The Triumph of the Sun - Wilbur Smith

A formulaic novel, even for for Wilbur Smith. Elements seem to be taken from his earlier books Monsoon, A Time to Die and assorted other works to combine a quasi-new piece that aims to incorporate the best of the old with a twist of the new - sadly though, the twist is lacking while the older novels stand alone and unsurpassed. The Triumph of the Sun begins extremely slowly, with the alleged new characters nonethless very familiar to a Smith reader. The female leads borrow their qualities from the women in Monsoon - one women headstrong and desirable to two men, the other younger twins indolent and fawning who eventually grow to be the true love interests and the more fascinating characters.

The male Courtney character is exacting, precise and dull. Every Courtney novel has this man - compassionate, rugged, resourceful and ruthless. The new reader will be impressed, the casual reader nostalgic and the habitual reader will undoubtedly be rolling his eyes. Inject some flavour! Some depth! A character can be intriguing to a reader without the author deigning to pepper him with cliched contrasts and hollow subtlities. Simply writing a character as dashing and domestic does not a hero make.

While this was my first time encountering a Ballyntyne, I see elements of Hornblower and Sharpe here as to make this novel nothing more than a composite of other, better works before it. Sigh.

The novel builds inexorably to the battle of Khartoum, an actual historic event that took place in the late 1800s. Being somewhat familiar with English war history, I noticed several glaring errors in the author's account which I attributed less to Smith's lack of research (which is always full and extensive) and rather to his artistic liberty. Found in this novel are the very real General "China" Gordon, the self-proclaimed Dervish Maudi and his entourage, and a young Kitchnener who, sadly, doesn't make an entrance until late into the novel and even then, a brief one. The battle descriptions and historical flirtations are what saved this novel from being tossed in the bin.

However, the real gem of the book are Smith's evocotive descriptions of Arabic life (again, shadows of Monsoon) and the Arabic culture, mirroring on a much smaller scale of both qualitiy and depth T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

The novel finally dies near the end where a confluence of events seem rushed, as if the author was hurried by his published to complete an ending. All in all, a solid peace of work that falls short of the author's earlier prose and one that I trust will be soon be forgotten in favour of the better writing before it.

It’s no wonder Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse have drug problems. They’re so bloody addictive.

(From top - Amy Winehouse; Feist; Lily Allen)

Ok, sidebar note here. I don’t do musician reviews. I can’t. I barely enjoy writing music reviews. They don’t make any sense to me. When I read drivel like “the lyrics seem inspired by the artist’s own past strife, a cathartic journey measured in equal parts of angst and copulation” I get dizzy. Either you enjoy the music or you don’t. I don’t care about the musician’s journey. I’ll save the introspective analysis for myself and evaluate the work on broader terms, using criteria like…hmm, oh, I don’t know, whether I liked it or not.

It may be a little late to jump on this particular pop culture bandwagon, but being such a patsy of record-label commercialization, I’m sure someone has saved me a seat. I just wonder who I’ll find first; Richard Branson waiting to shake my hand or Noam Chomsky itching to spit on me.

About 6 months ago, this girl I sort of fancied sent me an mp3 of someone called Lily Allen. She said it was English-folksy-jazz-nova with a slight dance beat and that I’d love it. Not being one who regularly embraces female artists (unless their boyfriend isn’t around) I didn’t think much of it. Well, let me qualify that. I make a distinct distinction between the titles labels “artist”, “musician” and “singer”. Yoko Ono? Artist. Norah Jones? Musician. Victoria Beckham? Singer.

Smile - Lily Allen

I love female musicians but I have trouble even tolerating female artists and singers. They’re either trading off their sexuality or their lack of it. Every single is accompanied by a dance number seemingly choreographed by the understudy crew of Grease or a pretentious unplugged guitar solo that is only striking for its incredibly short shelf-life in my mind.

Long story less long – I loved it. Fast-forward to me today – I’ve just downloaded Lily Allen’s album “Alright Still”, Feist’s album “The Reminder” and Amy Winehouse’s album “Back to Black”. Three entire albums by three female musicans, and I’m loving them all. I got ballads. I got jazz. I got beats. I got smoking lyrics. I’m thrilled to my core and, again, bless the iGods for their bounty.

1234 - Feist

You know what’s scary? It almost didn’t happen. By the slight misdirection of a single fluke, I might’ve never even heard of these musicians. Why? Well, I’m terribly, terribly lazy. I mean, sure, one Lily Allen song was great. But am I supposed to download her entire album, listen to 11 potentially nauseating tracks just to discover they’re not iPod-worthy? Of course not.

This is why I term myself a patsy of record-label commercialization. Before, when an musician needed exposure and public recognition, her managers would book concert tours in malls and other similar-sized venues, film music videos for heavy rotation on MTV and MuchMusic, and of course push radio stations to play their singles over, and over, and over…

I don’t go to malls anymore. I hate music videos. Radio? Ha! And I’m not alone. My generation has mostly given up those iconic 90s traditions in favour of the Internet and…ok, just the Internet. So what does an exec do if he wants to reach me and my peers? He puts the music on TV. Smallville, Entourage, even House – I’ve downloaded great music because I’ve heard it first on those shows. I think it’s a terrific medium. I’m not distracted from my enjoyment of the show – in fact, the music often adds rather than detracts from the plot – and I don’t have to change any of my entrenched behaviour to be exposed the new music.

In fact, I got turned onto Amy Winehouse and Feist from advertisements. I saw this killer song on the new iPod video Nano commericial, did a little research and voila, I got Feist’s “1234” plus the other album tracks on my iPod (sidebar note: most of the other tracks suck). Then I was watching an Internet ad for the new season of House and heard Amy Winehouse’s song “Rehab”. Love it! Commercials for things I actually will buy download.

Rehab – Amy Winehouse

Obviously my system is not perfect and I probably do miss out on a few musicians who I might dig, but frankly, if the alternative is to sift through tons and tons of noise baggage before I can find the few good pieces, the choice is simple. I’d rather be ignorant than bored.

Joke # 4

A hippie gets on a bus and proceeds to sit across from a Nun in the front seat. Through her heavy headpiece he just spots a glimmer of her face. She's gorgeous! She moves, and her vestments cannot hide the fact she also has a truly phenomenal body. The hippie gets more and more excited until he finally approaches the nun and says, "Sister, I don't normally do this sort of thing, but I'm very attracted to you. Can we get together some time?" The Nun, surprised by the question, politely declines and gets off at the next stop.

When the bus starts on its way the bus driver says to the hippie, "If you want, I can tell you how you can get that nun to have sex with you." The hippie of course says that he'd love to know, so the bus driver tells him that every Tuesday evening at midnight the nun goes to the cemetery to pray to the lord. "With your long hair and beard," said the bus driver "you could dress in white robes, tell her you're Jesus and command her to have sex with you."

Well the Hippie decides to try this out, so that Tuesday he goes to the cemetery and waits for the nun. Right on schedule the nun shows up. When she's in the middle of praying the hippie walks out from hiding, wearing a hooded white robe. "I am the Son of God, I have heard your prayers and I will answer them but you must have sex with me first." The nun is flabbergasted but says she will concede to his wishes with one condition - she asks for anal sex so she might keep her virginity.

The hippie agrees to this and quickly sets about going to work on the nun. After the Hippie finishes, he rips off his hood and shouts out, "Ha-ha, I'm the hippie!!" The nun replies by whipping off her hood and shouting, "Ha-ha, I'm the bus driver!!"

Freddy & Fredericka – Mark Helprin

Undoubtedly one of the best novels I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading, and it almost never happened. I was first turned onto Mark Helprin after picking up “Memoirs from An Antproof Case” in the discount bin, a move measured in equal parts of risk and chance. I had reservations about both the author and the book, the synopsis yielding little in the way of description and the author’s own obscurity not helping my evaluation of his work. It turned out to be one of the best literary decisions I’ve ever made and I became an instant fan of his writing. His novels have had me incapacitated with laughter more than any other media before them or since. Whereas one might laugh aloud once or twice whilst reading a novel or viewing a film, I can’t think of any other writer (or filmmaker or actor) who can elicit a laugh from me 50 times, and still have me pause throughout their work in contemplative reflection. What more could anyone ask for from fiction?

“Freddy and Fredericka” is a novel that borders on the fanciful satirical, if not for its devastating and lasting significance. The titular characters are the Prince and Princess of Wales destined to be ruling monarchy of England. Freddy is a highly (not “over” as stated in the jacket cover, if such a thing even exists) educated eccentric whose ill-perceived exploits covered gleefully by the press give way to a public questioning of both the legitimacy of his right to rule and the legitimacy of his sanity. To himself, and the sympathetic reader, Freddy seems anything but insane – rather, one begins to question one’s own sanity and that of the population when confronted with Freddy’s take on the world and his reactions to its actions. He is a man who deeply feels the burden of royal inheritance and attempts to battle his own feelings of inadequacy with his sense of responsibility and duty. He has little patience for society’s behavioural doctrine, and though he pays it lip service in his efforts of adherence, his unique intellectual flamboyance will inexorably exert itself in outlandish fashion. Having read Helprin previously, I recognized common character traits immediately, though by making Freddy British Royalty, Helprin has opened the doors to an entirely new plateau of farce and philosophy.

Fredericka is a seemingly scatter-brained, dim-witted aristocrat whose sole redeeming qualities appear to be her remarkable beauty and comedic counter-point to Freddy’s stuffy intellectualism. In actuality, the reader discovers that her apparent lack of cognizant sophistication is a product of environment rather than nature for she reveals snippets of intellectual capacity far greater than Freddy’s. Together, they make a couple that is equally endearing, entertaining, and eccentric as any other I’ve encountered in fiction. I challenge anyone not to laugh as Fredericka, when asked about Cervantes, believes it to be a dip for shrimp.

The story itself is a classic “fish-out-of-water” tale, where Freddy and Fredericka are required by Royal mandate to conquer a barbarous, wild land – America. How they adapt themselves and interact with the natives is the type of plot setting that should make readers water in the mouth. There is ample room here to exploit Helprin’s preferred literary device, chaos from assumption and bedlam from presumption.

His prose varies from the poetic to the irreverent but is always filled with his singular philosophy. Superficially, one can readily identify the connections he makes between healthy mind and healthy body – Helprin values physical strength so highly as to make it akin to an intellectual approbation. However, a deeper analysis of Helprin’s protagonists will yield more satisfying insights. His heroes can benignly be called irregular or on the societal fringe, their behaviour marking them as both thought-evoking and delightfully farcical. Yet Helprin imbues them wholly with strong moral values, deep sensitivity to their own mechanisms and motivations, and a naïve imperative that breeds a wisdom seldom seen in mainstream novel characters. They are at once children and philosopher kings.

And, if this weren’t enough, the novel is wickedly, wickedly funny.

Tracebook: Search Engines and Social Networks Make Strange Bedfellows

Mum warned me there’d be Social Networks like this.

Facebook, one of the major loves of my life, has finally got me worried. I’ve long been told I lack a healthy fear of The Man and whilst I do take a measure of pride in that, yesterday’s hot news item has got me feeling more nervy than a white pig in a Spike Lee version of Animal Farm.

In case you haven’t heard, Facebook is opening its profile listings to the public. Presently, non-registered Internet users can browse member listings at Facebook.com, albeit seeing only their names and other limited information. That’s not a big deal. All someone has to do is register with Facebook and they can see my profile in its entirety. I’m fine with that.

What I’m not fine with is that Facebook, in about a month’s time, will post profile listings on search engine results. My profile listing included. Insert alarmed emoticon here.

Full details have yet to be disclosed – in fact, I first read of this new “feature” on my Facebook homepage. Some dude at Gigaom skimmed the surface as well but overall, not too much press. There’s a mention of it on the Facebook blog, though you’d think the Facebook geeks were practically ashamed of it they way they’ve uncharacteristically provided limited information about this new development’s scope and consequences…oops, I mean benefits.

Ahem. So? Any Internet user can now find my profile on Facebook, easily as accessible as any search engine. So what if some schmuck finds me on Google?

Well my complacent friend, the difference is huge. You just gotta use long-term thinking. Personally, I see an incredible potential for:

1. Selling Out & Online Oligarchies
2. Marketing Intelligence-Gathering & Developer Abuse
3. Corruption of Web 2.0 (aka Work 2.0) & The Degredation of Facebook’s Soul
   

Selling Out & Online Oligarchies

Fact: Critics have maintained that Facebook advertisers earn extremely low conversions . While their advertisers do benefit in ways other than those gauged by classic PPC or CPM metrics, the poor conversion rate cannot be dismissed.

Search engines and social networks are inherently different creatures whose variability is slowly but surely starting to diminish,. Social networks allow users to share and distribute select information to whomever they choose and to restrict to whomever they don’t. Search engines share and distribute all information they can with whomever they’re able to. Is it just me, or do you smell conflict here?

Search engines would love to display information from social networks. Yahoo and Flickr? Google and YouTube? Billions have been spent on acquiring these companies, and for what? Just for show? Actually, just to show.

Advertisers love this. Examining a user’s nuanced behaviour on a social network reveals tons of marketable information on them. Forget basic search habits based on query inputs. They’ll be able to tell what colours capture your interest, or the average length of videos you watch, or what time of day you prefer seeing pictures of blondes rather than brunettes. And with this information, ads will be specifically tailored to suit your unique consumer type.

We’re going from demographic markets to large niche markets to segmented niche markets to markets of one. You. Think that’ll help Facebook’s conversion rates?

If traffic is traction, then social media is a V-10 engine. Search engines use social networks to beef up their results and impress the users whilst collecting fat advertising paychecks. Facebook is the Ferrari of social networks. Having refused to sell out to a single search engine, Facebook is now deciding to sell out to all of them.

Marketing Intelligence-Gathering & Developer Abuse

Fact: Facebook has spread open its API to developers everywhere, allowing anyone with a degree of technical skill to create a Facebook widget. These widget-makers have full access to a user’s information and are not encumbered by any of the liability or privacy headaches Facebook itself must endure.

So now these widget-makers can do anything. By providing users with a bevy of fancy and not-so-fancy applications, they have earned the right to poke and prod profiles profusely. And trust me, this information is incredibly valuable (read: profitable). Widget-makers include entertainment vendors (books, DVDs, electronics, etc.), online marketing companies, advertising servers, even other social networks and search engines! Anybody who is interested in traffic and branding. And who isn’t interested in traffic and branding?

Facebook can claim user-controlled privacy levels all it wants. It doesn’t matter anymore. The widget-makers have no such limitations. Combine complete profile information with searchable profile listings, and what do we have? It’s like Facebook Gone Wild on Spring Break – anything goes, and everyone can see it.

Imagine having ads targeted to you based on your Facebook information. Imagine your inbox being spammed to a spammer’s black heart’s content. Imagine the slippery slope that begins with a drop of leaked user info, trickling into a flood of developer abuse.

Why, even one’s birthday coupled with one’s name can lead to bank fraud. Financial institutions often identify customers with these two simple fields, readily available on anyone’s Facebook profile.

Now, I’ve already examined why search engines and social networks make dangerous lovers. I’ve shown you how widget-makers can violate your information like an older brother reading your diary. What would happen if a search engine created a Facebook widget?

Oops. Too late. Google’s on it. Now they have direct access to FULL profile listings and FULL user information. With 39 million registered Facebook users, it sounds like a people search engine isn’t too far off. And not just a yellow-page knock-off, but a listing that provides as much information as possible. Remember, Google caters to its advertisers, and the more information displayed to the widest audience, the more revenue earned.

Corruption of Web 2.0 (aka Work 2.0) & The Degradation of Facebook’s Soul

Fact: Facebook is becoming an online marketer’s playground. Businesses are fully exploring and exploiting its potential – even we at SearchAnyway have created a Facebook group (by the way, you should definitely check it out. Search for “SearchAnyway – PPC Search Engine”).

So what does any company with a website want? Traffic. How do they get traffic? With our two old friends, SEO and SEM, and now with the new kid SMO (social media optimization), who is schooling them all. There are social networks out there purposefully geared towards businesses and professionals, but come on. Forget the debate between Facebook’s merits versus LinkedIn’s. Any idiot can see that Facebook completely trumps LinkedIn. This is like comparing the Space Shuttle to Sputnik.

Companies could easily help their SERP by taking advantage of Facebook applications and the myriad of widgets offered. They’re not concerned with silly things such as privacy; in fact, the less private the social media components are, the better. Do we see another conflict of interest here?

The core Facebook applications such as Groups and Events and their respective features aren’t bad for companies, but aren’t great either. Facebook’s search function is fairly limited (ranking results based on the network you belong to, giving precedence to user profiles, etc.) and more often than not, Groups and Events amass users by either invitation or viral marketing.

So what’s stopping Facebook from making these applications available to search engines as well? It’s a lot less intrusive than distributing profile listings, and since a lot of these Groups and Events would love to have a wider audience, showing up on Google would seem to make sense.

In fact, the widget applications should be available via online search. Photos, videos, blog postings – “distribute and earn” is probably the motto they chant during the secret society meetings.

However, they’re all forgetting one thing – the bread and butter user.

Originally, Facebook was designed as a social network for college students. It exploded in popularity when it lifted its restriction on requiring an academic email address, and millions (39 million and counting) of users now enjoy Facebook’s services.

It’s hard to say exactly why.

I’d say 95% of the people on my Friends list are people I know in real life, and maybe 35-50% of those are actual friends. Not a huge number, but arguably much more than YouTube or Flickr or even MySpace.

I like this. I’ve recently started adding business acquaintances to my list, and I think I might soon stop. I can see the marketing potential in Facebook and it’s astounding. But that’s not what I want to use Facebook for. I get excited when a real friend of mine tags me in a photo, or writes on my wall, or sends me a PM. I don’t know why. They can easily do this in real life and if not, I’m only a text message or an email or an IM away. Why then is Facebook so alluring?

It might be because it’s a social network of people you actually like. The average Facebook users spends approximately 30 minutes a day on the site. They’re accessing the site 5 times a week. And 39 million people aren’t doing this because of the infinite marketing potential or the mind-numbing array of widgets. Logging onto Facebook is like going to a house party where you control the guest list but someone else is the host. All your friends are there, but you needn’t worry about cleaning up.

And there, of course, is the last stop on the slippery slope. Companies and organizations creating profiles for marketing purposes can only give way to users doing the same. Bloggers create whole personas and networks to write under, completely fictitious but carefully crafted to appear as real as you or I. What’s to stop Facebook users from capitalizing on this trend? Create a profile, cram it full of applications including an Affiliate Marketing widget that allows you to earn PPC commissions off ads you host (AdSense for Facebook cannot be that far off), disable any possible privacy settings, SEO your profile and bam, start earning revenue.

When those users start feeling that their privacy is being infringed upon, that the widget-makers collect too much information without check, that companies will begin utilizing Facebook applications for their own agenda, that the amount of people they actually know and like on their Friends list has been surpassed by opportunistic entrepreneurs, that “Network” has changed from a regional or organizational community to a buzz word for striking business deals and marketing oneself, Facebook will fall.