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April 22, 2006

brains! we need brains! = odd little meme

I was reading and I fell asleep and had the strangest dream. A kid came to the door selling subscriptions. I said: sorry, we don't need any more magazines and he said, but what about brains?

Sidenote: In one or another of the dead/zombie movies, an older woman undead is trapped in a basement and they called down to her: what do you want from us? And she whines in a high pitch: brains! we need brains!*

This line is a family standard.

So now back to the dream: the kid hands me a brochure, divided into categories: musicians, artists, writers, scientists, politicians. I can subscribe to any of the brains that are listed. I don't remember many names beyond Madonna and Clinton. The kid tells me I can get all the back issues if I'm really interested.

And then I woke up, but I've been thinking about this dream ever since. Would I want everything Madonna knows about music in my head? This one is easy: nope. Clinton about politics? Hmmmmm. So I've come up with a short list. If I could magically have the specialized knowledge (and understanding, I guess) from three different people's brains, who would I want?

1. Chomsky. The NYT called him arguably one of the greatest minds of our time. What he doesn't know about history and politics and linguistics is more than I already know about that stuff. So Chomsky, my first choice.

2. Picasso. None of his personality quirks, but what he understood and saw about art? Absolutely.

3. [name to be researched] The very best female professor of psychiatry this country has to offer.

Jump on in if you are so inclined.

*anybody know which movie?

how the money works in publishing: the real skinny

Anna Louise at LiveJournal provides hard facts. The tag on this post is "demystifying publishing" and indeed, it is a very very detailed and for many probably very sobering account of how advances are calculated and where all the money goes.

My take on all this: I don wanna. I won't even read my royalty statements. I call up my agent and ask for a three sentence summary/bottom line, and then I let all that go. In my case, too much exposure to Numbers results in a shut down in the writing process.