More questions for SB…

…can be found in this excellent piece by Geoff Andrews. 

Here we go again

Last year, for the most absurd reasons (a choral recital in a nearby building, if I remember rightly), under evident pressure from the Vatican and the post-fascist mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, Rome Gay Pride was denied the use of Piazza San Giovanni. The mean-spirited sods are trying it on again this year, eleven days before the march is due to take place, in an attempt to effectively cancel the event. I’ve been asked to pass this message on to you by the SUPPORT ROMA PRIDE 2009, and that’s what I’m doing. If you don’t want Rome to look like Moscow or Tehran, you know what to do. And if you’re on Facebook, you can join up here. 

Dear friends,

As some of you already know the 13th of June is the date of Roma Pride 2009, but at the moment, only ten days before the event, we still have no authorized route for the final parade and march. Yesterday the police autorities again denied authorization, for the third time, with reasons that are no more than absurd excuses.

As well as the usual Pride issues, such as visibility, rights, non discrimination and equality for LGBT people and communities, we face a conservative attack on basic democratic and civil rights, as guaranteed by the Italian Constitution and the international conventions. Again Piazza San Giovanni has been denied because of the veto of the Vatican and clerical authorities. However, last year’s route from Piazza della Repubblica to Piazza Navona has also been denied this year, making it almost impossible the march to take place, and damaging the democratic and civil rights of all Italian citizens, not just GLBT people.

We really need moral support from all of you, and from abroad.You can support Roma Pride 2009 by writing your personal or associative support to romapride@gmail.com (you can send a copy also to me at a.maccarrone@mariomieli.org), by spreading and forwarding this message to other people, above all other groups or associations, GLBT groups, Pride organisers, activists for civil and human rights, politicians, journalists that may be interested in this topic, and by creating mobilization or any other kind of useful iniative at any level.
If you are a journalist or have web sites, blogs, newsletters or acces to any other media, please help us byspreading this information.

Thank you for your support and help,

Andrea Maccarrone

A message from Griff Rhys Jones

Griff Rhys Jones says:

“Support the good work here. Don’t let Salt fall. If the recession is going to take things down, let it be motor manufacturers, let it be bad banks, let it be chains of fast food restaurants. We can lose a few of them, but we don’t have enough small independent and daring publishers like Salt. I think I can be a little more forthright than Chris and say ‘Just six books’. Buy dozens why don’t you? It’s a great list. And apparently you will help the economy in many subtle ways too complicated for studious folk like us.”

Dylan: Mr Tambourine Man (1964)

http://www.youtube.com/v/EFde2EqeyHY&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&border=1
Forty-five years ago. I was ten years old when this took place. Had I even heard of Bob Dylan? My first Dylan album was The Times They Are A’Changin’, the title song of which I would sing at the top of my still unbroken voice until my parents lost their temper with me and told me to shut up or they’d leave me wherever the car happened to be. This was a Byrds song though, and I didn’t hear Dylan do it until years later. It’s wonderful. I’m awed. Again.

Answers in Genesis?

What on earth did Sweden do to deserve this? Presumably we could find out by visiting the site responsible for this hoarding, placed in a rather colourless corner of, I imagine, the United States. But I don’t think we’ll bother, do you?

BGT, last word

Salt news

I’m sure you’ve been following the Salt Just One Book campaign, and I hope you’ve supported it. If you haven’t, and need a final incentive, other than a visit from some rather shady friends of mine early one morning, this might just do the trick. It’s the latest offer from Salt, and it’s a winner:

A THIRD OFF ALL SALT TITLES THROUGHOUT JUNE

We’re now giving you a huge 33% off ALL books till the end of June. Use the coupon code G3SRT453 when in the checkout to benefit. Don’t forget if you spend £30 or $30 you get free shipping too.

Please continue to spread the word, and spread news of this offer. Please don’t let up. It’s been extraordinary, but we’re not out of danger yet. Every penny goes into developing Salt’s books and services. We want to start a new children’s list, and offer more resources to teachers and schools. We want to extend our publishing in new areas including our translations programme, we want to offer you more free magazines online. We want to help develop more support for debuts with the enhancement of our Crashaw and Scott prizes. We’re planning audio books, ebooks and new videos for you. We only want to move forward, to develop and expand what we do and deliver great books in new ways to you and yours.

We need your support throughout June. We’ll try and organise more readings and promotions with our authors. Virtual book tours. More launches. We’ll work with bookstores to bring you short story and poety evenings. Stick with us throughout June and we can do something astonishing. That’s the power of Just One Book — we want you to be a part of it. Follow us onTwitter look for #SaltBooks and #JustOneBook. Join our Facebook Group. 

And have a giggle at the vid, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdcTqXaOD2s

Oh, and one last special offer — Catherine Eisner’s magnificent crime novel, Sister Morphinefor £7.50 plus P&P, simply enter coupon code EISNER in the UK checkout http://bit.ly/8rHDa

Watch out for more special offers throughout June.

Snip snap snip

For someone whose media empire is based on vulgarity, indiscretion and an obsession with what famous people get up to in their spare time, assuming that’s still a meaningful concept, Silvio Berlusconi’s attempt to block the publication of photographs taken at one of his Tiberian extravaganzas in Sardinia seems a bit mean-spirited. Particularly as, according to SB, the photographs are not damaging, and show people, in the great man’s own wonkily grammatical words, “during absolutely private moments which are completely legal.” I wonder what he means by damaging. Come to that, I wonder what he means by private and legal. Official photographs of one of his Sardinian knees-ups a couple of years ago saw him surrounded by a bevy, as the cliché has it, of young beauties, draped on and around him like piglets round a sow. They were published, I believe, in one of his house magazines, Panorama if I remember rightly, or possibly Chi. These didn’t seem to be a problem. Obviously, the mood has changed since then, as moral clouds gather around the hairpiece of the anointed leader. But the fact that the incriminated photographer, a certain Antonello Zappadu, has handed over the snaps of his own free will after having tried to flog them to, that’s right, Panorama suggests that they really are innocent images of the rich and the lovely in moments of legal intimacy. So why all the fuss? Surely it can’t be a warning to other photographers that their less innocent work should be discreetly destroyed? Surely not? I mean, that’s the way the Mafia behaves.

Teddy Thompson sings Ain’t No Sunshine

One of my favourite songs done by one of my favourite singers.

Bestsellerdom

Don’t blink or you’ll miss it, but The Scent of Cinnamon has made the Amazon top 100 short story list. OK, I’m 93rd, but I’m in very good company, rubbing shoulders with Somerset Maugham, Alice Munro, Henry James et al. I’m delighted!