just another marginal voice. Having a small voice doesn’t mean you’re making a large impact on the world.

Anyway, I got to thinking about this after repeatedly noticing that some bloggers, having been given an inch, are apparently under the impression that they are rulers. For instance, when the New York Times asked a group of mostly middle-to-right leaning bloggers “What transformed politics this time around?” the answer several of them gave was, of course, their own blogging. And now, via Pandagon, I see that some bloggers are nominating themselves to take over William Safire’s op-ed space.

I guess you have to have a fairly high opinion of yourself to keep one of these little weblogs, but you also need to keep things in perspective. A little bit of attention and a few small victories do not change the fact that you are still, for the most part, a novelty act, like a horse that can count by stomping its hooves. People may be amused and interested by the horse, but they aren’t going to give him tenure in the math department at a prestigious university.

The short term strategy of the Bush administration is apparently to ensure that even more people are without health insurance.

The changes are meant to be revenue-neutral. To pay for them, the administration is considering eliminating the deduction of state and local taxes on federal income tax returns and scrapping the business tax deduction for employer-provided health insurance, the advisers said.

Link, via Atrios.

Some changes ahead for the multimedia empire that is This Modern World. The big announcement is that, after six books and about fourteen years, I’m leaving St. Martin’s Press and signing with Tarcher Penguin. My editor at SMP has been astonishingly supportive of my work over the years, and the decision to end our working relationship was not an easy one. But overall, it’s pretty clear that I have reached a plateau at SMP, and sometimes it’s better to start somewhere anew with a fresh group of people who might try to push things a little bit further.

So I’ll have another “normal” size collection coming out (as opposed to the oversized treasury), and it’s going to need a title, which is always my worst thing. This isn’t a contest, per se, but I am open to suggestions, and if someone does come up with something I use, they’ll certainly get a signed print, as well as my eternal gratitude.

The second announcement is that after the next issue, I’ll be leaving The American Prospect. This was my decision, and not the result of any backstage dramas — I’m just a little burned out and want to cut the workload back, and maybe try to clear out some time for other projects. I’ve been running in TAP for about five years, and I just need a break from the extra monthly deadline.