More on the PANZ Book Design Awards

A guest post from Sam Elworthy, president of the Publishers’ Association of New Zealand, in reply to my comments on two of the judges being finalists in this year’s awards:

Thanks for the interest in the PANZ Book Design Awards, Stephen. The Publishers Association decided a few years back that the best judges for book design awards were people who actually design books — and that the judges we wanted were the very best in that field. And each year we also have a lay judge (this year, Noelle McCarthy) to speak for the book consumer.

To have the best book designers as judges means that some of them will have entries in the awards. The BEST design awards have a similar issue — design practitioners judging other practitioners, and their own work often being in the finals list. It works, and isn’t an issue, because there are clear procedures in place for the judges to recuse themselves and to exert independence. PANZ also have clear procedures for dealing with these issues as they arise. We’re happy with the high calibre of the judges and the integrity of the decision-making process.

Too few women? It has turned out, for various reasons, that this year Noelle is the sole woman judge but that hasn’t been the balance in past judging line-ups. We don’t believe it’s useful to operate a rigid quota system.

UPDATE

On Twitter, Jared Davidson comments:

@GuySomerset @samelworthy @StephenStra I'm a finalist this year & I would def prefer to have designers as judges, finalists or not.
— Jared Davidson (@sewingfreedom) June 16, 2014

The 2014 PANZ Book Design Awards

Today the Publishers Association of New Zealand, aka PANZ, announced the shortlists in its 2014 Book Design Awards. Congratulations to all finalists – all the books I have seen are very worthy. But.

There are seven categories: best illustrated book; best non-illustrated book; best children’s book; best educational book; best cookbook; best typography; and best cover.

There are four judges: convenor Gideon Keith, a book designer; Alan Deare, a book designer; Cameon Gibb, a graphic designer; and Noelle McCarthy, a broadcaster and book reviewer.

Here is the awkward part: Alan Deare is a finalist in four categories, and Gideon Keith is a finalist in one.

This is not meant as a criticism of the judges: I am sure that proper process was followed in the judging and that any judge under consideration left the room when his book was being discussed. But it’s not a good look, is it. This is not the judges’ fault – it is the organiser’s fault. Looking at you, PANZ. None of the judges should have been put in this position – the Montana/NZ Post awards were always very good about making sure this visible conflict of interest could never happen.

When I was a judge of the design awards a decade ago with Adrian Clapperton and Dorothy Vinicombe, none of us was working as a book designer though Adrian had a lot of magazine design experience, I had a little and we all had book nous, especially Dorothy. Other panels I recall from that time were the same – never a possibility of a conflict of interest.

Also: book design is dominated by women. It’s a bit odd not to have a design-literate or design-experienced woman on the panel.

These awards are really good, really valuable. But they won’t be taken seriously if they are run like this.

UPDATE

On Facebook an author friend comments:

The part where they say thank you and shake their own hands will be good.

Adventures in the book trade #6

To Tauranga last weekend to do two sessions at Escape!, their mini literary festival. It was very good – well-organised, a wide range of authors, good attendance and, as always at these events, good gossip from the authors.

One told me about her recent experience with a Certain Major Publisher. In a chapter on Roman food, i.e. from Rome 2000 years ago, she wrote that they couldn’t use ingredients from the new world such as tomatoes, potatoes and corn. The editor corrected this to “from New World”.

The author changed it back to “from the new world” on the page proofs.

The editor corrected this again to “from New World”.

The author changed it back again to “from the new world” on the second set of page proofs .

This must have annoyed the editor, because on the final set she changed it to “from the supermarket”.

Wintec Press Club: Duncan Garner edition

The Wintec Press Club meets for lunch three times a year in Hamilton: guests are the students of the Wintec journalism course, important media types from the Waikato and Auckland, politicians, famous sporty types, and me. The host is Steve Braunias, Editor in Residence on the course.

Present last Friday for the first lunch of 2014 were former National and Act leader Don Brash, independent MP Brendan Horan, local Labour list MP Sue Moroney and local National real MP Tim McIndoe. Sadly National minister Simon Bridges was a no-show, as was Labour’s non-candidate Julian Wilcox. I was seated at a table with two sparky students (Rachael from Otumoetai and Jason from Whakatane, so we bonded over our Bay of Plenty origins), Waikato Times columnist Joshua Drummond, Listener and Herald columnist Toby Manhire and a very nice chap from the Act Party called David Seymour.

David and I were the first to take our seats. Showing my deep interest in politics in this election year, I asked him, “Are you standing as a candidate somewhere in the Waikato?”

He replied, “No, I’m standing in Epsom.” Oh, that David Seymour. The David Seymour upon whose shoulders rest the hopes of Act getting back into Parliament and possibly National being able to form a government, so he is kind of central to the election. The poor bastard said he has knocked on 6000 doors in Epsom already but worse was to come – Josh and Toby took their seats, to his left, and climbed into him about Act policy. I suppose he has to get used to this sort of thing – people being either entirely ignorant of politics (me) or passionate about it (Josh and Toby).

Steve insists that at these events Chatham House rules apply so nothing that is said can be reported, but I have never paid attention to him before (see my accounts of the lunches starring John Campbell, Jesse Mulligan, Robyn Malcolm, Greg King, Paul Holmes, Michael Laws and Winston Peters) and don’t intend to start now.

In his witty introduction to the guest speaker, Duncan Garner, Steve used the phrase “temporarily sober” but my notes are unclear if this referred to himself or Garner. Possibly both.

Garner was very amusing. He told lots of stories from his career, in the order in which they happened, and seemed to be winging his speech without notes. But every time he lost the thread he finished the anecdote and shouted, “And that’s why journalism is important!” The students loved it.

He said that he at 22, after only three weeks in the Press Gallery, he was summoned to then PM Jim Bolger’s office with a few others. There was whisky. Bolger left at 2am, Garner and the others left some time later. Next morning Bolger opened a childcare centre in the Hutt Valley, bright as a button, and grinned at Garner, knowing that he was suffering.

Later, Garner covered an election campaign when National hired a plane so the politicians and journalists could fly with Bolger and a chilly bin full of booze in the aisle, drinking their way around the North Island: “No one reported it.”

And this, he said, was one difference Helen Clark made, “the end of the whisky bottle”. She managed the journalists brilliantly, but didn’t depend on getting them pissed.

Garner had a great story about the Key-Banks tea tapes, which he had. John Key’s main worry about them getting out led to him ringing every night, asking “Did I swear? Did I swear?” And then there was waiting to doorstop Winston Peters in Parliament, hiding behind a pillar so Patrick Gower couldn’t see him as he would know that something was up.

Many of his stories were about collecting politicians’ scalps, e.g. David “tennis ball” Benson-Pope, and he was pretty much focused on political journalism. Rachael, the student next to me, had no interest in this kind of reporting, no interest in radio or TV: she wanted to be a feature writer for a serious magazine like the Listener. Probably, depressingly, all the other students see themselves as TV stars one day.

Garner is now working for Radio Live which, he says, is “not about scalps” but debating issues: “It’s not talkback, it’s interviews”. So he has covered print, TV and radio – all the different mainstream media the students will consider for their careers. From the students’ point of view, he was probably the most useful speaker of all the Wintec Press Club lunches I have attended.

Throughout his talk there was a bit of baiting of Brendan Horan. Well, you would, wouldn’t you. For example, on post-election coalition negotiations, Garner said, “You can’t trust Winston, can you, Brendan?” There followed some baiting about Winston’s shameful smears of Horan as a New Zealand Jimmy Savile. Horan did not take kindly to this and was heard to say – I didn’t hear it but trust my witness – “”I’m going to deck the c**t.” Afterwards Garner's people kept him away from Horan, while some locals kept Horan away from Garner. So, no decking.

Guyon Espiner was a bit of a theme, the friendship and rivalry between them. At question time Herald journalist David Fisher asked, “Guyon has been your main competition for a long time. What’s the best dicking you’ve given him?”

Random quotes:

I can’t recall the question about Key and the GCSB but the answer was: “That’s how I’d do it, two minutes every night, five nights a week, just to fuck him off.”

To Don Brash: “Do you remember this story, Don?”

“Not clearly, no.”

“Well, it’s true.”

Later, mid-story, “Do you remember it now?”

“Yes.”

And then there was a question about journalistic ethics. Braunias quickly shut that down: “You know you’re coming to the end of the Press Club when people start talking about ethics.”

There were a dozen T-shirts as a give-away, courtesy of Brendan Horan, emblazoned “No Bullying”. As a distinguished graduate of the Wintec journalism course Josh Drummond was given one. I suggested he should get Horan to sign it but he wimped out and went to his wedding rehearsal instead.

Afterwards I made my excuses and left but all the others, apart from Brash, went to the after-match function at Bar 101 which Steve had advertised as having a pole. 

Waikato Times letter of the week #49

From the 29 May edition. Spelling, grammar and punctuation (or lack of it) are all exactly as published:

More surveillance

Who watches the watchers, the abuses of their authority are well documented. Surveillance will be increased with the desire to increase the CCTV within Auckland, the plan extend it throughout the nation with entry provided to various agencies. 

To protect us, the catch cry from whom does the actions of a few miscreants mean all are accessed, digitised, stored and monitored.

Is that information gathered, if shared without authorisation, whom actions that crime? 

Can a citizen request to be advised, each time it is shared, provided with all information gathered. Is it correct, is it used in context? 

A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both and deserve neither.

Generations fought and died for the freedoms, now blithely served up to the technology gods.

PAUL EVANS-McLEOD

Hamilton

Distance looks their way

Breaking news from London: Steve Braunias complains about the dawn’s early light being too early at 4:30am. First-world problem: no sympathy.

Also from London, Paul Ewen brings news of the forthcoming issue of Five Dials, an online magazine produced by Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin. It has around 15,000 regular subscribers, and its free issues are downloaded as PDFs by, he says, up to 200,000 people: “Contributors include everyone from Nobel Prize winners to Arcade Fire, Noam Chomsky to Harry Shearer.” He almost lost me at Arcade Fire and Noam Chomsky but I did like this:

Five Dials is best downloaded, printed out and enjoyed (we hope) away from the computer.

The previous issue, #31, had contributions from Lydia Davis, Georges Simenon, Zadie Smith and Yevgeny Zamyatin among others. Topics included lovelorn manual labourers, professional chefs and the world’s most hated book.

Issue #29 investigated Nabokov’s breakfast choices; issue #28’s topics included Sonic Youth, Kate Bush, Will Self, Alban Berg, poltergeists, Bruce Willis (and the henchman he killed), west London rich people and Joan Didion as a superhero.  

Paul writes:

On Sunday, June 1st, Five Dials is launching a very special New Zealand edition of the magazine. The issue will focus purely on the work of New Zealand writers – from the poetry of C.K. Stead to the graphic novel work of Sarah Laing. It will also feature correspondence between Janet Frame and Charles Brasch, and artworks from Shane Cotton and Francis Upritchard. Plus much more. The launch of the issue is taking place in London as part of the Australia & NZ Literary & Arts Festival, and speakers at the event include C.K. Stead, Stella Duffy, and Paula Morris.  

Also at the festival will be Tim Winton, Clive James, Paul Kelly, Mandy Hager, Anthony McCarten, Fay Weldon, Anton Oliver, Fleur Adcock, Richard Wolfe, and, inevitably, Steve Braunias.  

No word yet on the full contents of issue #32 of Five Dials but that cast-list looks promising. I’ll post the link as soon as it’s online.

UPDATE

It’s out! A 2.1 Mb PDF download here. Table of Contents:

Correspondents: Amidst the rubble and broken glass, John Ewen learns to go without

Three Pieces: by Micah Ferris

An Address: Frankfurt, 2012.By Tina Makereti

Three Lists: by Lynn Jenner

Jobs: The burden of working at the Mansfield birthplace.By Ashleigh Young

Graphic Novel: Katherine Mansfield considers her hair. By Sarah Laing

Two Poems: by Alice Miller

Two Remembrances: Paul Ewen accompanies a friend home; Stella Duffy watches rugby

Music: Roy Colbert was there

Three Poems: by C.K. Stead

Fiction: by Paula Morris; by Pip Adam

What I’m reading #119

Toby Young in the Spectator explains why so many Brits get top jobs in the US media: because they are “ghastly knuckle-dragging troglodytes and, when it comes to man’s inhumanity to man, about as sentimental as a bog brush”. In a good way, obviously. Quote unquote:

You can get a sense of what American journalists’ priorities are from looking at a 96-page report that the New York Times has just produced about… the New York Times. I’m not talking about the words, obviously, which are far too boring to read, but the pictures. On page three of the report, there’s a photograph of the paper’s top brass gathered around a computer terminal, having just discovered that the Grey Lady has won yet another Pulitzer prize. The staff are gathered around them on the stairs — hundreds of them — and one of the editors is looking up and humbly applauding them: ‘Well done, folks. You knocked it out of the park… again.’ 

That’s what most American journalists care about — winning prizes that affirm just what noble tribunes of democracy they are. In Britain, we have less lofty ambitions. For us, it’s all about selling newspapers.

Edward St Aubyn’s novel Lost for Words, a satire on book prizes, has won a book prize,  the 15th Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. Quote unquote:

The prize for winning the award is a locally bred Old Spot Gloucestershire pig, and a selection of Bollinger champagne, which will be presented to St Aubyn at the Hay Festival on Saturday May 24.

The Telegraph review was less enthusiastic but found lots to admire. Quote unquote:

I wonder, for example, whether the retired spy-turned-thriller-writer who chaired the Booker panel in 2011 will read the bits about a civil servant who cranks out spy novels using a computer program called Ghost (you type “assassin” and it spits out “his eyes were cold narrow slits”) with an entirely quiet mind.

That retired spy-turned-thriller-writer would be Dame Stella Rimington, whom we met previously here in 2012.

Matt Nolan at TVHE expresses his views on the 2014 Budget. He is an actual economist so knows what he’s talking about. Quote unquote:

[Our] centre-right party is currently more focused on social inequities than both of our centre-left parties.  I first realised this when Cunliffe took charge, and I said to Labour party supporters “why doesn’t he take on welfare/education instead of IT as his shadow portfolio, and focus on these outcomes” – they told me there was no votes in that, because people don’t really care and there wasn’t much need to do anything different to National.  If that is the case, I don’t know what the left is offering other than industrial subsides – and I find those abhorrent, and a direct affront to social policy issues. 

This is unnatural to me.  I grew up in the 1990s, and had it ingrained in me that National was the party that reduced transfers to the most vulnerable, while Labour was the party who would go the other way.  It is an illustration of how changeable actual political parties are.

A discussion at Tim Worstall’s blog about where the money goes in pop music, after Lily Allen complained about getting only ₤8000 for singing on an ad for retailer John Lewis. Tim rightly points out that songwriters make the dosh – Lennon and McCartney made more than Harrison and Starr, Jagger and Richards more than Wyman and Watts – but the comments, mostly informed, go further. Quote unquote from “Squander Two”:

As the KLF pointed out, music copyright law was written by white Europeans in the 19th century, so songwriting is legally 50% vocal melody, 50% lyrics; had it been written by black Americans in the 20th century, it would be 10% vocal melody, 10% lyrics, 80% groove, and Bo Diddley would have been one of the world’s richest men. Which he arguably deserved to be.

I met Bo Diddley in 1989. In Hollywood, on a movie set, just saying. He was nice – loomingly large, but nice. And so here he is, on 20 November 1955, on the Ed Sullivan Show, performing “Bo Diddley”:

Bonnie and Clyde – and Brigitte Bardot

Today is the 80th anniversary of the deaths of bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, ambushed and shot by police in Black Lake, Louisiana on 23 May 1934. We’ve all seen the 1967 movie starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty but how many of us know the Brigitte Bardot version?

Here she is in 1968 with Serge Gainsbourg performing his song “Bonnie and Clyde”, which appears on both his album Initials B.B and their joint album  Bonnie and Clyde:  

Monitor: Home Paddock

Led Zeppelin and plagiarism

There are recent allegations that Led Zeppelin – specifically, Jimmy Page – nicked a bit:

Accusations of plagiarism in music happen every other day, but what if a song that defined a genre came into question? What if Stairway To Heaven was ripped off another song?Love it or hate it, Led Zeppelin’s 1971 eight minute folk-rock opus is one of the best-known and most covered pieces of modern music. And it is estimated to be worth more than $560 million.The trust of the late Randy California (born Randy Wolfe) from the band Spirit, and the band’s former bassist Mark Andes, want to see California receive a songwriting credit on the coming remastered re-release of the untitled album widely known as Led Zeppelin IV. Their lawyer, Francis Alexander Malofiy, will seek an injunction against the release of the album and also file a copyright infringement lawsuit.

There are also old allegations. The clip below details half a dozen examples of shameless plundering, each time playing the original and then the Led Zep version from their first album. Page plagiarised  minors like Anne Brendon and Jake Holmes and majors like Bert Jansch, Howling Wolf, Albert King and Jeff Beck. It’s a pretty devastating indictment:

The case for the defence is that in the folk and blues tradition you take existing songs and rework them slightly, maybe add a verse here, change a line there, and now it’s your song. The case for the prosecution is that no one was making any money out of songwriting back then and no one got royalties for anything. Led Zeppelin and the equally shameless Rolling Stones were well aware of the value of songwriting credits because they were professional musicians, and the money was huge. To his great credit, Eric Clapton has always been scrupulous about giving writing credits to blues songs he has covered, no matter how different the arrangement from the original. Well, apart from the Albert King solo he copied note for note on for “Strange Brew”.

The Spirit lawsuit is silly. That picking/chord sequence was standard at the time. Led Zeppelin just did better with it than anyone else. It's like suing someone for using C-Am-F-G. Or Neil Young suing Pink Floyd because “Breathe” on Dark Side of the Moon uses the same chord sequence – in the same key! – as his “Down by the River”. These changes were in the air at the time. As an example, the introduction to “Stairway to Heaven” equally derives from Davy Graham’s introduction to his version of “Cry Me a River”:

Let’s leave the last word to Francis Wheen (on Facebook): 

When I started in Fleet Street, soon after the relief of Mafeking, my first editor said to me: “Always remember this simple rule, laddie. ‘Dog Bites Man’ isn’t news. Nor is ‘Jimmy Page Accused of Plagiarism’.”

John Lennon and Yoko Ono on Winston Peters

NZ First leader Winston Peters today implied in Parliament that former NZ First and now independent MP Brendan Horan is a paedophile:

This House should not be used in that way particularly by the Jimmy Savile of New Zealand politics.

And later:

He referred to the word ownership and Jimmy Savile ought to know better than that.

So here are John Lennon and Yoko Ono live in concert with Frank Zappa and the Mothers at the Fillmore East, New York, in 1971, pre-recording their comment on Peters’ behaviour: