The Virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans (9 page)

I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know. What?”

“An appearance by a celebrity,” she says breathlessly.

“Isn’t that a bit cheap for our purpose?” I ask.

“Depends on who the celebrity is,” she says. Obviously, she has already thought this through.

“Who do you have in mind?” I ask.

“Mark Twain,” she answers.

“But he’s dead!” I point out.

“All the better!” she says as if resurrection is an everyday occurrence. “We’re already committed to reclaiming all-but-forgotten literature to ensure its legacy, so why not resurrect a dead author or two? Each month we might feature a different speaker: Jean Paul Sartre one month, and Ernest Hemingway the next. I’ve even dreamed up a scheme by which we can offer a grant to living writers financed by funds we raise publishing the work of the deceased. Isn’t it fabulous?”

“I assume you’ve already booked his appearance,” I say.

Crystal takes her cup in hand and sips her cappuccino. “Not yet,” she answers. “I wanted to run it by you first.”

Concealing the skepticism I’m feeling, I nod my consent. “If you can book Mark Twain for an appearance at Open Books, then by all means… But I suggest you finalize the booking before somebody gets wind of what you’re doing.”

Crystal smiles triumphantly and says, “Right you are, Fizzy! I’ll confirm the date and time today.”

I must admit that at first I had a hard time with the idea that a person long dead could be the featured guest at Open Books’ Grand Opening party, but the more I thought about it, the more I came to embrace the idea. After all, if one is accustomed to suspending his long held definitions of reality in Virtual Life (as one does each and every time he manifests within this precarious world), and if he is comfortable with pushing out the boundaries of what we have come to acknowledge as real and what we have conventionally dismissed as fantasy, then why should he draw a line between the living and the dead? Indeed, even this seemingly fundamental distinction might be rendered a moot point, and the grave become something neither cold nor permanent. And I don’t care what anybody says, that’s big news!

Walking from Grove Press Square through a street-size opening at one corner of the quadrangle, a wide expanse of sea comes instantly into view (And how I love rounding that corner at sunrise, VL time!), and after only a few steps more over a carpet of immaculately manicured lawn punctuated with stepping-stones placed (by Sly) at perfect intervals for the stride of an EM, the Open Books shop becomes visible, its large sign showcasing the logo that Crystal painstakingly designed with its three interconnecting rings, one for the ‘O’ in
Open
, along with the two adjoining circles in
Books
, above the plate-glass window and wide-open doorway. Then, up two steps from street level (yes, emulations in VL can climb stairs), and we are inside the shop.

Crystal Marbella is the formal owner of the shop. She leased the store from Jeannine Greene and Sly Sideways, the co-owners of Lit-A-Rama, during the formative days of the REP. As Crystal tells it, 41 Jeff Bezos Alley was barely an address then, and immediately after she rented the shop Sly had to finish paving the street and install streetlights and decorative vegetation. Over the course of the next few months, Crystal designed the interior of the shop. What’s more, she made everything inside, from the rugs on the floor, to the furniture, to the hardwood oak stage upstairs where lectures and readings take place.

The color motif of the shop’s downstairs décor is light gray with accents of the bluest Mediterranean blue that the artist Henri Matisse ever employed in a painting or a cutout. Two Persian rugs cover large areas of the dark gray ceramic floor, and three partially exposed brick walls above (How trendy!) offset a creamy backdrop below. The furniture is covered with a light gray linen fabric, and the tabletops are made of simulated stained glass. Lining the tops of three walls are large-scale replicas of the artistic covers designed for the titles in the Open Books library.

At the center of the shop’s back wall is the transfer device. This mechanism (
sic
) is employed by anyone wishing to move from the shop’s ground floor to the second floor. A single mouse-click places the user in the Open Books Auditorium.

Just like the shop’s lower level, the upper floor is wide open. Contrasting the exposed brick walls is a forest green carpet, plush and sculptured, and floor to ceiling windows allow one to look down on the street below or through the windows of the shops across the street. At the far end of the long room is ‘Writers’ Corner’. There, a stage with a hardwood floor stands ready to heighten speakers or exhibitors.

I suppose I should explain that Open Books, as well as every shop in the Lit-A-Rama REP, and indeed throughout the entirety of Virtual Life, is open twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year. It makes no difference whether or not the shop owners are present at their given locations, as all purchases—and, in the case of Open Books, all
donations
—are made online. (In fact, there are more donations made to the Open Books Project than one might imagine, some for very large sums (in dollars and euros and pounds and greenshoots) by individuals or corporate sponsors with a vested interest in promoting literacy, or simply for the purpose of supporting the arts in general and preserving classic literature specifically.) Of course in VL no cash is exchanged hand to hand, and Virtual Life vendors provide no physical merchandise. Virtual Life is a virtual world, and
information
is ultimately the product of each merchant or advocate or provider.

Today, Open Books is a thoroughly comfortable environment for all who visit to spend time conversing or reading the various note cards that describe the project’s purpose and goals. One mouse-click away is the greater Open Books web site, where all our published books are available for anyone to read free of charge.

Open Books’
(unofficial)
credo:

“
To truly free art,

art must be free!”

Shortly after I became involved with Open Books (albeit indirectly at first), Crystal Marbella asked me to write a mission statement for the project. I was flattered that she would trust me to pen such an important document and told her I’d give it my best effort. Here’s what I wrote:

“The mission of Open Books is to publish literature online and offer it to readers worldwide free of charge. Open Books publishes literature in three specific areas: Classics, Moderns and Futures (which include experimental literature and literary efforts in multimedia formats).

Open Books recognizes the need to move the literary publishing industry into a more environmentally friendly atmosphere, therefore all Open Books publications are paper-free and distributed without the use of petrol or other deleterious fuels customarily used in transporting bulk goods.

The owners of Open Books understand and acknowledge the need to contribute resources generously back into the community at large. Therefore, Open Books does not offer its products for sale directly, rather it operates by our ‘Adopt-A-Book’ sponsorship program, where fifty percent of all revenues are redistributed into the community as contributions to literacy programs, as well as grants to living writers through our Dead Writers' Society
®
, where present-day authors are the beneficiaries of efforts of those now deceased and whose work is in public domain.

Lastly, it is the mission of Open Books to provide and preserve literary excellence in a timeless and artistic venue for all the peoples of the world to enjoy regardless of their location or economic station in life. All payment for Open Books products is voluntary, as our primary commerce is in the realm of ideas.”

When Crystal read what I’d written she was so impressed that she immediately asked me if I would like to be her partner at Open Books. “Are you serious?” I asked her. After all, the Open Books shop is not like a conventional bookstore where sales people help customers find the titles they’re searching for, or where inventories must be kept, or orders for new products placed.

“What Open Books really needs is a publicist,” Crystal told me.

“A publicist?”

“Someone to spread the word far and wide about what we’re doing.”

“I don’t think I’m qualified for that sort of position,” I told her.

“The fact of the matter is that the Internet is still virgin territory,” Crystal explained. “It’s a bit like the Wild West in cyberspace—an exceptionally vast territory, uncharted and untamed, and anything goes. You make up the rules as you go along, Fizzy. Saddle up your favorite horse, strap on your six-shooter, and head into the wilderness!”

And that’s how I became the publicist for Open Books.

The Open Books Grand Opening Party will certainly be my most challenging promotional project to date, especially since it will feature a posthumous appearance by the legendary author, Mark Twain. Needless to say, I’m putting my heart and soul into the work.

First, I will make posters advertising the event and place them all over Lit-A-Rama, as well as other strategic REPs throughout Virtual Life. I will place an ad in the VL newspaper, and then write messages on every Internet forum I can find. I will write press releases and publish them on Internet syndicates in the hope that my articles will be picked up by various
e-zines
and other web sites. I will write mass emails to everyone on the Open Books sizeable database, and I will buy advertising time on several VL radio stations. I will even make a video presentation based on Twain’s famous story,
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
.

Tried and true are such promotional methods, yet the result of my effort will remain in doubt until the night of the party; because even employing every means at my disposal, these days the attendance for a literary event such as this one is tenuous at best—certainly so in PL, and even so in Virtual Life. The sad truth is that while book sales are stronger than ever in retail chain stores, sales for
literary
books are more or less non-existent. In fact, a couple of years ago the world’s largest book retailer made the conscious corporate decision to eliminate literary titles from the shelves of its more than one thousand stores. Imagine that! Walk into any (I won’t reveal the name of the retailer here) store worldwide, and what will you find? Not
Moby Dick
. Not
David Copperfield
. Not
Gulliver’s Travels
. What you will find (displayed prominently in the well lighted window and throughout the more than ten thousand square feet of bright and happy retail space) is
An Annotated (and Illustrated) Guide to Paris Hilton’s Wardrobe
,
Fat Girls Can Date, Too
, and
Sports Betting: How to Wager and Win
. These hot and heavy titles are always flanked by any number of
Self-Help’s
, faddish diet books, cookbooks (so after trying all the recipes you’ll have to buy the faddish diet books), and sports memorabilia. Of course there is never a shortage of cat calendars, day-timers, or other notions. As for real books—serious books—you might as well forget it. Publishers don’t publish them anymore—at least not in any significant number—because most literary books can’t recover the firm’s initial investment. Which is why Open Books’ (unofficial) credo came into being in the first place (and I hope you’ll indulge me if I repeat it):
To truly free art, art must be free!
I must admit that I (this is Amy Birkenstock speaking now) seldom visit such stores anymore (there are no less than sixteen of them in the greater Seattle area). They have less and less to offer, because I’ve read all the redundant plotlines and wooden characters and unimaginative themes that I can stand to read in one lifetime, and besides that, it is rumored that the espresso at the coffee bar is pseudo-Colombian. What does that tell you?

Of course Crystal also realizes the inescapable truth about the decline of literature. Though it doesn’t seem to phase her one bit as she works feverishly to publish yet another classic title online. She’s the quintessential worker bee, and she is able to accomplish amazing results for her singular commitment. And she will not hold me accountable if hardly anybody shows up to hear Mark Twain (who will of course be speaking through an anonymous impersonator, one who has promised to reveal his identity after the program) lecture at the Open Books auditorium. Crystal knows I’ll do my best to attract a crowd, but if it’s not in the stars, then we’ll press onward with our work. Since money is not our objective, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The books we publish online are for posterity, not for profit. And if one more person is able to read and enjoy
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
, then our effort is wholly worthwhile. Honestly, I (Amy Birkenstock) can say that Open Books is the single best endeavor in which I’ve ever been involved, and I’m so proud of the books we publish, and the shop in Virtual Life, and the overall effort we make that my job as a publicist and a publisher has given my life a renewed sense of purpose. Which of course is why I’m logged on to Virtual Life nearly every minute of my
free
time?

So, regarding my effort to publicize Open Books’ Grand Opening party, we’ll see who turns up. Free wine and free hors d’ouvres can’t hurt the effort to attract the so-called hordes. And it is not unknown for celebrities to show up at Virtual Life events. Once Robert Redford (or perhaps an emulation look-alike) showed up for the first screening of an exclusive VL documentary film on water shortages in the American West. An emulation of Mae West was seen in attendance at a VL strippers’ convention, and Yogi Berra was interviewed while taking batting practice at a REP of Yankee Stadium. And we’ve got Mark Twain, perhaps America’s greatest author to date! Anybody out there in Cyberland listening?