doubleyou doubleyou doubleyou dot

As if The New York Times were trying to prove my previous post wrong, this Sunday’s book review had an Actually Pertinent to My Life Article about book sites, posing the ever-potent question:  “Do elaborate Web sites and videos really sell books?”  The article’s author, J. Courtney Sullivan, interviews the (apparently) hot-shot book site designer Jefferson Rabb, debates the merits of book videos, and, by the end, had convinced me that I needed to learn Web design.  Not because it necessarily sells a lot of books (it might not sell any at all), but because book sites can be so rad. 

Sullivan cites the Rabb-designed site for Reif Larson’s new book, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivel.  Here are some that I thought were motivational\inspired me to make learning “code” or whatever you write websites with a medium-level priority:

 Miranda July’s website for No One Belongs Here More Than You.  July does, after all, have a long history as a legit multi-media artist, so it’s no surprise that she nailed her book site so well.  She wrote it on her fridge because she didn’t have a dry-erase board.  Low budget!

 This next one, a book trailer…excuse me, book “video” for Rivka Galchen’s Atmospheric Disturbances is also very simple, and spoooooky.  It’s hard to find book videos for “serious” adult novels, probably because they’re so hard to pull off.

Notice how short it is.  It’s simple and, like July’s, gives you an immediate sense of the book’s tone.

Any other favorites from people?  Ideas for Ooligan?  Should I divert completely off track and drop out to study site design, or is the whole World Wide Web thing a passing fancy?

I would just read The Onion but sometimes I worry that it’s not real

This morning my roommates and I went to Muddy’s and dedicated a few hours to our favorite family pastime — pretending to read The New York Times.  Generally speaking I pretend to read the Book Review; my roommate Jeff, who also subscribes to Harpers, pretends to read Politics (occasionally reading headlines aloud to us, for added effect); and Sarah glances over the pictures in SundayStyles.

Our fourth roommate, Lena, stays in bed on Sundays until 4pm or later and sets a few sections next to her plate at dinner.  On weekdays we don’t even bother unfolding it; typically, I will shake it out of its blue plastic bags (two per issue, which are added to an ever-growing “bag of bags” in the basement) in the morning, dutifully display it on the table for the duration of the day, and then put in in the recycling bin at night.

It would never occur to use to get it canceled.  We like getting The Times.  We like referring to it, complaining about it, shuffling it around, and spending less time on the computer, scrolling through the Dos And Don’ts or pretending to read blogs.  Being Times subscribers helps us to define our personal brand:  We are smart, well-read, reasonable people who have embraced our inevitable future transformation into yuppies, at which point we will be too stressed out by our spoiled, attention-deficit-ed offspring to actually read up on issues.   For now, we’re old enough to comprehend the articles and young enough that we’re still forming our opinions on things.  We’d be the perfect newspaper readers, if any of us had the attention spans necessary to do more than skim.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the Death of the Newspaper.  Readership is down, subscriptions are way, way down, the Post Intelligence is getting bought by Scrooge McDuck.  I believe it, 100%.  I’m well aware that you can get all of the news, for free, on the internet; that classifieds have been replaced, rightly so, by Craigslist; and I also know that, in the same way that I am not unique, my roommates are not unique, and that therefore there must be other people out there, paying 5 bucks for a Sunday paper they’re only pretending to absorb.

In closing:

1.  Is The New York Times a fashion\lifestyle accessory?

2.  When the newspaper industry folds entirely, can we replace it with authentic radio?

3.  Does anybody have a great idea for creative newspaper recycling?  I found a few lists at The Craft Gossip Blog Network, which included these extraordinary newspaper slippers:I’m thinking these will be great gifts for my friends and family in the coming year.  Just let me know if you want a pair.