gapingvoid: "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards"

this the new advertising

Here's a personal example of why I like blogs so much. My business partner, Thomas Mahon, is one of the best tailors in the world. We sell suits around the $4000 mark (and we consider that cheap).

In a recent post, he wrote:

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. For the money, the British high street retailer, Marks & Spencer's makes as good a suit as anyone. I rate them highly.

M&S suits cost about one tenth of ours. They're like the British equivalent of Sears or JC Penny. Naturally, not everyone who reads his blog has a spare four grand to blow on a suit, so he was giving some advice about what to look for at a more modest budget.

Could you imagine a similar piece of good, solid information appearing in an ad for Armani or Brook's Brother's?

Of course not.

This the new advertising. A world where dinosaurspeak has nowhere to live comfortably.

Of course, not everybody wants to live in this new world of ours. When Tom and I launched English Cut back in January, we sent the link to a fashion journalist that he knew well. The journalist wrote back, saying (A) he hated the concept and (B) he didn't think it was going to work.

I love watching the gatekeepers getting it wrong.

[UPDATE:] Another nail in the coffin of dinosaurspeak: "Stormhoek, Kittens and Gay Live Aid Performers". Thanks, Gia.

Again, can you imagine the words "Kittens and Gay Live Aid Performers" appearing in a Jacob's Creek wine commercial? Again, of course not.

if you care about blogging

If you care about blogging, please go read this.

Hell, even if you don't "care" about blogging that much; even if blogging is only moderately interesting to you, seriously, just go read it.

Yes. This is huge.

welcome to the future of advertising: selling wine by talking about drm

Gia got her Stormhoek wine today, and made a few points about DRM (Digital Rights Management):

It's Official: TV Sucks... Drink Bloggers' Wine Instead

Please, British Television, don't implode like the Music Industry and definitely, most definitely, don't start calling ME a 'pirate' in the way the Film Industry does because I copy films to my harddrive for my son to watch on the train... Last time I was in Blockbusters their TV channel-thingy started talking about how "Video Pirates" were "involved in drug and human trafficking"... ????... Really? Me? Almost everyone I know who regularly copies DVDs? We are all involved in drug or human trafficking?? Piss off! ... and the 'Oh, no, we're not talking about you we're talking about the bad guys who do it, you know, the... (hushed voice) Asians' argument just won't cut it. Unless there is a legal number of times one can copy a DVD for personal use, then I'm afraid that, legally, I am tarred with the same 'Supports Human Trafficking' brush. And, you know, that really pisses me off.

It's very simple. When a corporate schmoe reaches a certain age and position within society, the thought of calling teenagers or single mothers "criminals" is far less daunting to him than the prospect of having have to change his tired ol' business model.

When you spend twenty-plus years getting to the top of the pyramid, the last, last, last thing you want to hear is that nobody wants your pyramid anymore. Especially if that's the only pyramid you've got. So you lash out.

But cultural entrenchment isn't just the domain of "the evil managers". The guys with the black turtlenecks and iPods are feeling the same pain, as any wander around Soho on a weekday will confirm.

[NB:] Welcome to the future of advertising: Selling wine by talking about DRM. Heh.

[DRM RELATED:] From Suw Charman: "I will create a standing order of 5 pounds per month to support an organisation that will campaign for digital rights in the UK but only if 1000 other people will too." — Danny O'Brien.

the clown suit rule (cont.)

Another reason why The Head Lemur remains one of my favorite blogs.

if you can express

[LINK:] More thoughts on the subject from Evelyn Rodriguez.

make poverty

(related link)

learning a lot about your market

Incisive thought from James Cherkoff:

I have just received a bottle of Stormhoek wine - all part of Gapingvoid's wine blogging campaign. It's real modern marketing - albeit at a micro-level. Will it increase sales? Who knows. Will they learn a lot about their market? Definitely.

"Learning a lot about their market" is EXACTLY what marketing should be.

To hell with "selling". This is about something far more interesting.

hugh needs a date

There's a London Geek Dinner for Girls on the 16th August. Visit the wiki and sign up.

Sounds like a fun evening. Guys are allowed to attend, but only if one of the girls invites them first.

[SFX:] Foot tapping...

tag pimping

Even if your heart is in the right place, Chris, trying to tell other people what tag to use kinda sorta defeats the purpose, don'tcha think?

Tags, not trees. Right, Sig?

the stormhoek wiki page

Calling All British Bloggers:

If you participated in the recent Stormhoek "Blogger's Wine Freebie", if you could list any blog posts you might have posted about it on the Stormhoek wiki page, I would really aprreciate it. Thanks.

Saves me having to do it later...

an open-source "craigslist" for bloggers

PART ONE:

Megan McArdle, one of my favorite bloggers told me recently that she got both her job and her boyfriend through blogging, which is a very cool story.

But I'm looking forward to the day when that kind of story gets a lot more common, and not just with bloggers with relatively high traffic, like Megan or myself.

And I'd also like to see bloggers not having to rely on their stories being pinged by "A-Listers", in order for the word to spread sufficiently.

Here's where I think a lot of bloggers would like to be:

1. Let's say you needed a job. So you post a "looking for work" post on your blog, and within days another blogger e-mails you and offers you an interview.

2. Or let's say you wanted to hire somebody for your business. So you'd post something on your blog, and some other bloggers would e-mail you, and the next thing you know you'd have a few interviews set up.

3. You're moving to a new town. So you blog about it, and the next thing you know a couple of bloggers from that town with apartments to rent send you some details.

4. Your girlfriend and you broke up a few months ago and you're looking to date again. So you blog about it and the next thing you know a woman blogger e-mails you, and you two go meet up for coffee the following week.

5. You're looking to buy a car. So you blog about it and the next thing you know a blogger looking to sell his 1999 Honda sends you an e-mail.

6. You've got a nice little freelance business which you regularly talk about on your blog. Once a month or so a blogger e-mails you, offering you good, solid work...

We'd like to be able to be more reliant on the blogger's market, and less reliant on other markets.

Because the blogosphere is a market that bloggers are comfortable with. And compared to dealing with the blogosphere (when it works), most other markets are anonymous and unpleasant.

PART TWO:

So what is the answer? How does an average blogger, someone who doesn't have a lot of readers, make it happen?

I was very pleased with what happend on the "Blog Designers Wanted" wiki page. I jut put up a simple, blank page on the wiki, and within 24 hours, about as comprehensive a list of good blog designers as you can find anywhere suddenly self-created, as if by magic.

But bloggers need more than just blog designers. We need all sorts: jobs, workers, furniture, love, sex, friendship, apartments, business opportunities, the information is endless.

But what we also need, when we scatter our pollen, is a place where our pollen can be seen easily by others. Just scattering it everywhere is no guarantee it will land where you want.

Ergo, "The Hughpage". An Open-Source "Craigslist" for Bloggers:

This wiki is designed to give bloggers a place where they can centrally collate their links for whatever reason: Work, jobs, love, sex, networking, friendship, apartments, furniture, cars, arranging geek dinners etc etc. Go ahead and build, design, improve and contribute to it as you see fit, in whatever manner works best for you. I'll pay for the bandwidth. -Hugh MacLeod

The Hughpage wiki is up and at your disposal.

Just blogged that you're looking for a job? Then go put the link in the jobs section.
Just blogged that you're looking for a date? Then go put your link in the dating section.
Just blogged about needing an apartment? The real estate section.

Just blogged about something that doesn't have a section? Then create a new section by yourself. No need to ask first. Exactly.

Feel free to go crazy. Thanks. [NB: You might want to go check out the Blog Designer's page just to give you an idea of how it generally works etc.]

[NOTE TO SELF:] This is either a totally great idea or a totally insane idea. Maybe a bit of both etc.

microsoft. stop. being. bland.

Sorry Robert, I don't much care for "Windows Vista", either.

It's the kind of name Disney would come up with. Or General Motors.

It. Is. Bland.

Microsoft. Stop. Being. Bland.

Now all you need is some uninspired-but-really-expensive Madison Avenue ad campaign (e.g. "What do you want your Vista to see?") just to seal the deal. With an RSS-free, Flash-intro fake blog designed by a hotnewyorkcreativeshop. Rock on.

british advertising continues to die (hurrah)

Piers Fawkes, a Brit living in New York, is unimpressed with the London advertising scene:

There are a few folk in the UK who are very switched on, I grant you, but a lot of agency people I met in my short visit were rather bemused by PSFK and IF. Although blogs are championed by the Guardian newspaper - an important media read - the British marketing community seems to be dismissive of the new tools to develop dialog between brands and consumers.

The contrast with New York, where I am based, is vast. Agencies in New York get it - they may not be making the best attempts but they're trying hard. It's best to crash and burn than not not try at all, no? The buzz around new media tools is exemplified by the social networking going on here. Meanwhile in London, there seems to be an air of "well, we make the most creative advertising in the world, why should we listen to what's going on anywhere else." Everyone in Soho seems to be still in the pub talking about the next commercials director.

I know it's fun hanging out in Soho and shooting trendy commercials and whatnot, but in terms where business is evolving on a global level, the British advertising scene has evolved into a complete irrelevance.

How did this happen? Here's one idea: Soho is a trendy neighborhood in London (like the "SoHo" in New York). Now here's the thing- Soho is where the London ad community is traditionally based, fair enough.

Hey, guess what else is in Soho? That's right, Wardour Street. What's Wardour Street? That's right, the traditional center of the British Film industry.

The British advertising industry and the British film industry have always had a closer day-to-day relationship with each other than the American equivalents (Madison Avenue and Hollywood are thousands of miles apart, after all).

The British advertising scene sees itself more as an extension of the Film-TV-Entertainment industry, than they see themselves an extensions of their clients' business.

Big. Mistake.

open-source hughtrain

I've put the entire Hughtrain on the wiki.

If you can improve on it, feel free to do so. Thanks.

more stormhoek blog reviews

Thanks, Nick:

Being more of a drinker (ahem) than a connoisseur I can't claim to give the this wine a fair hearing but within my narrow terms of reference it went down a treat. The one word that does spring to mind is refreshing. What can I say? Give it a try.

And Ray Booysen pipes in:

The wine is an absolute winner. It has a wonderful crisp taste and went down very well. If only I had some more! It is a perfect wine for parties and would go incredibly well with any sort of sea-food.

The only “downside” I found is that it doesn’t have a cork. Many wine buyers steer clear of wines that are screw top. However, after tasting Stormhoek this weekend, its no longer a problem.

Yeah, well, corks might be more aesthetically pleasing, but screwtops keeps wine a lot fresher than cork does. Life is suffering etc.

The Stormhoek "Blogger's Wine Freebie" background story is here.

open tags vs closed tags

Good stuff from Stowe Boyd. Open tags vs closed tags.

Jeff Jarvis has a new blog design. Much better. When people new to blogging ask me who to read, I always suggest Jeff. Always. Very little happens worth noting in the blogosphere without Jeff spotting it sooner than most.

blog designers wanted

Alistair Shrimpton of Six Apart and myself are trying to assemble a central database of folk who build blogs, wikis, websites etc on a professional basis. Please go check out the wiki and feel free to add your name (or the name of a recommendation) to the list.

People are always asking the both of us, "Where can I find a good blog designer?" We thought it was time to come up with an easy-to-use solution that anybody on the planet could make good use of.

If you know anyone who qualifies, please spread the word. Thanks.

[BONUS LINK:] A photo of London-based uberblogger Gia Milinovich wearing one of my t-shirts yesterday at Open Tech.

survival

seth on publishing books

Seth Godin gives advice to people wanting to publish non-fiction books:

4. Books cost money and require the user to read them for the idea to spread.

Obvious, sure, but real problems. Real problems because the cost of a book introduces friction to your idea. It makes the idea spread much much more slowly than an online meme because in order for it to spread, someone has to buy it. Add to that the growing (and sad) fact that people hate to read. Too often, people have told me, with pride, that they read three chapters of my book. Just three.

A successful book agent I know tells me that at leat half the people he meets who are writing their first book, are doing so not because they have anything particularly interesting to say, but because the idea of "the writer's life" appeals to them.

Tweed jackets, smoking a pipe, sitting out in the gazebo and getting sloshed on Mint Julips, pensively typing away at an old black Remington. Bantering wittily at all the right parties. Or whatever.

Anybody who wants to write books for the money deserves to suffer. And happily, many of them do.

a good product

[NB: This is one of the cartoons in the Stormhoek brochure. Thanks to Geoff for the pic.]

[UPDATE:] The first Blogger's Stormhoek review is in. The link is here.

The moment of truth is upon us though, how was it for us (I let my wife have some too. Generous I thought!) - Jane described it thus:

It was very fresh and sharp flavour. Very drinkable, and I think I need another glass to check my appreciation. [Said while insisting I get her another glass]

For myself I would tend to agree, very dry, fresh and crisp. Lovely.

I am oft to pour another glass and see whether I can order some more...

Thanks Hugh and if you want to do the sample thing again, I live in Europe and North America.

Thanks Paul, that was very kind. As far as further UK samplings are concerned, there's a new Stormhoek Rosé coming out in a couple of months; maybe we can do something with that.

[UPDATE:] Another Stormhoek review from musicandstuff:

Here is my review, although considering that I know nothing about wine apart from that it gets me drunk, you might not take it too seriously.

It’s a lovely South African White…and er it tasted great. Nice and fruity or something, but most importantly for me there was absolutely no harsh after-taste like you often get with wine….this is probably because I always drink £4 bottles of white from Asda.

Rock on.

where is the edge?

Kudos to Peter Copper for posting pictures of the Stormhoek Wine Freebie brochure that came with the bottle.

So the Brit bloggers are getting their wine. Our next step is to roll the idea out to both the United States and Western Europe. We're looking into the logisitics now (shipping costs, legalities etc.). I'll keep you posted.

Like I said in the brochure copy:

Of course I can't do it by myself. I need your complicity if it's going to work. No complicity, no idea-virus. I can't just write a big media company a cheque and make the marketing problem go away. Those days are gone.

What do you get out of it? A free bottle of wine and a chance to play a part in screwing up the traditional marketing and advertising landscape forever. A chance to see how far we can stretch the power of the blogosphere.

The internet and the blogosphere proved years ago that you don't need to hire an ad agency or Big Media to mass market digital and digital-related products. But what about non-digital?

What is actually possible? Where is the edge?

Shall we find out?

[Attention British Shoppers:] btw Stormhoek is currently available at Thresher's, Sainsbury's and ASDA.

[Yes, it's true:] We're going to be bringing Stormhoek to Our Social World in September.

more bloggie goodness

Nick Reynolds got his bottle of Stormhoek in the mail today:

I'll get back to you when I've drunk the stuff but I can tell you that I haven't been this excited about tasting a new bottle of wine in quite a while.

Marketing Disruption etc.

[Some more linklove here etc.] Yes, James H. Turner, we are indeed looking into launching the idea-virus in the States. Watch this space etc.

[PS:] Does anyone have a photo of the brochure that came with the bottle? If so, could you possibly e-mail it to me or send me the link? Thanks.

[PHOTO:] Cool pic of bottle & brochure here. Thanks, Woffle.

"wine blogging as marketing disruption"

Paul Goodison notes his Stormhoek Wine Freebie has arrived:

And following Hugh's promise of samples I can confirm today that I have a very exciting looking bottle sat besides me. I got bottle 24 of 75 - unfortunately not really a collectors item as the Stormhoek promise is about freshness and drinking the wine at the peak of its freshness (i.e. relatively soon!) The inserted leaflet from Hugh entitled "Wine Blogging as Marketing Disruption" however could well enter that category :)

Anyway thanks to Hugh, Orbital Wines and Stormhoek - will report back on how I found the wine, because I am of course a person whose wine recommendations you trust... aren't I? What do you mean, 'No!'?

The leaflet Paul speaks of reads like this:

"Wine Blogging as Marketing Disruption"

Hiya,

Thanks for signing up for your free bottle of Stormhoek. I hope you like it.

OK, so what's the point of all this? Sure, I suppose giving out a few bottles to some bloggers could potentially be quite good PR, etc etc. Maybe a few of you will blog about it. Maybe not. You never know.

But in the back of my mind I'm thinking there might be something larger going on here.

What if, say, not one or two of you end up blogging about it, but a couple of dozen? What will be the rippling effect?

Will the idea-virus spread far enough that suddenly, instead of one or two people knowing about the wine, suddenly tens of thousands of smart connected people in the UK know about it, and are talking about it?

Is that enough to launch a national brand?

If it isn't, well, no great loss. We will have gotten some PR out of it, and maybe a few long-term Stormhoek customers out of the blogosphere.

But if it is, then I'm thinking, Holy Shit, what we're doing might put a lot of traditional ad agencies out of business. Seriously.

We're talking serious marketing disruption.

But as a marketing blogger, I'm starting to believe that all marketing should be serious marketing disruption.

Of course I can't do it by myself. I need your complicity if it's going to work. No complicity, no idea-virus. I can't just write a big media company a cheque and make the marketing problem go away. Those days are gone.

What do you get out of it? A free bottle of wine and a chance to play a part in screwing up the traditional marketing and advertising landscape forever. A chance to see how far we can stretch the power of the blogosphere.

This is only an experiment. Luckily we have a wine company crazy enough to have let me talk them into it. So we'll see what happens. Rock on.

"FRESHNESS MATTERS."

Those two words sum up the heart and soul of Stormhoek.

Contrary to popular belief, most wines do not improve with age. Sure, the great wines of Bordeaux and the Burgundies often do, as do certain others, but these are not the wines that most of us are buying most of the time.

A grape picked straight off the vine is one of the freshest taste experiences imaginable. It's juicy, intensely fruity, often aromatic, and held in balance by a streak of zippy, bracing acidity. This abundant fruitiness is something that winemakers, over the last three decades, have worked hard to capture and preserve in their wines.

30 years ago, most white wines were dull, lacking in fruit, and low in alcohol. This was largely the result of a gaping void (heh) between what vineyard owners and wineries wanted – the vineyard owners wanted to get as many grapes as possible into the winery as quickly as possible (so, as for ripeness, forget it) and the winery owners wanted to process the stuff into wine as quickly as possible (not the best way to make a high-quality wine). The end results were, at best, just about okay. Winemakers soon discovered other ways of adding flavour to their wines – sugar, for instance (a great cover for wine faults), or oak.

Luckily, after a while, smart people in the wine industry then realised that the best they could do was attempt to get the freshness of the grape on the vine into the bottle as honestly and faithfully as possible. No fuss. Just pure- fruit-driven flavour. But how to make this happen?

Working closely with growers to manage yields and determine a picking time when the grapes were actually ripe was the first step. Then, the evolution of reductive winemaking technique played a major part. The idea here is to preserve maximum freshness in the wine by making sure that oxygen does not come into contact with the grapes or juice at any point in the winemaking process. This is not an easy business, but it's one that brings rich rewards in the freshest-tasting, brightest, most youthful wines on the market.

The quest for freshness did not stop with the wine in the bottle. The closure, for instance – why seal a bottle of bright, zesty, fresh-tasting wine with a musty old cork? Why indeed? Hence the invention of the synthetic cork. Over the last couple of years, the screwcap has become widely accepted as the most reliable way of sealing a bottle of wine and keeping it tasting fresh and youthful.

So, there we have it – the shelves filled with bottles of the brightest, freshest-tasting wine, sealed with screwcaps and synthetic corks – the stage is set for a truly enjoyable taste experience.

To get to this point took some of the best wine producers on the planet 30 years to figure this out. Of course, freshness doesn't last forever. Wines get old. Taste fades. These "fresh" sorts of wines do not improve with time – in fact, the processes which are used to make them taste fresh actually make them deteriorate faster over time. This is scientific reality.

Hence the Stormhoek 'Ultimate Freshness Indicator' on the back of the bottle. It's that little dial that tells you when the wine you're holding in your hand is at its freshest i.e. when is the best time to drink it.

This is the logical next step from the screwcap. It seems pretty idiotic to spend all this time making wine and not letting your customers know when the best time to drink it is.

Wine, merely through an accident of history, has become an bit of an enigma. As a marketer, what I'm interested in the "Smarter Conversation". Telling people that "Freshness Matters" is Stormhoek's way of doing it.

Freshness Matters. You heard it here first.

Thanks Everybody. I hope you like the wine.

Best

Hugh MacLeod

Anyway, all you British bloggers out there, thanks for signing up, and I hope the Stormhoek is arriving at your doorstep as well etc. Please let me know what you think.

[Attention British Shoppers:] btw Stormhoek is currently available at Thresher's, Sainsbury's and ASDA.

[NB: This post was re-published over at the Stormhoek blog.]

thanks, doc!

Doc Searls gives Thingamy a mention:

What matters most is who is coming up with it. As usual with cool things that happen naturally on the Web, it's not the big vendors or other usual suspects. It's individuals, trying to make sense of the world.

Dollars, of course, will come later.

If you want to know more about Thingamy, Sig's the guy to talk to etc.

[NOTE TO SELF:] How does this affect "The Porous Membrane"?

welcome to the flatlands

Robert Scoble says being linked to by an A-Lister ain't what it used to be.

Weather forces are constantly wearing down the mountains. You can see these forces from a plane. Mount St. Helens is half blown away. Most of that material ended up in the flatlands.

Same with traffic on the Web. The "big" sites like Slashdot are losing traffic to the flatlands. On Sunday I got something like 15,000 visits from a front-page link on Slashdot. I remember when such a link used to be worth 40,000 to 100,000 visitors.

Where did that traffic go? My theory is that it's spreading out to the flatlands.

So, how do you get noticed in a flatlands world? Do something interesting and let your friends who blog know about it. Every link is a vote for whether or not your stuff is interesting.

Hell, it's hard enough reading everyone who deserves to be read, let alone linking to everyone who deserves to be linked. I wish I had an answer.

[BONUS LINK:] Jeremy Zawodny from Yahoo! asks, "Has blogging peaked?"

oh, fucking hell...

Another bomb blast in London. Not as serious as the last one, it seems.

Tom and I are in Cumbria, so we're fine.

More: "One person was injured at Warren Street. There were reports the injured person may have been holding a rucksack containing the detonator."

global microbrands etc

From Trendwatching: The Nouveau Niche.

Consumers are more individualized than ever, expecting every good, service and experience to be addressing their unique and oh so important selves. Gone are the traditional demographic segments, the distinct consumer classes: this is all about being MASTERS OF THE YOUNIVERSE. Gone too are the days when, as BusinessWeek so eloquently put it; "the ideal was not merely to keep up with the Joneses, but to be the Joneses." In a NOUVEAU NICHE world, where the demise of institutions and their stifling conventions has unlocked latent hyper individualization, where it is all about 'me' (for better or worse), where being special will lend consumers status, to be mass is now every consumer's nightmare. Witness GRAVANITY, witness MASSCLUSIVITY. Even the few mass objects of desire that still manage to unite large groups of consumers -- iPods, Nokia handsets, or the Mini Cooper -- are likely to be customized and personalized the moment they leave the warehouse, website or store.

Consumers are also more experienced than ever. They expertly cut through the crap, ignore advertising, and know which quality and price levels are fair. They actively hunt for the best of the best, [my italics] and the best of the best is often NOT mass. (The only mass they're willing to put up with is the stuff they don't really care about and can get on the cheap at Aldi or WalMart). As Chris Anderson, author of the excellent Long Tail article points out, the only reason mass used to equal 'hit', had to do with the now outdated perception that if something sells well, it must certainly be good.

Yep, I can relate. Last February (before English Cut had taken off) I wrote:

We have gone beyond the tipping point. We are not blogging because it's cool or hip. It's now mostly about survival.

We have entered an age where anyone who wants to make a living above minimum wage will have to get used to the idea of building and owning their own "global microbrand". If you're not blogging already, I would start. Seriously.

Re. All this sort of stuff I like to write about- blogs, English Cut, The Hughtrain, Seth Godin and his Purple Cow, the slow death of Madison Avenue and Big Media, The Cluetrain, etc etc:

It's all connected. In the last week or so English Cut got e-mails from people wanting appointments, from all over: Dubai, Japan, San Francisco, Washington, Atlanta, New York, India, etc.

It's all about The Global Microbrand. English Cut is my way of expressing it. But had it not been suits, had I not had a friend who was a Savile Row tailor, it would've been something else.

one very cool pillbox

It turns out that one of English Cut's customers also knows a hardcore diamond cutter/master jeweler, Paul Hatton.

Next thing you know, our customer is telling Paul all about blogs and whatnot.

Next thing you know, I get a phone call.

Next thing you know, I'm building yet another blog for a master English craftsman.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please go check out "Hard Diamond".

Thank you.

tag-only blogware etc. etc.

Sig's got a new plaything for all you geeks out there:

Tags, not Trees

Take my new tree-structure-free gizmo out for a test drive:

What is it?

Whatever you want it to be: Navigation-free website. Tags-only blog. Complicated-to-simple database. Active resource picker. Knowledge and learning base. File system. Whatever. An experiment for the heck of it.

Basically a different approach to organise data, finding data, and transferring knowledge.

An example of no-tree-structure-at-all. Anataxonomy in practice...

NB: This gizmo has no commercial application, or at least, it was built without a business model in mind. Like Sig says, he just built it for the heck of it.

What sayest thou?

[UPDATE:] Dennis in Sig's comment section referred to it as "Blog + Wiki= Collaborative Software v2.0"

[UPDATE:] Really good commentary from Doc Searls: "Politically, tags are The People's Directory."

[Disclosure: I work with Sig and his software company, Thingamy.]

london geek dinner

Ben Metcalfe [backstage.bbc.co.uk] & Lee Wilkins are working together on getting none other than [drum roll, please] Jeremy Zawodny of Yahoo! to participate in a special Geek Dinner.

Jeremy is here in London to speak at the Open Tech 2005 conference which takes place on Saturday July 23rd 2005.

I'm not involved with organising this one. Lee's a pal of mine, so I'm just spreading the love etc.

update on missing person

On June 8th, the day after the London bombings, I got an e-mail which I immediately posted on gapingvoid:

Hi Hugh

A collegue of mine is missing after yesterday's blasts. Her name is Monika Suchocka. She has blonde hair, blue eyes and is around 170cm (5.57 foot) tall. The last we heard from her was a text message saying she was getting on a bus.

If you could please post a link to my article on her or email some people in London, it would be most helpful. We are really worried.

Thank you for your time.

http://www.rjb.za.net/archives/2005/07/08/missing-person-london/

Regards

Ray Booysen

I received the following e-mail just now:

Hi Hugh

We found out on Friday that Monika was a victim of the bomb blast. She was on the Picadilly line train that was targeted.

Thank you for your thoughts and help you gave.

Regards

Ray

Sad. Very, very sad.

the three ages of slavery

book proposal (version # 657)

"How To Be Creative"

A book by by Hugh MacLeod

[As regular gapingvoid readers will know, I'm hoping to turn "How To Be Creative" into a book. This is my latest attempt to write the book proposal, as I see it in its finished form. Apologies in advance if you've already seen a lot of this before.]

In 2004 I wrote a post on my blog called "How To Be Creative". Its premise was very simple:

"So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. Here are some tips that have worked for me over the years."

It really wasn't so much a How-To laundry list, "The 7 Steps Of Highly Effective Creatives" etc. It was more of a series of meditations on the lessons I had learned the hard way over the years, as I tried to bridge the nearly impossible gap of making an OK living without letting my soul die from the inside out.

Somehow it ended up striking a chord with a lot of people. Lots of people ended up reading it (I'm guessing several hundred thousands). It went viral, to put it mildly. Later it ended up as a PDF file on Seth Godin's ChangeThis.com. At last count it was the third most downloaded PDF on the site, topping manifestos written by people far more famous and talented than me, like Tom Peters or Guy Kawasaki.

Like I said, it hit a nerve.

Most of the Change This manifestos were written by people to be read by their peers. People in their thirties and forties, interested in the same kind of business-orientated subjects, whatever. Mine wasn't. Mine was written for people far more younger than me- kids just leaving college, or folk who haven't been in the real world very long, just looking to figure things out for the first time. Kids who want to do the same as me when I too was just starting out- stay alive spiritually while still being able to function in an adult world, without being eaten alive or turned into robots.

A few months later I started getting people from the publishing world asking me if I would be interested in turning it into a book. Of course I would, who wouldn't? So they asked me to write a book proposal. This is what you're reading now.

[RSS READERS: CLICK HERE TO READ THE WHOLE THING.]

The Book Idea.

The book is an informed meditation on "creativity" and how to live with it. It is not a book on how to become "more creative". It is a book about understanding it more, so a person can manage it better without it ruining their life. It's a book about how to deal with being bitten by the creative bug. The world we live in is not geared up for "the creative life" very well and it's damn hard to know what to do at first. By sharing my perspective and experience, I hope to make it a lot easier for people.

Like a friend of mine said, "You didn't write it for your friends, you wrote it as a gift for those coming after you." Exactly.

As I am primarily known as a cartoonist, there will be lots of cartoons, 150-300 or so, interspersed randomly throughout the text. They will take up a sizeable part of the book. Some cartoons will be directly related to the written text, and some won't. This format already works very well on my blog. The random juxtaposition between text and cartoon enhances the reading experience of both- creating a "third experience", as it were. This isn't rocket science- The New Yorker inserts cartoons in its magazine in the same fashion for precisely the same reason.

Why I think the book will be commercially successful.

I think the book will be successful simply because I consider the work already successful. In its rough, online form, it's already been seen by a large number of people (again, my estimates vary between half a million and one million folk, though it may well be more than that), if you include both its HTML and PDF versions. It's already been at the top of the most-linked-to lists in the blogosphere. Seth Godin, no book-slack himself deemed it good enough to publish it on ChangeThis, where in terms of eyeballs and downloads it's topped many already-bestselling authors including Mr. Godin himself.

What gives me even more confidence in this regard is not just all the eyeballs, the blogs talking about it, all the people linking to it, and the hundreds of pieces of "fan mail" I've received. What really does it for me is, every couple of days or so, I get an e-mail from a reader basically saying, "I read it, loved it, and I have forwarded to my son/daughter/nephew/favorite 22 year old" etc. People aren't just reading it, liking it and telling their friends about it. They're passing it on to the next generation. I think that says something.

Why I'm The Guy To Write It.

I'm the person to write it for three reasons:

1. Because I've already written it (obviously).

2. For all my many faults, I'm considered an authority on "Creativity". Besides cartooning, I've worked as an advertising creative for 15 years, I've written TV shows, and my blog is in the Top 150 of the Technorati rankings, which is the primary measure these days. In blogging terms, I'm about as well known as anyone.

3. Because of my very non-linear, haphazard background I've had a lot of experiences that a lot of "creativity" gurus have simply not had. Besides my cartooning, I've done a lot of other things. Worked offshore in the oil business. Made TV commericals. Started businesses. Embraced the internet. Worked in ERP software markets. I've been all over, a loose cannon, living in cities in England, the USA, Scotland, France, Africa etc and its given me a very wide perspective.

The Book's Target Market.

As I've said before, the book is not for my peers, but for the generation coming after me. But it's more than that. It's for the first generation of people hitting the job market just as "The Creative Age" starts rising above the horizon like a bright, orange sun.

The Book's Structure.

1. The book will be a combination of cartoons and writing. The cartoons will be a selection of my cartoons, maybe 300 or so, in no particular order. Interspersed between the cartoons will be small chapters dealing with all aspects of "How To Be Creative."

The writing will be divided into FOUR distinct parts:

1. An introduction.

2. "How to Be Creative". The main body. Divided into 30 small mini-chapters:

1. Ignore everybody.

2. The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to change the world.

3. Put the hours in.

4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.

5. You are responsible for your own experience.

6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.

7. Keep your day job.

8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.

9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.

10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.

11. Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.

12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.

13. Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside.

14. Dying young is overrated.

15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.

16. The world is changing.

17. Merit can be bought. Passion can't.

18. Avoid the Watercooler Gang.

19. Sing in your own voice.

20. The choice of media is irrelevant.

21. Selling out is harder than it looks.

22. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.

23. Worrying about "Commercial vs. Artistic" is a complete waste of time.

24. Don’t worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.

25. You have to find your own schtick.

26. Write from the heart.

27. The best way to get approval is not to need it.

28. Power is never given. Power is taken.

29. Whatever choice you make, The Devil gets his due eventually.

30. The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.

3. My personal favorite cartoons and the story behind the all. Insight into the creative process etc.

4. My back story. How I came to be a "creative" professional. How I discovered the cartoon format. How I ran with it and finally made a success of it after many years of struggle. This section ends on a very high note, talking about how "The Creative Age" is upon us and what that means to people who want their lives to be more than the mundane; who want to make an actual difference in the short time they've been given on this earth.

In Conclusion:

1. The book is already written.

2. The market is already established. The work already has a sizeable and enthusiastic following.

3. The time is right for this book. It's a message that a lot of people who haven't read it yet, are very much ready and willing to hear.

4. The idea has legs. I already have other book ideas that can follow this one. A "Cluetrain Manifesto meets Edward Gorey" franchise, as it were. As Cluetrain co-author Doc Searls called my work, "It's like Dilbert for people whose jobs don't suck."

how to be creative (latest version)

[This is my latest rewrite of "How to Be Creative" [Older version is here]. 12,000 or so words, plus lots of cartoons. The book's text will be quite short, divided into four parts, but there will be plenty of cartoons to look at, between 150-300 of them. The book proposal is here.]

"So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. Here are some tips that have worked for me over the years."

PART ONE: AN INTRODUCTION, OF SORTS.

Before we get started, three points:

1. "Creative" is one of those annoying words that means little, simply because it means so many different things to different people. I make no claim to have a better definition of "creative" than anyone else.

The best working definition of creative I have is "When work and play become the same thing".

When that happens, you're in flow. When you're in flow, things are created.

Perhaps there are better definitions of "creative" out there. Does it matter? Not really. What matters is that you find your own definition. You don't need mine. I don't need yours.

2. The creative drive is like the sex drive. We all have it, and because what we do on this earth affects other people, we have to be careful what we do with it. Because to use it unwisely can screw up your life.

I am not here to tell you how to be more creative than you already are. God/The Universe/Whatever made you creative, just like he/she/it made all of us. Tapping into it is a personal journey- other people can only help you so much. That being said, I think once you've gotten the itch to do something creative, there are a lot of land mines and pitfalls that are best avoided. All I can do is tell you what has worked for me over time.

I used to associate "creativity" with all that youth-generated sexy stuff: fun, glamorous jobs, being hip, being artisitic and meeting women. As I get older and I see how the world is changing away from the Big Media Industrial Complex towards something much more personal, complicated and fractal, I start equating it more with mass economic survival.

3. Quitting your job at the phone company to become a musician is no different than quitting your job at the phone company to start your own accountancy firm. It's just the human spirit trying to better itself. The difference between art and commerce is artificial. What matters is not what individual path you have chosen, but that you stay on it; that you become the person you were born to be.

[RSS READERS: Click here to read the whole thing.]

(MORE...)

PART TWO: "HOW TO BE CREATIVE":

[NB: The full version of this PART TWO is here. Over 10,000 words, 31 drawings etc. The shortened version appears below for reasons of space.]

So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. Here are some tips that have worked for me over the years:

1. Ignore everybody.

The more original your idea is, the less good advice other people will be able to give you. When I first started with the biz card format, people thought I was nuts. Why wasn't I trying to do something more easy for markets to digest i.e. cutey-pie greeting cards or whatever?

(more...)

2. The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to change the world.

The two are not the same thing.

(more...)

3. Put the hours in.

Doing anything worthwhile takes forever. 90% of what separates successful people and failed people is time, effort and stamina.

(more...)

4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.

Nobody suddenly discovers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain.

(more...)

5. You are responsible for your own experience.

Nobody can tell you if what you're doing is good, meaningful or worthwhile. The more compelling the path, the more lonely it is.

(more...)

6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.

Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with books on algebra etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the creative bug is just a wee voice telling you, "I’d like my crayons back, please."

(more...)

7. Keep your day job.

I’m not just saying that for the usual reason i.e. because I think your idea will fail. I’m saying it because to suddenly quit one’s job in a big ol' creative drama-queen moment is always, always, always in direct conflict with what I call “The Sex & Cash Theory”.

8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.

Nor can you bully a subordinate into becoming a genius.

(more...)

9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.

You may never reach the summit; for that you will be forgiven. But if you don't make at least one serious attempt to get above the snow-line, years later you will find yourself lying on your deathbed, and all you will feel is emptiness.

(more...)

10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.

Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece on the back of a deli menu would not surprise me. Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece with a silver Cartier fountain pen on an antique writing table in an airy SoHo loft would SERIOUSLY surprise me.

(more...)

11. Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.

Your plan for getting your work out there has to be as original as the actual work, perhaps even more so. The work has to create a totally new market. There's no point trying to do the same thing as 250,000 other young hopefuls, waiting for a miracle. All existing business models are wrong. Find a new one.

(more...)

12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.

The pain of making the necessary sacrifices always hurts more than you think it's going to. I know. It sucks. That being said, doing something seriously creative is one of the most amazing experiences one can have, in this or any other lifetime. If you can pull it off, it's worth it. Even if you don't end up pulling it off, you'll learn many incredible, magical, valuable things. It's NOT doing it when you know you full well you HAD the opportunity- that hurts FAR more than any failure.

(more...)

13. Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside.

The more you practice your craft, the less you confuse worldly rewards with spiritual rewards, and vice versa. Even if your path never makes any money or furthers your career, that's still worth a TON.

(more...)

14. Dying young is overrated.

I've seen so many young people take the "Gotta do the drugs and booze thing to make me a better artist" route over the years. A choice that was neither effective, healthy, smart, original or ended happily.

(more...)

15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.

Art suffers the moment other people start paying for it. The more you need the money, the more people will tell you what to do. The less control you will have. The more bullshit you will have to swallow. The less joy it will bring. Know this and plan accordingly.

(more...)

16. The world is changing.

Some people are hip to it, others are not. If you want to be able to afford groceries in 5 years, I'd recommend listening closely to the former and avoiding the latter. Just my two cents.

(more...)

17. Merit can be bought. Passion can't.

The only people who can change the world are people who want to. And not everybody does.

(more...)

18. Avoid the Watercooler Gang.

They’re a well-meaning bunch, but they get in the way eventually.

(more...)

19. Sing in your own voice.

Piccasso was a terrible colorist. Turner couldn't paint human beings worth a damn. Saul Steinberg's formal drafting skills were appalling. TS Eliot had a full-time day job. Henry Miller was a wildly uneven writer. Bob Dylan can't sing or play guitar.

(more...)

20. The choice of media is irrelevant.

Every media's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. Every form of media is a set of fundematal compromises, one is not "higher" than the other. A painting doesn't do much, it just sits there on a wall. That's the best and worst thing thing about it. Film combines sound, photography, music, acting. That's the best and worst thing thing about it. Prose just uses words arranged in linear form to get its point across. That's the best and worst thing thing about it etc.

(more...)

21. Selling out is harder than it looks.

Diluting your product to make it more "commercial" will just make people like it less.
Many years ago, barely out of college, I started schlepping around the ad agencies, looking for my first job.

(more...)

22. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.

Everybody is too busy with their own lives to give a damn about your book, painting, screenplay etc, especially if you haven't sold it yet. And the ones that aren't, you don't want in your life anyway.

(more...)

23. Worrying about "Commercial vs. Artistic" is a complete waste of time.

You can argue about "the shameful state of American Letters" till the cows come home. They were kvetching about it in 1950, they'll be kvetching about it in 2050.
It's a path well-trodden, and not a place where one is going to come up with many new, earth-shattering insights.

(more...)

24. Don’t worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.

Inspiration precedes the desire to create, not the other way around.

(more...)

25. You have to find your own schtick.

A Picasso always looks like Piccasso painted it. Hemingway always sounds like Hemingway. A Beethoven Symphony always sounds like a Beethoven's Syynphony. Part of being a master is learning how to sing in nobody else's voice but your own.

(more...)

26. Write from the heart.

There is no silver bullet. There is only the love God gave you.

(more...)

27. The best way to get approval is not to need it.

This is equally true in art and business. And love. And sex. And just about everything else worth having.

(more...)

28. Power is never given. Power is taken.

People who are "ready" give off a different vibe than people who aren't. Animals can smell fear; maybe that's it.

(more...)

29. Whatever choice you make, The Devil gets his due eventually.

Selling out to Hollywood comes with a price. So does not selling out. Either way, you pay in full, and yes, it invariably hurts like hell.

(more...)

30. The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.

If you have the creative urge, it isn't going to go away. But sometimes it takes a while before you accept the fact.

(more...)

[NB: PART TWO is here in full. Over 10,000 words, 31 drawings etc.]

PART THREE: MY PERSONAL FAVORITES:

An artist is quite a fucked-up thing to be, and to be honest I'm not sure if I would recommend it to anybody. Still, in my cartoon collection there are a couple of examples that, in some sick and twisted way, make the whole thing seem worthwhile. For the first five minutes, at least:

The Shark Bar

When I first moved to New York, I stayed at the YMCA on West 62nd.

My first drawing as a New York resident was on my second evening, sitting on a barstool at the Shark Bar- a hip, young place in SoHo.

Having only been in town just over 24 hours, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by New York, to say the least. Plus I had drunk quite a lot that evening. I think both show up in the drawing.

I've been back to the Shark Bar a couple of times since then, but it never had the same insane magic of that first evening. Great name for a bar, though. Especially in Manhattan.

Vanished

Spring '98. I was at a bar, it was late, I was kinda tipsy.

Suddenly I realized that my life hadn't changed much in the last decade since leaving college. Work, bars, cartoons, random conversations of a big-city nature, second-hand bookshops and art films, the occasional bout of random or regular sex to tide things over etc etc.

It wasn't as interesting as it used to be. But I hadn't moved on, really. And I had no idea where to go next.

Welcome to New York.

The best cartoons are the ones that give you these amazing moments of clarity as you draw them. That's the best thing about cartooning, really. Everything else seems rather secondary in comparison.

Fanelli's

December 29th, 1997. Fanelli's, on Prince and Mercer in SoHo, is one of the great bars in Manhattan. I had been in New York only a couple of days when I found myself there, drinking heavily.

I no longer drink much, however at the time I had this idea that seriously heavy drinking was essential in order to enjoy New York properly. I don't think I was wrong, either.

Around midnight at the bar I bump into an old acquaintance of mine from Chicago, Mark Mann. He had moved to New York about 3 months previously to do something with his film career. He is one of the funniest and most interesting people I know, but at the time I didn't know that. We were quite suspicious of each other for the longest time before we admitted that we actually were friends.

I hadn't told anybody I was moving to New York except on a need-to-know basis, so he was quite surprised to see me there. A ghost from his former Chicago life- just popped out of nowhere.

Told him my story. Told him about being laid off in Chicago. Told him about this new job I got in New York. Told him I only knew I got the job officially 5 days before Christmas- only about a week previously. Asked him how he was liking New York.

"It's great," he said. "Everybody's insane with loneliness, but that's OK. After a while you realize that's part of the edge."

I was hit with a paradox. I wanted to be in New York, I wanted to be "part of the edge", but I didn't want to be "insane with loneliness". Was one necessary in order to have the other? Was it a price worth paying? To this day, I still have no answer.

A couple of months later (July, '98) I drew this, sitting on a barstool. Thinking back to that conversation with Mark, suddenly I had a realization: The simple truth about New York is that people don't go there to give. They go there to take, or at least, to get. If you feel like giving, good for you, somewhere an angel is smiling yada yada yada, just don't expect other people to follow your example. And if you're feeling lonely, at least now you now know why. This drawing is partly about that.

Commitment

Within 1 week of meeting this person you realize that not only have you found your soulmate, but you've found your soulmate who likes to have sex 4 times a day in the bed, on the dining table, on the kitchen floor, in the changing rooms at Bloomingdale's etc.

Within 2 weeks you're already talking about moving in together.

Within 3 weeks you're talking about having babies together.

Within 4 weeks you realize this person is a complete psychopath.

Within 5 weeks this person also thinks you're a complete psychopath.

Within 6 weeks you're sitting at a restaurant with an old friend who is giving you the "How come you only call me when you're single" speech.

Eric

I remember being young and stupid. How utterly sweet and simple life seemed back then, but I also knew in the back of my mind that these days weren't going to last forever. Ouch. Hopefully, in a decade or two I'll be looking back to this time now with equal affection. I think that's all you can do, really.

Complete

Early 30s is a great time to be alive- you're still young, but you have experience. A powerful combo.

The downside is all that weird rockstar shit you believe about yourself is well past its sell-by date, and if you haven't outgrown it by then, it starts to fuck up your life.

New York is tough enough if you're a man. God knows how the women manage to do it.

Please

The piece is not particularly clever nor especially beautiful to look at. But something gently disturbing resides just beneath the surface. Hmmmm… sort of like apartment brokers.

C.F.A.

Yes. Exactly.

Mighty

All clients want one, I am told.

Cheap Plastic Toys

Some of it was my fault, some of it wasn't. Regardless, I've made a list and they will pay dearly.

Mistakenly

There are many advantages of getting older... more money and respect from the world at large being the main one. However, with all this newly found cash & kudos comes the idea that maybe the world isn't such a nice place, after all. That maybe all that unhappiness you see on the faces of your fellow commuters is there for a reason. And no matter how much you try or how hard you work, none of that will ever change.

Still, I suppose it's better to know that said brutality exists, rather than burning all those calories pretending it doesn't. I just wish I'd wised up a decade earlier than I did.

Lying

OK, this one isn't exactly subtle. But it doesn't take any prisoners, either. Unrestrained bile is actually pretty hard to pull off, artistically.

Wolf vs Sheep

No, I don't have an answer to which option is better. Both exact a heavy toll, eventually.

Too Many Cats

Good thing a certain friend of mine never reads my website.

Dorothy

I've always been a big Dorothy Parker fan. Urbane wit at its finest. Would I trade my life for hers in order to be that talented and famous? No way. Like all intoxicants, talent can be a poison. Reading her biography, it seems she learned that more than most.

It's 2 am and I'm in this crazy Midtown Irish bar. I have no idea why I'm there. I shouldn't be there. I should be somewhere else. Asleep, comfortable, happy, sharing my bed with a sensible girl from a good family, Brooks Brothers' pyjamas, insufferably middle class. But no.

Everybody in that bar is crazy. I tell myself I'm the only sane one but I think I'm kidding myself.

Being an artist/creative is like wearing funky clothing. Every year gets a little bit harder. After a while it just looks stupid. Eventually the stupidity reaches critical mass and the late-night tailspin begins. At a midtown Irish bar at 2am, while I'm drawing this picture, these things no longer seem to matter.

I like this card because it's the kind of thing poor old Dorothy would have written.

All The Time

After years of struggling in impecunious obscurity, a very old friend of mine recently had a bit of success in his business.

Suddenly, everybody in the industry knew who he was, and would mob him at trade shows and conventions. People who wouldn't have given him the time of day only a year before were shamelessly throwing themselves at him, scattering business cards like confetti.

My friend, the rock star. Who knew?

Shortly after one of these little feeding frenzies, we meet up for a drink, as we do.

He’s telling me all about it. All the off-the-record stuff that happened. All these relentless people coming after him, like terriers on the bone.

“How weird,” I say.

“Sure is,” he says. “Now I know what it's like to have a vagina.”

Pickaxe

One evening after a gruesome day at the office I went into a café on 6th Ave to write. Got a coffee, found a table, opened my laptop and looked around. I'm not kidding; there were nine other people in the café with open laptops, writing away, just like me. Nine. I counted. They were probably writing the same tedious crap I was.

"It's a novel about some guy who moves to New York to break into the high-brow literary scene and score with lots of chicks yada yada yada…"

One of the reasons I stick to cartooning is because my traditional prose writing is so godforsakenly awful.

Writing about New York is a bit like writing about sex- it's already been done to death. And done. And done. And done again. It's a form of literary necrophilia. Unless you have something completely unique and visionary to say about New York (I have yet to meet somebody in the flesh who does), any kind of Manhattan-fuelled artistic ambition runs the risk of turning you in to a "ligger".

"Ligger" is Scottish slang. A ligger is a hanger-on, a wannabe, a parasite-to-the-hip. Somebody who goes to art openings to drink free wine, but never buys a painting. Somebody who sees art as not something you make, but something you milk. Somebody who is always seen, but never remembered.

Living in New York is only possible if you treat it like a religion. Liggers are really good at this, for some reason. Hence their vast numbers; hence why a big part of your average day in New York is spent seperating the liggers from the real people.

Henry

So you're going out a lot. Pretty soon you're going out too much. Parties. Bars. More parties. More bars. So you decide to cut back a bit, y'know, start living like a normal person.

So you trade in those wild & crazy times for delivered Chinese food, Forbes Magazine and Seinfeld reruns. You're just going to try it for a couple of weeks, and see how it feels. After all, this is a "new you" we're talking about. A better you. A saner you. A wiser, more sensible and compelling you.

But you know in your heart of hearts that you didn't move from suburban Cleveland, Denver, Pittsburgh etc to a $3000-a-month Manhattan apartment just to watch