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There's a special section in the NY Times today on technology innovation. The cover story is about prediction markets and their usefulness for business decision-making. Something about it unsettled me, at first, but then I started thinking about the possible applications a little closer to home. What if we could use such a tool to help direct the features we choose to build at WebJunction for our members there - it's a smallish set of the library profession (30K members, 70K visitors a month) or even help direct decision-making at OCLC with the wisdom of the membership of our vast, global cooperative. Would you make "bets" on what's coming and what's next if you could win an iPod? It has such a lovely tone of fun and gaming that I think people might actually 'play'.

I'd love to hear if anyone knows of any library-related application of prediction markets *in libraries*. If our patrons could bet on the future of the library - where would that be?

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This came in and was really helpful, so I'm putting it up in full.

Poor Neil! The whole concept of maid cafes is indeed pretty strange, but I guess somewhat understandable if you know some things about Japanese pop culture. Maid cafes are a type of cosplay (costume play) restaurant -- basically it's not too different really from going to Medieval Times or something like that in the US. (There are also Butler cafes, by the way.) The thing that probably makes it weird is that Maid cafes (and presumably Butler cafes too) are all about moe (mo-eh)! Which basically means that yes, it's about a fetish. I think what is weird to most Westerners is that Japanese fetishes aren't necessarily things most people not Japanese are going to find particularly sexy.

I think the person who wrote in about pedophilia yesterday is probably slightly misunderstanding the term "Gothic Lolita" and is applying it to the concept of moe/maid cafes. Gothic Lolita is a style of fashion/lifestyle in Japan ... and it doesn't actually have anything to do with the book Lolita or little girls. The term originated with a clothing line called "Young Gothic Lolita" (the men's line was called "Young Gothic Aristrocrat") that began being sold in the 90s. Most people into Gothic Lolita fashion had no clue that a book existed until it was published about in a magazine targeted towards the movement. I would say the attraction of the fashion for women is just a desire to emulate Victoriana, and for men it's a sort of strange sexual attraction to the primness associated with Victorian costumes. I mean, Gothic Lolitas do not typically bare a lot of flesh. Neither do the maids in maid cafes.

However, I would say that there is a sort of mainstream acceptance of vaguely pedophilic attitudes in Japan (mostly contained to fiction -- quite a few popular manga/anime series include overtones of it, including "Loveless", "Negima!", and "Enzai" -- all released in the US). I just wouldn't say the maid cafes are necessarily an example of that.

Sorry for going on so long,

Annalisa

and I just got this --

Hi Neil,

I'm the video guy at MSN UK and we've just been given the exclusive Beowulf trailer that was featured on Film 2007 last night.

If you think your readers would be interested in watching it, they should follow this link: http://video.uk.msn.com/v/en-gb/v.htm and click the massive Beowulf banner at the top of the page.

(I'm not so much acting as MSN corporate pimp here as much as I'm pimping that massive Beowulf banner. I'm also one of the photoshop guys here and I'm pretty pleased with that one.)

-Antony

and was surprised to see that the trailer was one that I'd not seen at all. It's fascinating where Beowulf is concerned (for me, anyway) seeing new bits of footage as the computer emits them. Can't wait to see the film in its entirety and find out what it is.

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The event with Susanna Clarke was lovely, except for the, oh, 45 minutes or thereabouts that all 250 of us spent standing outside on the pavement in the cold, waiting for the fire brigade to establish that the problems in the nanotech lab next door were a false alarm.

I was asked tonight who'd win in a fight -- probably a no holds barred cage match, I suspect -- between me and Bill Gibson. I said me, but my daughter Holly, who was there, just laughed at me afterwards and said she couldn't imagine me fighting anyone. Holly says that Me vs Bill Gibson would be like a fight between a baby bunny and a duckling, and she is probably right.

I'm still really jet-lagged. I feel as if the going-to-Japan and the coming-back-from-Japan crash came at the same time -- just had a completely failed conversation with my agent, who soon figured out that the communication things simply wasn't happening, and told me to call him back tomorrow.

...

If you're in the UK, remember that next Tuesday, Oct 2nd is the big event at the Criterion:

Tuesday 02 October 07 Event 422 at 18:00

Neil Gaiman in conversation

Featuring: Neil Gaiman

Exclusive event-only book signing afterwards, at Waterstone's Piccadilly

Don't miss this one-off London appearance by one of the world’s greatest imaginative minds, and author of many bestselling novels, including American Gods, Anansi Boys, and the cult novel Stardust . The film of Stardust, directed by Matthew Vaughan and starring Claire Danes, Charlie Cox, Sienna Miller, Ricky Gervais, Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert De Niro, premieres in London on Wednesday 3 October at Odeon Leicester Square. We have a pair of tickets to the premiere: all ticket-holders to the event will be entered into a draw and the winner will be announced after the performance.

Price: £5.00

Venue: Criterion Theatre, Piccadilly http://www.criterion-theatre.co.uk/

http://www.hayfestival.com/wales/browse.aspx?type=date&value=02-Oct-2007

I think I'll probably do a reading from Stardust as part of it. If you want to come, it's always wisest to order tickets early -- there will probably be seats on the night, but you can never be too sure.

(Also the Bath Children's Literary Festival event is this Saturday at 6.00pm -- http://www.bathkidslitfest.co.uk/event_J19.htm for details.)

Mr. Gaiman,I live in Beijing and your CCTV interview just aired (Sept. 25). I was really impressed that you could follow her random questions. I was disappointed that you were not deemed important enough to get the male reporter who usually interviews heads of state. I wanted you to know that the piece had aired and may air again Sept. 26. Thanks, Kade

Not to worry. I'm not a head of state.

Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil! Reading your blog can be so bloodly frustrating! What was your opinion of that Lolita restaurant? What do you, as a father of a young teenage daugther on the threshold of her maidenhood thinks of those young women exploiting the idea of pedophilia?

I'm not comfortable enough with the by-roads of Japanese pop culture to be able to say what exactly was going on in that place, but it didn't seem to be about paedophilia, not in any way I understand the term. It seemed to be about a whole set of cultural cues that I wasn't really able to read -- the clientele were about 60/40 male to female, most of the men were the same age as the girls working there (early 20s), and I got the impression it was much more about the girls getting to exercise their fantasies of being maids, whatever maids were in this context, and the customers of both genders seemed to enjoy playing rock, paper, scissors with them. My opinion was one of, mostly, complete bafflement and bemusement, and I was there because the guide felt that, like the fish market and the Meiji Shrine and the modern art museum, going to one of the maid cafes was one of the unique things about Tokyo.

Hi Neil, I have a quick question about agents and the submission process...
Months ago, shortly after completing my first novel (YA fantasy), I drew up a list of agencies that I thought might be a match. Several envelopes were dispatched to said agents. Fingers were crossed.I waited.Three weeks later, the replies began trickeling in. A few were form rejections; others had some decent comments, but were rejections all the same.Then an unfamiliar envelope fell through the letterbox. It turns out that this was the reply from my Dream Agency (why not aim high?). The gist of the letter was this: Your writing shows great promise, but this is not yet ready for representation. Send us your next project.
Here is my question:My second novel, which I think is a stark improvement on the first, is almost ready. Should I send it exclusively to my new contact at The Literary Agency Of My Dreams? Or should I treat the process exactly as I did first time round, and send out simultaneous submissions? Many thanks for your time.

I don't think there are any rules. If it was me, I'd send it to the new contact who thought you had potential, with a letter saying, you said to send you my next project and this is it, and I'm not showing it to anyone else until you've seen it, because they were nice, and deserve something for that, and if they feel they grew you from a bean they will work harder for you. But there aren't any rules. And if it was me I'd be sending my book to editors and not to agents anyway.

...

Why am I typing? Why aren't I sleeping?

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I'm back in the UK, and, today, really starting to feel the jet-lag, which means that the long description of everything I did in Japan may have to wait, or to be one of those things I always mean to write and never do. But I had a really busy Saturday and was taken to many places -- the oddest of which was a blessedly short visit to the Maid Cafe. "The line between pop pulture and porno is sometimes blurred in Japan," said my guide as she took me there, which meant that whatever I was expecting it definitely wasn't the Japanese equivalent of being taken to a cafe where the waitresses were all completely asexual children's party hosts pretending to be six themselves, speaking in helium chipmonk voices and dressed like Alice in Wonderland, where I would feel as if I had tuned into a game show on a foreign television station that I did not understand. I kept trying to imagine how one could transpose something like that experience into the US or the UK, and failing.

I bought lots of brush-pens.

I came back to the UK.

And am now brain dead (which is okay as nobody is interviewing me today). Tomorrow I am a special guest chairperson at Susanna Clarke's event

EXCLUSIVE UK EVENT
Susanna Clarke with special guest chairperson Neil Gaiman, Tuesday 25 September, 7pm
UCL Bloomsbury Theatre, 15 Gordon Street, London, WC1H 0AH

Susanna is the international bestselling author of the wonderful Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and to celebrate the paperback publication of The Ladies of Grace Adieu she will be in conversation with legendary author, Neil Gaiman. This is a rare appearance by Susanna and the only UK event to celebrate publication so book early to avoid disappointment.

Click here for booking information and ticket prices.

(Incidentally, Mike Carey is doing a talk in the same series on October the 25th.)

Several people have sent me links to this New York Times article on Bill Hader, and it made me feel incredibly happy to be lucky for someone, especially as long as the lucky thing is him reading the books and not, say, cutting off one of my feet and carrying it around in his pocket, which would be just dreadful really, all things considered.

And since I posted links to the Joyce Hatto case when it started -- here's the definitive article from the New Yorker, which is a lot closer to what I thought had happened than I expected.

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