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Friday, June 21, 2013

Selling My Books on the Streets of Brooklyn 6/21 - Watched

Each episode of the CBS action series Person of Interest begins with a voice-over by co-star Michael Emerson describing the surveillance machine he invented. “You are being watched,” are the first words out of his mouth. How relevant is that in light of the current NSA controversy about phone logs and emails? I’ve described the premise of the show as outlandish, not in the possibility of the device’s wide net, but in its ability to predict an ordinary citizen’s imminent danger, which the heroes strive to prevent. Is Big Brother watching us? From the posts of some of my Facebook friends, it seems several believe we are being run by a totalitarian coalition of government and corporations. I don’t buy it. I don’t feel any less free than I did yesterday, last week, month, year or decade ago. Of course, I’m not talking about the freedom philosophers discuss about whether man is free at all. That argument has always been with us. I mean day to day life, and that has not changed for me at all in this vein. Maybe I’m naïve and fail to see that this is just the beginning of totalitarianism in America, but people, especially celebrities, have always and continue to get away with a lot of outrageous speech and behavior. No agent has contacted me about the penultimate chapter of Killing. Then again, the novel is probably too far under the radar to be known to anyone in government, and common sense dictates that it is but the only potentially subversive incident with national rather than personal implications in my five books and more than 50 short stories. Check that: my short story Triple Witching Hour involves a plot to topple Wall Street and the national economy, but that is sheer entertainment and the businessmen are portrayed positively and their opponents as evil. If anyone is watching me, he/she must be bored to death. Maybe the complaints are inspired by nothing more than the massive ego of citizens who believe they are important enough to be under surveillance. Are there so many people with something to hide? Are there things about me I want kept secret? Of course, but they are minor, of interest only to those with a fascination for the human condition. I doubt government hacks are interested in any of that. We are not the Soviet Union.

The weather the past three days has been perfect for any outdoor activity, including book-selling. Each day a jolly, middle-age Russian gentleman greets me on his 40-minute walk to Manhattan Beach and back, and reports on "the mamacitas in their bikinis." He must think I'm Hispanic. Ol' Smokey stopped by for about an hour. Now there's a guy who believes he's being watched. He hit on a million topics including his belief that the World Trade Center bombing was an inside job. Anyway.... My thanks to Stephen, who put on the breaks when he saw the cover of Killing, the 18th Av. street sign. He once lived in that area. He had me sign the book to his love, Bernadette. Every time I hear that name it conjures Levi McCall of the Four Tops belting it out: "People are searchin' for the kind of love we possess..." My thanks also to Mrs. Eclectic, who bought books for the second time this week, and to the gentleman who purchased a compilation of the writings of psychologist Carl Jung and the nauseating An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore, who should be at the top of the list of those to be watched.
Vic's 4th Novel: http://tinyurl.com/bszwlxh
Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3
Vic's Website: http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/
Vic's Short Story Collection (Print or Kindle): http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb
Vic's 2nd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/6b86st6
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tiny.cc/94t5h
Vic's Screenplay on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/cyckn3

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