Encouraging a reading culture

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69317437The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled  – Plutarch

Hey you… You there. Yeah you, reading these words. As you obviously like to read, you should read more. A lot more. Finish this post, then go pick up something else, like Fatherland or Supergods or Bite of the Mango (all on my personal reading list). Or pick anything else really. Keep kindling that mental flame because you’re going to need it. If your mind lacks proper kindling it will burn without direction, get confused and burn your house down… Admittedly this mixed metaphor lacks a bit of je ne sais quoi, but you know what I mean.

And I’m probably preaching to the choir, but it still needs to be said. Reading is important, not only on a personal, but a social level as well. When you encourage a reading culture, you really encourage a thinking culture. And who could argue that we need more thinkers? Take the Brexit vote, the latest abysmal example that springs to mind. An entire country goes to vote on an issue that will have national and international consequences and sets the tone for many years to come, and the very day after the vote Google surges with queries like “What is the EU?” and  “What does it mean to leave the EU?”, which exposes a serious lack of fundamental knowledge.

Why didn’t people know anything about what they were voting against? Is that anybody’s fault that information was scarce? Or was it scarce? (Also, let’s not get into the discussion, why they wouldn’t gather information before the vote?) If you want to point fingers, you could argue that it’s a failure of education, a failure of the system and the culture. I can’t comment on your specific country’s basic education, but there’s a lot of recent criticism about the declining standards in schools becoming the norm. And that may very well be the case, yet that is only one side of the coin. Albeit educating young people about current affairs would be important, this is more about the generation who’s already out of school and will actually be voting.

Now, what do we need to do counterbalance that? What can we do? The Brexit debate itself was crippled by misinformation (not to mention apparent lies slapped on the side of busses), yet anyone who dared to point that out, was either sidelined or simply ignored. When specialists and experts in their field came out to say “Look, this doesn’t add up, we need to think about the…” they were promptly dismissed with a nod and were told “Let’s not listen to experts”.

If this is the situation we are in, then we need to encourage people (especially people who don’t listen to experts) to go and do the work or research themselves. They bloody well need to read more. What can we do, as a culture, to encourage more reading and more critical thinking? And I’m not pretending to have the answer, but a few suggestions worth considering:

  • How about we encourage a diverse approach to reading? Stop saying that audio-books, comics or anything else isn’t reading (whether it’s a specific genre or author), and be happy that person is reading.
  • How about after we stop belittling certain types of reading, we start suggesting more? I see you like X, have you read Y? You may actually like it.
  • How about we share the contents of a book or any other topic? My experience of reading X might be completely different and my learning points completely different. Book clubs shouldn’t be a thing of the past.  
  • Most importantly how about we don’t take anything a book (or the side of the bus) claims for granted? You read the claim, now take it with a pinch of salt and go and verify it. Let’s be inquisitive and curious about the world, people.

We need to venerate long/short/any form of writing, doing actual research, being knowledgeable and well educated. We need to learn again how to think for ourselves and to be able to make our arguments count, and all of it starts with reading and thinking more.

Note, this is not the end of my thoughts on these topics. I barely scratched the surface. Have a lot more to say about social bubbles, sceptical thinking, etc. Who knows… Adding some more kindling to the mind fire.

But what do you think? And if you are reading Fatherland or Supergods or
Bite of the Mango, let me know. Would love to have a chat about them. Also tell me if I’m wrong, you might think a poorly educated and misinformed public is a good thing.

Comment, like, share and subscribe. Stay tuned!

 

A Scourge of Clickbait on Thee

Writing, ,

16ooj0Why do people still engage with clickbait? Wait wait wait, hang on, let me rephrase that. Why do people persist in engaging with headlines that are obviously designed to appeal to our most basic level of curiosity, to our emotions, our greed and our sense of schadenfreude, instead of relying on our intellect and not giving it traction and traffic? Clickbait is a terrible thing. It’s objectively terrible. It promises a reader something life changing but instead gives you a hamster eating miniature burritos. Which is great in and of itself, but it’s hardly worth a line like “Chef cooks meal for his favorite hamster. What he cooks will blow your mind”.

A good headline is essential for attracting readership and clearly my own needs work, but for me a clickbait header is a de facto statement that you have nothing of value to offer me. It means you’re a scam, a fraud and you have nothing to say. A good headline is simple, informative and direct, leaving plenty of room to be creative and entertaining, and generally refrains from being too inane, deceptive and/or unnecessarily hyperbolic.

A clickbait headline includes a cliffhanger to bait the reader and an emotional trigger to push the reader to click. It deliberately excludes information you need in the decision process and nudges your curiosity bone Clickbait headlines are so lacking in content that you can make a headline clickbait generator. This one thrilled me with results like “19 Unusual Psychological Experiments That Can Be Explained By Duran Duran B-Sides” and “55 Life Hacks Only German Men Should Never Be Ashamed Of” which sound fascinating without giving me anything of substance. Clickbait reminds me of pop-up ads from the nineties or the phishing e-mails which occasionally grace my inbox. Bait the reader with A, then push to click B, get screwed by a conman C. Rinse repeat, appeal to simpler natures, make a profit. Unwanted and unneeded.

And that’s probably also the problem, it has become a numbers game. Get shares, likes, clicks, sneezes, whatever and hope your content (regardless of quality) goes viral so you make a profit on ad revenue or distributing swag or whatever floats your boat. The monetary incentive is strong and the market remains open to clickbaity content, to the extent that some major news outlets have used clickbaity headlines as a way of boosting traffic, apparently not understanding that it drives away more discerning audiences (like me).

And it’s interesting because on the other hand we do live in a (more) golden age of writing. And I mean that literally. More people than ever before have the ability to read and write, and the opportunity to publish their words of wisdom in whatever form, be it social media, print or laser print on cutting boards. The sheer volume of content is both forcing writers to be more creative and experimental in their work, and creating a need to sell. And what sells clicks are headlines and images. A strong, well crafted headline, usually paired with an image can make or break a piece of work. Timing, interest and some luck also plays a part in its virulence.

In short, please don’t propagate clickbait. It feeds a system where content takes second (or third or fourth or…) place in favor of clicks.

What do you think? Does clickbait have a role is modern writing, be it in blogging or journalism or something completely different? Or is it just utterly terrible pathos-based garbage? It is. It really is. But let me know if I’m wrong.

Let me know and do like, share and subscribe. Stay tuned!

Has it been written? – Library of Babel

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LibraryOfBabelSnapshotI came across the Library of Babel some time ago, yet it continues to intrigue me and allows me to indulge in the more philosophical aspects of my brain. In short, it’s a system that allows for mathematically generated text to be created and destroyed and recalled instantly. It’s a gem of literary creativity, even if isn’t technically a human literary achievement. As taken from their website (which you should really go explore, if only to marvel at the very concept of mathematically generated text), it states that: 

“The Library of Babel is a place for scholars to do research, for artists and writers to seek inspiration, for anyone with curiosity or a sense of humor to reflect on the weirdness of existence … completed, it would contain every possible combination of 1,312,000 characters … it would contain every book that ever has been written, and every book that ever could be …  At present it contains all possible pages of 3200 characters, about 104677 books.”

This means that every book, blog post, tweet, facebook update, article, etc. ever written or consumed exists out there. Which means everything that can possibly be written already has been “written”, regardless of whether it’s ever been committed to paper or even conceived. Which reminds me of Terry Pratchett’s L-space or Neil Gaiman’s Lucien’s library or any other hypothetical space where everything written simultaneously does and does not exist, just like that concept you wanted to work on, that poem you wanted to write about your last date, or that next entry in your diary. It’s in there… It just hasn’t been generated and exposed to the world. Not yet at least. But the concept also creates a lot of questions.

Are there be masterpieces of poetry hidden inside, waiting to be discovered rather than written? If I found one, can I publish it as my own? Or is that already someone else’s intellectual property? Or would the act of finding it bring it to existence? Furthermore, can I ever hope to be original? If what I’m writing has already been written, does it mean I plagiarized it, even if I wasn’t aware of its existence or it wasn’t written by a human or at least with human intent? Is the Library of Babel art? Should the entire idea or concept be considered an art project, or a mere exercise of mathematical magics? If so, what does it mean?

I don’t have answers to any of these questions, nor do I pretend to have any. Most art comes from, or references, other art and the Library of Babel certainly references other pieces of work. In fact it references every piece of work, real and in potentia, but not explicitly so. Maybe it’s a metaphor for the creative process or a maybe it’s just a machine that recreates something that does or doesn’t really exist yet. I don’t know. But it makes me wonder.

What do you think? What does this project say about creativity, about writing in general and about plagiarism? Does it say anything at all? And just to be clear, this blog post already exists/existed in Babel.

Let me know and do like, share and subscribe. Stay tuned!

5 Reasons to Read – The Thrawn Trilogy

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thrawn_trilogy_timothyzahnFirstly, I must acknowledge that the Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn is no longer considered canonical in the Star Wars universe. On the other hand I still read and enjoyed the books and I hope elements will eventually work their way into the new trilogy. Also, if anyone reading this is involved with Star Wars 8, please cast me as a stormtrooper (preferably in a cantina, maybe on some star of death, perhaps opposite Eddie Izzard). Anyway, since the next trilogy is merrily on its way, what better time (that wasn’t right before the cinematic release of episode 7) to delve into what could have been. So here goes.

5 Reasons to Read the Thrawn Trilogy

You get to see…

  • … massive starship battles. The two trilogies have shown us the intense spectacles of fighter-to-fighter combat, but actual starship-to-starship combat was reduced to who had the luckiest fighter pilots, most glaring structural oversights and least obvious targets. The Thrawn Trilogy delves deep into Star Wars canon and creates thrilling combinations of physics-based weaponry with careful force-wielding and mighty starships in intensely creative ways. No womp rat hunters need apply.
  • … a non-human imperial officer. The Empire, the ever-so-casual-racist Nazi-analog with a bit of British imperialism in the mix, has a Chiss (a previously unseen race) commanding officer. Not only does this create an interesting adversary for the New Republic, but also allows for delving deeper into the empire’s history, philosophy and the flexibility of their morals and ideals.
  • … force influencing and application across vast distances. You probably already know that Luke can utilize the force to pull his lightsaber from a mound of snow, Vader can force choke a incompetent officer from between starships and the Emperor can generate actual force lightning to kill, maim and cook his own face, but the actual scale and versatility of the force has only really been displayed in the books and video games. Without giving away spoilers, the way the force is being utilized in the Thrawn Trilogy is not only creative, but hints at how the power was wielded in the past. For interesting and spoilery examples click here.
  • … Admiral Ackbar and actual political intrigue. I personally always wondered about Ackbar; what kind of fish-man was he and how does he fit into the New Republic. As a commander and tactician he was always degraded to “It’s a trap!” memes, so the trilogy does a great job of fleshing out the character and implementing him in the plot, in a manner that makes him look both competent and complicated, but also powerful.
  • … an empire on the backfoot. The Empire was a colossus, a power encompassing dozens of star systems, massive fleets of starships and super weapons, able to subjugate entire planets and wipe out rebellious activity swiftly and efficiently. Except here they’re not so great, not anymore. In the Thrawn Trilogy they have the strength and the manpower, but unlike the movies, there is a strong chance and hope for new life in the galaxy. There is no Deathstar analogue, no click-a-button-to-win weapon, no droid army.

Other reasons to read the Thrawn Trilogy include the development of the relationships between Luke, Leia, Han and Chewie, more interesting clones and droids, and the knowledge that these books are completely untainted by the prequels. Unless George Lucas somehow re-released them with extra scenes and better special effects.

But what do you think? Have you read The Thrawn Trilogy?

Did you like how Jar Jar Binks rose through the ranks to be the empire’s most feared assassin after coming out of hiding on Coruscant?

Did you enjoy the anger you felt after reading that outrageous lie? Then come, join the dark side and like this article, disseminate it and subscribe for more.

Complete your journey and join me as my apprentice.

Archi’s Diary is going on hiatus!

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ARCHISDIARY_CoverArtBlog_ByPatrickCrookerToday I decided to put Archi’s Diary on permanent hiatus. It’s been a hard decision for me, but a lot of things are changing in my life and truthfully, I’m having trouble deciding on a direction that I’m willing to commit Archi to. If the story is going to be written I want it to be the right story, instead of writing myself into a corner.  

Although I left Archi on a cliffhanger, trapped in an air vent without food or water or a plan, fear not, I’ll keep working on his story. Hopefully he’ll be resurrected in the future, with a more elaborate story, but for now he’ll have to stand aside to make room for new projects and new ideas.

The diary format was supposed to be an experiment in episodic storytelling, and for me to find a way to build a writing habit by posting an entry every week. And it has done its job perfectly. I’ve consistently posted for 21 weeks (and I aim to keep that habit going), however I feel that the format no longer works for me. So for the time being I’ll go on without Archi.

While this may feel like a partial failure, this experience has taught me some very important lessons about myself and my writing, and I am looking forward to bringing you new content very soon.

End of Archi’s Diary?

Did you like and follow Archi? Let me know what you thought of it. About the story, the writing, the posting schedule, all of it. Whether it’s good, bad, ugly or strangely attractive. Let me know and stick around for weekly posts on reading, writing and life in general.

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Archi’s Diary – Episode 21

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Welcome to the next episode of Archi’s Diary, a weekly entry in my favorite amnesiac’s journal as he tries to adjust to a world he doesn’t remember.

Episode 21 – May  2016ARCHISDIARY_CoverArtBlog_ByPatrickCrooker

Last week has been full of pain and bad decisions. I arrived in Cancun on Sunday and rented a cheap room on the outskirts of town, planning to do some research, maybe get a tan and meeting with the reporter Susan Sanchez. That turned out to be more difficult than expected and came with spectacular unintended consequences.

On Monday I went to her office downtown to get a meeting, or maybe get access to a recording or something. Seems to work in the movies, so why not try. The bruises on my arms testify to the lack of success in this endeavour. When I got there I asked for Miss Sanchez. The receptionist, a nice lady in a frilly dress told me to wait, and was replaced by a humanoid mountain of steroids wrapped in a black suit. I say wrapped, since he couldn’t have dressed himself with his gorilla-like appendages. He gestured me to leave and when I reacted slightly slower than he fancied, he grabbed my arms, pushed me to the floor, punched me in the face and dragged me outside by my legs, clutching both with one hand if it matters. Outside he proceeded to kick me in the ribs a few times. That really pissed me off, but what could I do about it? He was big and ugly, smelled bad, was probably unloved by his mother and yes I’m bloody angry! Who does that? Who punches and kicks somebody for merely asking a question? It’s not like I offended him or anything.

Afterwards I returned to my lodgings to weigh my options and decided that I should break in and see if I could find Miss Sanchez’s office or an archives room, where they might keep the Chichen Itza footages. I’m blaming that particularly bad decision on watching Oceans 11 with Alvarez recently, and on getting punched in the face. Could have a concussion. I spent most of my time Tuesday and Wednesday planning my little ‘heist’ and procuring the tools of the trade in form of a roll of climbing rope and a crowbar. Not exactly up to scale with Ocean’s replica vault, but I figured it’d do.

A quick online search gave me the office layout. Also on my last visit I noticed that the building had an external fire escape, and I felt a plan taking shape. First, get to Susan Sanchez’s office, then the archive; I’ll leave the media room last if the other two don’t have anything. There seems to be some renovation going on on the fourth floor, which means I can use the scaffolding to get up and inside unnoticed. I noted that last night the building emptied around 10 PM. The guard-shaped Hulk who drives a red muscle car (go figure) was the last to leave, and only the occasional offices remained occupied. If I dress casually and stay calm I might be able to move freely. If I ignore that I’m white, and most people are usually familiar with their co-workers, I’m sure I won’t stick out as a sore thumb. In any case, turns out that wasn’t what caused my downfall.

Thursday I broke in at 23:22 assuming the place would be empty and went to Susan’s office directly, where I had my first surprise for the evening. Completely cleaned out. A desk, a chair and a lamp was all that was left. Cursing, I headed to the archives, which took me on a nerve wrecking elevator ride to the basement with the cleaning lady. She attempted small talk but was turned off by my lack of response. At least she didn’t call the police. Must be used to people working late. Didn’t ding anything in the archives either, so I used my laptop to connect to the network and started looking around. Zip. Absolutely nothing. AT that point I figured that hanging around was a bad idea. Found a stash of microfilms, but nothing relevant for my search (still, microfilm, how cool is that!). The media office was my next stop, located on the top floor along with the editing bay, which is where everything went wrong. Turns out, that’s one of the few places with very expensive equipment behind secured alarmed doors. I managed to get my crowbar in the frame before an ear-splitting ringing broke the silence. And I panicked.

I don’t mind admitting it, that in my panic I didn’t think straight. Instead of running down and out onto the scaffolding which might have given me an opportunity to escape, I decided to stay and hide. Where would you hide in an office building you have never been in? Well, I personally opted for the nearest air vent and climbed inside. And the air vent happened to be temporarily blocked off because of the construction. Fuck me.

Now it is Friday morning and I haven’t been able to escape because the office was crawling with guards and police after the alarm went off. Small piece of advice: DO NOT EVER SLEEP IN AN AIR VENT, if you can avoid it, that is. All the time I was scared that somebody would hear me snoring or I get discovered in some other way, and I really need the bathroom.

What was I thinking? What did I expect to find here? All I knew was that the reporter had been at Chichen Itza, nothing more. Not if there was footage taken or a report filed or anything. I have made an ass out of myself, based on a stupid assumption that I would find some incriminating evidence on her desk, like in the movies. This was stupid and dangerous and now I’m stuck here. I was desperate for any kind of information, and I put myself in harms way. Maybe I’m too stupid to know better. This would be hilarious, if it were happening to somebody else.

As of right now I have very little water or food left and I can hear construction workers starting work below. I don’t know what I should I do.

End of episode 21. 

If you like what I do and know others that would love to get a weekly dose of Archi’s Diary and the occasional post on reading, writing and life in general, then please like, share and subscribe to follow. Stay tuned!

Archi’s Diary – Episode 20

Archi's Diary, , , , ,

Welcome to the next episode of Archi’s Diary, a weekly entry in my favorite amnesiac’s journal as he tries to adjust to a world he doesn’t remember.

Episode 20 – May  2016ARCHISDIARY_CoverArtBlog_ByPatrickCrooker

This past week I’ve been looking at the files quite a bit to see if there was another event about to happen in the near future, but alas it was mostly for naught. Any Dee related events near me are about a month off and I would have to make my way to the US for that, New Mexico to be specific. For now I’ve tried to get all the info I can about this place, but Alvarez remains stoically silent on the Chichen Itza incident, so I’ve decided to pursue the only other avenue of inquiry I have available: the news crew that was here. They came from Cancun International, a local newspaper with their headquarters in Cancun, so I guess that’s where I’ll have to go. The reporter that I saw that day, a woman named Susan Sanchez, was listed on their site. I called her, but I couldn’t get through, and she hasn’t answered any of my emails either. I’m going to try and catch her at her office. Hopefully I won’t have to jump through hoops to get to her or see their footage of the incident; they might be videos of angry soldiers telling her to piss off for all I know.

Also been wondering about the naming… I mean Dee is a weird choice for a project name, unless it’s an abbreviation like the Funny Business Incorporated or whatever alphabet agency that might actually exist out there. The D.E.E….  

Department of Energy and Expenses?

District of Excitement and Ecstasy?

Dumb and Extraordinarily Exhausting?

Denmark Exhilarates Eels?

If it’s a name, then what’s the reference? My best guess is still John Dee, a historical figure associated with spying and dark magics. And apparently a central antagonist in a bunch of young adult books that I subsequently purchased out of sheer curiosity. Don’t think it might be relevant, but who knows. Maybe I learn something new from the books. Of course the name could refer to the lead researcher, or could have been chosen by a computer at random. But what else can I do than try and make sense of this madness, see a pattern, any pattern and try to piece my own story together; have my brain sort it all out.  

Now that I’ve stayed at the cafe for another week, I think I better get ready to leave. It’s been fine, I suppose, considering I came here with no actual plan or any real resources (not a great idea for sure). Serving tourists was fine and Alvarez has been more than generous with his time and hospitality, but just the other day he asked me nicely, when I expected to continue my journey (his words, not mine), and how he could help me along. Point taken, my good friend, point taken. This is not a hostel, but a business and you want me out of your hair.

I promised him I leave today, which he seemed very happy about; not in a negative way, but happy that I had a goal and a willingness to move forward with something. So I got my pack and left this morning. Still pretty sure he was keeping something from me, but that’s up to him. Every time I tried to broach the incident, he’d become sad and changed the subject or left the room. I left him my email address and told him to keep in touch.

So now I’m by the coast not far from Cancun, debating my options. Funny, how I ended up by the sea again, but then I started thinking that most cities and transport hubs are near rivers and oceans, hinting heavily at our dependence on in now and historically, which seemed to calm me with a sense of destiny. Anyway, it’s nice to be by the ocean again, it’s so tranquil here. Willy once mentioned that we all came from a primordial ocean an incomprehensible amount of time ago, how we adapted and overcame, even recommended some books on how we started our evolutionary journey. Life moves forward. Sometimes fast, other times painstakingly slow, but it does.  

So I realise that moving forward is my only real choice right now. I’ve made my decision to move forward with my life, looking for more information about all that’s happened and hopefully find something of value. It’s not in my nature to give up. Especially not now.

End of episode 20. 

If you like what I do and know others that would love to get a weekly dose of Archi’s Diary and the occasional post on reading, writing and life in general, then please like, share and subscribe to follow.

If you happen to be at Comic Con in London over the weekend, hit me up on Twitter on @wordsarecrooked. I’ll probably fire off the occasional tweet as well. Stay tuned!

Archi’s Diary – Episode 19

Archi's Diary, , , , ,

Welcome to the next episode of Archi’s Diary, a weekly entry in my favorite amnesiac’s journal as he tries to adjust to a world he doesn’t remember.

Episode 19 – May  2016ARCHISDIARY_CoverArtBlog_ByPatrickCrooker

And then life went on for a few days. Didn’t know where to go and this whole Chichen Itza event boggles my tiny mind, so I decided to stay. Alvarez is a godsend. He offered to let me stay in the cafe in exchange for helping out. He has a few tables and a basic kitchen setup and serves overpriced snacks to tourists with too much money, so I thought… sure, why not? It’s simple and straightforward enough, nothing to worry about, except burning the food during the day and mosquitos at night. There is some serenity to it.

Which is what I need right now. I feel a bit lost, with no idea of where to go now. I don’t even know why I came here, what I expected to find or why it mattered so much. The Koldberg personnel probably had some general idea of what they were sent here for, and all they found was death and pain. I had no idea what to expect, I’m just some guy with amnesia reacting to things around him. I have no past, and as things are going, probably no real future. Even a simple plan or objective would be nice, just a little hope of knowing where to go or what to do. Ever since Steve tried to kill me, it’s like an alarm went off in my head, telling me to run and never stop. I still have no real idea what I’m running from or why it’s even dangerous. I don’t like feeling like a victim of my circumstances, but I can’t help wondering why this is happening happening to me. There are simply too many questions for one guy to answer. But at the same time, do I have a choice, really?

Anyway, the blockade is now gone, so is the news crew and any sign of the disaster that happened here. Someone cleaned up the mess and left nothing to indicate any danger or the troublesome events had transpired here. I’ve been on site in Chichen Itza every day since last week and it’s like nothing happened there. Even went online on Tuesday to see if there was anything about it in the news but I couldn’t find anything, even with Alvarez’s assistance. He seemed very reluctant, like he knows more than he’s letting on, which is suspicious as hell, but I don’t know what to make of it yet. I also looked up the reporter and her crew, but couldn’t find anything about their visit. Yet I saw it very clearly that something had happened here, so this whole thing looks more and more like a cover-up. Might try and contact the news crew later. I think I should also keep an eye on Alvarez.  

I have many questions and some of them are quite scary. For now, I’ll try and distance myself from this whole mess, of everything that has been going on around me and get some perspective. Maybe dig into the files again in a while, but I want to give myself some time so I can look at it with fresh eyes. Another tourist bus is coming now, so I’ll be in the kitchen most of the day. I like making food for others. Didn’t think I would, but I actually enjoy working with my hands, it feels good to create something, even if it’s cheap and simple

End of episode 19. 

If you like what I do and know others that would love to get a weekly dose of Archi’s Diary and the occasional post on reading, writing and life in general, then please like, share and subscribe to follow. Stay tuned!