At the recent BloCon in SF, Lisa Stone mentioned her commitment to entrepreneurialism, which is French for “between or before aneurysms.” What hooked me in her rap was a reminiscence regarding Halley Suitt’s 10 new voices thing last year. I thought about that… the upside was we pumped a moment of diversity into the white male voice-o-sphere. I don’t know if there was a downside. But I thought about Paul Newman as “Cool Hand Luke,” and his boast: “I could eat fifty eggs.”
Me, I could find fifty links… fifty new sites, new voices, new shows. And when I’m done I’m betting at least half of them will be the work of females, and a large percentage will be the work of people who aren’t white… (Q: What did the Minnesota guy say to the Pillsbury Doughboy? A: Nice tan. — Joke by Willie Nelson in the Tao of Willie compliments of Chris Locke who found it at Audible.) I’ll be leavening the mix with white guys too I imagine. No promises there. Just fifty voices new to me, at least half women, and a week to do it… that’s the game.
Ten was easy. Ten was bullshit. Try fifty. Go big or stay home. I’ll have fifty links coming at you over the next week. You can tell me if they’re diverse, perverse, or just plain liverwurst.
5 Comments
frank, does this help?
Great list Christopher! Lucky me, I’ve met half of these people face-to-face and count several as friends or warm acquaintances. But I can mine new voices (for me) out of the other half!
Interesting Frank. Fifty links might even reach a person way beyond tokenism and demographic divides and jump start actual relationships between humans.
P.S. Old French, yes.
Hey Lisa, if fifty people did fifty links with an intentional egalitarian skew, I’m sure some new friendships would be built and some new networks.
p.s. I like my definition of “entrepreneurialism” better.
leaven me with white guys.