mutter to themselves, of course

Tennis is the sport in which you talk to yourself. No athletes talk to themselves like tennis players. Pitchers, golfers, goalkeepers, they mutter to themselves, of course, but tennis players talk to themselves - and answer. ... Why? Because tennis is so damned lonely. Only boxers can understand the loneliness of tennis players - and yet boxers have their corner men and managers. Even a boxer's opponent provides a kind of companionship, someone he can grapple with and grunt at. ... People sometimes mention the track-and-field runner as a comparably lonely figure, but I have to laugh. At least the runner can feel and smell his opponents. They're inches away. In tennis you're on an island. Of all the games men and women play, tennis is the closest to solitary confinement, which inevitably leads to self-talk.

-- Open by Andre Agassi

BookCrossing: Fear The Worst

In mid-August of 2011 (August 15, to be exact) I was at the Seattle Premium Outlets, located just north of Seattle in Tulalip. While there I released Fear The Worst. A week later - a journal entry by a new member!

I am at Cultus Lake BC sitting in the sun and reading the book. I can't wait to finish the book and pass it on. This is a great idea.

The book followed me back to Canada. A few days later release notes were made for the book's release on a bench at Cultus Lake's main beach. And then, two months later, another journal entry by another new member!

Found book at Main Beach, Cultus lake, B.C.

Took it home to Delta, B.C.
I really enjoyed it and I am happy to pass it on.

I left this book at the Ladner Leisure Centre in Ladner B.C. on Oct
31,2011.

Prank Night by David Robbins

I read Prank Night around Halloween last year. So I'm a little behind on this blog. Waddaya gonna do 'bout it, hey? Make me quit? Cuz I just might do that with or without your help, fool. Anyway, Prank Night got me scared, but not for the right reasons. There were so many errors! Aaaaaaaaaah! To see the errors I detected, click here.

[After posting this, I learned that I actually finished Prank Night in November of 2010! For real?! That was not last year. Holy smokes.]

took life much more seriously than life warranted being taken

Seeing Ben again had sparked hope in her breast. He still cared for her, she could tell. And even though he still took life much more seriously than life warranted being taken, she saw that as a plus, not an evil. Ben Shields was the kind of man who would never take her love for granted. He would honor and respect her all the days they were together.

-- Prank Night by David Robbins

After the nimbus faded

Jimmy saw it or thought he did. But it was gone so fast he couldn't be positive. After the nimbus faded there were no more brilliant displays. He had been enthralled by the dazzling show but he was grateful it had ended.

-- Prank Night by David Robbins

BookCrossing: Death du Jour

On June 22, 2011, I was in Las Vegas and released Death du Jour during the Fremont Street Experience. On July 24, 2011, my inbox received an email alerting me to the fact that the book was caught! In fact, two journal entries were made on that same day. The first:

i am about half-way through the book, and like it so far

The second:

the book is now in Anaconda Montana

The Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki

There are a lot of errors in The Peep Diaries. It was an interesting read, don't get me wrong, but it definitely could have used a competent editor to go over it a final time before publishing. The errors were really distracting from the topic of how much the average person puts out there for anyone to see and at what cost. After I finished it, I adjusted my privacy settings on several websites. To see the errors I detected, click here.

BookCrossing: Don't Cry Now

I'm waaaay behind! Welcome to Slackville, population me! Over a year ago I was in Las Vegas and during my time in Sin City I did some releasin'. Some *wild* releasin'! One book that was left to fend for itself was Don't Cry Now - it was released right next to the lion habitat in MGM Grand on June 23, 2011. Mere days later, on June 29, 2011, I was notified of a journal entry. Here is that journal entry, in all its long-winded glory:

Will be reading soon

whole messy quid pro quo of friendship

We'd rather be at home peering at each other online than putting ourselves out there for friendship, messy emotional connection, and all the responsibilities and frustrations that come with forming attachments to others. We're tired, we're stressed, and we're conditioned now to get home from our daily labors and lose ourselves in virtual environments, whether they be TV, video games, other people's profiles and blogs, or our own.

This puts the success of something like PostSecret in a whole new light. It's not just that we use PostSecret to anonymously get things off our chest and get insight into what other people are struggling with. It's that we actually prefer it that way - why get into the whole messy quid pro quo of friendship, the whole I'll-listen-to-you-if-you-listen-to-me burden of the thing, when we can do it online, no mess, no fuss, no one calling you up next week and saying, "Listen, I need help, can I borrow a hundred bucks?"

-- The Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki

luscious ice cream pie

In his office, Pridmore pulled out two grocery store newsprint fliers. They were from the same store, covering the same week of specials. Except that one flier had a delicious grilled salmon with rice pilaf on the cover to advertise a special on salmon fillets, and one had a luscious ice cream pie on the cover, to advertise a good deal on frozen treats. According to Pridmore, the first flier was distributed in a neighborhood that had indicated a preference for healthy eating, and the other flier was distributed in an area that had statistically been more likely to go for the processed foods and calorie-laden treats.

-- The Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki

absence is the ultimate terror

So when the age of Peep demands more and more caught-on-tape sensational moments, it's not because we really believe we'll be safer if the camera is on. What we believe is that if we're on camera, we'll be less alone. Under the impartial "regime" of the camera's eye, we'll continue to exist even after we're grabbed by the arms and hustled out of the mall. We'll die, perhaps, but we won't disappear.
...
In a postmodern society that turns everything into an endless recording, absence is the ultimate terror. We embrace surveillance because we're terrified of disappearing "without a trace."

-- The Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki

Secrets are revealed, but nobody talks

All our lives we feel watched. But that sense of being overseen gives us no comfort. We're watched by doctors, teachers, officials, the tax man. And they in turn are watched. And those who watch them are watched. Secrets are revealed, but nobody talks, and we remain alone on an increasingly crowded planet.

-- The Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki

acting in ways

Shaming doesn't work very well anymore. Our societies and communities have changed. We live in an anonymous society of single-family dwellings, lonely car commutes to work, and tenuous social connections that we have to work harder and harder to maintain. And we are transient - we move from place to place quickly and easily, shedding identities and pasts, endlessly reinventing ourselves. We cannot be shamed because there is no single inescapable community that knows us, gossips about us, and watches us for signs that we are acting in ways contrary to the accepted standards of society.

-- The Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki

out loud, how embarrassing

"There are moments," casting producer Tamra Barcinas tells me, "where it's like 'I can't believe you would say that out loud, how embarrassing.' But they'll have a screening party back home with their friends and family, and they're so thrilled that they actually got to be on TV. That was their moment."

-- The Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki

love watching ourselves

We're all learning to love watching ourselves and our neighbors. Peep's power is that it is widespread and elusive. It's a whispered, hypnotic idea: You need to know. You need to be known. In Peep we feel the cathartic release of confession, the allure and danger of gossip, and the timeless comfort of ritual. When we peer in on each other, we experience the thrill of performance, the purge of the talking cure, the erotic frisson of forbidden sex. Peep culture takes from all those things, but isn't any of them.

-- The Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki