Marvin Mudrick and his Chickens
I chose UCSB over Yale because of Marvin Mudrick, and there were times I thought I
October 7th, 2010|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: education, publishing, reflections, T S Eliot, two cultures|
The Jade Emperor's stone fish
As I prepare for a few quiet days at the beach (weather reports bode well) before returning to Beijing for 10 days and then a slew of events in late September, I realize that I haven't posted the story of the Jade Emperor's stone fish and our outing to Tanzhe-Shi, a temple west of Beijing, in June. That little adventure ends up as part of the preface to a book, The Good Library Manual, we're publishing next week, and I'd like to explain why. I suggested the trip to Tanzhe-Shi [...]
My days with SIIA
I'm sketching out new ventures for Berkshire Publishing, which means digging through old notes. I came across this e-mail from Ed Keating, VP of the Content Division at the Software & Information Industry Association, which I kept with my business plans because it makes me smile and reminds me of what really counts, and of the wonderful friendships we develop in our professional lives. My couple of years on the SIIA board were terrific. Perhaps sometime soon I'll have time to get involved again. I still want to bring the [...]
The other Karen Christensens
It's been amusing to see my son Tom Christensen respond to the fact that there is a well-known China expert at Princeton, and until recently at the State Department, whose name is Tom Christensen. We met him at the Asian Studies Association conference and I saw him in New York last week, too, at the National Committee's members' meeting, where I told him that for Tom it's like being a minor college basketball player named Michael Jordan. While I haven't run into another Karen Christensen, I discovered quite a while [...]
Berkshire authors ROCK
Wonderful beginnings today. Our first foreign rights sale, which is nice to see right before the Frankfurt Book Fair, where I'll really be tackling this new aspect of publishing. A pleasant global exchange: a friend in China skyping for help with an English word--that actually happens to be French (exposé). Good news from our sales people, who are getting an enthusiastic reception for our forthcoming titles on China and Sustainability. (Global Perspectives on the United States is also doing well. I attribute this to the concern about international relations generated [...]
Green cleaning fudged again
I can't tell you how many times I have read this statement, about "How to Clean Windows with Vinegar": "If cleaning with vinegar left streaks on your windows, it wasn't the fault of the vinegar, it was a residue left from commercial products." I may even have made this statement in one of my own books. It's nonsense, I'm sorry to say, one of those blithe green clean facts written by people who are simply repeating a convenient untruth - one that might be true sometimes, but certainly doesn't explain [...]