* Announcement * Book Tour * Book Availability *

2005-11-23

Richard Moore

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