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Stuck In Traffic
"Current Events, Cultural Phenomena, True Stories"
Issue #30 - February, 1999
Contents:
My Meteor Watching Expedition:
In which I discover that in order to enjoy a meteor shower, you have to
lower your expectations.
The Bookseller Wars:
A long look at the conflict between the Small Independent Bookseller
and the Big Chain Bookseller and what the Small Independent must do to
survive the changes in the book selling market.
Aiding Cubans:
Why and how we should aid Cubans without compromising our principles.
====================================
True Story
My Meteor Watching Expedition
It's not every day that you get a chance to see a meteor shower. So
Last November, as the earth was passing through the strongest meteor
shower in about a 100 years, I decided I better take advantage of the
opportunity. The Science Geek in me, which usually I manage to keep
under control, got the best of me. I made plans with some similarly
afflicted friends for the best night for viewing it.
So early that morning, about 3:30AM as I recall, I dragged myself out
of bed and pulled on all the warm clothes I could find. Middle
November in the Carolinas can either be warm or cold. It's a fickle
time of year weather-wise around here. But of course, since we were
planning to go out, the weather turned out chilly. So I pulled on my
long underwear, a couple of layers of T-shirts and sweatshirts and
topped the whole thing off with my overcoat. By the time I was done, I
looked like an Eskimo. I couldn't bend over because I had so many
clothes on!
Bleary eyed, I met my friends at their house and we all piled into
their van. No one said much. Yes, we all wanted to do this. But no
one was real happy about being up at such an ungodly hour. We headed
out of town to try to get away from the city lights a little. Which
meant it got darker and darker. And as we passed down lonelier and
lonelier roads out in the country, sleep kept calling me. Thank
goodness I wasn't the one driving.
We drove the van to a Lake Jordan, which is just southwest of town a
few miles, on the theory that since there wouldn't be any trees growing
above the lake, there would be quite a bit of unobstructed view of the
sky. We went down a road that leads to a boat ramp. It had a big
grassy area that I suppose is used in the summertime for people to park
their trailers as they take their boats out fishing and water skiing.
There were other sky-watchers there already. As a matter of etiquette,
one takes care not to shine any bright lights around other sky
watchers. After sitting in the darkness for a few hours, your pupils
open up as wide as they will go. So if someone suddenly shines a
bright light into your eyes, it hurts! So the last hundred yards or
so, we drove without the headlights on in the car. All of a sudden we
were in nearly total darkness. We moved very slowly, mostly so we
could still find our way down the road and into a parking spot without
running into a tree or running over a pedestrian. Unsettling to say
the least. But we managed to get parked without incident.
We piled out of the van and quickly discovered that in our early
morning stupor, we'd forgotten to bring any sort of lawn furniture. I
some how managed in all my layers of clothes to bend down just enough
to manage to sit on the ground. But after about 5 minutes the coldness
from the ground had seeped through my jeans and long underwear and was
turning my butt nice and frosty. This was not a good thing.
Fortunately, my friends' van had just enough slope to it that you could
lean back against it and watch the sky in sort of an odd falling
backward position.
None of us were into amateur astronomy enough to own any sort of
telescope, so we didn't have anything to set up. But we had brought
some binoculars which we quickly found out were totally useless. And I
suspect a telescope would have been useless as well. Binoculars and
telescopes are used to look at a single, known object that's very far
away. So you only see an extremely minute portion of the sky at anyone
time. But a meteor strike can happen anywhere in the sky at any time.
So the trick to watching a meteor shower is to watch as much of the sky
as possible all at once. You have to learn to _not_ focus on any
particular star.
While cursing the weather for being cold, we were simultaneously
thankful that it was a clear night and we could see the stars clearly.
I couldn't begin to tell you what stars we saw that night. I can't
recognize constellations, except for maybe the Big Dipper. We had
heard that the it was best to look to the south for viewing the meteor
shower, so we pointed ourselves to what we hoped was a southerly
direction. Even though we were out of town by several miles, there you
could still see some glow in the sky from town. So maybe if we had
gone further out, we would have seen more stars, but the sky was still
pleasantly full of stars, even from our less than ideal vantage point.
How does one describe a sky full of stars? The first thing that always
strikes me is that there is no ceiling. I guess that sounds kind of
strange. But you can just look up and tell that it goes on for ever.
It's not like there's a black something up there with sprinklings of
stars on it. It's black because there's nothing up there! The stars
are up there, but they add to the sense of vast emptiness rather than
filling it up. You really get the sense that you are standing on a
rock flying through space when you're looking up at the stars.
The stars themselves look very old and very cold. Every grade school
kid knows that stars are hundreds of thousands of light-years away from
us, but it doesn't sink in until you see those tiny bits of light up
there. It's tough to imagine them being so far away. But every now
and then an airplane would cross the sky and it would seem very close,
like you could almost reach up and touch it. The contrast between the
plane and the stars gave you a sense of just how far away they were.
Meteor watching is an exercise in patience. You can't just flip a
switch and make it happen. I remember watching a CNN new story the day
before. At the time it was dark in Japan and they had a poor CNN
reporter "on the scene" with a camera pointed to the sky, hoping to
catch a glimpse of a meteor. But meteors just don't happen on demand,
and a camera can only capture a tiny corner of the sky, so they didn't
actually catch on one tape, as far as I know.
So we were leaning back against the van, trying to take in as much of
the vast empty space as possible and waited. And waited. And waited
some more. It takes a while for your eves to get adjusted to the
darkness. And for a while my eyes were playing tricks on me. I though
that I could see the stars slowly shifting around. Not like they were
moving across the sky as a result of the earth's turning. I thought I
could see them changing in relation to each other. This is a very odd
phenomena. I don't know if other people have experienced this or not.
But I think there's something psychological about it. If you make an
effort to go observe something, I think you have a deep rooted
expectation to see some sort of change. Some sort of movement. Some
sort of action over time. So I think my brain was trying to see
something change when in fact there was nothing to see.
But eventually I got settled down and lowered my expectations to the
point where I wasn't imagining the stars rearranging themselves for my
benefit. And as you sit out there staring into the nothingness, and as
your eyes get more and more adjusted to the darkness, you start seeing
very faint stars that you didn't see at first. Time passes very slowly
there in the dark cold night.
And then it happens. It's never in your direct line of sight. But if
you are staring wide eyed enough you can catch a glimpse of a meteor
streaking across the sky. The ones we saw all happened in less than a
second. If you blinked your eye at the wrong time you could miss it.
But if you're lucky you'll see a tiny streak of light. It's not like
the big huge meteors you see in the movies, full of smoky fire and
brilliance. These were just small lines of white light that drew
themselves across the sky. One of the most surprising things I found
while watching the meteor shower is that they are dead silent. After
watching a few Space Opera movies and TV shows, you develop this
expectation that space is a noisy place and that astronomical events
are accompanied by booming rolls of thunder and the hiss of flames.
But of course none of this is true. The streaks of light across the
sky have no Hollywood produced sound effects whatsoever.
They happen so quickly and silently that you might be tempted to think
you imagined them. Especially since there is so much time between
them. From our less than ideal vantage point, we saw only 5 or 6
meteor strikes all night. But the trick is to get used to the
nothingness that's going on in the sky. Once you accept the static
nature of the night sky, a meteor strike is an unmistakable marvel.
====================================
Cultural Phenomena
The Bookseller Wars
Just down the road from my home, there is a pleasant little bookstore
called Wellington books. It's a nice place to browse for books. It's
got that down-to-earth, personalized feel to it that can only come from
lots of love and attention. It's got that atmosphere that can only
come when the owners' of the store are there day in and day out. It's
the kind of place where you can expect to get to know the store owner
on a first name basis.
It's going out of business.
It's always sad to lose a good store. But it's even worse with
Wellington books because, I have to admit, I helped contribute to its
demise. While I enjoyed browsing at Wellington books, all too often I
found myself at one of its national chain competitors. Now, I feel
just terrible.
The Bookseller Wars have been getting a lot of press attention over the
past couple of years. Apparently the loss of the neighborhood
bookstore is all too common an occurrence across the nation. Most
journalists portray the trend as a battle to the death between the
Small Independent bookseller "just around the corner" and the Big Chain
bookseller with its national distribution system and a huge supermarket
style store at the local mall.
To judge by the trends, the majority of the book buying public shares
my hypocrisy. We love the Small Independent booksellers, yet we're
giving our business to their Big Chain competitors. I think it's
important to look more closely at the act of buying books and speculate
a bit on how book buying has changed over the years in order to
understand this sad trend.
The Evolution of Book Buying:
Once upon a time, pretty much your only access to a book was through
the library or through your local, independently owned bookstore. Not
only did you go to the bookstore to purchase a book, you went to your
local bookstore to find out about the book in the first place. You
trusted the owner to know what books are available and to make
recommendations about which book you will suit your needs or likes.
The price wasn't a big issue. You were glad to have access to the
book. Back then, a book was a somewhat rare and treasured thing.
The Industrial Revolution changed this somewhat. The production costs
for books fell dramatically, so books became cheaper. And not only
were they cheaper, a wider variety of books could be published. Since
the costs of publishing a book were lower, publishers could afford to
take some risks with a book. Especially with the advent of the
paperback, book buying became accessible to a much wider variety of
people. And while "dime novels," started showing up on the racks at
drug stores and news stands, the local book store was still the primary
place to find out about most books and still the primary place that
most people bought their books.
Today, thanks to the advent of the Information Age, book sellers are no
longer the guardians of information about books. We no longer rely on
the local book seller to make recommendations about books to buy. We
no longer rely on the book seller to tell us what's available. In the
last few decades, there has been an explosion of mass media.
Newspapers are more widespread than ever. Radio is everywhere. TV is
everywhere. And while it's just getting going, the Net is quickly
permeating our culture. Because of this explosion of media,
advertising is everywhere. Marketing has become big business and books
are now "marketed" in addition to being "published." The end result of
this information explosion is that often we already know what book we
want to buy before we ever darken the doorstep of a book store. In
many cases, the process of choosing which book to buy has become
divorced from the process of actually making the purchase.
In cases where the buyer has already chosen which book to buy, his or
her objective switches from choosing a book to maximizing convenience
and minimizing cost. At some level, convenience is measured by
proximity. The closer the bookstore is, the less time/effort it takes
to get there to make the purchase. However, the other factor is the
likelihood that the bookstore has in stock the book you want to
purchase. One way to handle this is to call the bookstore and find
out. Here, the small independent book seller has an advantage.
Regardless of the reality, the perception is that you are more likely
to get a caring, helpful person when you call the Small Independent
around the corner. But that doesn't do much good if the book is not in
stock. The owner of the Small Independent will gladly order the book
for you, if you're willing to wait for a few days for it to come in.
But the Big Chain store, by its nature, is going to carry far more
books than the Small Independent and is therefore more likely to have
it in stock. The Big Chain is also more likely to be able to sell you
the book at a better price, since they deal in large volumes.
Despite the fact that the Small Independent may be closer, and the SI
may have more knowledgeable helpful people working there, we come to
rely on the Big Chain over time because it's more likely to have the
book right now and more likely to have it at a better price.
Of course, we don't always know what book we want to buy before going
to the book store. For many people, especially those of us lamenting
the demise of the Small Independent book seller, shopping for books is
a pleasant pastime. Browsing for books is an adventure. There's the
thrill of finding an unexpected diamond in the rough when browsing
through shelves of books. And not only is there the thrill of foraging
through shelves and shelves of books, book stores along with coffee
houses, have become the mix and mingle spots for the literati. This
isn't a new observation in any way. The rise of the book store as a
socializing venue has been well documented over the past few years.
The Small Independents can hold their own against the Big Chains in
this regard precisely because they can create a more intimate
atmosphere. Due to the personalization of the store given to them by
the owner, and because they are smaller, the Small Independents promote
more interaction among customers. If I'm browsing through six 6 aisles
of books in the science fiction section of a Big Chain, I'm much less
likely to have an opportunity to speak to that cute lady browsing over
in the equally large cookbook section. But if I'm in a Small
Independent shop where one side of the shelf has their sci-fi section
and the other side has their cookbooks section, well, that's the stuff
that movies are made of....
Alas, booksellers don't get paid for the number of dates they arrange,
they get paid by the number of books they sell. And there are many
competing options for people who enjoy browsing for books. First,
there is the Small Independent's arch nemesis, the Big Chain. Because
the Big Chain, by its nature, carries as many different titles as
possible, there is a perception among buyers that they are better for
general browsing. There are also libraries. Since they are funded by
tax payers, they can afford to let people read books for "free." It's
very difficult for the owner of a small independent book store to
compete with free public libraries. There is also the free-market
answer to the tax payer funded library, the used book store. Used Book
stores aren't limited to books currently in print like other stores, so
they hold an even greater sense of adventure for the book buyer. I
have spent large portions of my leisure time happily foraging through
the piles of books at my favorite used book stores. For people who
truly enjoy the happy pastime of browsing for books, the Used Book
Store is the ultimate place to go. At a used book store, there's the
chance that you will run across something exquisitely rare. Perhaps
you won't find a book that's extremely valuable, but there's always the
chance that you'll find something utterly unique, or long out of print
from a bygone era. Also like libraries, you can afford to experiment
with the books you read. Since the used bookstore will almost
certainly buy back next week the same book they sell you today, and at
a reasonable fraction of the price, the cost of trying out a book at a
Used book store is very small.
At the risk of stating the obvious, browsing for books is a solitary
business. You don't need a shop keeper to help you. In fact, most of
the time, we'd rather NOT have a book seller hovering over us, trying
to be helpful when we are browsing. Book publishers know this. And
instead of relying on the store owner or store clerk to sell their
books, they rely on books selling themselves. This is the appearance
of books have changed over the decades. Once upon a time, when books
were rare treasures, they were produced as if they were rare treasures.
Much effort went into producing a book on valuable paper, using high
quality materials. The craftsmanship of producing the book was used to
convey the luxury of being able to own a book. Books were designed to
look good on the shelves of a home library. But today, books are
manufactured as cheaply as possible, so that as many as possible can be
produced and sold at a reasonable cost and risk. But more importantly,
book publishers design books to sell themselves. The invest in eye
catching covers. They invest in artwork for the cover. They invest in
getting reviews of a book printed on the cover, which requires a fair
amount of effort and prep work. Today, the cover of the book is a
brochure, trying to catch your attention and sell itself to you. The
cover of a book is a marketing investment, not a production cost.
So even though the Small Independent book store on the corner is a
perfectly good place to go browsing for books, libraries, used book
stores, and the Big Chains are also vying for the browsing book buyer's
attention. And even if the Small Independent bookstore manages to lure
the browser into their store, the bookseller has been left out of the
loop because books are designed to sell themselves as much as possible.
Hope for the Small Independent Bookseller:
So far, the picture doesn't bode well for the Small Independent
bookseller. But I think there's hope for them yet, though it may
require a somewhat radical change to our concept of the Small
Independent bookstore. The trick is to take a very close look at what
it is exactly that we get from them.
The fundamental thing that a Small Independent bookseller does for us,
and the thing that makes them unique, is that they help us select a
book. Why do we want that personal connection with our bookseller? I
think it's because we want to establish a sense of trust between us.
We want the bookseller to carry books that we will want to read, based
on their knowledge of us and our tastes, preferably our own personal
tastes. We dream of walking into our local book store and having the
owner rush over to us and say, "Hi! I'm so glad you came in. We just
got this book in and I couldn't help but think it's one that you'll
want to read."
In the past we wanted this sort of relationship because that's the only
way we ever found out about books. Today, it's just the opposite
problem. There is so much information out there from so many different
sources, we can't deal with it all. It's classic information overload.
Therein lies the hope of salvation for the Small Independent
bookseller. The Small Independent booksellers need to realize that
they are primarily in the business of selecting good books for us to
read. They are our advisors. The value that they bring to the table
is just the same as it ever was. The Small Independents have had to do
this for years and years because, by their nature, they do not have as
much shelf space as the Big Chain stores. Therefore they _have_ to be
more discriminating about what they stock the shelves with. They are
in essence brokers between book publishers and book buyers. They have
to know the good books from the bad, and they have to know you, the
customer, in order to successfully broker a deal between the two of
you. The Big Chains don't even try to do this. They throw everything
they can on the shelves on the grounds that you'll buy anything.
So the Small Independent booksellers need to recognize that they are
fundamentally in the brokering business, not the selling business.
This is a subtle, but very fundamental distinction and they need to
adjust their business accordingly. There are varying ways they can
adapt to this shift in their purpose.
The Small Affiliate Solution :
The primary advantage that the Big Chains will always have is that they
have lower distribution costs, due primarily to their large volumes.
The primary advantage that a Small Independent has is it's
discriminating taste. It would be nice to see a symbiosis of the Big
Chains and Small Independents. Small Independents should propose an
affiliation with the Big Chains in order to tap into the Big Chains
distribution channels. These "Small Affiliates" would continue to
maintain a separate store front and business location. And they would
continue to rely on their reputation of selectively choosing which
books appear on their shelves. Customers can be assured that the owner
is still serving that editorial gatekeeper function, matching up the
right books with their clientele. The Big Chain benefits by further
increasing its volumes, while the Small Affiliate from lower costs for
books.
There are some dangers to this approach and some challenges.
Currently, the book buying public doesn't perceive the value of having
someone else weed out the good books from the bad and stock only the
good books. The general perception currently among book buyers is that
more titles on the shelves the better. But even for people who are
just browsing, there is perhaps an advantage going to a store that has
pulled out the trash. Isn't there more appeal to browsing through the
cream of the crop? There needs to be a directed marketing effort to
convince the buying public of this fact. If people already believed
this then the Small Independents wouldn't be in trouble like they are.
By being affiliated with the Big Chain, the Small Affiliate can partly
allay the book buyer's fears that they are missing out on possible
books. By being affiliated with the Big Chain, the Small Affiliate is
telling the public, "We have _access_ to just as many books as the Big
Chain, but we have purposely chosen to stock only the best books
available."
Affiliation, however, is a double edged sword. The book buying public
must never believe that the Small Affiliates have compromised their
editorial integrity in order to increase the sales volume of a
particular book. The key to their success is to stock the best books,
not the most popular. In an affiliate relationship, there will be
inevitable temptation by the big chain to use the Small Affiliate to
push certain books on to the public.
The Independent Reviewer Solution:
In the extreme case, the Small Independent can focus exclusively on
what makes him or unique, the ability to select and recommend books.
Maintaining a store, keeping a payroll, keeping inventory is a tough,
expensive job. The Big Chains can do it better. So why compete? It
may be possible for the Small Independent to get out of the book
_selling_ business all together and transform themselves into
Independent Reviewers.
The trick is not to add to the information overload that book buyers
already feel, but to help book buyers avoid it. As with the Small
Affiliate solution, you want to actually narrow the range of books that
buyers choose from in a positive, valuable way. I can think of three
possible approaches to making a living as an Independent reviewer.
First you can follow the examples already set by other information
intensive industries. You can start your own book review newsletter.
In the financial industry, for example, there are thousands and
thousands of ways you can invest your money. So there is a secondary
industry devoted strictly to analyzing the markets and suggesting
investments and sharing market insights with newsletter subscribers.
This is a tough way to make a living, but some manage it. The problem
is that in order to make a living this way, you generally have to
charge a relatively high price for your newsletter. For industries
where there is a high amount of money invested, this is possible. But
books tend to follow more of a low cost commodity model. So it's
unclear if enough people will be willing to subscribe to a newsletter
to help them buy books which are a relatively low cost, risk free
investment of money. On the other hand, no one wants to waste time
buying and reading a book that's no good. And certainly there are
examples of some success. There are many people who won't consider
reading a book unless it's received a favorable review in the New York
Times Review of Books, or some other similar publication.
The other way an Independent Reviewer can try to make a living is
through the Book Club approach. Typically, the Book Club operated by
mail order. Periodically, you receive a list of books and
descriptions, which are recommended. If you choose, you can buy one of
their recommended books, via mail. As with the Small Independent
bookseller, the Book Club is in the business of matching up targeted
buyers with books that will appeal to them. Unfortunately, Book Clubs
have a somewhat negative image these days, mostly due to their own
making. People are afraid of getting snookered into a contract where
they have to buy a bunch of junk books just to keep their commitments
to the contract. But these negative feelings toward Book Clubs are not
inherent in the idea, just how they've been marketed.
Indeed, some book clubs are overcoming the negative image by focusing
on making their money from the publishers and distributors, not the
book buyers. They are also focusing on taking advantage of existing
high quality, positive brands. Take, for example, Oprah Winfrey's book
club. Oprah Winfrey has turned herself into a one woman brand,
cornering the Average Woman of Good Taste market. You don't have to be
any sort of paid member to be in Oprah's book club. But when you walk
into one of the Big Chain's stores, there is a table containing all the
books that Oprah Winfrey recommends. Since there is value in Oprah's
recommendation, you can bet that she's getting some value out of it,
either from the publishers or by the Big Chains, which benefit from the
increased sales volumes. Likewise, there is now a recommended book
list from National Public Radio and other established brands.
Of course, book clubs like these are tricky. Some Independent
Reviewers may target certain demographic groups, as Oprah has done.
Some may rely on common ideology as NPR has done. Still others may
focus on genre or subject matter. And if you don't already have a well
established brand image, it's difficult to convince publishers and
distributors that you are worth spending any money on.
Finally, the Independent Reviewer can attempt to go into the book
branding business. In essence becoming a professional reviewer, but
instead of publishing reviews in other media and adding to the
information overload, you literally go into the branding business.
This is a fairly new, but emerging activity. Today, you can buy
technical books which have been reviewed for technical accuracy by an
independent review organization. You know that the book has been
reviewed by them because the reviewer's logo is "branded" on the cover
of the book. The book publisher pays the reviewer to review the book
for technical accuracy because there is value in having the brand on
your book cover.
Today, book branding is done for specific purposes. Reviewing for
accuracy, suitability for children, conformance to religious values,
etc. But why not create review brand for how enjoyable a book is to
read?
Once upon a time, the publisher's imprint used to serve this purpose.
And in some cases, they would set up specialty imprint logos so that it
would appear that the publisher focused on one type of book. When you
go to the science fiction and see the TOR publisher logo on a book, you
pretty much know what sort of book you're going to get. And at the
extremes, the logo becomes clich�. Everyone knows what a Harlequin
Romance novel is going to be like, even if you've never read one.
But for the most part, publishers are in the business of publishing so
many titles, that you no longer get a sense of what sorts of books they
publish. So there's an opportunity for the Independent Reviewer to
step in and create a cross-publisher brand image that's valuable to the
buying public, the distributors, and the publishers.
But Will It Work?
Will the Small Independent Bookseller be able to adapt to the changes
in the book buying marketplace quickly enough to survive? Which of
these transformations will work and which won't? It's too early to
tell. But one thing's for sure, those that try to hold on to the
nostalgic image of the Little Book Shop Around The Corner aren't going
to survive.
====================================
Current Events
Aiding Cubans
The recent liberalization of the total blockade of Cuba was a small,
almost inconsequential move which got far more press than it deserved.
However, as small a step as it is, it is nonetheless a step in the
correct direction.
But changing American policy toward Cuba is always a tough challenge.
Some people, most notably entrenched politicians who've been around
long enough to remember the Cuban Missle Crisis, can't stomach the
thought of showing any mercy toward Cuba. Some less idealistic and
more cowardly simply can't stand the thought of admitting that the time
has come for change.
So Clinton, never one to take a bold stand unless the polling numbers
showed overwhelming support, made only minor changes to the policy.
But they were important ones. Under the new rules, there can now be
the establishment of direct mail service to Cubans and people in the
United States can now send money directly to their families who are
still in Cuba.
As 30 years of experience has shown us, total economic blockades hurt
the people far more than they hurt the government. After 30 years, the
Cuban people are starving and Castro is as entrenched as ever. In
fact, the U.S. blockade of Cuba actually helps Castro enforce his
communist regime on citizens who would otherwise oppose state control
of their lives.
In effect, Castro has been saying, "I'm in charge of the economy. You
will work in the job I tell you to work in, you will earn the pay I say
you should earn, and you will buy things only from the sate." And the
United States has, in effect, been saying, "You can't buy anything from
or sell anything to anyone outside of Cuba."
The key to establishing a useful policy toward Cuba is to drive a wedge
between Castro's communists and the people. Our policy should be that
Americans can have any sort of relations with individual Cubans that
they want to. They can visit Cuba, buy, sell, and trade with any Cuban
citizen, but not the Cuban government. But Americans would do so at
their own risk. We can't be responsible for protecting them while in
Cuba. We should offer no official recognition of Castro's regime or
acknowledge the legitimacy of Castro's form of government.
This will allow the seeds of economic prosperity to be sown on Cuban
soil for the first time in many decades and it will help feed the poor
Cubans and may even put them on the road to the re-establishment of a
vibrant middle class and put them in a position to bring about change.
Starving people make poor revolutionaries.
=====================================
About Stuck In Traffic
Stuck In Traffic is a monthly magazine dedicated to evaluating
current events, examining cultural phenomena, and sharing true
stories.
Why "Stuck In Traffic"?
Because getting stuck in traffic is good for you. It's an
opportunity to think, ponder, and reflect on all things, from the
personal to the global. As Robert Pirsig wrote in _Zen and the Art
of Motorcycle Maintenance_, "Let's consider a reevaluation of the
situation in which we assume that the stuckness now occurring, the
zero of consciousness, isn't the worst of all possible situations,
but the best possible situation you could be in. After all, it's
exactly this stuckness that Zen Buddhists go to so much trouble to
induce...."
Submissions:
Submissions to Stuck In Traffic are always welcome. If you have
something on your mind or a personal story you'd like to share,
please do. You don't have to be a great writer to be published here,
just sincere.
Contact Information:
All queries, submissions, subscription requests, comments, and
hate-mail about Stuck In Traffic should be sent to Calvin Stacy
Powers preferably via E-mail (powers@ibm.net) or by mail (2012
Talloway Drive, Cary, NC USA 27511).
Copyright Notic:
Stuck In Traffic is published and copyrighted by Calvin Stacy Powers
who reserves all rights. Individual articles are copyrighted by
their respective authors. Unsigned articles are authored by Calvin
Stacy Powers.
Permission is granted to redistribute and republish Stuck In Traffic
for noncommercial purposes as long as it is redistributed as a whole,
in its entirety, including this copyright notice. For permission to
republish an individual article, contact the author.
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and send to the address listed above. Individual issues are
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http://www.StuckInTraffic.com/
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