Going Digital

Encyclopedia Britannica recently announced they were ceasing publication of their long-revered, multi-volumed, term paper plagiarizing aide. I know, because we had a set in my house when I was growing up, and, just by changing a few words, the guilt of copying disappeared. My wife and I bought a set when our daughter was starting to write school reports, and we even got the annual updates, which provided crucial revisions to existing articles, and new entries for important events from that year. It was sad to read about New Kids on the Block breaking up.

The Britannica will be available exclusively online, through their website, at a cost to subscribers of $70 per year. Apparently, management at this institution of education and knowledge hasn't heard of Wikipedia, the online, and free, encyclopedia. Some people scoff at Wikipedia because of its open source nature, allowing anybody to update articles, putting its credibility in question. However they do a very good job of policing any inaccuracies. A while ago, in order to test their vigilance, I added my name to the list of British Prime Ministers. Right there between Sir Robert Peel and Lord John Russell where I was confident it wouldn't be noticed. But sure enough, it was almost immediately deleted, and my account was frozen. I use my wife's computer to do research for my books now.

This got me to thinking about the digitalization of everything, specifically music and books. Over the years I have amassed fairly large collections of records and books - music and reading being two of my passions. When I was young I bought many 45s (for you younger readers, under 40, these are the small records with one song on each side. It had a big hole in the middle and spun on the turntable at 45 revolutions per minute). You would buy the record for the hit, and on the other side was some piece-of-crap music that you never listened to. Then, because of The Beatles, I started buying albums. The Beatles raised the bar and the throwaway songs rapidly became non-existent, at least with bands that were serious about their music.

The LPs, or long-playing records, were the main way people bought music for a long time. A few alternatives came along over the years. Cassette tapes made a little dent in LP sales. Then somebody had a musical brain fart and gave us the 8-track tape. I sincerely hope the person who developed this monstrosity of a music delivery system has been exiled somewhere and is forced to listen to a continuous loop of Pat Boone music, along with his evil spawn Debby Boone. The tapes never changed tracks properly and you would hear one track in one speaker and another track, playing backwards, in the other. Then they would cut a longer song somewhere in the middle to continue it on the next track, due to space limitations.

In the late '80s, the LP had met its match with the introduction of the CD. The music sounded great and in the early days, when an album was released in both formats, the CD offered bonus tracks that the LP didn't have. The beginning of the end of the LP had come. The only drawback of the CD, for me, was the information that came with it: lyrics, liner notes, and other inserts that were found in the album sleeves were now miniaturized to fit in the CD case. It had most of the same information, but I had to do a lot of squinting to read it.

Today, the CD is about to die. Music is all digitized and we are back to buying individual songs (singles) the way we did with the 45s. But there's nothing to hold. We can download them on our computers, iPods, iPhones, iPads, iEverythings, and have thousands of songs in the palm of our hands. I had an iPod Nano that I got about seven years ago which was recently recalled by Apple because of some potential problems with the battery. I sent it to them to get a free replacement. When I received my package in the mail from them I had to call Apple to say they had sent me a battery by mistake and not the iPod. I was corrected by the Apple rep who told me the new model was much smaller. Not only was it smaller, but it had twice the capacity of the old one. The thing is so small it's a potential choking hazard for children. But now, with everything digitized and downloaded, there are no accompanying lyric sheets or liner notes. I miss them.

Closer to home, the same thing is happening to books. E-books are rapidly replacing paperbacks and hard cover books. My wife and I both have Kindles and quickly got used to them. We can carry our entire library wherever we go. A while ago, Amazon announced they were selling more e-books for their Kindle than paperbacks and hard covers combined. As an author, I know my books, (Protecting the Cittern and The Ibex Trophy, in case you forgot), have to be available in all formats, and the reality is that I do sell more e-books than regular books on line. At book signings I always used to stress that a benefit of getting the book directly from me was that it would be signed by the author. As of last week that argument has been taken away from me because I now can sign a book on Kindle. Digitally. You can look it up in Encyclopedia Britannica or Wikipedia.

Getting High in Peru

My wife, Evelyn, and I recently returned from a wonderful trip to South America, which included five days touring Peru, followed by a cruise taking us from Chile to Brazil. We sailed around Cape Horn and made several exciting stops along the way.

I want to concentrate on our time in Peru for this post. Visiting Machu Picchu has long been a dream of mine. It was on my bucket list long before that expression became a cliche. Although I was aware that it was perched high in the Andes, I learned more precisely it was at an altitude of nearly 7,900 feet. Nearby Cusco, which we also visited, is even higher at 11,150 feet.

At those altitudes, because of the decrease in oxygen, some people experience symptoms that at times can resemble the flu, carbon monoxide poisoning, or a hangover. I've never had carbon monoxide poisoning, but I have had the flu, and I may have had a hangover once. Maybe twice. I forget. The point is I'd rather not experience any of them.

Peruvians combat this by chewing on coca leaves. That's coca, as in cocaine. I never got a good answer as to what coca does to alleviate the symptoms, but they chew on this stuff all the time. Now, mind you, it's not the kind that Tony Montana dove into in Scarface, but I would think if you chew it all day there's got to be some effect. Our tour guides, however, did not give us coca leaves to chew on. We were offered coca tea. I'm not normally a tea drinker, but I didn't want those symptoms, and besides, there was a bit of a living-on-the-edge rush knowing that I was ingesting something that could be turned into crack. So I had a cup. Then another. After seventeen cups I still didn't feel high. I didn't feel anything, although I really had to pee.

With a full bladder and a clear head I walked around various Incan ruins in the area and, most importantly, Machu Picchu. Besides the aforementioned altitude, the ruins themselves are constructed around multi-tiered terraces, intricately-carved boulders stacked on top of each other, and stairs. Lots of stairs. They reach high above the buildings. Did I mention I'm afraid of heights? It's called acrophobia. If I climb more than two rungs up a ladder I start shaking, which makes the ladder shake making it more dangerous causing me to shake even more. It's really pathetic. I have to climb down and have my wife change the ceiling light bulb.

The stairs around Machu Picchu are narrow rocks, and apparently the Incans didn't believe in handrails. Part of my height problem has to do with not having anything stable to hold onto, while climbing up to potentially treacherous heights, which would keep me from plummeting into the abyss and turning into a mangled, pulpy mess at the bottom. Sometimes I over think these things. But I was there, and I would most likely never come back. I wanted to climb to the top to see what is now the iconic, classic view of Machu Picchu. So I climbed. And I climbed. Holding onto any crevice in the rocks I could find. Leaning my weight forward so I wouldn't tumble backwards. You can overcome anything, even if only temporarily, if you have a strong enough motivation. I made it to the top, and here's the proof.

I know what you're thinking. "Nice hat." I don't care. The point is I made it. That's me, high in the Andes, high above Machu Picchu in spite of my fears, but not high on coca. We smuggled some of the tea leaves home. Maybe twenty cups will do the trick.

Plunging Into the Blogosphere

I've been avoiding writing a blog for a long time now. I'm a novelist, or so I keep telling myself. If I'm going to spend any time writing, I should be working on my book, Raw Umber, which will be my third if I ever get it finished. Writing a blog on a regular, or more likely semi-regular, mostly erratic basis, will only take time away from what I think I should be doing.

Many of my author friends have blogs. I've read them and they're all quite good. They tell me it's a great way to maintain name recognition and keep your fans engaged while they're waiting for the next magnum opus to spring forth from the inner depths of your soul. Fans? After my wife, mother, and I hope my daughter, I wasn't sure I had a fan base that was craving to read my musings on random subjects. Plus, my mother doesn't have a computer. I can just tell my wife and daughter what's on my mind and save us all a lot of time.

Then the obvious question, at least to me, is what am I going to write about that people will want to read? I decided I'd mostly limit it to things that I spend most of my time doing: writing, traveling, eating, and family, not necessarily in that order. But if something outside of those topics happens to get my attention and fill me with the need to spill my guts about it, you can count on seeing it here.

So, I set this blog up and the first thing I had to do was give it a name. John's Blog seemed a bit boring, and I thought it would give the impression that the content wouldn't be much better. The Amazing Ruminations of A Future Pulitzer Prize Winner was in the running for a while, but I felt it would put way too much pressure on me to write something important that might require a lot of research, and to make sure all the words were spelled correctly.

Then I came up with Thoughts From the Camel. I'm sure you're asking, "What does that mean?" If you're not, I'm going to tell you anyway. Camel was my nickname in high school and college. Many of my friends from those years still call me that. It's not because, as some people think, I had only had one hump during those years (although I did have a long dry spell). Obviously, it's short for my name, Cammalleri.

That's it for now. If you like this blog, please do the usual things: become a follower of it, tell your friends, send money, or better yet, buy my books, the award-winning Protecting the Cittern and The Ibex Trophy. I'll probably mention them occasionally, too.