Sunday, July 30, 2023

Triumph of the small risk Taking publisher

4.3 trillion readers can’t be wrong – they all know how The MEdia Dragon 🐉 is a slave to hard core irony and satire 


“I’ve always thought it was weird that we fixated on the negatives of slavery.”

ANGUS MARIN, MESS ATTENDANT

Florida Schools Will Teach How Slavery Brought ‘Personal Benefit’ To Black People






Triumph of the small publisher. At the big houses, caution and groupthink reign. It's the little shops that are taking risks exciting readers »


A quiet revolution is afoot in British publishing. Earlier this year, when American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis brought out his latest bestseller, The Shards, the book came to UK readers not from his usual publisher, Picador – his home for nearly four decades – but from a small independent company, Swift Press, a freelance-powered outfit so light on overheads it doesn’t even have an office. Likewise, Sheila Heti, the prize-winning Canadian author of zeitgeisty autobiographical cogitations Motherhood and How Should a Person Be?, recently announced that her next book won’t be out with her regular publisher, Penguin Random House, but with south London indie Fitzcarraldo Editions, not yet 10 years in business. Last year’s Booker winner, Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka, came to us courtesy of the smallest publisher ever to win the prize, husband-and-wife indie Sort Of Books. In 2022, all the glittering literary prizes went to indies – not only the Booker, but its sister prize for translated fiction, the International Booker, as well as the Nobel, the Goldsmiths, the Pulitzer and Australia’s A$100,000 (£80,000) Victorian prize for literature. The last four remarkably were all won by Fitzcarraldo, the UK home of celebrated French memoirist Annie Ernauxand foremost among a wave of new small publishers punching above their weight. What’s going on?

“The thing about the publishing world is that most people don’t understand how it works,” says Valerie Brandes, chief executive of black-owned London indie Jacaranda Books. “Even people in publishing don’t understand how it works! But I’d make so bold as to say the real publishing is happening at the bottom.” It’s a view that is increasingly widespread in the industry. The argument runs something like this: because commercial pressures at large houses encourage cautious commissioning (see the way every breakthrough success, be it Sally Rooney or Richard Osman, heralds an attack of the clones), nimbler indies – operating with tighter margins – step into the void and give choice-starved readers the books that corporate imprints deem unsaleable or otherwise risky. Whether these are from veteran authors left on the scrapheap (according to Ellis, Picador didn’t want The Shards), boundary-pushing first-timers such as Sheena Patel (author of I’m a Fan, recently the winner of a British Book award) or foreign greats deemed tricky to sell (witness Fitzcarraldo’s wonder trio of overseas Nobel laureates, Ernaux, Svetlana Alexievich and Olga Tokarczuk), all are finding homes with upstart maverick publishers that – as their prize success indicates – are reaping the spoils.


New Books

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Essays & Opinions

The literary-critical establishment is tired of moralizing and self-righteousness. And so, it’s time for a turn to aesthetics... more »


New Books

Does history move in cycles? That's the contention of Peter Turchin and Neil Howe. If it all sounds too neat, it is... more »


Essays & Opinions

The literary-critical establishment is tired of moralizing and self-righteousness. And so, it’s time for a turn to aesthetics... more »


Articles of Note

Born to kvetch. Norman Mailer was heedless and shameless and clownish. He was also impossible to ignore -- and still is... more »


New Books

The New Hellenism: Philosophers like Agnes Callard and Clancy Martin are bringing back the confessional mode... more »


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Rumi - Literary geography

“People who insult me, are only polishing the mirror”


“The wound is the place where the light enters you.”


~Rumi


“Be melting snow, wash yourself of yourself”


Within the pages of history, Rumi’s poetic verses continue to transcend the barriers of time, culture, and creed, captivating hearts and minds with their profound insights into the art of living well.


“Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.”


“In order to be truthful, you must embrace your total being. A person who exhibits both positive and negative qualities, strengths and weaknesses is not flawed, but complete.”


“You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?”


Integrate the dualities of life instead of viewing them as opposing forces


1. “Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”


Rumi encourages us to resist the temptation of comparing our journey with others and, instead, embrace our uniqueness.


In a world inundated with narratives of success, happiness, and accomplishments of others, it is easy to fall into the trap of measuring ourselves against external standards.


2. “Don’t sit and wait. Get out there, feel life. Touch the sun, and immerse in the sea.”


3. “Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop.”


“When the world pushes you to your knees, you’re in the perfect position to pray.”


“This being human is a guesthouse. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor…Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.” – Rumi

Rumi on art of living


Life Mistakes People Keep Making Century After Century, According to Roman Orator Cicero Born in the twilight of the Roman Republic in 106 BCE, Marcus Tullius Cicero emerged as a multifaceted figure whose passion for knowledge and virtue propelled him to explore the complexities of ethics,…


 Larry Gagosian

Spermageddon
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Someone's going to end up dead' before Astroworld crush ...A man drowned as Tennessee police watched for 13 minutes, lawsuit says

  Just moments before rap superstar Travis Scott took the stage at the deadly 2021 Astroworld festival, a contract worker had been so worried about what might happen after seeing people getting crushed that he texted an event organizer saying, “Someone's going to end up dead,” according to a police report ...18 hours ago


Twitter Knoxville Police TN


Mika Wheeler Clabo cried out for help the morning of July 25, 2022, while struggling to keep his head above the waters of the Tennessee River in Knoxville, a lawsuit alleges. For 13 minutes, he gasped and groaned as he tried to pull himself out of the water or free himself from the vines that had ensnared him.

Cops watched woman’s son drown in Tennessee River, she says. She’s suing for millions

Julia Marnin
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A woman accuses four police officers of becoming bystanders the day her son struggled to stay above water in the Tennessee River and drowned on July 25, 2022.

Mika Wheeler Clabo, a 30-year-old outdoor enthusiast and skilled arborist, was a recovering and hardworking man who recently got his driver’s license and purchased a new car before his death, according to his mother and her attorney.

However, in the days leading up to his drowning, he “lost everything” he had worked for the previous two years, including his belongings, his license, his self-esteem and “possibly worst of all, his sobriety,” according to a lawsuit filed in federal court on July 25, the anniversary of his death.

On the morning of July 25, 2022, dozens of people called 911 about Clabo “acting erratically” and seemingly “scared” as if he “was trying to get away from something” before he ran toward the Tennessee River near Calhoun’s On The River in Knoxville, a waterfront barbecue restaurant, according to the lawsuit.

Clabo fell into the river around 10:14 a.m. and struggled for about 15 minutes before disappearing, a complaint says. His body was recovered from the river by divers around 12:40 p.m.

During Clabo’s struggle, four responding Knoxville police officers are accused of standing by on the riverbank, making no effort to help him and discouraging witnesses — Calhoun’s employees and patrons — from getting involved as they waited for the arrival of a rescue boat, according to the complaint.

“The officers devolved into mere bystanders, standing a few feet above Mika on the riverbank, dock, or deck, watching him struggle …and occasionally urging him on, to ‘swim’ or ‘get out,’” the complaint says.

Clabo’s mother, Kimberly Williams-Clabo, accuses the four officers of negligence and depriving her son of his rights — in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment — by not making an effort to save him despite knowing his life was at risk.

She’s filed her lawsuit against the City of Knoxville, Knoxville Chief of Police Paul Noel, the four officers and other defendants not identified in the complaint.

Williams-Clabo seeks $4 million in damages and demands a 12-person jury trial, the complaint shows.

The city declined a request for comment, as it doesn’t comment on pending litigation, Kristin Farley, Knoxville’s director of communications, told McClatchy News on July 27.

 The Knoxville Police department is aware of the lawsuit but declined to comment, as it also doesn’t comment on pending litigation, Scott Erland, the department’s communications manager, told McClatchy News on July 27.

Three of the officers named in the complaint continue to work for the police department, Erland confirmed. A fourth officer left the department for another job position.

An internal investigation didn’t take place over their response to the drowning, he said.

“Mika deserved better that day,” attorney Lance K. Baker, who represents Williams-Clabo, told McClatchy News in a statement on July 27. “He deserved officers that operated like first responders and what he received were officers that operated like bystanders.”

The drowning incident

The morning of July 25, 2022, Knoxville police issued an alert on Twitter about officers, the Knoxville Fire Department and the city’s rescue squad searching for a person who went into the river near Calhoun’s and didn’t resurface.

They wrote they had received several 911 calls before 10 a.m. about him “acting erratically” before “he went into the river shortly after officers arrived.”


According to the lawsuit, after Clabo entered the river, he became stuck as his feet were ensnared in vines from nearby bushes, the complaint says.

One officer who arrived at the scene spoke to another individual over his radio, saying Clabo was “attempting to get back to shore but I cannot get to him,” according to the complaint, which cites police body camera footage and accuses the officer of never trying.

Around 10:17 a.m., the officer told a Calhoun’s employee, “I can’t get down there. He’ll drown my (expletive),” the complaint says, before he told Clabo to relax as a rescue boat was on the way.

According to the complaint, there were boats with flotation devices near Calhoun’s dock. Despite this, the officers didn’t attempt to use the floats or boats to save Clabo, the complaint says.

“Witnesses to the incident further stated that the officers … repeatedly warned Calhoun’s employees and patrons who wanted to help Mika from rendering him any aid,” the complaint says.

After Clabo went under water, divers recovered his body at around 12:40 p.m., according to the complaint, which says his cause of death was determined to be an accidental drowning by the Medical Examiner’s Office.

The lawsuit accuses Knoxville and its police chief of failing to train officers to “properly and safely handle” life-threatening situations.

Not many law enforcement officers are trained in water safety despite undergoing various types of training, according to a 2019 report by the Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services offering water safety tips for authorities.

Although officers may choose to rescue someone from the water, doing so could endanger them, according to the report.

“Officers are not always the best person for a water rescue; waiting for the arrival of a specially trained and equipped rescue team could offer the best chance of survival for all,” the report says.

With her lawsuit, Williams-Clabo is seeking $1.5 million in compensatory damages and $2.5 million in punitive damages, the complaint shows.




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