Charles Stross on the Amazon versus MacMillan War:

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/01/amazon-macmillan-an-outsiders.html

MacMillan's stance is to send more money to the author by keeping their share of the selling price in existence longer. Authors currently get a piece of the full retail but not the remaindered price of a physical book . Under MacMillan's new model they would still get a percentage even at the remaindered price level of an ebook.

Amazon's stance is to turn authors and publishers into share croppers working for sole buyer Amazon.

The New Music Sundays: Berlin - Metro

To me this song embodies the eerie, ethereal, weirdness of the New Wave Era. It was an experimental time when music went in many directions.

Berlin was formed in Orange County in the late 1970's. Its lead singer Teri Nunn missed one album as she was concentrating on her acting career which included auditioning for the part of Princess Leia in "Star Wars." Their first big hit was the controversial synth-driven "Sex (I'm A...)" in 1982 and their last and biggest was "Take My Breath Away" used in the movie "Top Gun" in 1986. The original lineup version of the band disbanded in 1987, however Teri Nunn put a new Berlin together in 1999 which is still recording. The original band did get together on the VH1 show "Bands Reunited" to perform this song.

Metro was written by John Crawford and it was produced and engineered by the band's then-drummer and drum programmer, Daniel Van Patten. "Interview With a Pop Star" called it "epitomizing the New Wave genre for showing the genre for what it essentially was, a blending of punk rock and pop, with heavy use of the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 synthesizer keyboard."

For more information there is a Berlin fan page here: http://www.berlinpage.com/

The historical inspiration for the Ancient Mariner of Coleridge

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/31/man-behind-coleridges-ancient-mariner

The actual Ancient Mariner was one Simon Hatley of Woodstock, Oxfordshire who was sailing with William Dampier who inspired Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" and Alexander Selkirk who inspired Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" on a voyage in 1709. He ended up marooned in Lima, Peru where he was caught up in the Spanish Inquisition which resulted in his spontaneous conversion to Catholicsm.

There is a book about it "The Real Ancient Mariner", by Robert Fowke, is published by Travelbrief at £15.99.

A relevant excerpt:

A Voyage round the World by way of the Great South Sea by Captain George Shelvocke, published in 1726, contains a passage that is likely to have given Coleridge the idea for his poem about the Ancient Mariner. The Speedwell is rounding the Horn and has reached a latitude of about 61 degrees south:

"We all observed that we had not had the sight of one fish of any kind since we came into the southward of the streights of le Maire, nor one sea-bird, except a disconsolate black Albatross, who accompanied us for several days, hovering about us as if he had lost himself, till Hatley, my second Captain, observing in one of his melancholy fits, that this bird which was always hovering near us, imagined, from his colour, that it might be some ill omen .... he, after some fruitless attempts, at length shot the Albatross, not doubting (perhaps) that we should have a fair wind after it ..."

Amazon Fail the Kindle versus MacMillan conflict

I notice it says Amazon Kindle Team and not Amazon, is it possible that this was an Amazon underling exceeding their authority?

The MacMillan ban never hit Amazon.ca for example.

Initial post: Jan 31, 2010 2:22 PM PST
The Amazon Kindle team says:
Dear Customers:

Macmillan, one of the "big six" publishers, has clearly communicated to us that, regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and charging $12.99 to $14.99 for e-book versions of bestsellers and most hardcover releases.

We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books. Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it's reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book. We don't believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan. And we know for sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced e-books as an alternative.

Kindle is a business for Amazon, and it is also a mission. We never expected it to be easy!

Thank you for being a customer.