All of Us at A Model Media Ecologist Wish You a Happy New Year!

OK. This is Getting Embarrassing!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Video: The Tedium is the Message

My presentation to the Institute of General Semantics on Twitter and Twitter Fiction, October 27, 2012

 

My slide presentation at the New York Public Library Authors Series: "The Tedium is the Message: Communicating and Creating with the New Social Media" September 4, 2012 is on Slideshare

 

The Tedium is the Message: Communicating and Creating with the New Social Media

My Web Interview on the Art of Twitter Storytelling

My interview with John Byk of 2012writersALIVE about Executive Severance and the art of Twitter storytelling:

http://2012writersalive.blogspot.com/2012/11/dr-robert-k-blechman-and-executive.html


Image for upcoming sequel to Executive Severance!

We go into a brief discussion of the discipline of Media Ecology. #twitterfiction

Twitter Poetry Comes of Age

Twitter election poetry in 140 characters or less? It's not just a fantasy anymore.

 

Elinor Lipman's Tweet Land of Liberty is a collection of the first 200 of what would become 500 election-related poems tweeted daily for the past year and a half. Witty, wise and sometimes acidic, the poems Lipman tweeted let us start each campaign day with a smile. Here's one of my favorites, and a prescient one at that:

Feb. 24
If Romney had his crystal ball out,
Mighta seen there'd be a fallout:
Use of "bankrupt"--sure to haunt him.
In 2012 Detroit won't want him.

Tweet Land of Liberty is a wonderful 2012 election memento and a great holiday gift! I can't resist adding my own rhyme:

The challenge: Each day to rehearse
A quatrain for the Twitter-verse
Her campaign rhymes would come to be
A hit! Tweet Land of Liberty!

A Media Ecology Perspective on the Election

Particularly-Good-At-Archery-Man

I never really understood Green Arrow or Hawkeye as super heroes. Ruben Bolling nails it!

Dredd 3D!

What would it be like to observe someone fall 200 stories in slow motion if you were the floor they land on? This is one of the important questions addressed by Dredd 3D, the latest attempt to bring a comic book icon to the big screen.

 

Long on graphic depictions of violence (how many different ways can you blow a man’s head off?) but short on originality, Dredd 3D takes place in a distopic future where it seems that our current economic and environmental policies have condemned our descendents to live in a sort of hyper East LA. As police, judge and executioner, Dredd (Karl Urban looking shell-shocked under a perma-helmet) has the combined power of all three branches of our current government, and like many campaign donors, he is not required to reveal his identity. Ghetto block justice replaces frontier justice as Dredd and his psychic protégé (Olivia Thirlby who isn't given the opportunity to hide behind a mask) deal out life and death sentences and then summarily carry them out with their voice-activated Swiss Army side arms. Or maybe he has an iPhone25.

Things start out all guts and gory but then go downhill from there as the Dredds capture a key member of a mob boss Ma-Ma’s (Lena Headey wearing her scars quite well, thank you) drug ring and rather than just dispensing their justice on the spot (why not here, why not now?) they threaten to take him back to headquarters for further questioning. Oh what secrets he’ll reveal! This can’t be allowed by Ma-Ma and she proceeds with a lockdown of her own, sealing off the 200 story building with mega blast doors and blocking all transmissions. This of course is not as big a deal in this future distopia than the secret Ma-Ma wants to keep: she has a new Slo-Mo drug to bring to market. Yes, taking over an entire apartment block will definitely attract less attention. What’s a Judge to do? With no access to the Law Enforcers’ iCloud and running low on ammunition, it’s survival of the Dreddest.

This type of gritty cell block paranoia was handled better in Attack the Block which at least had a sense of humor. As other reviewers have noted, much of the same ground was covered to better effect in the recent Indonesian film The Raid: Redemption. If it’s true that science fiction is written to prevent the future rather than to predict it, Dredd 3D gives us a solid case against future sequels.

The Tedium is the Message?

My presentation at the New York Public Library Authors Series: "The Tedium is the Message: Communicating and Creating with the New Social Media" September 4, 2012 is on Slideshare

 

 

The Tedium is the Message: Communicating and Creating with the New Social Media from Robert Blechman

Here at last in one post are all the great reviews, awards and notices Executive Severance has earned!










First there is Jerry Seeger's insightful review,"A Novel Written in Tweets" where he notes:

"There were occasional tweets that I sat back and admired just for their economy. Wee tiny poems. One thing for sure, doing a story in this medium requires skill (and the willingness to drop the occasional punctuation mark).

It is a thought-provoking story, not so much for what it says, but for what it is. Which is something the story itself tells us."

Leslie Wright's wonderful book review in Blogcritics and the Seattle PI:
"Writing a novel using twitter seems such a daunting task, and yet Blechman persevered and did it with certain panache."

Glynis Smy's fantastic indie book promoting page where she celebrates authors and their books and many thanks to everyone over at Indies Unlimited for their support!

Robert Barry Francos' terrific take on the Twitter novel genre:

"The book is a fast read, short and sweet, but it is worth the experience. If the reader is not laughing or wincing at the pun, or noting a particular reference, you are certainly enjoying the easy flow of the novel.

Throughout the book, there are a number of illustrations that are perfectly suited for the theme, done by crack cartoonist David Arshawsky."

And of course, there was the Mary Shelly Award for Outstanding Fictional Work from the Media Ecology Association!

Finally, thanks again to Paul Levinson, Marleen S. Barr, Marvin Kitman and Michelle Anderson for reading advance copies of Executive Severance and providing wonderful jacket blurbs:

"A delightful 'twitstery' - a mystery written in real time Tweets - that is compelling, entertaining, and shows off what can be done in the 140-character form with style and mastery. Blechman's delight in the language shows in every tweet - that is to say, every thread of the story. His plot is tight, tingling, and diverting. Poe would have been proud of the new form Blechman has given to the mystery story."
-Paul Levinson, author New New Media (now in its 2nd Edition) and The Plot to Save Socrates

"Executive Severance, a laugh out loud comic mystery novel, epitomizes our current cultural moment in that it is born from the juxtaposition of authorial invention and technological communication innovation. Merging creative text with new electronic context, Robert K. Blechman's novel, which originally appeared as Twitter entries, can be read on a cell phone. His tweets which merge to form an entertaining novel can't be beat. Hold the phone; exalt in the mystery--engage with Blechman's story which signals the inception of a new literary art form.”
- Marleen S. Barr, author of Envisioning the Future: Science Fiction and the Next Millennium

"A He Dunit. Sometimes a little verbose, but OMG this is the best twitstery I ever read. It's got everything: narrative drive, mystery, comedy, thrills, tension, laughs. Blechman is on to something, a genre as important to literature as the invention of haiku in rhyme. ..."
- Marvin Kitman, author, The Man Who Wouldn't Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O’Reilly

“Embracing the challenges found in publishing via the medium Twitter, Bob Blechman’s super silly story Executive Severance is stuffed with punny dialogue, clever character conditions, and a total lack of adherence to the old “rules” of storytelling. It’s a meaty tale told in deliciously rare, bite-sized chunks that I'd recommend for consumption to anyone hungering for fiction that satisfies. Well-done, Bob!”
- Michelle Anderson, mediaChick, author of The Miracle in July - a digital love story

TODAY All Your Twitter Questions Are Answered!

Is Twitter dumbing us down? Messaging via Twitter has been called tedious, mundane and often "TMI" (too much information). Though slides, video clips and discussion, the author, a media scholar and published Twitter novelist, explores of the power and potential of communicating through Twitter.

 

Among the topics examined are celebrity Tweets, marketing via Twitter and Twitter as an artistic medium. As an example of a growing effort by writers and artists to develop the creative potential of this new social medium, the author will read from Executive Severance, his fast, funny murder mystery composed entirely in Twitter. A Q&A session will complete the evening.

I'll Be Speaking About One of These Characters at the New York Public Library Tuesday 9/4/12 6:30PM

"The Tedium is the Message? Communicating and Creating With New Social Media," with Robert K. Blechman, Ph.D., author of "Executive Severance," a comic murder mystery that was originally composed in Twitter.

Over at Muddled Ramblings and Half-Baked Ideas Jerry Seeger has written a terrific review of Executive Severance!

"There were occasional tweets that I sat back and admired just for their economy. Wee tiny poems. One thing for sure, doing a story in this medium requires skill (and the willingness to drop the occasional punctuation mark).
It is a thought-provoking story, not so much for what it says, but for what it is. Which is something the story itself tells us."

Marshall McLuhan Wrote in Tweets!

Just received my brand new copy of Paul Levinson's New New Media (2^nd Edition). Quickly looked for my name and found this on p. 40:

"But we may already have a glimpse of one of the new new media forms that Twitter is engendering or flipping into. Robert K. Blechman's Executive Severance (2012), described as a 'twitstery,' is a novel written entirely on Twitter, once a day, one tweet at a time...Twitter the new medium has engendered a genuinely new kind of novel, one that could not have existed before Twitter. The novel created in Tweets on Twitter completes the cycle started by McLuhan, who wrote in tweets before Twitter was born."

Indies Unlimited: The week's Flash Fiction Winner is Robert K. Blechman!

My entry to the Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Contest, Dog Day Afternoon, has won!

Structural Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss

1970 Portrait of the anthropologist by Irving Penn

Indies Unlimited

congratulates Robert K. Blechman for winning the 2012 Mary Shelley Fiction Award for Executive Severance!

About Indies Unlimited

It is the mission of Indies Unlimited to celebrate independent authors; to help them build their followings; to provide a platform for members of the independent author community to share and exchange ideas, knowledge, expertise and frustrations; and, for readers and reviewers to become exposed to the amazing depth and array of talent in the indie community.http://

What is the problem for which Executive Severance, the Twitter-composed comic murder mystery novel, is the solution? http://amzn.to/zkkuFU

It's Not Too Late To Add Executive Severance to your 2012-2013 Syllabus!

Tweet Tweet!
Who’s there?
My random thoughts.
“My random thoughts” who?
My random thoughts that I just tweeted.

Now that we've got all that humor out of the way, I'd like to have a serious talk with my fellow educators about including Executive Severance in your 2012-2013 social/communication/media course syllabus.

Hello. I'm Robert K. Blechman.

Perhaps you've seen my video “A Model Media Ecologist” on YouTube. Maybe our paths have crossed at Media Ecology Conventions or even on the campus of your own institution where I may have taught as an adjunct professor or as a visiting lecturer.

I'm here today to talk to you about Executive Severance, my Twitter-composed comic mystery novel that is taking the media world by storm. A review in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer noted:

"Writing a novel using Twitter seems such a daunting task, and yet Blechman persevered and did it with certain panache."

Some of you may be digital natives, while others are just visiting. You stand in front of your lecture halls and seminar rooms and wonder, “What are all these “millennials” doing with their media? What are they doing in my class instead of listening to my lecture? How can I, a print-biased educator, make a connection?”

The answer is as simple as a 140-character tweet. Add Executive Severance to your next course syllabus. A noted educator has observed that: “Executive Severance, while a work of fiction, is delightfully full of references to Media Ecology, and especially to Marshall McLuhan. You don't have to be a media ecologist to love Executive Severance, or laugh at Blechman's extraordinary sense of humor, but if you are now or ever have been one, you will get a great deal of added enjoyment from your reading experience.”
That’s the long and the short of it. (And in Twitter we prefer the short.)

But let me leave you with one more thought. This complete Twitter narrative, with wonderful illustrations by California artist David Arshawsky, is part of what I expect to be a number of efforts by writers and artists to explore potential creative uses of the new social media. With send-ups of the murder mystery genre, social media conventions and cell phone behavior, Executive Severance has been called "compelling, entertaining, and shows off what can be done in the 140-character form with style and mastery."

And, for a limited time, and at no additional cost to anyone, if you do include Executive Severance in your 2012-2013 syllabus, I will come to your class and share my experiences writing a Twitter novel. For a slight additional cost I will not come.

So, my fellow educators of the world wide web, THROW OFF YOUR PRINT SHACKLES AND UNITE around Executive Severance as a core text for your 2012-2013 syllabus!

Thank you.

Executive Severance wins 2012 Mary Shelley Award for Outstanding Fictional Work!

Executive Severance wins The 2012 Mary Shelley Award for Outstanding Fictional Work at The 13th Annual Media Ecology Association Convention at Manhattan College in Riverdale, NY!








Past award winners:
•2003 - Paul Levinson for The Consciousness Plague
•2004 - William Gibson for Pattern Recognition
•2005 - John G. McDaid for Keyboard Practice, Consisting of an Aria with Diverse Variations for the Harpsichord with Two Manuals
•2006 - Rick Moody for The Diviners
•2007 - Janna Levin for A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines
•2008 - Jean-Claude Carrière for Please, Mr. Einstein
•2009 - Geraldine Brooks for People of the Book
•2010 - Steve Tomasula for TOC (a new media novel)
•2011 - Chuck Wachtel for 3/03

The Thirteenth Annual Convention of the Media Ecology Association

I'll be part of a panel and a book reading/signing at the 13th Annual Media Ecology Association Convention this Saturday and Sunday, June 9 & 10!

I will be signing copies of Executive Severance!

If you come up and ask I will include, at no additional charge, a special Executive Severance book plate sticker!

Appearing Soon at the New York Public Library

Click here to go to NYPL Site!

Other Desert Cities Review

Saw Other Desert Cities on Broadway last night, and while I appreciate the superb performances by all the principles, I'd like to address the underlying message of the great "reveal" in the second act.

SPOILER ALERT: If you intend to see ODC, read no further. I discuss the surprise twist in the plot.

Other reviewers here have noted the apparent time warp in the play which is set in 2004 but appears to deal with events from the Viet Nam War era. Let's put that aside for a moment and agree that this is a play about the political choices the parents have made and the repercussions of those choices on their children.

So we have the parents, Lyman (Stacy Keach) and Polly (Stockard Channing), Reaganesque conservative Republicans, who by omission or commission have supported the NeoCon military agenda for the last 40 years. Hence the conflating of Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Pitted against them for dramatic purposes are their son Trip, daughter Brooke (Elizabeth Marvel) and Polly's sister, Silda (Judith Light). Trip got mixed up in an anti-war protest gone wrong decades ago. Brooke has written a memoir about Trip’s ultimate suicide which paints her parents and their NeoCon friends in a negative light. Silda is a burn-out case whose main function is to represent the loyal Liberal opposition to the parents' conservatism. So far so good. Let the political repartee begin.

The conflict revolves around Brooke’s decision to publish her tell-all memoire before her parents, whom she blames for not supporting Trip in his hour of need, have shuffled off this mortal coil. So back and forth we go, blaming the parents, critiquing the daughter's version of events, outing the sister’s hypocrisy and so on.

The big surprise comes at the end when Lyman reveals that he didn’t turn his back on his fugitive son, but in fact helped him to escape to Canada while faking a suicide. Trip is still alive and has been all these years, while his sister struggled with a nervous breakdown precipitated by his death! So the "evil" NeoCon-supporting parents are shown to be heroic defenders of their war-protesting son, though their decision to keep it secret from their daughter is open to criticism.

My problem with this plot device is that we are encouraged to give Lyman and Polly a pass for their decades of conservative activism, because they supported their son after all. What is missing is a final speech from Brooke where she points out that Trip might not have become involved in anti-war activities in the first place if people like his parents hadn’t enabled the US war mongers to pursue their militaristic agendas. Rather than challenge the political status quo themselves, the parent’s solution is to “disappear” their son, whose innocence in the protest-related death at the core of the conflict is asserted at the very end of the play. By sending their son off to Canada, the parents bury their own complicity in the militaristic agenda of their country. Rather than absolving the parents, Other Desert Cities could have detailed the proper indictment of their conservative world view. That is the faulty message of Other Desert Cities and the reason why Jon Baitz’s play ultimately fails as a dramatic set piece.

A Note to Educators

Tweet Tweet!
Who’s there?
My random thoughts.
“My random thoughts” who?
My random thoughts that I just tweeted.

Now that we've got all that humor out of the way, I'd like to have a serious talk with my fellow educators about adopting Executive Severance into your next social/communication/media syllabus.

Hello. I'm Robert K. Blechman. Perhaps you've seen my video “A Model Media Ecologist” on YouTube. Maybe our paths have crossed at previous Media Ecology Conventions or even on the campus of your own institution where I may have taught as an adjunct professor or as a visiting lecturer.

I'm here today to talk to you about Executive Severance my Twitter-composed comic mystery novel that is taking the media world by storm.

Some of you may be digital natives, while others are just visiting. You stand in front of your lecture halls and seminar rooms and wonder, “What are all these “millennials” doing with their media? What are they doing in my class instead of listening to my lecture? How can I, a print-biased educator, make a connection?”

The answer is as simple as a 140-character tweet. Add Executive Severance to your next course syllabus. A noted educator has observed that: “Executive Severance, while a work of fiction, is delightfully full of references to Media Ecology, and especially to Marshall McLuhan. You don't have to be a media ecologist to love Executive Severance, or laugh at Blechman's extraordinary sense of humor, but if you are now or ever have been one, you will get a great deal of added enjoyment from your reading experience.”

That’s the long and the short of it. (And in Twitter we prefer the short.)

But let me leave you with one more thought. This complete Twitter narrative, with wonderful illustrations by California artist David Arshawsky, is part of what I expect to be a number of efforts by writers and artists to explore potential creative uses of the new social media. With send-ups of the murder mystery genre, social media conventions and cell phone behavior, Executive Severance has been called "compelling, entertaining, and shows off what can be done in the 140-character form with style and mastery."

So, my fellow educators, throw off your print shackles and unite around Executive Severance as a core text for your next syllabus! Thank you. Please buy my book!

Crime Fiction Lover reviews Executive Severance

Crime Fiction Lover is a web site set up by two journalists who love reading crime stories – everything from atmospheric noir to thriller mysteries and police procedurals. With an in-house team of expert crime fiction reviewers, they cast their gaze on Executive Severance and like what they see.

http://www.crimefictionlover.com/2012/03/executive-severance/

Follow the Money

‎1. Citizens United opened the floodgates of corporate campaign contributions.
2. The bulk of PAC spending goes to political advertising on TV
3. The 1996 Telecommunications Act allowed for the consolidation of media outlets into a few corporate hands.
4. Media conglomerates, who receive the bulk of Citizen United money, control the naitonal political debate agenda.
5. Follow the money. The media giants do.

Proposed program for event at The Mysterious Bookshop, March 28, 6:30 PM

Working on the program for my March 28 reading and book signing at The Mysterious Bookshop, 58 Warren Street, New York, NY.

I've never done this before so I've identified the following possible activities:
1. Introductions - I will present myself and my immediate family, pets and entourage.
2. Bob for apples - I'm all for 'em!
3. How I got here - with maps and detailed subway directions
4. Exchange of rare gifts - bring a small item.
5. Feats of strength - it's not just for Festivus anymore
6. Annoying reading from Executive Severance - I intend to use a high, whinny voice
7. Ritual animal slaughter - to propitiate the Gods
8. Q&Q - I will answer any questions with another question

9. Closing - we should leave the Mysterious Bookshop before we're shut in for the night.

Any suggestions?

Russ Feingold at the New School

At the New School last night, I attended a talk by Russ Feingold promoting his book, While America Sleeps. Feingold, who may be angling to be the next Secretary of State, spoke about the need for all Americans to learn more about and become more engaged with other nations. Feingold also talked about the need to overturn Citizens United and enact public campaign financing.

Being the Media Ecologist I am, I asked the following question: Given media consolidation in our country, why hasn't anyone noted how the major beneficiaries of campaign spending are the few entities that control the majority of our broadcast media? It isn't enought to enact public financing of campaigns while a few select corporations control the agenda of our national debate.

Feingold agreed, noting that he voted against the 1996 Telecommunications Act that enabled the concentration of media ownership in a few hands.

So, the takeaways: Learn about other nations, enact public campaign financing, break up the media conglomerates.

Being an author is an ego trip

Tony Randall explains the 1% (part 2)

Reality Sinks In...