Where I See Myself In 5 Years

I'm 55 years old, and last night, for the first time in my life, when I tried to picture myself in 5 years I actually came up with something.

Many times over the course of my life I've been asked, "Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?" and I've never been able to come up with anything. Then last night, channel-surfing, I saw Danny McBride, playing one of the title characters in "Vice Principals" (I was going to watch the entire series but was unable to keep up past the first 2 episodes, because there is simply too much to watch. There is too much good stuff on TV to watch it all! Think about THAT, and compare it to the 1970's, if you ever start to think that the world can't be changed!), posing the question to an actress playing a high school student in a time out. The student was clearly drawing a blank, so McBride snapped at her: "Just make something up!"

And that is how, 55 years in, I finally was able to do the in-5-years thing: I just made something up.

5 years from now, at age 60, lean and fit, a man who runs 30 or more FAST miles in an average week, outdoors, not in a gym, I will be an extremely rich and famous writer, the author of several huge best-sellers, books translated into more than 40 languages. 40 and growing fast. I'm a frequent guest on the big-time celebrity talk-show circuit, a big wheel in the Democratic Party, an unofficial advisor to the Clintons and Obamas, a guy who plots and schemes with Gates and Buffet and Musk, a Nobel Prize winner, a MacArthur Foundation genius grant recipient, a member of the American Academy of Art and Sciences and the French Legion of Honor, a Fellow of the British Academy and the Leopoldina and pour le mérite of Germany and a whole bunch of other things.

But mostly I am known for stomping on the dying ashes of the petroleum industry and replacing it with solar, wind, tidal, geothermal and other means of energy production. By virtue of my great fame I am able to spread knowledge of the lies and dirty tricks of Big Oil and have just about shamed them to death. Through my many connections I've put solar panels on many millions of buildings from Peoria to Peking, windmills in many a windy place, built tidal and geothermal power plants. I've put oil out of business. We mainly just use it for lubrication now, and we've got plenty for that without ever having to drill any more.

I've built a few hydroelectric plants too. I'm aware that huge dams cause problems, but sometimes it's been either that or oil, gas and nuclear, and I stamp out oil, gas and nuclear.

(I confess that I still don't understand hydrogen fuel cells. Whenever I read or hear about them I always think: "Oh the humanity" etc. I still don't know how to categorize them: dirty, clean, safe, dangerous?)

I promote research into ever more efficient and clean ways for humans to do what we do, both by writing and speaking inspirationally about the importance of this transformation, and, through my political connections, by making sure that the educational and research infrastructure in technology and engineering thrives.

5 years from now I will have become the first person to win Nobel Prizes in both the Literature and Peace categories. 5 years from now the weather already will have begun to calm back down, and people will already be able to breathe easier again, literally, and to see more stars again at night. Because of me. All because of ME.

I Am Not Guilty Of Tsundoku!

At openculture.com, Jonathan Crow informs us that

The Japanese word tsundoku [...] means buying books and letting them pile up unread. The word dates back to the very beginning of modern Japan, the Meiji era (1868-1912) and has its origins in a pun. Tsundoku, which literally means reading pile, is written in Japanese as 積ん読. Tsunde oku means to let something pile up and is written 積んでおく. Some wag around the turn of the century swapped out that oku (おく) in tsunde oku for doku (読) – meaning to read. Then since tsunde doku is hard to say, the word got mushed together to form tsundoku.

I repeatedly had to try to convince my mother that I was not guilty of tsundoku: "I've read some of them all the way through, I've read at least a part of all of them, and each and every one of them may prove to be very crucial at any moment for reference! If they weren't I'd get rid of them!"

And it was all true! Ask some of the local used-book dealers if I haven't sold a few books to them!

And because she was a great Mom, she either tried to understand or tried to seem like she didn't think I was full of it on the subject of the books when she was around me, or both. She and I loved each other very much, but we were also very different in many ways. I'm sure she and other non-tsundoku would get together and commiserate about their tsundoku friends and relatives --

-- except that I, as I said, am not tsundoku! Maybe some people somewhere actually are, but not me! I'm making intensive use of all of this stuff! Don't try to change me! Get away from my books! No, I do NOT want a Kindle, thankyouverymuch! I'll gladly take a MacArthur or a Nobel, though!

No Nobel For These Guys

In this post I already mentioned Joyce and Wittgenstein and Doeblin and Musil and Ginsberg and Pound and Strindberg and Ibsen. Let us not forget:

Brecht.

Tolstoy. Hello.

Borges. (Yes: this is making me feel better.)

Nabokov.

Proust. (PROUST!!!!)

Mark For Crying Out Loud Twain Ladies And Gentlemen.

I apologize that it took me this long to mention: Gertrude Stein. Has the Nobel Committee ever apologized about her? I don't think so.

Zola. (ZOLA!!!!!)

Chekhov!

If I didn't mention your favorite writer who didn't win -- James, Woolf, Burgess, whomever -- that probably means that I'm okay with their not having won, and not that I forgot to mention them. Especially Burgess. I'm actually GLAD Burgess didn't win. Abridge Finnegan's Wake, pfffff... And that's not the only reason. Burgess also said and wrote other things which made one think he was the kind of simp who'd abridge Finnegan's Wake.

What Do I Have In Common With James Joyce And Ludwig Wittgenstein?

Well, first of all, obviously, they could write their asses off, like I can. They were autistic, I'm autistic. Joyce (1882 -1941) and Wittgenstein (1889-1951) didn't win the Nobel Prize in Literature (and it's not awarded posthumously), and I haven't won it yet. I'm not dead, but I'm freakin 54. Dead, no, grumpy, yes.

Doeblin, Musil, Allen Ginsberg, Ezra Pound, -- didn't win Nobels. All those Scandanavian writers nobody's ever heard of who won the Nobel Prize for Literature, you know who didn't? August Strindberg and Henrik Ibsen.

Today they announced the 2015 Literature Nobel, and as you can see, I'm not taking it well. They awarded it to some Belorussian lady, I'm sure she's a wonderful person and very deserving, yada yada, and that her books are magnificent, blah blah blah.

So. Maybe I'll have a great year between now and next October, a huge year, become rich and famous. If I do, of course, it will greatly increase my odds of winning a Nobel ("for his hilarious, poignant and profound blog posts about why he deserves it"), and of course, because of the Tom Petty Ab-So-Lute-Ly Backwards Law of Microeconomics, it will also mean that I will no longer NEED one.

James Joyce really could've used one, that guy dedicated himself to his art, and his art didn't sell during his lifetime. Vincent Van Gogh all over again except that Joyce handled the commercial failure and lack of fame much better. (And better than I am at the moment, yeah, yeah.) I don't know whether Wittgenstein really needed a Nobel, he had a day job as a Cambridge professor.

But it still woulda been nice.

Still. Most Nobel laureates have been magnificent writers, that's why I feel I'm not going out on a limb to say that Svetlana Alexievich probably is too. Who knows, maybe she's so magnificent, and the prize will give her enough recognition, that it will be she who finally turns human life away from its nightmarish aspects, and then I won't need a Nobel even if I don't make a huge splash.

Whatever.

Outstanding Articles Which Have Been Published So Far Talking Me Up For The Nobel Prize -IN- Literature

It's always possible that some have been published but haven't yet come to my attention, but the only such articles I know of are ones written by myself. And I won't lie to you, that's a little bit discouraging. But faint heart never won fair lady, it's always darkest before the dawn, if I don't believe in myself why should I expect others to believe in me, once more into the breach, yada yada.

Let's start with a piece which appeared in March in the prestigious blog The Wrong Monkey entitled Let's Get Serious And Get Me the 2015 Nobel Prize For Literature. Well, first off, it's got a nice straightforward title, right to the point. It underscores how winning the Nobel Prize -IN- Literature is basically a 2-step process: 1) A writer writes wicked cool outstanding poetry and/or prose -- so, yeah, I got that covered already, and 2) others recognize the outstanding nature of what the writer has written. They spread the word. The piece begins with a discussion of the Tom Petty Ab-So-Lute-Ly Bass-Ackwards Law of Microeconomics, which at first glance might seem to undercut my case: I actually need that Nobel, and Petty's Law states that someone's need for something is in inverse proportion to their chances of getting it. But if you stop your consideration of the matter at that point, you may be completely missing the entire point of Petty's Law: Petty formulated it in order to encourage others to break it, to work against the Ab-So-Lute-Ly Bass-Ackwardness. Laws of economics are completely different from those of physics in their great degree of mutability. You can break these laws and very often you should if you can. Petty's Law states what is and should not be. Awarding me the 2015 Nobel Prize -IN- Literature would not merely break Petty's Law, it would resoundingly smash it. The economic consequences would be breathtaking.

In the same article I also vow that when I win the Nobel, my Nobel Lecture, in its entirelty, will be thank yu verr much pleez, and mock Nobel laureate Ernest Hemingway, who of course deserves it.

Moving on: in April, in the same prominent blog, The Wrong Monkey, there appeared the essay You Are Feeling Very Sleepy... In retrospect, it occurs to me that this article, in addition to serving the purpose of hypnotizing readers of The Wrong Monkey and filling them with joyous determination to ensure that I win the Nobel, can also be read aloud by those readers in order to hypnotize still others.

Thirdly, we come to a marvelously-crafted piece of prose entitled Apparently Some Of You Still Need Some Convincing That I Deserve The Nobel Prize In Literature, published in May in a brilliant blog known as The Wrong Monkey. Written by me. This article underscores both the urgency of people's action on behalf my winning the Nobel -- even more urgent now than when the piece was first published -- and some of the reasons why it's important that I win. Such as how badly I want certain things I can't afford at present, things like solid-platinum watches. Res ipsa loquitur; however, I suppose I could add that although I mostly refer to platinum wrist watches, because wrist watches are mostly what are made today, especially for the high end of the market, I would have no objection whtsoever to owning platinum pocket watches. Nor to gold watches. I think rose gold is pretty cool.

And of course, all of the over 700 posts which have appeared on the blog so far solidly make the case that I am brilliant and deserve the Nobel, and the world deserves to know such quality writing better, and winning the Nobel will aid in that noble cause by making me much more famous.

Excelsior!

Apparently Some Of You Still Need Some Convincing That I Deserve The Nobel Prize In Literature

(It seems it's "in Liturature," not "for Literature." "In Literature" sounds strange to me -- but that's okay, it's their prize and they can call it whatever they want. Just seems kinda strange.)

Why do you still need convincing? *turning toward those of you who are convinced* I know! Good question! *turning back toward the general readership* Whatever the bizarre reasons may be, I've examined the stats for this blog, and some of you aren't yet convinced -- because if you were, you'd be excitedly talking non-stop about how awesome I am and how deserving of the Nobel Prize, and linking my blog and tweeting and emailing about it and putting the blog's address in print ads and billboards and so forth, and if all of you were doing that, it would show in the stats. If Oprah and Chris Matthews and Larry King and David Letterman and Harold Bloom and Conan O'Brien and Rachel Maddow and GA Wells and Bruce Springsteen and William H Gass and Barack Obama had all given my blog rave reviews on the same day, it would have shown in the stats. That's all I'm going to say about the stats right now because the stats are the confidential bidniss of me and Blogspot, and our bidniss ain't yo bidniss. No offense. It's gist bidniss.

Anyway -- the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature will be awarded 5 months from now, maybe even a little bit less than 5 months, and I've examined the statistics for this blog concerning the volume of my readership, and if current trends continue, I will have to be considered a dark horse for this year's literature prize. It's not that more popular = more likely to win the Nobel. Don't worry, Dan Brown will never win it. Neither will Stephen King or John Grisham or any of those other Bozos who can't write worth a tiny speck of poop and are always clogging up the bestseller lists, making the interaction between good writers and discerning readers much, much more difficult than it should be. Only a handful of people need to be aware that my writing exists in order for me to be awarded the Nobel -- the handful of people who actually award the prize. But getting those people to read this blog and/or the manuscripts of my 2 complete and still-unpublished novels is easier said than done. I've researched the award process a little in the past 2 months, since I published the post Let's Get Serious And Get Me The 2015 Nobel Prize For Literature, and it appears that literary editors of leading publications, and maybe also some people such as prominent critics, give some input to the Nobel folks as to who they think is worthy, among the writers of their particular country. Makes sense: it's a big world, hundreds of countries in it, the Nobel people need some help organizing the competition. And of course Nobel laureates of previous years also have a big say in each new prize. And as I mentioned back in March in that previous post, most winners have already been at least somewhat famous before they win. A few of them have been among those rare birds, bestselling authors who also don't stink as writers.

I don't know any Nobel laureates personally. Nor am I personally acquainted with the editors of The New Yorker or the Kenyon Review. Obviously: if those folks were aware of my existence, they would be clamoring to publish my work, and as yet they are not. I need to get some people's attention. I need to get onto their radar.

The way I've imagined this happening is that my blog would go viral, and become one of the most widely-visited blogs of all time, and far and away the most popular one in the history-philosophy-belles-lettres category. I'd go to bed one night, sleep the sleep of the just for having written well and done other good and noble deeds all day, and rise the next morning to find that I'd become famous overnight, that my blog had broken the Internet and that so much media would be camped out on my street, hoping for a snapshot of me or a word with me, that the police would have to be called just to unblock the street enough that it would be possible for my neighbors to drive on it and get to their jobs or wherever they needed to be.

For the sake of sanity on my block, I would have to move out. Luxury hotels would be jostling each other for the opportunity to comp me, Rolex and Omega would each try to outdo the other in giving me a greater number of gold and platinum watches, in the hope of it being more likely that one of their watches would be seen on my wrist than one of the competition's watches. Same with free clothes and many other items. And of course the quantity of free books, every publisher going all-out hoping for a blurb -- the quantity of books would be simply cuckoo.

But not nearly as crazy as the bidding war between publishers for the right to publish my works. Even before I had an agent, headlines would claim that the bidding had reached 8 figures -- and those headlines would be accurate.

And so forth. I'd be so famous that I'd be famous just for how famous I was, like Dan Brown or Justin Bieber, and just as in their cases, that would make me even more famous.

That's how I picture this going, but of course that's not the only way it could go. The editors at the Kenyon Review or The New Yorker or whatever, the people at some other rag could find out about me before I'm completely famous, and they could be a part of the process of making me famous, rather than my blog just going viral before any of them have a chance to act.

There are various ways this could go. I could actually get published by means of a publisher or periodical or agent getting back to me about one of my submissions or queries. Anything's possible.

But again: we've got 5 months to make this happen, people! 5 months or maybe even a little bit less. Talk, tweet, email, link, go, go, go!!!