Always thrilling when someone reads your work, but...

... nothing has been as personally gratifying as the response to my book on Lakehurst. I've written about legendary film directors, relationships, geek culture and more, but this is something special to me -- and it's made even more special by the fact that old friends, teachers, people I knew in my youth, their parents, and many others are getting it and are interested in it and are reading it. I've gotten random calls at home, emails from people I've never met, invitations to do presentations and interviews, requests to sign books for the holidays, and more.

Considering I just sort of quietly slipped it out there at the last minute, no adverting or promotion outside this blog and Facebook, the positive response has been both surprising and thrilling. I mean, heck, look at how things looked for the book on Christmas Eve (click to embiggen):

Wait, #2 in its category and #10 for all history books? How did that happen?

Granted, those rankings suggest much higher numbers than reality. Maybe one of these days I'll do a "business" post and break down actual sales figures for people. They're not nearly what #10 would imply. But still ... pretty cool.

More important to me, though, has been the response from people with a personal connection to Lakehurst. People seem genuinely eager to dive in and see what their town is all about. That's amazing and wonderful and awesome and makes all the work to write this book worthwhile.

Because ultimately, neither bylines nor money nor praise are worth a damn if people aren't reading and appreciating what you do. And if they are, you've already accomplished everything worth accomplishing.

A new record of ambiance for your sleeping pleasure

If you follow my music blog/archive (which you can add on Facebook here) you may have already seen this, but if not, here is an experiment in sleepy, late-night music I recorded a few months ago but have only just gotten around to tossing out there for people to hear.

This album is guitar-free and vocal-free. It's a sparse record of simple piano, canyon echo drums, cavern bass, and other sounds. Very slow. Methodical. Lots of empty space on this one. Put it on late at night and fall asleep, or early in the morning before you're ready for music or talk radio. The tracks all flow into one another, so it presents itself as one long piece.

(song titles are download links)



Tape Theory
Day of Turmoil, Night of Regret

1) Start of a Day (6:27)
2) Impending Failure (12:12)
3) Weight of Night (8:37)
4) Healing Dawn (8:55)
5) Fog Rolls Off the Mind (6:31)
6) Waiting for a Hopeful Night (6:20)
7) The Sound of Regret (7:49)
8) Generational Patterns (10:05)

This was recorded in FL Studio 9. The cover photo was taken at Cattus Island Park in Toms River, NJ. Others notes here. All songs (c) Eric San Juan 2011.

Art does not require pain; joy is worth celebrating

I'm not much for the whole posting quotes thing, but this quote from Ursula le Guin's award-winning 'Those Who Walked Away From Omelas,' which can be read in full here, strikes me as worth sharing:

"The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain ... But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy."

In the world of art and expression -- literature, film, music, or whatever, take your pick -- how many times have we seen the notion, whether expressed explicitly or by implication, that suffering is needed to create art? That pain is a spark, a trigger, needed for "real" art?

How many times have we seen the idea that unbridled happiness, joy, contentment, that these things are anathema to real, true, moving art?

The great songs are expressions of troubled times and pain. Joyful, happy songs are mere guilty pleasures.

Films that make us smile or laugh or bask in the warm glow of contentment are banal and boring. Films about oppression, suffering, abuse, genocide, and the emotional wreckage of broken human beings are films that win awards.

Happy literature is not good literature. True literature delves into the depths of the human condition ... and the real, true human condition can only be negative. Bleak. Painful.

But that's all a load of crap, really, which le Guin expresses with a beauty I can only hope to one day near. We can squeeze just as much art -- moving art, important art -- out of joy as we can from suffering. Delight is no less a part of the human condition than despair, nor is it less important. The Beatles were no less real artists than their contemporary, Bob Dylan, for dealing in love rather than social ills. It's A Wonderful Life is no less a film for celebrating the joy of being surrounded by loved ones than The Hurt Locker is for its uncompromising look at the psychology of war. And so on.

I'm not an optimist by nature. People who know me know I've a deeply cynical side. I tend to be a grump. Yet that doesn't mean I embrace the idea that you have to suffer for you art. Screw that. Reject that idea. Turn it on its head and kick it to the curb.

Because if you've got beauty in your heart rather than ugliness, well dammit, let it out, call it art, and don't let anyone tell you different.

The Ghosts of Hangar No. 1

The following is a brief excerpt from Lakehurst: Barrens, Blimps & Barons, available now at Amazon and Lulu, as well as at the headquarters of the Lakehurst Historical Society. It recounts one of the many ghost stories that still haunt Navy Lakehurst's famous Hangar No. 1.

As Navy veteran Don Adams recalls, Hangar No. 1 briefly served as a morgue, the results of a disaster that still cannot be explained. Do the ghosts of Hangar No. 1 originate from the now unassuming rooms once used to house those who fell like angels in flame? Some believe they do. Maybe a clue lies with the ghosts.

A long passage once spanned the length of the over eight hundred-foot-long hangar. To this day the doors of what’s left of the passage are still prone to sudden and violent slamming as if restless and angry. A Navy man once walked along this passage in the late evening, at first alone. Then in the distance he saw a fellow Navy man walking towards him. The stranger was in archaic dress blues. A set of half-wings was pinned to the uniform, signifying a certified balloon pilot.

But the last Navy blimp was decommissioned in 1962. There were no more Navy balloon pilots.

The man in the old dress blues approached. He was offered a “hello.” No response. Kept walking. And passed through the startled onlooker, who turned and saw that the balloon pilot was gone.

The full story, along with others, is available in Lakehurst: Barrens, Blimps & Barons. My thanks to the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society for the tour, interviews, and information they provided while I worked on this piece.

A very Wise interview on Geekdom

When Stephen Segal tapped me to take part in writing Geek Wisdom with his team of geeks, there really wasn't any other answer but, "Yes." After all, Stephen isn't just a guy who was my editor on a previous book (Stuff Every Husband Should Know), he's also a friend. Philosophically we come from very similar places, especially with regard to creativity, the human spirit, and our inner geekness.

But better to let Stephen himself explain. In this interview with Wired, he lays out the spark that became the book, the philosophy we plunged into it with, and the great geekdom we left on the cutting room floor.

I especially like this bit of insight:

Whether in a religious or a scientific framework, knowledge and wisdom are two different things. You can be very well educated in the smartest smarts of the day, and still be a careless, thoughtless fool. That’s why Geek Wisdom doesn’t just look for the wisdom IN geek culture, it also looks for the wisdom ABOUT the perils of geekdom that we need to be wary of romanticizing: arrogance, isolation, condescension.

So check out Stephen's interview here, and check out the book, available in hardcover and for Kindle, here.

My Lakehurst book is here, so that's pretty cool

Even though the real work now begins -- I frickin' hate promotion -- I feel like I've come to the end of a long road. See, Lakehurst: Barrens, Blimps & Barons, my book on the history of the Pine Barrens town best known for the Hindenburg disaster, is finally ready for public consumption. I've been pecking away at this book since 2002, first as a short series of articles for a local newspaper, later as an expanded series of more in-depth stories on local history, and finally as this book. It is not only comprehensive and (I hope) engaging to read, it's also a very personal project for me.



It'd been hard to let the project go and just call it DONE. When I lasted posted about the book I said "next week." Ended up pushing that back by a week for some last-minute additions -- and with my luck probably introduced some typos and grammatical errors when I did -- because I had stumbled across some cool information I just had to squeeze into the book.

But now it's here. Out. Ready for reading.

There are way too many people to thank, but right now the folks I want to thank more than any are the people of Lakehurst past and present, especially those I grew up with. I hope they'll read this and realize that our little town was actually pretty damn cool.

Lakehurst: Barrens, Blimps & Barons is available on Amazon and Lulu. I hope you'll consider getting a copy or three.

Hitchcock podcast in the final stretch

Well, we're almost there.

Way back in April 2009, Jim McDevitt and I started podcasting about Alfred Hitchcock. This should come as no surprise. We're the coauthors of an awesome book, A Year of Hitchcock, which is, like, pretty good and stuff. The book was a serious but accessible look at the full body of work of legendary director Alfred Hitchcock. I like it. I hope you get it and like it, too. (Honestly, at this point I assume you all follow us on Facebook, anyway.)

To accompany the book, we decided to do a series of light-hearted, casual podcasts that followed the book chapter-for-chapter, and sometimes veered off into interview shows, topical shows, and so on. To be honest, we started off kind of stiff and awkward. We weren't very good. But as we hit our stride I think we did okay. We had a chance to interview great directors like Norman Buckley, chat with fantastic Hitchcock geeks, discuss other great directors, and sometimes got drunk along the way.

It's been a fun ride. A ride soon to end. Starting next week(ish), our final stretch of shows begins. We have five movies to cover, plus a wrap-up show. I can't lie and say I'm sorry to see this project go. It has been a lot of work, and if you read this blog you know I kind of keep my plate a bit full. Couple that with a miserable existence in the world of journalism and yeah, I don't need more projects.

But I loved doing this. It was great fun. Hell, I'm almost as proud of it as I am of the book. I especially urge you to listen to the last five or six shows, not because you love the movies -- you don't; this is not a good period for Hitchcock -- but because Jim and I have a ton of fun. We know it's the end and we revel in it. We think you'll enjoy it.

If you've been listening these last two years, THANK YOU. If you've been reading, too, THANK YOU EVEN MORE. And if not ... now is a good time to start! ;)

So I have this book coming out next week...

After three books I've authored or coauthored, each released by traditional publishers, Lakehurst: Barrens, Blimps & Barons will be my first self-published book (not counting the Pitched! comics, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2). That means with a little help from my friends, I had to do it all, from writing to editing to layout to cover design...



Looks pretty cool, no? This book will officially be available by December 1, but if you read this blog or follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you'll have first crack at it. I expect it to be ready for sale in a week or so.

Honestly? I think it's my best so far. If you're from the area I write about or not, check it out. This is how I've always felt local history books should read. This isn't dry bullshit, it's a story, and a good one at that. I did dozens of hours of interviews with a load of interesting people (including people who actually SAW that cover image happen right in front of their eyes), read a slew of other great books, and much more to bring this story together. A little bit of me is in this book, too. I lived there, after all. Grew up there. This place and its people are important to me.

So when it officially goes on sale next week, remember that it's awesome and you should get it, and also that it will stop hunger and bring about world peace.