This is as good a place as any to speak a bit of politicalese: the human from India or the Philippin

Dispatches from the Road: Made to Break Vancouver Log In Lost your password? Lost Password Back to login Search Scuttlebutt discount montreal hotels Featured Nobel Laureate Tomas Tranströmer Dies at Age 83 Lincoln Michel March 27, 2015 News Recent Sunday Sundries: Literary Links from Around the Web (March 29th) Lincoln Michel March 29, 2015 These Postcards from Fictional Destinations discount montreal hotels Are Spot-On Electric Literature March 28, 2015 Ferguson Librarian Scott Bonner to receive ALA s Lemony Snicket prize Elizabeth Vogt March 26, 2015 Steven Spielberg to Direct Ready Player One Film Electric Literature March 25, 2015 1 The Covers for Harper Lee s Go Set A Watchman Are Pretty Nice! Electric Literature March 25, 2015 1 Midweek Links: Literary Links from Around the Web (March 25th) Lincoln Michel March 25, 2015 Features Featured Spiritual Warriors (from Bible Adventures by Gabe Durham) Gabe Durham March 30, 2015 Features Recent Media Frankenstein #8: Florida Adrian Van Young March 27, 2015 NEW GENRES: The Worm in The Apple Tale Rebecca Scherm March 20, 2015 1 How DRM Evolved from Protecting discount montreal hotels Publishers from Piracy to Protecting Amazon from Competition Electric Literature March 19, 2015 2 That New 2016 Star Wars Movie Is Inspired By Some Great Books Ryan Britt March 17, 2015 1 There s No Such Thing as a Fake Reader Lincoln Michel March 16, 2015 15 The Literature of Ruins: On ISIS, Tom McCarthy and the Fiction of Antiquity Adam Fleming Petty March 13, 2015 Books Featured Memory, Remembrance, and the Self: Ongoingness: The End of a Diary by Sarah Manguso Joseph Riippi March 30, 2015 Books , Reviews Recent Fun, Fantasy, and Fine Art: The Fine Art of Fucking Up by Cate Dicharry Heather discount montreal hotels Scott Partington March 26, 2015 Sustained, Relentless Insight: Outline: A Novel by Rachel Cusk Andrew Lipstein March 23, 2015 Anger, Understanding, a Confession: Making Nice by Matt Sumell Eric Howell March 19, 2015 2 In Line for A Midnight Marquee: Horror Business by Ryan Craig Bradford Adrian Van Young March 16, 2015 1 INFOGRAPHIC: Where to Start with Terry Pratchett s Discworld Series Lincoln Michel March 13, 2015 2 In A Word, Voice: The Only Ones by Carola Dibbell Jenna Leigh Evans March 12, 2015 Conversations Featured A Language discount montreal hotels that Conceals: an interview with Kazuo Ishiguro, author of The Buried Giant Elysha Chang March 27, 2015 Interviews 2 Comment Recent Us Against the End: an interview with Porochista Khakpour, author of The Last Illusion Ryan W. Bradley March 26, 2015 1 A New Kind of Apocalypse, a conversation with Theo Gangi, author discount montreal hotels of A New Day in America Ryan Britt March 24, 2015 VIDEO: Neil Gaiman and Michael Chabon Discuss the Late Terry Pratchett Electric discount montreal hotels Literature March 23, 2015 3 Baseline Solidarity, an interview with John Freeman, editor of Tales of Two Cities: The Best and Worst of Times in Today’s New York Rachel Worrall March 20, 2015 1 Fantasies that Bind: a conversation with Zen Cho Stephanie Feldman, co-winners of the Crawford Award Sofia Samatar March 19, 2015 2 The Power of Culture: an interview with Marie Mutsuki Mockett, author of Where the Dead Pause, and the Japanese Say Goodbye Adalena Kavanagh March 13, 2015 Recommended Reading Okey-Panky Featured POETRY: Push by Michael Torres Electric Literature March 16, 2015 Okey-Panky Recent ESSAY: Behind the High by Josh Russell Electric Literature March 30, 2015 Comic: discount montreal hotels No Hokey Pokey by G.W. Duncanson Electric Literature March 23, 2015 FICTION: Men s Room by Greg Ames Electric Literature March 9, 2015 ESSAY: Other People by Emma Törzs Electric Literature March 2, 2015 5 COMIC: Turning Japanese (excerpt) by MariNaomi discount montreal hotels Electric Literature February 23, 2015 1 POETRY: Two by Kary Wayson Electric Literature February 16, 2015 2 Shop Donate Scuttlebutt Features Books Conversations Recommended Reading Okey-Panky Shop Donate Home Features Dispatches from the Road: Made to Break Vancouver D. Foy April 1, 2014 Features
February 26th marked the inauguration of D. Foy s national book tour in support discount montreal hotels of his debut novel,  Made to Break , released from Two Dollar discount montreal hotels Radio on March 18 th . Here is the second installment of his tour blog.
This was the first day of my sweep through the Pacific Northwest with Cari Luna, author of the killerdiller novel,  The Revolution of Every Day . My publisher, Eric, had hooked us up for my event at Powell’s, but because she’d received invitations to read in Bellingham and Olympia (Washington), we took advantage of the opportunity to plan a sort of Bonnie-and-Clyde on the Northwest. By the time we booked a date in Vancouver, as well, where I’d had a fantasy discount montreal hotels of reading, probably for nostalgic reasons (I’d been there years ago as a kid), we had ourselves a five-city tour lined up, under the auspices of #LunaAndFoy.
All-things AWP far surpassed my expectations. I probably had more fun in the last four days than at any conference-type affair, ever. The flipside of this? I was due for trouble, or rather at least for trouble’s little brother. And sure enough, the rat chose the morning discount montreal hotels Cari and I were set to leave Seattle to waylay me.
According to plan, having flown out to Seattle, I was now ready to pick up the rental car I’d reserved back in December for the West coast leg of my tour—Vancouver to LA. But when I called Advantage rental car that morning to check its pickup address, I was greeted by the computer lady that answers when phone numbers are disconnected. discount montreal hotels I called the 800-number for Advantage to receive confirmation from a human in the Philippines or India that in fact Advantage no longer existed in Seattle and that Thrifty car rental had assumed responsibility for its obligation to me. But when I called Thrifty, they had no record of my reservation. The same human from the Philippines or India, or so it seemed—the human not only spoke English very badly but couldn’t seem to understand it, either, repeatedly parroting as they did gibberish that had nothing to do with my questions—told me I needed to call Advantage again to get another confirmation code that corresponded to a code recognized by the Thrifty system. This went on and on, back and forth and all around, until two and a half hours later it struck me I’d somehow become the object of the sort of cosmic hoax with which our old friend Mr J. Kafka was so familiar . Nothing could be done, or so I was informed by a different, purportedly superior human: it was now incumbent upon me— me! —to rent another car on my own. I checked the email account I use for buying things online—essentially my spam account—and found that just yesterday Advantage had sent a letter informing me, like the humans on the phone, that they were no longer responsible for my reservation. The letter also included a new confirmation code that, doubtless, was still unrecognizable discount montreal hotels by any of the aforementioned systems.
This is as good a place as any to speak a bit of politicalese: the human from India or the Philippines was not a nameless humanoid but, very obviously, a thinking, feeling person. The system these people work for has dehumanized them in the name of profit. I don’t know for a fact that they were speaking from India or the Philippines, but assume so by virtue of precedent. Every customer service operation discount montreal hotels for every major business, it seems, nowadays bases its operations in India or the Philippines. Why? Because capitalism seeks out the cheapest labor it can find, whether by machine or man, though preferably by machine, reducing man meantime—when it can’t resort to machine—to discount montreal hotels machine. The most profitable market for exploiting humans, as far as my experience can tell, is India and the Philippines, discount montreal hotels though surely that market will shift the instant discount montreal hotels the people it depends on for profit become intractable to that end. But no matter where that market is, one factor will stay constant: even as the service worker is mistreated, the consumer, as was the case for me that morning, and as has many times been the case, will always bear the brunt of systemic greed.
To continue, however, and to wit: in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt, discount montreal hotels where Cari had been waiting all this time (reading Duras as she did), she confirmed that despite my trauma I still possessed enough of my faculties to continue on. We would go to the Dollar agency at the airport with my new letter as though none of what had just happened happened.
At the airport, with an actual discount montreal hotels and actually kind woman, I went through more of what I’d experienced on the phone until the person the kind woman called on her phone said that my reservation would likely have been assumed by Hertz, discount montreal hotels which, as it turns out, owns both Thrifty and Dollar. This was true. My confirmation number agreed with the Hertz system. Hertz gave me my car, at last, and only charged me $500 more, in insurance fees, despite my existing coverage for my car back home, which protects any car I drive. The fees for Hertz would cover the cost of the daily rental fee for every day the car would be out of commission in a shop, should I get in an accident, they said. Later I was informed that the person at Hertz had lied about the insurance fees, and that the employees of car rental agencies employ this dastardliness all the time. Wha???
That night, in freezing, slushy Bellingham, Cari and I read to three people, one of whom was Dave, the accommodating and very pleasant discount montreal hotels events coordinator. We hadn’t considered AWP burnout, much less that it would doubtless apply to the people of letters who lived in Bellingham, most of whom would likely have been at AWP. Worse, and I think far more foolishly, we had overlooked a key fact—that this date coincided with Oscars night. I mean, right? Forget known writers, or even writers who are bona fide famous. What unknown writer in her working mind will think she can compete with the Oscars? Despite these obstacles, however, the reading and discussion came off fantastically. Village Books recorded the whole thing for play on two radio stations later in the month. No one in that audience will have any idea that the show