Friends, We expect my book, "Escaping the Matrix: how We the People can save the world", to be available in time to order for Christmas from BookSurge.com, Amazon, or Alibris. I'll keep you posted. --- Soon after that, perhaps mid or late January, I want to embark on a book tour in North America, and I'm looking for volunteer hosts. We can supply posters and flyers, and the job of the host would be to arrange a book signing in a local bookstore, to invite some people (friends, colleagues, neighbors, whatever) to a gathering where we can engage in dialog, and finally, to put me up for the few days I'm in town. I've got airfare advanced from the publisher, and per diem for food and incidentals, but no budget for accommodation. Hence hosts are critical to the plan. The locations I'll visit depends entirely on who volunteers to be a host. If you might be interested, please let me know soon, so we can discuss it and I can begin to map out my itinerary. One of the highlights for me will be to meet more of you face-to-face, making the connection between cyberspace dialog and real people. I'm not sure yet how the arrangement works with bookstores: Do I bring a box of books with me, or is the bookstore obliged to order some in advance? I'll post that information when I find out. --- These cyberjournal lists began in '94, and I believe there are several of you who have been around for the whole duration. A larger number have probably been around since '98, when Jan Slakov was active on the renaissance-network list. I've been very pleased with the quality of dialog that has emerged over the years, and grateful for your many responses (both supportive and critical) as my writing, and my understanding, has been evolving. To me, these lists are like an ongoing seminar, where different people chime in from time to time -- usually when their particular insights are most needed -- and my job is to try to maintain a coherent 'story' of what we've discovered and what we've figured out. To be sure, this 'story' has also been augmented by face-to-face discussions and books I've read, but most of those books have been suggested by you folks, when you could see there was something I needed to learn. 'The Story of B' and 'The Chalice and the Blade' were particularly important, as was more recently Engdahl's, 'A Century of War'. The subject matter of our seminars has always focused around the human social condition: how society got to be the way it is, how our systems operate, how they might be transformed, and by whom. These are big questions, and I think we've made remarkable progress in exploring them. The Matrix book may not have everything right, but it offers what I believe to be one plausible 'story' that deals with all these questions in a coherent and understandable manner. I think the book is perhaps unique in its attempt to deal with these problems so comprehensively, connecting all the dots, suggesting a particular path from 'what is' to 'what can be', and connecting that path to 'who we are', 'where we came from', and 'what we are capable of', as a species. As a writer, I feel that this version of the story, as captured in the Matrix book, is the best I can do, in terms of understanding, and in terms of expression. The story has gradually converged, reached a kind of completeness - where further attempts to touch it up would only spoil the plot. It's like a painting, where one more dab would ruin the composition. As a human, I'm convinced enough by the story that I want to start a new phase of life - focusing my energy on being a 'harmonization activist'. The book tour begins that phase. I'll be promoting the book, which is about harmonization, and the local gatherings will provide an opportunity to explore face-to-face dialog with different groups, and see what kind of progress can be made in the direction of harmonization, and perhaps in the direction of follow-up networking. I won't be abandoning our lists, but there may be changes in focus and frequency of postings, particularly when travelling. We'll see what develops. best regards to all, rkm http://cyberjournal.org