The Richard Hugo House is a great literary hideaway in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. Host to panels and readings (and a bar, I might add) and all sorts of writing classes, it has a ripple effect on the literary life of Seattle. Plus, the planners there seem to have the same (impeccable) literary taste as our own Canned Coffee site. Hugo House has hosted writers such as Ryan Boudinot, Aimee Bender and Dan Kennedy in the recent past.

But the Hugo House is hurting a little from this financial meltdown and needs an extra boost this winter. The folks there have turned to the small donors (you know, the ones responsible for the president-elect!) to help them meet their modest goal of raising $40,000 for the 2009 operating budget. Please pitch in what you can.

And while I'm on the topic of literary centers, let me just say that The Open Book Literary Arts Center in Minneapolis is one of the best I've ever seen. On a recent trip, I happened upon a book arts festival that had me wishing that my stock portfolio hadn't dropped into the high three-figure range. I coveted the $2,500 version of Rick Moody's Surplus Value Books #13 from Indulgence Press, but settled for the $10 version (still a howl to read and a delight to look at). Every city should have a literary center like this (as well as a thriving public library system). So please help our local, Richard Hugo House, if you can. Happy Thanksgiving.

A new column from Minoru Morita bemoans the way Prime Minister Taro Aso hides behind a cloak of responsibility -- "I'm the one who will decide when to dissolve the Diet" -- to stall for time. There is no one in the Liberal Democratic Party, as far as I can see, who can stem the voters' desire for "change," to steal that American buzzword. Unfortunately, in Japan, change is waiting in the wings in the form of Ichiro Ozawa, about as transformative a politician as Joe Leiberman. A real candidate for change has yet to emerge.

A young man trying to organize a walk to Prime Minister Taro Aso's home to protest the premier's role in "creating poverty" was roughed up by police, and an alert citizen has put the incident on YouTube, causing quite a sensation.

News reports mentioned the incident only after the YouTube video started getting thousands of views. Here's one from Reuters and another from The Japan Times.

In Minoru Morita's book, Curing Japan's America Addiction, there's a chapter entitled "Emergence of the Working Poor" that explains what's at work here. This incident is just another example of the tumult just below the surface in Japan today. And the reaction by the police -- excessive and excessively paranoid -- shows that the people swinging the batons are anticipating worse things ahead. Their instincts tell them that more trouble is ahead as more people get squeezed by oppressive rules and laws that increase the gap between the haves and have-nots. So even little flare-ups get stomped down as quickly and forcefully as possible.

I'm afraid their instincts are dead-on. Japan needs an Obama of its own and fast.

Terrie Lloyd over at J@pan Inc magazine reminds us of what a shambles the Japanese medical system has become in his weekly email newsletter:

Late last Friday, the family of an 82-year old woman living in Koriyama, Fukushima, called in for emergency transport to hospital. She was suffering from what could have been food-poisoning, and the Koriyama region fire department dispatched an ambulance to pick her up. She was in a bad way and the ambulance service called the nearest hospital to gain admission. They said "no" on the basis that they didn't have a suitable doctor on duty.

The ambulance service then called another four hospitals, driving en route from one to the other, and again each declined to accept the stricken women. Finally, after nine separate calls to various hospitals, the Fukushima Medical University Hospital, 40km and 60 minutes away, accepted her. However, by this time she had gone into a coma, and she died shortly after arriving at the facility.

Elderly Japanese are getting the same treatment as poor, uninsured Americans. In Minoru Morita's book Curing Japan's America Addiction, he tackles this problem head on in a chapter called "America's Next Target: Japan's Medical System." Read an excerpt behind the cut:

Here's the press release announcing our new imprint, Broken Levee Books, which went out to the press ahead of today's New Orleans Book Fair.

Chin Music Press Launches Broken Levee Books Imprint
Seattle publisher reissues popular New Orleans book in beautifully redesigned hardback edition

SEATTLE — Chin Music Press announced today that it has started a new imprint called Broken Levee Books dedicated to preserving the unique literary heritage of New Orleans and discovering its most compelling voices.

The Seattle publisher also has released this month a redesigned and refreshed version of its hit 2006 anthology of essays and art, Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans? Chin Music Press took the unusual step of reissuing the book as a hardback edition because it wanted to offer a more aesthetically stunning version of the book, which was made during the chaos after Hurricane Katrina and released before Mardi Gras in 2006.

“When we published the anthology after the levees broke, speed was critical. We were one of the first publishers to respond to the debacle in New Orleans because we felt the urgency of our mission,” says Chin Music Press publisher Bruce Rutledge. “We haven’t changed a word because the writers need to be read in context: They wrote their essays without knowing if their city would be saved. But the art and the design and the paper quality have all been refurbished and refreshed. We rebuilt the book while the Gulf Coast struggled to rebuild itself.”

The LA Times chimes in on the Google library debate:

Google, whose corporate ambition is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," has reached a breakthrough agreement with book publishers to make millions of out-of-print volumes accessible to the public. Unfortunately, it's not clear how useful the pact will be to libraries and their patrons. That's because the deal promotes a "pay to read" approach that's the antithesis of the free public library model.

We're back from Wordstock. It was a blast. More on that soon, but first, check out this piece from the Christian Science Monitor (great photo, BTW) about people across the globe getting positive energy from the Obama victory. From Japan, Minoru Morita, author of Curing Japan's America Addiction, chimes in:

In Tokyo, “many people feel relieved” by Obama’s victory, says Minoru Morita, a political analyst. “It proves the soundness of America. Many Japanese believe Obama will work with other world leaders to put the world on the right track.”

Relief is certainly one of the emotions we've been feeling here in Seattle too. That kicked in after the sheer joy of last Tuesday.

It seems odd to write about anything but the Obama victory today -- yes we can, baby! -- but another once venerable publication has decided to stop its print edition. This time it's US News & World Report. Who's next? If you're right, I'll send you a free book. My pick: The Chicago Tribune.

We're off to Portland, Oregon, this weekend for Wordstock, a very fun, laid back book fair that keeps getting bigger and bigger but still maintains a casual Northwest air about it. We were there last year and had a ball. This year, not only will we have new titles to show off, but we'll be displaying the work of a new friend, Tara Publishing. We've written about Tara before, but now that we share a very savvy marketing person, we've begun to grow closer. We're hoping this will be the first of many shows we do together.

Tara makes many of its books by hand. Behind the cut is a very interesting video that shows the process. When it comes to making literary objects, we may be teaming up with the master. Check out this video to see how they do it:

This essay was solicited by our friend Colleen over at Chasing Ray as part of the "Blog the Vote" she and other bloggers have been putting together. It runs through tomorrow, Election Day.

The public service announcement was short and to the point. A cleancut Frank Zappa, wearing a suit and tie, looked into the camera and said:

"If you're 18 years old and you have not registered to vote, go do it. You need to pay attention to what these people in office are doing to your future. Register to vote now."

That was in the late 1980s, two decades ago. In the 1992 presidential election, I wrote in Frank Zappa as my choice for president, being unimpressed with the two mainstream candidates, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush.

Fast-forward to today, and Zappa's words still resonate. We Americans get the government we deserve, and we are complicit in what our leaders do unless we act to stop them. The most basic way to protest something or someone you don't like is to vote against them.

When I voted for Zappa in 1992, it was a throw-away vote. A wasted vote, many would say. But it was a political awakening for me. I saw through the facades of both major parties and instead of walking away, I wrote in someone I actually respected. Imagine if everyone did that. What bedlam! What a party we would have on election night as the results rolled in!

We should take back our democracy from the blowhards and the fearmongerers and turn it into a party. Everyone should vote. The census takers should register you. Election Day should be a national holiday. Debates should include Nader and Barr and El Vez. The Electoral College should be drowned in Grover Norquist's bath tub. One person, one vote. President Gore would approve. Our democracy should be chaotic, messy and celebratory. Diebold should not get an invitation to the party. We should celebrate our differences and make the power-drunk Washington insiders and so-called mavericks have to stand on the stage alongside the presidential candidate of the Teenage Acne Party. Young people should get as excited about voting as they do about their first sip of beer, their first toke. It should be a rite of passage. And the only ones cowering in fear should be the multinational corporations that have a vested interest in keeping us apathetic and antagonistic.

In closing, I honestly think Frank Zappa would have made a great president.