Two more questions answered by MZD. The first has to do with the publication, or republication of his short story The Fifty-Year Sword. The second has to do with the audio recording for Only Revolutions, a book which greatly depends on manipulating the printed page.

MZD Q&A 2

MZD Q&A 3

Yeah?

[[I heard about your book, um, The Fifty-Year Sword, and I was wondering if you were going to release that, uh, on a mass scale.]]

Uh, the question was a book, about, about a book called The Fifty-Year Sword, which is, is really a short story that was, uh, published, in, in Holland, and um, it’s a…I’ll tell you two things: One, it’s very expensive to buy it on ebay. It’s, um, it is affordable if you, if you’d like a second edition. But it’s still very expensive. It costs around sixty dollars. And if you can navigate through some of the forums, if you go to houseofleaves.com, you can check out some, some of the threads there. And, uh, they’ll help you kind of get through the Dutch ordering system. So you actually can get a copy. Uh, but the book itself probably won’t come out til October of ‘08 or October ‘09, and it’ll be a different format. We haven’t- It will come out, but it’s, uh, we haven’t decided if we want to get another artist. I mean, you know, one of the, one of the, uh, the advantages of something like Myspace with all its salacious spamming is that there’re actually a bunch of talented artists. I encourage anyone who is an artist, you know, if you want to just drop me a note there or something, we do try to look at the art. Uh, it’s always interesting for me to work with an artist, to try, you know, to incorporate that work. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. But, you know, I just sit in a little room so it’s very hard for me to get out, you know, and find stuff. Uh, but, you know, we’ll definitely probably re-, redo it in some way, and, and release that story. Um, you know, maybe we’ll do an audio version first. I don’t know. We’ll figure something out.

In the back.

[[Uh, (unintelligible) audio version of Only Revolutions. Only Revolutions amounts to be a very visual . and a lot on the text. I have to imagine that (creating) an audio version that (unintelligible) challenge (unintelligible)]]

[[Phone rings.]]

[[-change the meaning of the story passed (unintelligible)]]

[[Phone rings.]]

Uh, the question was about the audio version, uh, which is now available on iTunes, and a variety of other places. Um, the, you know, it is, it is an interpretation. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a limited experience but it is proven to be a key that I think a lot of people find helpful. Uh, you know, we didn’t read the historical columns, for instance. Um, and if you really were going to do the music, you can imagine this massive mash-up that started back in, you know, the turn of the century all the way to the present. Uh, in fact, I’m, I’m fortunate enough to, to have a good friend who let me use his music, his synth demos for it, and uh, um, and so we managed to sort of get around the enormous union fees for, for, you know, an orchestra of Danny Elfman proportions.

[[Crowd laughter.]]

And, uh, and then, you know, I found a, you know, an amazing, uh, engineer who was, who was so in touch with, you know, all the sounds in his library, and, you know, just, you know, taken byOnly Revolutions that he went, he went around looking for different car sounds that were appropriate, at least by the decade. So you’re hearing those old, you know, the old start-up engines, etc, etc. And so, you know, and then, and then we found an actress who was great and enthusiastic and that was actually through, uh this sort of online audition process. But we did it. It took a lot of time. It took more time to compile.

And I think, the one thing that’s really cool is that it’s, it’s not done through something like audible.com, where you actually have to buy the whole, um, book. It’s actually put on iTunes so you can buy just a chapter for 99 cents. And what my experience is now, is that people buy, you know, a few of the chapters and that kind of helps them hear the rhythm of how to read the thing. And, uh, and then that, and then they’re on their own. And then they’re- to hell with Mark’s voice. I want to read in my voice. So, what I think, one of the things I do like a-about audio, as opposed to, um, a movie, and I still refuse to sell the rights, which seems more insane as you get older and older. You know..is that it still leaves so much to the imagination. You know, people can still participate in, in, in, in creating, you know, those landscapes and those characters.

 And uh, I think probably I would like to try to do something visually but it would have to be something that still requires the viewer’s imagination, because it’s kind of a moral tenet for me. I mean, I believe it’s, that we need to exercise our imagination, which is why we read hard books. And it’s through imagination that we can actually begin to empathize with others. And it’s through empathy through others that we can begin to negotiate, you know, accordances and situations of peace that last. So that’s my little soapbox on hard reading.