Publishing People for Obama Fundraiser, June 18

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I had a great week in Toronto, covering the North by Northeast festival (NXNE) for this blog, and working with my client Speakerfile, but when I booked the trip in late May, I deliberately scheduled my departure for mid-afternoon on the Monday, June 18, with a hoped-for return landing at LaGuardia before rush hour. This was designed to give me some time in Toronto that workday, while also allowing me to make it to the Publishing People for Obama reception and undraiser that was being held that evening from 6-8 in the Midtown Loft at Fifth Avenue and 29th Street. I lucked out last Monday. Though the day was extremely hot and hazy in Toronto and only a bit less so in NY, there were no thunderstorms messing up the northeast corridor and nothing delayed my departure and rapid return home to Manhattan.

Since I had not flown in a sportcoat and dress shirt, I wanted to change in to an outfit that would come close to business attire, or semi-business attire. How was I going to do this? In the back of a livery cab? I didn’t think so. I lucked out again and had a funny sort of sitcom moment when I found a “family restroom” at LaGuardia, with a door I could lock and then dig into my luggage for my toothbrush and a suitable change of clothes. So far as I know, I didn’t inconvenience any desperate parent with a baby in need of a diaper change–at least no one banged on the door begging entrance, nor did any airport guard see me go in and out of this inner sanctum of airport privacy.

With luggage in tow, I reached the loft space, showed my passport at the front table (since it was handy) and stowed my stuff in a nearby coat closet. (I’d wondered if a security detail would want to inspect my belongings, but luck prevailed again and no one did). Unencumbered at last, I began greeting publishing friends who had also donated to the president’s reelection campaign via our organizing committee and, like me, were eager to hear from our guest speaker, presidential advisor David Plouffe, and later Rosanne Cash, the evening’s entertainment. I saw the event co-hosts Barbara Lowenstein, Roger Cooper, Tom Dunne, and Bob Miller. Over the next few minutes I saw and spoke with Will Schwalbe, whose second book, The End of Life Book Club will be out this fall; Fauzia and John Burke, of the indie publicity firm FSB Associates, which set up the Facebook page for the event; Linda Johns and George Gibson, of Bloomsbury Publishing, as well as Peter Ginna, of Bloomsbury; Mike Shatzkin and Martha Moran, longtime book biz friends going back to my bookstore days; book packager and publishing consultant David Wilk, and his wife Laura, a watercolor artist;  Brian DeFiore, Irene Skolnick, Deborah Schneider, Scott Waxman, and Alice Fried Martell, all literary agents with their own agencies; Michael Coffey, co-editor of Publishers Weekly, and his wife Rebecca Smith, a sculptor; and Marc E. Jaffe, a publishing advisor whom I hadn’t seen in ages. It should also be said that many people from outside of New York donated, but didn’t attend the event. Thanks to them all too!

Many of these people I saw up on the rooftop, where we enjoyed a great view of the Manhattan skyline all around us, including the Empire State Building at 34th Street, which seemed close enough to touch. Soon, with the evening’s program approaching we were urged to head back downstairs to the main room, which by now had become very crowded. Pretty soon there were so many familiar faces I couldn’t keep track of who I was seeing. The space got full very fast.

Plouffe is slender and perhaps around 5′ 10″. He has thin hands and long fingers on a slight frame, with a rather bird-like profile. He spoke for about twenty minutes, and then took a half-dozen questions. He thanked us all for contributing to the campaign, and said he believes it’s going to be a close election, and tougher to win than in 2008. He referred to the possibility that Mitt Romney could win, though he also expressed confidence the president will be re-elected. He said only one president has ever been re-elected amid an economy overcoming a depression or recession as severe as the one we’ve endured. That was FDR, in 1936. Plouffe also talked about the veritable flood of Super Pac money flowing against the president and other Democrats, and observed that at times it feels as if their opponent isn’t Mitt Romney, but all the Super Pacs. He pledged that the campaign will do everything possible to remind the American people of how damaging the stated policies of Mitt Romney and the Republican congress would be for the country. He said there is still much that the American people has to learn about Romney–for instance, he said that barely 50% of the country even knows he served as a governor, or what his record was while in office. He promised the campaign will draw sharp contrasts between the president and Romney whenever possible. He asked for our help, and our time as volunteers, for instance by making calls to swing states, or visiting them if you’re able to do so. In 2008 I made calls to Ohio (the state I was born), Virginia, Colorado, and Pennsylvania and will do so again. // more . . . // Click through for entire post and all photos and captions.

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Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3 at Bowery Electric

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I happen to have as Manhattan neighbors the venerable indie rocker and songwriter,  Steve Wynn, and his wife, drummer Linda Pitmon. In the 80s, Steve led The Dream Syndicate, a formative post-punk band that’s sometimes mentioned in the same context as REM and the Replacements. On Wynn’s website I see that Trouser Press wrote of him at some point, “What he took from punk had more to do with attitude, noisy energy, abyss-skirting emotions and musical riskiness–qualities, of course, present in the best rock and roll of any scene, era or sub-genre.” I should add that I published a compilation of Trouser Press’s album and band reviews that came out in 1991, The Fourth Edition of the Trouser Press Record Guide: The Ultimate Guide to Alternative Music, edited by Trouser Press maestro Ira A. Robbins. In that book, still a reference I often thumb through for valuable guidance, Ira cites the Dream Syndicate album “Ghost Stories” as the best work they put out.

Nowadays, Steve and Linda often play as part of The Baseball Project, and I’ve heard them perform under that rubric. However, this past Thursday Steve and Linda played at Bowery Electric under the billing Steve Wynn and The Miracle 3. I went to the show and they turned out to be a hard-driving rock n’ roll 4-piece that may be a touch closer to Steve’s longtime rock roots than the baseball songs are. Steve and The Miracle 3  played a great set–although the songs were all new to me, they hooked me in right away–with great musicianship from all four players, including bassist Dave Decastro and lead guitarist Jason Victor. Songs that stuck out for me were “The Deep End,” “Death Valley Rain,” and “That’s What You Always Say.”

My first time in Bowery Electric, the club was also a good ‘hang,’ as I heard one friend in Toronto say during NXNE last week about one of that city’s many splendid music venues, The Dakota Tavern.

An added bonus for this fun night was spying in the crowd a familiar face from suburban Cleveland, where I grew up. I was positive we’d grown up going to some of the same schools in Shaker Heights. After the Miracle 3 had finished their energetic encore, I approached this fellow, and noticed that the woman he was with was showing him on her phone display a 4th quarter score from Game 5 of the Heat-Thunder series, with the Lebron-led Heat way ahead. Given their rueful looks, I knew he must have grown up in Cleveland. I introduced myself, and sure enough, he was John Bendes, a name that struck a bell; though remote in my memory, I was now certain that we had grown up in the same community. I gave him my card that IDs me and this blog and I look forward to being in touch in the future.

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#FridayReads, June 22–Finished “Canada” by Richard Ford

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I really saved and savored Richard Ford’s current novel, Canada, and finally finished it while in the air flying home from Toronto earlier this week. Immediately after completing it I began re-reading Chapter One, where 15-year old Dell Parsons opens the book by telling readers that

“First, I’ll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later. The robbery is the more important part, since it served to set my and my sister’s lives on the courses they eventually followed. Nothing would make complete sense without that being told first.”

I had written about the book at earlier stages in my reading, and now I can say with sure conviction that it is a great novel. The measured pace of it; the mounting force of Dell Parsons’ adolescent  voice; the shocking violence that suddenly invades the seemingly placid narration; the amoral nature of many of the adults in the tale; the way Ford evokes character and place in Montana and the Canadian prairies, in short, sharp strokes that left me wanting to re-read his chiseled sentences–all these things combined to leave an indelible mark on my consciousness while reading it, and once I’d finished it, impelled me to want to start it all over again, eager to riddle out the narrative from the start. It’s one of those novels that teaches you to how read it, while you’re reading it.

I am aware that Canada has had mixed reviews–for instance, the reviewer in Publishers Weekly didn’t care for it, asserting that the first two parts of the book, set in Montana, then Saskatchewan, made little sense together–but I don’t agree. It all worked for me, and brilliantly. Now I want to go back and read more of Ford’s earlier work, and re-read the ones I read years ago.

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How to Enjoy Sports Even When Your Teams Have a History of Failure

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Jim Brown carrying the ball vs. the Colts, Dec. 27, 1964. He gained 114 yards on 27 carries in the title game; photo courtesy Cleveland.com

My dad’s season tickets were in Section 42 of Cleveland’s old Municipal Stadium, so this now collectible ducat would have placed its bearer near us, in Section 40. Photo courtesy SCP Auctions.

I grew up in Cleveland, which has a sad history of failure in team sports that rivals that of any city in North America. The Indians in baseball, the Cavaliers in basketball, and the Browns in football have each come tantalizingly close to winning championships in my lifetime, but only once did a local team manage to win the final, crowning game of a season. That was in 1964, when the Browns led by the great running back Jim Brown won the NFL title, defeating the Baltimore Colts led by Hall of Fame quarterback Johnny Unitas, 27-0. The game was a scoreless shut-out at halftime, but in the second half Browns QB Frank Ryan threw three TD passes to split end Gary Collins, and the route was on. Municipal Stadium became a scene of joyous bedlam. This was two years before the Super Bowl was inaugurated, and since then the Browns have never made it back to the title game.

My father Earl I. Turner at Moraigne Lake, 10 Peaks, Canadian Rockies, July 1982.

I was in the stands at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium on that frigid day on December 27, 1964, when the Browns faced the Colts, sitting in the stands with my father Earl, and brother Joel, now both sadly gone. I was ten years old. Our dad Earl was an extremely knowledgeable sports fan, and in fact had had youthful ambitions to be a sportswriter, though he ended up buying and selling scrap metal as a profession, a pretty common field for the son of Jewish immigrants in the first half of the twentieth century (see such examples of this prevailing sociology as the uncle of the eponymous protagonist in Mordecai Richler’s classic novel The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, also an excellent film written by Richler, starring Richard Dreyfuss). But Earl never lamented his years in the metals industry, instead channeling his knowledge and savvy sports spectatorship into his three kids, including our sister Pamela, teaching us how to appreciate key plays in sports, and how to enjoy the subtle games of strategy, the parry and thrust that’s always made sports fascinating for me to watch, experience, and follow. A favorite expression of his for me to hear, one he frequently made, uttered, say, when a pitcher leapt off the mound to field a bunted ball and in tossing his throw toward first base, plunked it off the back of the baserunner, prompting Earl to say, “Wow, I’ve never seen that happen before!”

Earl had earlier enjoyed another Cleveland sports championship, in 1948, when the Indians won the second World Series in their history, the first having come in 1920, when he was two years old. When I was born, on September  22, 1954. the Tribe had just completed a remarkable regular season, when they won 111 games and were about to enter the World Series against the NY Giants as heavy favorites. Sadly, they were swept four straight by the Giants. The opener of the series in which Willie Mays made his remarkable play, now known simply as “The Catch,” occurred on Sept. 29, probably the day before my br’it meilah, the ritual circumcision that for Jewish families occurs eight days after the birth of a male child. Though I have no memory of that day I have long imagined my dad’s elation at the arrival of his third child and the crushing defeat his baseball team endured that autumn.

‘The Catch,’ Willie Mays, courtesy throughtheclydescope.com

With all that as backdrop, I have been following with great interest and enjoyment the Euro Cup soccer tournament that started a few weeks ago. When I was in Toronto last week, ethnic neighborhoods, like Little Portugal, were consumed with anticipation the day of a game. There have been some great matches, amazing plays, and surprising outcomes, like when England defeated Sweden 3-2 in a come-from-behind win on an amazing back-of-the-foot goal late in the second half. In England’s next match, they beat Ukraine 1-0, but only after what appeared to be the equalizer by Ukraine was judged to not have fully crossed the goal line, a call which replays later showed quite definitively to have been incorrect by the referee. During that tense match, Michael Goldfarb, former NPR correspondent, currently London correspondent for Global Post, and an author whose New York Times Notable Book, Ahmad’s War, Ahmad’s Peace: Surviving Under Saddam, Dying in the New Iraq, I edited and published with him in 2004–visited a North London pub to ask English fans how they were feeling about their team. In his excellent article, he chronicles the predominant history of failure that has hung for decades over the nation’s football team, and interviews fans who really open up about what it’s like rooting for a blighted team.

“The team takes the field and after sporadic hoarse cries of, ‘C’mon England!’ a silence descends on the crowd. This is the epitome of the English fan experience—the total silence in which the crowd suffers. The essence of watching a championship in any bar in America is the kibitzing among strangers. The jokes, the barracks humor, are part of what makes it fun. Fun is not part of the picture here. . . . I start chatting with a skinny guy who has managed to perch on the windowsill just where I’ve been standing. It’s no more than 5 inches deep. ‘Are you suffering yet?’ I ask. ‘I’m an England fan, I have to suffer.'”

Well, somehow, they beat Ukraine, even if the win was tainted by the bad call, and their next match is against Italy. So, maybe England will continue advancing through this tournament. And, maybe the Cleveland Indians, who won a game with a walk-off HR Tuesday night, and are somehow in first place in their division, will find a way to get into the post-season. Oh, well, we fans chastened by loss, never lose our capacity to dream.

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If It Must Be Done–A Model for Laying Off People Decently

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As a longtime publishing staffer who was let go in a major layoff at Sterling Publishing more than three years ago, when downsizing at publishing houses is announced, I read the notices with a combination of concern and regret for the folks losing their jobs, now colleagues of mine in the forced evacuation from the ranks of corporate publishing. It’s analogous to reading the New York Times obituaries to learn who’s recently died, before looking at any other section of the paper. This is not schadenfreude*, pleasure derived from the suffering of others, but something more its opposite–there ought to be a word for the vicarious experience of misery alloyed with empathy upon learning that still more people will soon be joining the ranks of the unemployed, the disemployed, and for how long it cannot be known.

Readers of this blog may recall that in an essay entitled Three Years Ago Today I’ve written about the day in 2009 when I was laid off as Editorial Director of Sterling’s Union Square Press. Covertly summoned to the office of the HR director Denise Allen, she and my supervisor Jason Prince were waiting for me with grim faces. After they lowered the boom, they “asked” me to leave the office later that day for the last time. “Asked” was really a euphemism for “demanded.” Any personal items I could not grab that day–and I had a substantial work and reference library in my office–would be boxed up and shipped to me, they said. I returned to my office in shock to find that I had already been denied access to my work email.

I do know why HR professionals claim that this is the safest way to let people go, lest a dismissed employee make the survivors uncomfortable in the now-shadowy presence of a person who an hour earlier was a colleague; deride the company in the presence of remaining staff or make off with company secrets; or go ‘postal’ and harm higher-ups and co-workers. What’s more, Sterling is owned by Barnes & Noble, a publicly traded company, and during my Sterling tenure B&N was hyper-averse to news and publicity they couldn’t control–even denying book editors the ability to trumpet their latest acquisitions in industry newsletters like Publishers Lunch without first having the announcements vetted by corporate PR. During my Sterling tenure, this aversion to unwanted publicity even extended to the fact that B&N declined to name people who lost their jobs in layoffs, nor was the number of people let go ever confirmed. However, much as negative consequences from treating people decently may be feared, I believe that what this behavior does instead is subtract at least a bit of humanity from everyone in the equation. I note ruefully, but again without any satisfaction, that Jason Prince was himself laid off from Sterling earlier this year. I take no pleasure in this turnabout, and wonder if he was himself on the receiving end of such lousy treatment the day he learned of his dismissal.

With the above as personal prologue, I note with regret that HarperCollins yesterday announced a reorganization of their Sales Department that will lead to the elimination of the positions of at least five senior employees. But there was something novel about the press release put out by Harper’s President of Sales Josh Marwell**–the degree to which he names, acknowledges, and even thanks the people who are losing their jobs. The entire text ran in galleycat.com. The mensch-like passage reads:

After 18 years at HarperCollins, Jeff Rogart, VP, Director of Distributor Sales will retire at the end of August. Jeff’s unique combination of deep industry knowledge, direct style and kind charm has earned him the respect and love from colleagues both inside and outside the company. He will be truly missed. I regret to announce as a result of these changes that Ken Berger, Mike Brennan, Mark Hillesheim, Kathy Smith and Jeanette Zwart, our respected and beloved colleagues will be leaving the company on July 20th. Please join me in thanking them for their hard work, true dedication and warm collegiality in the countless contributions they have made to our company. We wish them only the best in the future.

When you get laid off you invariably, unavoidably, experience a kind of professional death. The process of being shown the door is sort of like getting ferried to the other side, but the process that put me on the boat across my personal River Styx was not as kind or forgiving as the ferryman Charon was with his passengers. And yet, you might say that over the past three and a half years rather than going where the souls of the departed reside, I’ve pretty much managed to be reborn professionally, not buried. That though would be a story for another post. For now, I just want to say I wish Jeff Rogart well in his retirement, and that I feel really bad for Ken Berger, Mike Brennan, Mark Hillesheim, Kathy Smith and Jeanette Zwart, the latter whom I have known personally over the years. I wish them well on their journey into post-corporate life, no matter how brief or long-lived, and assure them that if they ever want to consult with me about my experience of it, I will be glad to share whatever practical advice and insight I can muster. I’m relieved that Josh Marwell and HarperCollins named them, that they were praised and given the professional courtesy they are due, and that under lousy circumstances their dignity was preserved and that their departure will not be so rushed or precipitous as mine. I cannot comment of course on the terms of severance under which they’re leaving the company–I hope they were generous–but as for announcing layoffs, this is a model for how to do it right.

*For an insightful discussion of schadenfreude and related words, I refer you to this excellent blog post by musician and songwriter Zak Claxton.

**Full disclosure: I have known Josh Marwell for more than thirty years, since he was a sales rep to my Cleveland bookstore, Undercover Books, representing St. Martin’s Press. We have not discussed the current matter.

 

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A Brilliant Instrumental Trio [Updated w/News of Their Revival]

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June 19 Update: I wrote on this blog in March that the three albums of the great instrumental trio Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet are being re-issued and now I’m delighted to see that a revival of the band is being mounted this summer. Filling the spot of the late bassist Reid Diamond is The Sadies‘ Dallas Good. CBC Music’s Vish Khanna did an interview with them after the first of their new live shows, which you can read and view at this link.
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Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet were a brilliant instrumental trio whose modified surf sound can still be heard as the theme music on the always funny TV show “Kids in the Hall.” That theme song, “Having an Average Weekend,” and a few others can be heard on this 4-song sampler of their work. I love their insistent beat and inspired musicianship. I believe they wouldn’t be insulted to be called the Ventures of Canadian rock ‘n roll. I believe The Sadies have been influenced by Shadowy Men. According to this item, their three albums are being reissued. [Original blog post published March 19, 2012.]

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The Surprising Legacy of Lu Burke, Longtime New Yorker Copyeditor

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My friend Alan Bisbort, whose book “When You Read This, They Will Have Killed Me:” The Life and Redemption of Caryl Chessman, Whose Execution Shook America, I edited and published with him in 2006, is a fine writer with whom I share many personal interests. We’ve both worked in bookstores, we both ponder the iniquities of the criminal ‘justice’ system, and we both enjoy reading about and observing idiosyncratic and eccentric personalities.

In Connecticut Magazine, Alan recently published a fascinating piece of literary journalism, on Lu Burke, a longtime copyeditor at the New Yorker, who upon her recent death bequeathed all her accumulated fortune to the Southbury (CT) Public Library, more than a million dollars. Alan’s piece is called The Million Dollar Enigma, and it was published in the magazine’s May issue. I found today that Mary Norris of the New Yorker, who knew and worked with Lu Burke, has contributed a recollection of Burke and done some more reporting on her bequest. It appears on the New Yorker‘s book blog, Page Turner, and also references Alan’s article. The photo accompanying Ms. Norris’s blog essay, and Alan’s article, as well as this blog post was taken at the Friendly’s restaurant in Southbury where she enjoyed going to lunch with a visitor, such as Norris, who took the photo.

Two other bookpeople I know are mentioned in Alan’s article–Peter Canby, who’s worked at the New Yorker for many years (and whose book The Heart of the Sky I published in paperback in 1994) and Daniel Menaker, who was an editorial executive at Random House when I worked at the company in 1997-2000. Peter and Daniel also both knew Burke. (One necessary correction to Alan’s article: Menaker is no longer working at Random House.)

Alan and Norris both wonder why Burke–who it is now known never even had a library card from the Southbury Public Library–willed her life savings to the institution. Though she had no children , she did have a niece. Lu was known for a vinegary personality–Norris reports on “A story that made the rounds after her death” . . . once, while waiting for the elevator, she beckoned to a fellow-resident and asked, “Would you do me a favor?” And when the woman said yes, Lu told her, “Drop dead.” She was not known for a generous nature to her co-workers.

Norris also reports that now the library and the town are in a dispute over how the money should be spent and allocated, an unfortunate pass for such surprising generosity.

 

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Day 6 in Toronto–Heading Home to NYC

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Late evening update: The Publishing People for President Obama fundraiser, held at a handsome downtown loft–which I rushed to after landing at LaGuardia late in the afternoon–was great fun. According to organizer Barbara Lowenstein, it was a big financial success, with nearly $150,000 raised from it. Presidential advisor David Plouffe addressed the group and answered more than a half-dozen questions, making clear that the OBama campaign will draw sharp contrasts wherever they can do so. He was followed to the stage by Rosanne Cash and a fabulous guitarist John Leventhal. They played three songs and made a lot of us in the crowd even more glad we had come to support the president.

Afternoon update: I’m at Pearson Airport in Toronto, soon to board a flight for home to LaGuardia.

My productive and fun visit to Toronto ends today, and I am packing up my room this Monday morning. After I’ve checked out of my hotel and left my luggage with the concierge, I’m heading off to breakfast with my friend and book business colleague Marc Glassman, former owner of Pages Bookstore, and nowadays organizer of Toronto’s This is Not a Reading Series, and film critic. We last saw each other when I came to Toronto for NXNE last June, so we’ll catch up about the past year, including this blog and my new client, Speakerfile. Marc’s coordination of panels for his innovative reading series makes him potentially an ideal person to utilize the Speakerfile platform.

On Sunday, I attended an outdoor performance by the wonderful 6-piece band Ohbijou. They play a special kind of chamber-pop featuring guitar and soaring vocals by Casey Mecija and violin by her sister Jenny. The rest of the instrumentation makes for an unusual and appealing soundscape: electrified cello, keyboards, bass, and drums. In the evening I took the Toronto subway for the first time out to the northern reaches of the city to join a Father’s Day BBQ hosted by the Fish family, my Toronto relations. The family includes Abe and Marcy Fish, a cousin to my late father Earl. This was the second year in a row I was able to join them for this occasion, also after finishing up at NXNE. I enjoy enormously being with Abe and Marcy, and with their son Joel, at whose home we gathered. Surprise arrivals were Arthur and Bonny Fish, at whose vacation home on Prince Edward Island my family and I enjoyed a wonderful evening with their three sons a few years ago.

This whole trip has been my first attempt to more or less live-blog an event and it was a mixed bag, with some growing pains. I regret that the problems I faced in writing and posting about my activities limited my posting–due to the fact that 1) Verizon made fatal mistakes with my account and the SIM card on this IPad before I crossed the border into Canada, denying me access to cellular networks, and leaving me dependent on sporadic Wifi at many venues; and 2) Publishing photos in WordPress–the environment for this site–on the IPad is a very incomplete interface. In short, I had hoped and intended to post as rich a brand of content as I do from NY, with links and photographs and video, but it just hasn’t worked out that way.

I apologize to readers that these failures limited what I’ve been able to post from Toronto; still, I’m hopeful I will have learned valuable lessons over the past week that I can apply to my blogging the next time I travel.

Next time I post I’ll be back at my desk in NY, eager to upload and share my NXNE photos and write about the many great bands I heard over the past week, the interactive/digital/social media connections I made, as well as the new friends I met, and the great time I had hanging with my CBC Radio 3 friends. Toronto is a great city, vibrant, lively, diverse and cosmopolitan, a true engine of urban discovery.

When I land in NY later this afternoon, I’ll be heading right from LaGuardia to a Publishing for President Obama fundraiser. I look forward to seeing many NY book friends there.

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