Skimming the shallows

Have you noticed lately that your ability to concentrate has dropped off? I have, especially when it comes to reading. And I'm an old-school, hard-core kind of reader, so it's a bit weird. I'm finding that when I bring my customary stack of three or four books home from the library, I'm then reading only one or two of them. I have little patience for books that don't grab me instantly, or magazine stories that go on too long.

I've worked on newspapers and used to be a cover-to-cover kind of reader. These days I flip, scanning headlines, and only stop if a story looks sufficiently enticing. Trouble is, of course, most newspaper stories are already at least 12 or 24 hours old and we know the news already from a thousand other sources. Which is why, of course, newspapers are having such a hard time of it.

But according to author Nicholas Carr, there's more to it than stale news. He reckons that the internet, and all the other fast-moving media we're saturated with, is forcing us into too much multi-tasking, making us distracted and turning our brains to mush. Well, he's too cautious to put it quite like that, but it's the general thrust of his book, The Shallows: How the internet is changing the way we think, read and remember. Carr gathers lots of scholarly evidence to show that even as we're enjoying the many excellent things the web has to offer, it is rewiring our brains, flattening our brilliance, reducing our capacity for deep, meditative thought - and suppressing human empathy and compassion.

He writes, "There is no Sleepy Hollow on the Internet, no peaceful spot where contemplativeness can work its resorative magic. There is only the endless, mesmerizing buzz of the urban street."

Oops. Just as well I've taken a quiet walk by the sea today. But then I did come home to get back to my keyboard and write this blog, send three emails and post videos on two websites, all time thinking of my next media projects as well. And it's Sunday, supposedly the day of rest. Perhaps Mr Carr is right. Sigh. Time to switch off the laptop and firmly close the office door.

write your life story - the video

I'm having such fun with a cool tool called Animoto. All you do is gather some pictures and brief video clips, add some text, choose a background theme, pick some music, arrange it all in the order you want, and send it to Animoto.
In a few minutes they email you that your video is ready to view and you can do whatever you want with it - remix or edit to your heart's content, send to friends, put on your website, embed in blogs. You can make 60-second videos for free, or sign up for not much money at all to make videos up to 10 minutes long. Check out this one (just click on the yellow words below) that I just made about my upcoming 'Story of My Life" workshop, on November 21, at Eden Garden in Epsom.

write your life story

Of course, these videos would be terrific for invitations or celebrations, or post-holiday wrap-ups. I continue to be amazed by how clever internet services are becoming. I use a Mac and have made a few little iMovie videos but this is even easier than iMovie. Swoon.

Easy as falling off a blog

Amazingly, I still sometimes meet people who, with furrowed brow, say, "what is a blog anyway?" The blogosphere is the hot place to be, of course. So who’s running it? Nobody. Which is its blessing and its curse.
Obviously (because you're reading it here) you already know that blog means ‘web log’. It started when web-savvy writers began to pour out words in a journal sort of format that could be updated at will.
Now there are around 133 million (and counting) blogs out there. ‘Real’ journalists can be a bit sniffy about bloggers, dissing them as mere scribblers. But to sneer would be missing the point. Many blog writers are top names.
The world’s biggest blog, at www.huffingtonpost.com, prints the views of major commentators and now rivals venerable newspapers in terms of influence.
For the most part bloggers write for free but if they’re clever enough they can turn a buck or two. For instance, fashion ‘curator’ and professional speaker Gala Darling sells her writings as monthly chapters of an ongoing book called Love & Sequins.
“It’s my handbook on being a love letter to the universe,” coos Gala, who grew up in Wellington and moved to New York in pursuit of a more glamorous life. Like all big web personalities she is prolific – blogging madly at www.galadarling.com and other sites, and is all over Facebook and Twitter.
That’s the gorgeous Gala in the picture, which I nicked from her blog.
There is, of course, much serious blogging happening too. At www.stuff.co.nz a range of familiar names pops up – such as political reporter Colin Espiner and investment expert Bruce Sheppard.
Also included there is Christchurch librarian Moata Tamaira. Her self-described “unholy mash-up of whimsy, cynicism and wry observation” won her the best blog prize at last year’s Qantas Media Awards. She’s just written a hilarious piece about being detained overnight by Customs at Madrid Airport when she lost her passport on the inbound flight.
There are a dozen or so good writers at www.publicaddress.net. Try also www.kiwiblog.co.nz which has been “fomenting happy mischief since 2003”. It contains some 400 blogs. Some are moribund but there are heaps to get stuck into, including the prickly Cactus Kate. She’s a Hong Kong-based lawyer (and admirer of Rodney Hide) whose tagline is, “Saving the world from sanctimonious bearded men, one whisker removed at a time”.
If you’re looking for local and stylish browse www.lovelyblogs.co.nz - which collects appealing blogs from around the country. So give it a go. Set yours up right here at blogspot.com or wordpress.com or tumblr.com – all are free and simple to use.
* This article is adapted from my Webmistress column in the Nov issue of Next magazine. I’m also currently running its Facebook page – find it at Next Magazine NZ and tick the ‘Like’ box to see what’s happening there.

Women all over the web

There are some corners of the web inhabited just by women and that’s just as it should be. We did always did like gathering at the well for a chat and the web is just one big well.
One of the first off the mark was www.handbag.com, launched back in 1999 to provide a “glossy, stylish take on matters that women love, like fashion, beauty, celebrity, gossip, going out and staying in”. Then it was a pioneer. Now it’s just part of the Hearst magazine empire. Big, busy and booming, it scores 22 million “unique page views” per month.
The world’s number one women’s site is www.ivillage.com , launched in 1995 and now NBC-owned. On the day I last looked it was offering advice on how to manage sex when on “vaycay” (vacation) with the kids; and what your ice-cream preference says about your personality. A yen for vanilla, it seems, means you’re more of a risk- taker than those who like chocolate or strawberry. Oh sure.
Big sites like that can be so take-it-or-leave-it. So is there something more local, more ‘niche’, more relevant?
You bet. Try www.wisanow.co.nz, set up by Aucklanders Geraldine Meo and Raewyn Hamilton (pictured). They’re both in real estate but Wisanow is their outside-of-work baby, set up because they believe strongly that baby-boomer women can have a struggle as they enter what some call “second adulthood”. Once the mid-life stage opens up, many are searching for fresh fields, renewed purpose and meaningful goals. Meo and Hamilton are aiming for a “warm, honest and empathetic forum”.
Packed full of food, travel, health, shopping and culture pages (around 1000 at last count), it’s receiving as much interest from overseas as at home. “They tell us they like that our discussion forums are real and not just about botox and celebrities,” says Hamilton. “And we’re finding that the topics women care about here are the same all over the world.”
Another useful local site: www.womenz.co.nz, founded by Katrina Winn as a bid to “add value to women’s lives”. It also contains good, relevant material.
But it’s not easy maintaining such sites. They come and go. But check out www.heartless-bitches.com, which has been up since 1996 and is thus positively venerable. I think it’s US-based but on the web it’s hard to tell. Not quite as hard-arse as it sounds, it’s leavened with considerable humour. And “bitch” stands for Being In Total Control, Honey. As a life goal that’s hard to argue with.
*This piece is part of my Webmistress page in Next magazine, Oct issue. The mag's not online but you can 'like' it on Facebook page. Look for Next Magazine NZ

The return of the Jed

How very weird it is that one overwrought and half-baked pastor from a Florida church that has 50 in its congregation (down by half from where it was a few days ago) can nab headlines around the world with his intention to burn copies of the Koran as his very own ridiculous and inflammatory way to mark 9/11. Outraged protests from a host of world leaders is not enough to stay the hand of Pastor Jones, who is presumably revelling in the attention. Ah well, what can you expect from someone who is the spitting image of The Beverly Hillbillies' Jed Clampett? All he needs is the hat. And probably the gun.
If you're too young to remember Jed be advised that the scriptwriters of this classic '60s comedy gave him some very good lines, including this put-down of his dim-witted son, Jethro: "If brains was lard, that boy wouldn't have enough to grease a skillet." Seems like a good retort for Mr Jones.

The power of stories told by dads

As Father’s Day has rolled round this year I’ve thought not so much of my own father but of my father-in–law, Richie, because I’ve also been thinking lots about the importance of family stories.
Richie told us a story the night after his wife Hilda’s funeral. It’s interesting how funerals bring out tales of days gone by. A key gets turned in our hearts at such times, and the door opens and out flow words that need saying.
He talked about the hard times in his early life and of a morning when he was just a small boy, living on the family dairy farm on the slopes of Mt Ngongotaha. It was a dark, freezing morning, early 1920s. Richie’s dad was out with the cows, as usual, when his mother came into the room he shared with his brother. They were still in bed.
“She looked so odd,” Richie remembered when he was himself an old man. “She came in and said, ‘I’ve just come to say goodbye, boys’. And then she turned and walked out of the house.’
Little Richie knew something was very wrong. He got up and raced out to the milking shed. ‘Dad, Dad!’ he cried. ‘Mum’s gone.’
A lifetime later, he could still remember the stricken expression on his father’s face as he ran out of the shed and down the frosty hill after his wife and brought her home again.
When I heard that story I felt for her. I wondered if, desperate to escape the hard-scrabble farming life, she just had to get away. But then, where would she have gone? Was she really going to leave her boys behind? How would she have made it on her own? Divorce was a great scandal then and social welfare non-existent.
Did she simply go back with a leaden heart and get on with things, because there was just no other option? Whatever, she stayed, and between them they raised a fine family.
You start to feel the impact of stories like that in midlife, because it’s only then that we’ve been through enough of our own dramas to know that life rarely turns out as we expect it to.
Of course even though we think we’re just ordinary, all our lives are rich with drama. But most of us cover up our hot-point moments because we think they’re too private, too painful or maybe too embarrassing to share. And yet it’s so vital for us to reveal them, not just because they can help other people cope with trouble, but because unloading our old hurts can be good for us too, leaving us feeling lighter and stronger.
“I used to think I’d be able to change the world,” one friend told me with rueful smile. “Then I realised I couldn’t do that. Then I thought you could change yourself, and came to see that wasn’t possible either. The good thing about getting older is that you finally begin to figure who you are in the big picture of things. I think now that what life’s all about is just being the hero or heroine of your own story – and sharing it with other people.’
Richie’s gone now too, but thanks, Poppa, for sharing. And thanks to all dads everywhere who’ve sat down with their families sometime and told them a true-life story, straight from the heart. Not enough blokes do that. And they’re stories we need to hear.

Seeking "letters to Lindsey"

I’ve done lots of media jobs in my life but never hosted a TV show. But now I am. I figure I’m the oldest trout on the telly! Well, in this country anyway, as opposed to the United States where it seems possible to carry on forever if you’re Barbara Walters, who is 80. So at 65 I’m a mere chicken. And an increasingly wise one! It's what happens when you've been around a few years.

Anyhow, the show is Letters to Lindsey. Think of it as an agony aunt show with ‘uncles’ as well as ‘aunties’, who sit around our table and answer problems sent in by viewers. Our panellists aren’t just there because they’re good talkers but because they’re experts in their field. The weekly show is on Triangle TV in Auckland, 7pm Fridays, and on Stratos (channel 89 on Sky and 22 on Freeview) across the country, 8pm Saturdays.

Here’s a brief video promo.

We’d welcome emails about any problem that’s getting you down. We’ve been running for only a few weeks but have already canvassed a wide range of dilemmas – from drug addiction probs through teen pregnancy woes and employment and migrant issues. This weekend the programme’s all about sex and intimacy. Next week: where are the new heroes and role models for kids to look up?

The world's full of problems, of course, so if you’d care to share a burning issue (treated anonymously, of course!) my producer Deb Faith would love to hear from you. You can either send it to me or directly to her at info@tritv.co.nz

Speaking of letters (of the alphabet) is language misuse driving you nuts? Me too, sometimes. So you might enjoy www.loginisnotaverb.com, the work of a man who cannot abide how we’re messing with new words like login, carryout, lockdown, signout and checkout, not to mention that ubiquitous little verb, text, which of course used to be a mere noun.

Then there are the adjectives which have become nouns, like creative and corporate. Sigh. One's pedantic nit-picking can go on.