Adrienne and I will be scouting Northern California for a few days, investigating to locate a new site you might say. But fear not! Portions of this program have been previously pre-recorded. I will return to wondering what to say on the 17th. As always, your comments are welcome.

This is a simple law of nature, but one which is very handy:

If your offer sounds good, the human will wonder what’s wrong with it?

That’s it.

It’s human nature to worry if an offer sounds good. Since you know they’re going to do that, make up a “downside”, and make this downside clear in your offer. Anyone reading your offer will find this vastly reassuring.

For example, if you rent cars for less than the best-known brand, you might say something like, “We’re only number two, so we try harder.” In this successful ad from the 50’s, Avis pointed out that they were not number one. It was a drawback, freely offered, a part of the headline. Readers of magazines stopped, and thought, and decided that they didn’t care about Avis’s drawback, being second. Readers concluded that the downside didn’t matter, and then went out and, greatly reassured that they knew the reason for the lower price, rented Avis’s cars by the thousands.

Knowing this important secret of the universe, go forth and prosper.

San Anselmo, California, June 6, 2003:Adrienne will be dropping by the Department of Motor Vehicles, to renew her license, to take her pretty picture and provide a thumbprint.

She has an appointment for next week, but she cannot go to her appointment, due to the convenient DMV voicemail-appointment system.

It sounded like a good idea.

She’s a dogwalker, and sometimes brings playpals to visit our border collie, Tulip. Tulip’s best friend, a loud and brassy retriever, was visiting at lunchtime, and Adrienne thought this afforded time enough for eternal voicemail, so she called the DMV.

After selecting English and hearing important information about how they will monitor the conversation — what conversation? — she heard about their hours, and how to get to the place, which she passes daily when she’s working.

Then came another series of options: “Please press 1 to make an appointment … You have pressed 1 to make an appointment; is this correct? Please press 1 if correct, or press 2 if not correct, or press 3 to hear these choices again.”

Tulip and pal are standing beside her. Half their attention is on her — let’s play ball! — and half they’re scouting for intruder dogs on the sidewalk. Adrienne ignores them, frowning in concentration. The voicemail has reached an important point.

She has been offered one date or another date. She has selected one date. She has confirmed one date. She is receiving an Important Message: “Please have a pencil handy to write down your Appointment Code. You must bring the Appointment Code to your Appointment. Your Appointment Code is-“

A corgi and a ratty-looking terrier skitter down the sidewalk, dragging a young boy on a leash. “Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap!” exclaims Tulip’s friend. “Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow!” exclaims Tulip. The dogs scrabble at the window. The DMV voicemail, completely inaudible, drones on.

“-C45”, it says, “Remember, you must bring your Appointment Code to your Appointment. Thank you for calling the Department of Motor Vehicles. For information about our hours and locations, please press 1.”

So Adrienne cannot go to her appointment. She does not have her important Appointment Code. She’ll just have to drop by.

Sometimes that’s just how it goes.

Dave Winer sez:

“Consider the sequence of developments in publishing:

“In the 70’s, to run a publication, you needed a million-dollar printing plant, or you needed to lease time on one, to print and distribute your publication.

“In the 80’s, with the advent of laser printers, GUIs and desktop publishing software, the cost dropped to $100,000. So more people could publish.

“In the 90’s, publishing technology took off in a new way, all-electronic, and the cost dropped to a few thousand dollars.

“Enter weblogs, and the cost drops to hundreds of dollars, maybe even tens. If you want to do a publication, all you need is the time to write, and an idea to write about. The number of publications goes up every time the rules are rewritten. Now, factor out the non-publication oriented websites. Those are not weblogs. Everything else is.”

Some visitors may not know that I collect seashells. My collection is quite extensive. In fact, it’s so large that I cannot store my seashells at my house, and so I store my seashells on various beaches around the world. Perhaps you have seen some of them.

Evolution isn’t only for the birds. Artforms also come and go, develop, mutate, expand, reach dead ends, or evolve into something new.

The short essay. I think that means spelling out an opinion, or writing about something as if you know what you’re talking about. Do we really know? Maybe. Maybe not.

Once upon a time, cuneaform writing evolved, apparently to keep records of how much grain was stored, then perhaps adapted to sending messages. Generally this would involve land, money, or women, most likely. At the time, hired guns called scribes were the only ones who could either read it, or inscribe it.

But with the invention of moveable type, things changed.

The possession of writing by certain people was a power tool. Writing evolved over and over again. The technology of the times were different alphabets (pictoral, syllabic), including numeral systems (Roman, Arabic), and materials on which to write (clay, papyrus, vellum).

Educated ancients thought science worth keeping, in Phoenician, Greek, and Roman times. Priest classes found writing powerful, and used it to store vast amounts of holy gobblygook, as is proper.

The development of syllabic alphabets made the use of moveable type feasible, and the Gutenberg press came into a world where writing mainly stored oral tradition. After printing the bible many times, the printer looked around.

You know how it is. Give a man a hammer, and he looks around for nails to pound. It was natural that the press expanded to print more and more and more.

As taxes, civilization, and engineering tamed the wilds and the roads, sending letters expanded, as did distribution of books. In between the letter and the book, emerged newspapers.

You gotta fill up a newspaper, right? Reporting news, the telling of stories (Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle), and the owner’s essaying to splain the world filled newspapers. Thus the essay. As literature became more accessible with the torture of young children- Oops, I meant the development of schools, then an appreciation of writing, and of essays expanded.

By the time of Marconi and Tesla, fiction of all types was flying around the world in books, magazines, and newspapers. Essays rode along. With Tesla’s invention of radio, and Marconi’s invention of radio, a new medium searched for content. Distributing news by radio worked well, and so did distribution of music and fiction. Thus the Green Hornet, the Lone Ranger, and the soap operas. Rural farm electrification in the 1940’s made radio universal in the USA.

Evolution continues. Evolution’s rule is that the old form doesn’t vanish. The old and the new exist side by side, and begin to separate in function, to specialize. Like the right and left sides of your brain (visual and language), the two completely nerve transmission systems in your body (fast and slow), and the two completely different circulatory systems in your body (lymph and blood), both the old and the new coexist, but now handle different tasks.

Thus, handwriting took over from verbal storytelling, specializing in long tales. Then printed writing emerged, specializing in news, fiction, and essays. Radio emerged, taking fiction from magazines and music from live venues. The magazines were left to specialize, and magazines today all focus on specialized subjects. Movies arrived to take drama from the stage, and in the 50’s, television took drama from the movies and the radio, leaving movies with spectacles and radio with music.

And the short essay? What has happened to the short essay?

Like the short story, this artform has languished. Oh, great short essays have been written. Look in any New Yorker, or any trade-oriented magazine, or political newspapers. But the short essay has not been widely appreciated in our time.

But perhaps this may be changing. Perhaps the short essay — such as this one you are reading now — has found a new home, on the internet, in the weblog.

Denton, Texas, 1965: I majored in engineering, but enjoyed English classes better, so I took a Creative Writing class, and then I was hooked.

Having no clue, I bumbled with artistic ferver. Like every young person, my every anguish of the past was high drama, so if I wrote about anything I knew, I couldn’t write worth a damn. No perspective. Ralph the Cat was a kind of accident.

One time over beer, my friend Lefevre had told me some stories about a cat. Thus, one day stumped for a story, I wrote these anaecdotes, and added some of my own. It wasn’t really a story. And, translated, my teacher’s comments said: this stinks.

I rewrote it, and it was one of those days when I pondered a certain scene, and then with lots of cigarettes and coffee going, sat down to write, and suddenly the characters just started talking, and I was typing as fast as possible, recording what they said.

After a bit of hashing, I’d created some characters, some interplay, a flashback opening, and a quirky ending. I don’t know how this stuff came. It fit no particular pattern.

The Avesta, our school literary newspaper, was run by John, who now is an editor at the New Yorker magazine. In New York. At the time, we submitted stories for the contest, to see who would win cash and be printed. The actual number one winner was asked to make story changes, and being a true artiste, he righteously refused. Thus my story squeeked into third place.

I won $25, and I still have it. Do you believe that? No? Well, you’re correct. I spent it long ago, probably immediately. I was an artiste, too.

Ralph the Cat made me a hero in the tiny world of Hob Nob. Just around the corner from my cool apartment, this was a cafe catering to students, the cool cafe for us artistes. The Hob Nob was run by gruff Mr. Burns, and his son Larry, whom nothing phased. “Crazy college kids,” he’d say.

One early morning I’d been up all night, and had no money because I’d spent it on cigarettes. I saw the bread truck parked on the empty street. When the man wheeled his cart out of sight, I nipped into the open door, and ran away with a loaf of bread. Larry Burns saw me. He just chuckled. Crazy college kids.

It was great, being a famous person at the Hob Nob. We all congratulated each other.

We were artistes.