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 But getting those people to read this blog and/or the manuscripts of my 2 complete and still-unpublished novels is easier said than done.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!!!

I Don't Know Whether Mechanical Watches Would Survive An Electromagnetic Pulse

An electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, accompanies the blast of a nuclear bomb and disables all electronics within the range of the bomb's blast. Of course, this tended not to be noticed in bomb blasts because anything the pulse had disabled had also been destroyed by the blast and heat and radiation. But then devices began to be built which would produce just the pulse, and not the nuclear blast. The point of weaponizing such devices would be to cripple the enemy's electronics without killing people. As it was phrased in the Soderberg-Clooney Ocean's Eleven's rather unrealistic depiction of a big EMP, the desired result would be not Hiroshima, but the 17th century.

As both an admirer of mechanical watches and a person who attempts to be realistic and rational, until recently I had thought that since, oh, 1980 or so, there had been very little, and ever less, rational reason for making or buying mechanical watches. Which is fine: there's also no rational reason to make and buy paintings or Ferraris. There's a lot more to life than rationality.

But then I thought, Wait a minute: EMP's! 17th century? This would mean that suddenly the possessers of mechanical, wind-up or automatic watches would instantly go from eccentrics and conspicuous consumers to kings and queens among men, because when it came to time-keeping, everyone would have to rely on things like clocks powered by pendulums, wind-up portable alarm clocks -- and those mechanical watches. Fine jeweler's stores, with more mechanical watches and fewer quartz-powered ones, would become logistical centers from which We Would Rebuild.

But then I thought again: wait a minute, maybe an EMP would have an effect more drastic than the 17th century: mechanical watches are full of many tiny delicate metal parts. Would an EMP magnetize all those parts? If so, the mechanical watches would be just as dead as any electronic timekeeper. (And would large metal objects as well as tiny ones be magnetized? Would cars and trucks and trains be piled together in big magnetic clumps?)

So I researched the question of how mechanical watches would hold up under an EMP blast, and I still don't know the answer, because I don't know enough about physics to evaluate the answers I've found, nor the people answering. There are some people who say yes, the watches would hold up just fine and their wearers would indeed be kings and queens among men, and there are others who say no, mechanical watches would be magnetized and therefore destroyed in all their function, and still others who maintain that only a few mechanical watches, perhaps including those with Omega's new co-axial movement, would survive and still function, and the rest would be completely useless, some temporarily and many forever. (No, I have no idea whatsoever how Omega's new co-axial movement works, or whether Omega is massively overhyping it or whether it truly is a great advance in timekeeping, or anything. No idea whatsoever. I do know that NASA officially approved Omega watches for astronauts to wear in space, and I have no idea whatsoever how much importance, if any, to attach to that fact, or if it means anything at all when comparing Omegas to Rolexes.) I don't know how to evaluate the technical arguments made by the people on either side, nor do I know how to tell who is to be taken seriously as an authority on this question, and who is to physics as Dan Brown is to history.



My general (very very amateur) impression is that there may well not be enough data yet to know how mechanical watches would withstand an EMP.

Or is the gummit sitting on huge amounts of the relevant information, deliberately collected during its bomb tests over the decades, and on huge stockpiles of Omegas? (Duh-duh-DUHHHH.)