Decline of the Long Form

Spot the trend: in 1990, the average American read six books a year. In 2004, the NEA found that only 57% of Americans had read a book in 2002. And today the AP released results that found 27% didn't read a book last year. (Polling of this kind should be regarded with some suspicion--there's bias in the question that directs respondents toward more socially-acceptable responses. The 27% has got to be a substantial under-report.)

Worse than the falling rates of reading is the loss of fiber in the reading diet.

The Bible and religious works were read by two-thirds in the survey, more than all other categories. Popular fiction, histories, biographies and mysteries were all cited by about half, while one in five read romance novels. Every other genre — including politics, poetry and classical literature — were named by fewer than five percent of readers. (itals mine)

Here's another statistic that boggles the mind (which I don't have a link to at the moment): 80% of all books published in America sell fewer than 100 copies.* People are reading less, and publishers--an industry dominated by a few giants--are more skittish and therefore less daring in their selections, hastening the problem.

I am sympathetic with the situation. I read far fewer books now than I used to. Until about five years ago, I was reading on the order of 25-30 books a year. This year I'll be very lucky to hit ten. The interesting thing is, I actually read far more than I used to--almost all of it online. I suspect that among literary-inclined readers, this is a common story. The internet has given me access to a huge amount of interesting (and free) material, so I consume a lot more via blogs, online newspapers, and online mags. In the evening, when I would typically have picked up a book in the past, I pick up a copy of the New Yorker or Harper's--about all I have energy for.

I am also a victim of the very decline in which I participate. A few months ago, I received the final rejection on my own novel; Milkweed Editions, one of the best independent publishers in the US, had taken a serious look at it, but declined. It's impossible to know what would happen if I had submitted the book 50 years ago (it may still have found no publisher), but what I learned in this process is that there are scads of fantastic novels available to independent publishers by writers who can't find an outlet. There's an oversupply thanks to the declining demand.

Books won't die out completely. Literature and serious nonfiction will find publication, but it will become an even more marginalized niche market. We're in one of those weird times when it's unclear what exactly will replace them. But it may not be the grim thing we all imagine. When novels replaced verse and movies replaced theater, the reaction was uniformly panicked. The death of art! But smart people aren't going away. Their consumption patterns have changed, but they will continue to pursue high-fiber meals.

Maybe blogs are the new novels.


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*After a lazy Google search, I located this blog post that contains the stat and a few other jaw-droppers: Of the 1.2 million books in print in 2004, 80% sold fewer than 100 copies, 98% sold fewer than 5000 copies, Only a few hundred sold more than 100,000 copies, and about 10 books sold over a million copies. It came from a blog, so it must be true.

Iraq Names Project

A woman named Nancy Hiss has begun a temporary art installation she's named the "Iraq Names Project." Slowly, laboriously, she's writing the names of the dead on the sidewalks of Portland, Oregon. I didn't know about the project until this afternoon, when I came out of my local Buddhist center and saw the names stretching down the block:


She has subtitled the work "honoring sacrifice and interdependence," which is quite appropriate in the Buddhist context. A central piece of Buddhist theology rests on the idea of interdependence--a simultaneity of causes and conditions that create the arisal of circumstances and objects, including people. Much like the "six degrees of separation," it doesn't take long for us to start seeing the threads that tie us all together. She also adds, I think quite necessarily:

"As you reflect on these names also remember the hundreds of thousands of nameless Iraqis and others who have been scarred by this war."

The artist is tying these names into the web of city streets, bringing them into our experience. Drawing on another central tenet of Buddhism, her installation is tenuous and fleeting. As soon as the Oregon rains fall, the names will be washed into the streets. Names woven into our lives, but, like our lives, impermanent. It is a wonderful inspiration.

(Sorry about the photo quality--it's a cell phone picture.)

Ides of March

As writ by Shagsbere, Bard of Stratford:

CAESAR.
Who is it in the press that calls on me?
I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music,
Cry "Caesar"! Speak, Caesar is turn'd to hear.

SOOTHSAYER.
Beware the Ides of March.

CAESAR.
What man is that?

BRUTUS.
A soothsayer bids you beware the Ides of March.

CAESAR.
Set him before me; let me see his face.

CASSIUS.
Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.

CAESAR.
What say'st thou to me now? Speak once again.

SOOTHSAYER.
Beware the Ides of March.

CAESAR.
He is a dreamer; let us leave him. Pass.

Merry Ides, one and all.

[Update: if you replace "CAESAR" with "GONZALES," this exchange has a different, but no less tingling-with-doom, feeling.]

The Critics and the Money

How to rate art? It is not only subjective among appreciators, it's variable across time. We relate to movies differently in the moment than we do after months or years of reflection. (Subtle movies fare better in my memory, once the evanescence of emotion has evaporated.) As a crude example, witness how the critics responded to movies at the time.

Below are aggregate scores of a selection of critics from around the country assigned by Metacritic. The scale they use rates movies from 1 to 100. No movie in its initial release has ever scored above a 98, and only one movie did that; the next-highest is 94. The movie receiving the 98 was this year's Pan's Layrinth, full of emotionan and imagination. But when it came time to rank their best movies of the year, only seven cited Pan's. By contrast, ten cited United 93, which only received a 90 at the time it was released. The Departed, which got an 85 by the critics at the time of release, was remembered retrospectively by eight as the best of the year. Go figure. Below are the Metacritic rankings and critics' best-of movies:

Metacritic aggregate
Pan's Labyrinth - 98
The Queen - 91
United 93 - 90
Borat - 89
Letters from Iwo Jima - 89

Cited by critics as best of the year
United 93 (10)
The Departed (8)
Pan's Labyrinth (7)
Letters from Iwo Jima (6.5)
Children of Men (5)
Babel (4)
The Queen (4)
Flags of our Fathers (3.5)

Another way of looking at movies is how they fared in the various awards ceremonies:

Best Picture
Babel (Golden Globes), The Queen (British Academy), Departed (Boston and Chicago Critics, Critics Choice), Letters from Iwo Jima (LA Critics, National Board of Review), Pan's Labyrinth (National Society Of Film Critics), United 93 (NY Critics)

Best Director
Martin Scorsese (Golden Globes, Directors Guild, Boston, Chicago and NY Critics, Critics Choice, National Board of Review), Paul Greengrass (British Academy, LA Critics, National Society Of Film Critics)

Of course, the least accurate, but most heavily-weighted metric in Hollywood (and one that comes into play at awards time), is money. It is axiomatic in the modern era that the best movies are never the most successful, and so it was in 2006:

1. Pirates of the Caribbean $423 million
2. Cars $244 m
3. Night at the Museum $239 m
4. X-Men: The Last Stand $234 m
5. The Da Vinci Code $218 m

What's more interesting is how good movies do at the box office. Many believe that Scorsese continues to lose out at the Oscars because his films just don't do that well. Until this year, he'd never had a $100-million-dollar movie. Could it be that Little Miss Sunshine is being taken seriously this year because it's made respectable money for an indie? And could it be that Clint, respected as much for his art as his commerce, has no real chance at this year's Academy Awards?

To turn the axiom on its side, you might also say that a movie, no matter how fantastic it is, can never achieve the level of cultural transcendence without making some money. Probably this has more to do with the communal aspect of movies--we like to share the experience, talk about it, and reflect on the meaning with others. If a movie is too obscure, it withers in obscurity. Witness the IMDb top movies--nary an obscure pic among 'em. (It's based on averages, so there's no reason an obscure movie couldn't be there.)

So, whether crass or credible, money matters. Below is a list of the major Oscar contenders and their grosses through 2/23 (best picture candidates starred):

15. The Departed $132 m*
17. The Devil Wears Prada $125 m
19. Dreamgirls $100 m
52. Little Miss Sunshine $55 m*
62. The Queen $52 m*
92. Flags of Our Fathers $34 m
93. Babel $33 m*
94. United 93 $31 m
95. Pan's Labyrinth $31 m
145. Letters from Iwo Jima $12 m*

Bode well for the Departed? Badly for Babel? Time will tell.

The Jeffies

It is that time of year again, when Hollywood will gather to pay obsequious honor to Jack Nicholson (from his throne in the front row) and snub Martin Scorsese; when members of the Academy will pretend to honor art for one night before calling their publicists to whine about their air time on Entertainment Tonight; when Americans gather in living rooms to watch a spectacle that only confirms (again!) how small moving pictures seem to have gotten. Ah yes, there's Oscar in the air.

Since the Academy almost always botch it, I hold a concurrent awards ceremony that is uninfluenced by crass commercialism or nepotism (or importance, but that's another matter): the Jeffies. It's my chance to right a few wrongs, at least on this here blog.

(Wrongs? How about Robert Zemeckis beating Woody Allen, Krzysztof Kieslowski, and Robert Redford for Forrest Gump in 1994? Or Kevin Costner's win over Coppola, Frears, and Scorsese in 1990?)

It was an off year for movies and for my enjoyment of them. I saw fewer films this year than at any time since I was in grad school, mainly due to my essential boycott of movies that show in Regal Cinemas, which have a near monopoly in town. Still, I was selective and tried to catch the best-reviewed and managed to do pretty well on that score. So look out, I plan to forge ahead. Next stop, Jeffies 2007.