A Review of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Thoughts on Perspective, a survey of Heritage Group Distribution, and More...
He rules the roads... I mean, the subtitles...
Being the 23rd edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.
Perspective
It’s all about how you look at things.
Once upon a time I was a manager at a certain corporation. One day a couple of guys who worked for me asked me for permission to do something. It was something I didn’t want them to do. We went back and forth on it and it became obvious to me that they viewed this as a kind of battle in which there would be a winner and a loser. And they wanted to win but expected to lose because I had all the perceived “power” by virtue of my position and they had none.
Long story short, they got their way.
Afterward, a colleague observed, “You let them win.”
The implication being that I shouldn’t have, because now I appeared weak, and other employees might try to take advantage of me.
“I let them win a battle I wasn’t even fighting,” I explained.
In my mind it hadn’t been a battle. The idea of it having been a “battle” was a mental construct that I didn’t buy into and did not consider helpful or constructive.
As my old boss Fred Mattocks once said, one of our jobs as managers is to figure out how to say yes. I just figured out how to say yes to these guys in a way that made sense to me.
From my perspective, it wasn’t about winning or losing. It was about doing the right thing operationally. It may have been a battle in their minds and in the mind of my colleague but it wasn’t in mine. The fact that they might have gone away thinking they’d “beaten” me in some sense didn’t matter at all. In the end I’d concluded that I didn’t need to “get my way,” this (whatever it was) was obviously important to them, it wasn’t going to hurt us operationally, and it would help their morale (morale was ALWAYS important to me). So I endorsed their proposed course of action.
As an aside, I never cared about setting a precedent. Precedents are a psychological trap that I am careful not to fall into. Precedents can be used to manipulate you if you’re not careful. We weren’t in a court of law. Every situation is unique, to be judged on its own merits.
The point being, don’t tell me that a situation is a binary proposition (win or lose, right or wrong, success or failure) when more possibilities exist. Possibilities that with a little imagination (and maybe a bit of elbow grease) might result in better outcomes for everyone.
You can see this “battle” (win or lose) mentality playing out on the world stage today (quite literally) with predictably tragic outcomes.
On a much more mundane level, applying that perspective to my writing and publishing activities frees me from the psychological trap of viewing my work through the lens of success versus failure. (I barely know how to define success anyway. Fame? Fortune? Those cannot be the criteria. For one thing, I cannot control either. For another, neither is dependent on the quality of the work, which surely must have something to do with whether one’s work can be said to be “successful” or not.)
Ditching the “success versus failure” lens allows me to see a whole raft of other benefits to my publishing pursuits. New friends and acquaintances. Closer relationships with old friends. The pleasure of helping others realize their dreams. The sheer joy of writing and publishing itself. And so on. Making money, garnering respect or some measure of fame is only a tiny, tiny part of it, if those things even matter at all.
Booklisti
The book recommendation website Booklisti just posted two lists by Yours Truly. One is a list I curated called Great Books by Canadians You Probably Haven’t Heard of. I recommend five books and include a little write up for each explaining my choice. The second is a list of my own books which I provided Booklisti at their request.
This project is very similar to Ben Fox’s Book Shepherd site, on which I also have a list or two. Mark Rayner and I chatted with Ben Fox for our podcast Re-Creative, the third season of which launches the first week of July. We haven’t sorted out the order yet, but our chat with Ben will definitely be up within the next couple of months.
Writers Federation of New Brunswick Contests
This past year I entered two separate writing contests here in New Brunswick. The David Adams Richards prize for fiction and the Jane LeBlanc Screenwriting Award. I don’t normally enter such contests because there’s usually an admission fee and I rarely want to pay it. It’s hard enough to make money as a writer without ponying up admission fees for contests I’m not likely to win.
I did this year though because I was excited to be in New Brunswick and a new member of the Writers Federation of New Brunswick (WFNB), which hosted the contests. I was also confident in the fiction I submitted, an excerpt from my work-in-progress Captain’s Away (a companion novel to A Time and a Place). Also, the Writer’s Federation approached me specifically requesting that I submit a screenplay as they weren’t getting enough submissions, so I took three weeks to write one and submitted it.
I gather the winners were announced recently at the 2024 Wordspring Festival in Moncton, which I was unable to attend as I was traveling at the time. I checked the WFNB website yesterday and lo and behold, I didn’t win or place in any category. Oh well! My congratulations to those who did win, the list of which you can see here.
Review of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Less of a review and more impressions, really.
I went to see Furiosa last night, after learning it would (astonishingly) be out of local theatres this weekend. This was a movie I wanted to see on the big screen. I’ve been a fan of Mad Max movies since seeing Road Warrior as a teenager, after which I may not have driven my father’s ‘77 Chrysler Newport home not quite as responsibly as I ought to have.
I’ve rewatched all the movies in the series recently. I enjoyed the original Mad Max for its low budget inventiveness, Road Warrior remains a favourite, Beyond Thunderdome is “meh,” but Fury Road remains one of my recent all time favourite movies, after having seen it four times (I rarely re-watch movies that much that quickly).
So I went into Furiosa with high expectations.
It did not disappoint, with caveats.
I was glad I saw it on the big screen. It’s a spectacle demanding of that treatment. The action set pieces are terrific, with a lengthy one in the middle that’s worth the price of admission. The story is much broader in scope than Fury Road, making it feel like more of an epic (director George Miller definitely has it in him to make it “epic”) but diluting the story slightly of Fury Road’s intensity. And it looks and sounds terrific, the cinematography and set design and music right up at that bar set by Miller in Fury Road. (It seemed to me, though, that the surround side speakers in the Ciniplex Odeon theatre in Dieppe, where I saw the movie, are toast. There was some unfortunate crackle every now and then.)
The film is a great prelude to Fury Road, setting the stage for the events of that movie and filling in much of the back story. (Apparently Miller has a treatment for yet another movie in the saga that would fill in the backstory for Mad Max himself, Max Rockatansky, for the year prior to the events of Fury Road. I would love to see that movie.)
I was concerned about Chris Hemsworth’s performance in the flick but I need not to have been. From what I’d heard I’d been afraid that the character he portrayed, Dementus, and Hemsworth’s performance of Dementus, were a bit over the top, but while eccentric I thought both the character and his take on it were note perfect. I also really enjoyed the character and story arc of Praetorian Jack, played wonderfully by Tom Burke.
My only real quibbles with the film are these. I did not quite buy Anya Taylor-Joy as a younger version of Charlize Theron as Furiosa. I think Taylor-Joy is a terrific actor (I loved her in The Queen’s Gambit) and it wasn’t anything to do with her performance; it was her physical presence. This didn’t bother me for most of the movie, but there is one scene between her and Hemsworth that unfortunately reveals the stark physical contrast between the two of them and frankly strains credulity. Had it been played differently it could have worked; alas as it was staged I just couldn’t buy that Taylor-Joy could physically dominate Hemsworth, and it took me out of the movie. Too bad.
Finally there’s the question of what the movie was about. Unlike Fury Road, which to me is about hope and collaboration between unlikely allies, Furiosa is at its core a movie about hate and revenge. There is little hope and zero redemption. Although exciting to watch, it doesn’t deliver a very positive message and isn’t at all uplifting. Does it have to be? No. The movie’s main purpose is to be entertaining, which it accomplishes in spades. But for a movie to become a true favourite of mine I need a little something more. A glimmer of hope, something to identify with, something to help me make sense of life in a positive way. And Furiosa doesn’t do that.
But I’ll still probably watch it again.
One More Book Distributor…
I’ve been exploring book distributors to understand how that side of the business works. Once I’m familiar with the various alternatives out there I’ll start approaching them for Donovan Street Press Inc.
Today we look at this company:
Heritage Group Distribution
My first impression is that this “leading Canadian distributor” based in Surrey, British Columbia has a pretty good (if incomplete) website. Attractive and functional but lacking in some information.
They specialize “in providing comprehensive sales representation, marketing enhancements, merchandising options, and distribution channels on behalf of its publishing partners.” According to Linked In, they have between 51 to 200 employees. It looks like they represent about 20 publishers.
Unfortunately, their “About” page says zero about their history or background. Other sources suggest that it’s a part of the Heritage Group, which consists of Heritage House Publishing, Touchwood Editions and Rocky Mountain Books. The president is Rodger D. Touchie, who has written at least six books himself. Curiously, for the owner of a Distribution company, none of his books appear well reviewed on Amazon or Goodreads. Perhaps he is focusing on his clients books. Still, distributor, distribute thyself.
Heritage Group Distribution appears to provide a wide range of services and professes to sell to plenty of buyers. They produce 1-2 catalogs a years and boast an in-house sales team. In other words, they appear to do everything you would expect from a full service, professional, and established distributor.
They represent indie publishers, but according to their guidelines they want established indie publishers with a history and a strong ongoing publishing program. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, and perhaps Donovan Street Press will be there someday. How successful are they at distributing and selling books, including back lists? That is the million dollar question.
Publishers seeking distribution can contact them via a form on their website or the old fashioned way (calling them on the phone).
Donovan Street Press Inc. Books
"In dozens of amiable, frequently humorous vignettes... Mahoney fondly recalls his career as a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio technician in this memoir... amusing and highly informative." ~ Kirkus Reviews
A Time and a Place
“Entertaining, chaotic adventure.” ~ Publishers Weekly.
A note as well that the hardcover version of A Time and a Place now features the new cover (featuring art by my daughter Keira), and is available at a much less expensive price than before.
Other Times and Places
“ …a lovely little collection of sci-fi and fantasy short stories, fun and well written.” ~ Charles P. Kelly
The Deer Yard and Other Stories
“Partly memoir, partly fiction, The Deer Yard is more than merely a good read …well-written, gentle stories, well worth reading.” ~ Ottawa Review of Books
Coming Soon
The Gates of Polished Horn by Mark A. Rayner.
Huey and the Wasteland by Matt Watts
Re-Creative: the Podcast
Season 3 of Re-Creative, a podcast about creativity and the works that inspire it, launches July 3rd!
You can already listen to the first 2 seasons, over 40 conversations with creative people from all walks of life about the art stoking their imaginative fires. From Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Beethoven, the movies Aliens and The Thing, pottery, a map of Paris and so much more, our often humorous chats with actors, writers, scholars, musicians, journalists (the list goes on) cover a wide range of territory.
Join Mark A. Rayner and myself and all our terrific guests on our podcast Re-Creative to learn a thing or two about all sorts of art you might not be familiar with and maybe have a chuckle or two.
Appearances
Taking a bit of time off over the summer, but I’ve already booked three craft fairs for the Fall
This has been the twenty-third edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.
The only place you can "have it your way" is Burger King, and even they don't let you do that so much anymore.
This is the most important blog you have written yet, Joe. My father, having been a Manager and then a long career as a Management Consultant (as is my brother), reflects on this all the time, so I showed it to him. He was impressed! Because he has the mind of an engineer (his training) - and this means plastics (chemical) engineering not CBC studio engineer / tech or the guy riding the choo choo train - he is not naturally or otherwise artistic at all, so seldom is able to express his thoughts in a humanistic way. You did that for him. Thank You!