Ted Mahsun

Sure, it's a gimmick but it's a pretty gimmick! Books made to look like cigarette boxes : As one habit dies hard, another takes hold. The ban on smoking in public places comes into operation in the UK on July 1, 2007. Tank is launching a series of books designed to mimic cigarette packs – the same size, packaged in flip-top cartons with silver foil wrapping and sealed in cellophane. TankBooks pay homage to this monumentally successful piece of packaging design by employing it in the service of great literature. Cigarette packs are iconic objects, familiar, tried and tested, and over time TankBooks will become iconic objects in their own right. The launch titles are by authors of great stature – classic stories presented in classic packaging; objects desirable for both their literary merit and their unique design. Conrad, Hemingway, Kafka , Kipling, R. L. Stevenson and Tolstoy all get their smokes. Not bad. Via Notebookism .

Everyone's favourite urban fantasist, Neil Gaiman, talks to TIME magazine about his recently made Stardust movie, fame and the upcoming Watchmen movie: It's all fairly win-win for Gaiman. If Stardust becomes the next Princess Bride, then hooray, and if it doesn't, it's back to cult figurehood. "Five years ago, I was absolutely as famous as I wanted to be," he says. "I'm now more famous than I'm comfortable with." In a genre like fantasy, the relationship between artist and fan is a fragile, intimate thing, and in some sense Gaiman is still that nerdy public school kid. He's leery of selling out to the popular crowd. "I have really mixed feelings about the coming Watchmen movie," he says, "because I keep hearing that it's going to be really good. And part of me is going, I don't want a really good Watchmen movie! I want my graphic novel!"

From I can has cheezburger .

Woohoo! I haven't felt like this with drawing since primary school! I don't want to sound like a cheesy advert but I can't help it-- ArtRage made me fall in love with drawing all over again! *heart heart* I so want a Wacom tablet now. Drawing with a mouse (and a crappy one, at that) is going to give me RSI if I keep up this pace!

USA Today has an interview up with J.K. Rowling which discusses what is next for her after Harry Potter: "I think that there will be some disappointment if I don't write another fantasy," she says. "But I must admit, I think I've done my fantasy. To go and create another fantasy universe would feel wrong, and I don't know if I'm capable of it." She wants to take off "lots" of time to spend with her family. But good news, Potter fans — she's writing. "I'm sort of writing two things at the moment," she says. "One is for children and the other is not for children. The weird thing is that this is exactly the way I started writing Harry. I was writing two things simultaneously for a year before Harry took over. So one will oust the other in due course, and I'll know that's my next thing." She's also happy to discuss about the ending of the latest Harry Potter, but thankfully, they've sectioned off tha...

I don't have one drop of art talent in my blood but that's not about to stop me exposing the innocent world to my masterpieces! As you can see, I've been messing about with ArtRage . Look out art world! Here I come! Now to get one of those Wacom tablet thingamajiggies.

Venue: 2nd Floor, 3K Sports Complex, Subang Jaya Date: 3 - 5 August 2007 Time: 10:00am - 7:00pm

Time to drag out The Unbearable Lightness of Being again if you want to break into China: "Milan Kundera was the most successful Western author in China. That's what the Chinese were interested in because they could relate to it. They relate to times when nobody was allowed to be happy." All this and more in Made in China, Read Worldwide .

I've finally upgraded to the newish Blogger. I decided I wanted some of those nifty widget action for myself, but that meant having to chuck out my previous blog template. No matter. That template was getting old. I first started using it more than 2 years ago (in another blog) and it was getting a little stale (and the css behind it was getting clunkier and clunkier). I've decided to go for a more Spartan feel. It'll do. For now.

And now for something completely different (and not Monty Python either). A quote from my favourite dystopian writer, J.G. Ballard: The one thing I wanted to do was to be able to give up my job as an editor of a scientific magazine so that I could write a decent novel, to think about where I was going as a writer. We’d moved to Shepperton in 1960, and I had this tremendously long railway journey in the evenings, coming home from work; there were all these small children running around, I was absolutely exhausted. The future looked extremely dismal, professionally speaking; I’d been writing short stories since 1956 but I felt I was getting nowhere. I needed a break. I didn’t want to begin lowering my sights and begin churning out novels that were partly serious — you know, money spinners. I had two weeks’ holiday — I think my wife suggested it: why don’t you, just for the hell of it, write a novel in two weeks? I’d always been intrigued by the idea of writing a novel very quickly and I ...

Probably my favourite quote from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ! But I think Ron said it already in previous books? I forget. I've just only finished reading it... and I thank J.K. Rowling that my faith in her all these 8 years was not in vain. Thank you for such a satisfying ending. All these years, I've faced Harry Potter launch days with both longing and trepidation. Longing because, well, the obvious. Trepidation, not because of who might die, but who might spoil the book for me. Let's get this straight. I HATE SPOILERS. It doesn't matter if the book or movie doesn't really hold much interest in me, I just hate knowing something I shouldn't be knowing until I see or read the story myself. That's just me. Other people won't mind of course. For me, it's the thrill of enjoying the story, the hows and the whys. I enjoy finding out for myself both the means and the ends if the story, the cause and the effect, without finding out from an externa...

Controversy! It seems our local bookstores have been getting the bad end of the stick : KUALA LUMPUR: Four major bookstore chains -- MPH, Popular, Harris and Times -- have confirmed they will not sell Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows in protest against selected hypermarkets being given hefty discounts to sell the book. The recommended retail price of RM109.90 is being violated by hypermarkets advertising and selling it at RM69.90, they said. The four chains, with a total of 100 outlets nationwide, said they were protesting the indiscriminate price discount and wanted to show customers that they were not "blatantly profiteering" from them. Officials from the four bookstores held a meeting at 4pm Friday to announce their stand. They said they were also cancelling all promotional events associated with the release of the seventh and final Harry Potter novel, and apologised to their customers. However, the said they would honour all pre-orders. Author J.K. Rowling has said tha...

I'm in my science fiction phase right now and currently my reading time is consumed by nothing but sf. If I'm not reading sf (right now: J.G. Ballard's short stories) then I'm reading about it. I've been spending most of my online browsing on sf-related forums like The Chronicles Network , sf-related blogs like David Louis Edelman's blog , and have even been dropping by the local SF watering hole . I like sf because it's speculative; it's a vision into the future, predicting what could be, what should be, what shouldn't be. The stories might take place in a totally different place and era, but the themes are universal. On the surface, Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein is a story about a spacewar against evil insect aliens, but underneath the pyrotechnics it's also a right-wing tract about the responsibility of going to war (it was written when the US was in Vietnam). William Gibson's Neuromancer and Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash are...

Looks like Eric will be busy with his editing cap on: MPH GROUP PUBLISHING is pleased to announce an open call for submissions of short fiction and creative non-fiction for an anthology tentatively entitled Urban Odysseys: KL Stories . We aim to publish the anthology in 2008, depending on the number of submissions that we receive. The theme of the anthology will focus on life in the city, specifically Kuala Lumpur, with writings that show images of the new juxtaposed against the old, urban living with contrasting bright lights and shadowy realities and other short fiction or creative non-fiction which best encapsulate the spirit of the national capital. This is not a travel book but an anthology of literary writings about the city. Stories must be original, between 3,000 and 5,000 words and must not have been previously published. We invite submissions from both emerging and established writers. Stories for children are not eligible for this compilation. Manuscripts must be edited, t...

That damned Michiko Kakutani from the New York Times has managed to snag a copy of Deathly Hallows before its release and had time enough to read it and give a review within one day! Warning! Minor spoilers contained within. (Why! Why did I click and read it! Sob sob sob)

We've seen this before. Person sends manuscript of a classic work to literary agents, touting it as an original work. When it gets rejected, everyone is amused. I know I am! From the Daily Mail : Mr Lassman, 43, submitted opening chapters of three of Austen's classic works - Northanger Abbey, first published in 1798, Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Persuasion (1818). He typed them out himself, and signed them Alison Laydee after Austen's early pseudonym A Lady. To offer a few more hints, he called Pride and Prejudice 'First Impressions', the original title for the story, and wrote a return address of the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, where he works as the director of the Jane Austen Festival. In response, the literary agency Christopher Little, which represents JK Rowling, said it was 'not confident of placing this material with a publisher.

Hurray ~

Entertainment Weekly grills Sebastian Faulks on being the new Bond author, his new Bond book, Devil May Care , and David Craig's take on the franchise : Oh, he was certainly a lot tougher than Roger Moore, who was very soft. You felt that if you punched Roger Moore in the stomach it would be like punching a bag of marshmallows. And Fleming does stress the cruelty of Bond, particularly in the early novels. I think that was one of the things that made the creation appealing and rather shocking when it first came out. But if you actually analyze the way that Bond behaves, both towards his enemies, and towards women, it isn’t actually a sadistic or unnecessarily cruel. He only kills in self-defense, or if absolutely necessary for his mission. Although he is an incurable womanzier, he doesn’t actually treat the women badly. In fact, he frequently falls in love with them and is jilted by them sometimes. I totally agree. Roger Moore was such a total wimp, I'm perplexed as to why he su...

Sure, the marketing monster that is Harry Potter owes its existence to J.K. Rowling, but its success can also be attributed to her literary agent , Christopher Little: Throughout the canny construction of 'Brand Potter' - books, films, video games, and now even stamps - one figure has been ever present, like a shadow glimpsed in the cloisters of Hogwarts school. This enigmatic but utterly crucial influence is Christopher Little, literary agent, fierce protector of Rowling and, thanks to the boy wizard, now a millionaire many times over. Perhaps the luckiest literary agent ever.

There seems to be quite a fuss being kicked up in the UK over Tintin in t he Congo portraying blacks in an unflattering light : A Commission for Racial Equality spokeswoman said: "This book contains imagery and words of hideous racial prejudice, where the 'savage natives' look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles. "How and why do Borders think that it's okay to peddle such racist material? "Yes, it was written a long time ago, but this certainly does not make it acceptable. This is potentially highly offensive to a great number of people. "It beggars belief that in this day and age Borders would think it acceptable to sell and display Tintin in the Congo ." What I'm wondering is... why kick up a row now? Tintin in the Congo isn't a recent publication. It was first published in 1930s for god's sake! A lot of materials at the time had racist contents. Tintin in the Congo was just a reflection of the zeitgeist of that era. And why all th...

Man... the last book is gonna be so exciting ! ^_^

David Louis Edelman, author of InfoQuake , wonders whether we've reached a saturation point in sf. Has it come to the point that we're all kneedeep in technological marvels that nothing in future sf can really excite us like it used to? Also, why don't the future societies in sf indulge in their own science fiction? Says Dave : Perhaps the universe will one day become predictable enough — perhaps scientific change and progress will be so much a part of us — that looking into the future will just be an exercise of more-of-the-same. I’m not saying we’re there yet, but we might be approaching it. Maybe we’ll have so much of an understanding of the workings of the world that we can’t write anything but what we term the fantastic. In other words, the impossible, the fanciful, the mythic that has no pretension to reality other than a metaphoric one.

It used to be your signature or your handwriting that revealed your personality. I suppose I should've seen this coming : The Psychology of Fonts, commissioned by Lexmark Printers and written by psychologist Dr Aric Sigman explains how a typeface will significantly influence what the reader thinks about you. Courier is seen as the choice of "sensible shoes" type of people or "anoraks" and curvy icons like Georgia or Shelly suggest a bit of a "rock chick" personality. The article goes on to suggest that Richard Branson is a "Verdana" and " using the wrong font may give people the wrong impression about you and could affect decisions that will shape your future. " It also mentions that Courier New is for people who prefer "automaton-like" coldness. What does that say about the editors in the publishing industry who mostly prefer manuscripts in Courier New 12pt? :D

...and gives plenty of other neat advice for aspiring writers. He also talks about the process of writing and what got him interested in reading: I don't remember *not* being interested in it, so I'd probably have to thank my parents. My grandfather was certainly interested in encouraging me. He gave me "Crime and Punishment" for my ninth birthday. So there you have it. Want to cultivate a reading habit for your child? Start with the Russians! I met Hari Kunzru last year and I remember him as a pretty nice guy (and he dispensed some advice for hopeful writers then too!). I'm feeling a little guilty that I haven't actually read any of his books yet, though they've been on my TBR pile since I met him! I have however read his short story collection, Noise , which was pretty good albeit a spartan mix of sf and weird fantasy.

Haruki Murakami writes on the importance of the influence of music on his writing in The New York Times (might require free registration): Whether in music or in fiction, the most basic thing is rhythm. Your style needs to have good, natural, steady rhythm, or people won’t keep reading your work. I learned the importance of rhythm from music — and mainly from jazz. Next comes melody — which, in literature, means the appropriate arrangement of the words to match the rhythm. If the way the words fit the rhythm is smooth and beautiful, you can’t ask for anything more. Next is harmony — the internal mental sounds that support the words. Then comes the part I like best: free improvisation. Through some special channel, the story comes welling out freely from inside. All I have to do is get into the flow. Finally comes what may be the most important thing: that high you experience upon completing a work — upon ending your “performance” and feeling you have succeeded in reaching a place that...

Haha! What a start to the day.

Next time a Malaysian politician talks, someone needs to do this . Viva la Wikipedia revolucion!

The readings went well I think. I read a few pieces that my late friend, Daud Ahba , wrote and the audience seemed to get a kick out of it :) I don't have a camera, the technophobe that I am, so I roped in my pal Ash to take some piccies. All the following pics were taken by him. You may also remember that Ash was also responsible for drawing my teddy bear logos. Ash reads some of his humanist poetry which received a standing ovation. Leon and Chet attempt to hide from the camera behind bottles. I'm sorry Chet, but Leon wins this time round! Better luck next time. Ted Mahsun shows the awed crowd at Seksan's how to properly tie a pair of Chuck T's, the BEST GODDAMNED SHOES in the multiverse. Nifty links to check out: Book Gila's video recording of me reading. (Severe head tilting may be required.) Ash's video recording of the Readings event. The rest of Ash's photos of the Readings event. Sharon's blog post . Sufian Abas's excellent Flickr set ...