After both Nicolas Nova and Rudy Rucker recommended Accelerando to me, I bought it and just started today. This passage caught my eye.

Manfred [the protagonist] is at the peak of his profession, which is essentially coming up with whacky but workable ideas and giving them to people who will make fortunes with them…There are drawbacks, however. Being a pronoiac meme-broker is a constant burn of future shock – he has to assimilate more than a megabyte of text and several gigs of AV content every day just to stay current.

Not too far off from the truth for many of us!

Bruce Sterling said something similar in his talk on Design Futurism

Futurist activity of “scanning” – newspapers Internet, television, conferences, other futurists, landmark events, reports, weak signals. Always asking “What are the things out there that might affect clientele (which could be anything!)?”

Note: Nicolas Nova blogged the same quote several days before I did. Copycat or coincidence?

Thanks to Fred Sampson’s recommendation, I had some time in Hawaii to read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods.

…and the memories and the dreams that he had brought back from the tree would be elided by the world of things you could touch. That was the way it always went.

I gave the book away, but I wrote that quote down because it just really struck me as beautiful and also commenting on some similar stuff to what I tend to write about (just not as eloquently…elided!)

I also read Market Forces by Richard Morgan; also discovered via a blog entry, in this case from a student in my class last semester. It wasn’t as cool as the Takeshi Kovacs books (action/noir/hardboiled/tech-sci-fi) and in some ways was rather silly and heavy-handed (in the future, investment bankers drive armored vehicles and have sanctioned duels to kill each other and win deals to subsize global events like small wars), but fun anyway. Most amazing was Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer which blew me away. I liked his first book, but this was awesome. Read it in one long day of airport lounges and airplane rides. Highly recommended.

And I made it through about 70% of The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge; the kind of sci-fi I would have liked in my younger days; but now really dated. The speculative concepts he’s exploring seem less exciting or relevant than what Sterling et. al are doing.

I pulled a page out of Newsweek a year ago, intending to do something with the article, anyway a year later, I finally get around to blogging Everything I Ate: A Year in the Life of My Mouth, mostly as Yet Another example of what I would call Inventory Porn (of which Taschen books might be a leading example) – if you go to some extreme length and document something (a big collection, all the stuff in your home, every manhole cover, gum wads, lost pet posters, bowling pins) at length, it becomes some publishable hipster NPR-reporting bloggable story.

It’s sort of the ultimate in DIY (or sorry, I mean User Created Content); anyone can seemingly visit every Starbucks in the US. Most won’t. But the person that does can get a book/movie/TV deal.

Some of these efforts are fun, some offer some insight, but others are just tedious. I might like to photograph the hotel doorknob of every room I stayed in over the last 3 years. Do you want to look at those pictures? What if I tell you engaging stories about each doorknob? Or each hotel? Or each trip? Well….maybe.

I admit it’s compelling to consume and create, but I’m also feeling a little burned out with this stuff. Perhaps it’s the lowbrow ethno vibe the whole thing gives off, that it’s an aesthetic and attitude of being into the details of consumption more than the implications or outcomes of the study (if it is even study; perhaps it’s just documentation).

Yesterday I received my copy of the new Swedish translation of Design: A Very Short Introduction (Design – en introduktion) by John Heskett. I can’t read Swedish, but this edition features two of my photographs from Hong Kong. Hooray!

I flipped through the book and found a photo captioned Amerikansk “strip mall” but is obviously taken in Canada, showing the Canadian McDonald’s logo, Tim Horton’s, Mark’s Work Wearhouse, and Canadian Tire. Hmm.

JPod is a new book by Douglas Coupland. I consider myself quite loyal to Coupland, having been significantly moved by Generation X to stick through a variety of highs (i.e., Hey Nostradmaus!) and lows (there have been several) over the years. But as I’ve written before, when an author introduces himself into the story as a character, I must quickly step aside. To me it seems like a cheap trick (akin to some Very Special Episode cliches from TV like the clip show, or the homage to It’s A Wonderful Life) that suggests the author’s ability to observe the world has been ruined by their own success (since the world that now includes the author). It could be a clever post-modern trick, but aren’t we really really tired of cutesy pomo hackery? Maybe I’m missing out on a great book or something, but I’m just a little bit offended by someone who I have long respected and enjoyed.

From House & Garden comes this awesomely negative review of Karim Rashid’s new book

.

Considering the chutzpah of the basic conceit, I expected Rashid to pepper the volume with absurd pronouncements. To my great disappointment, the most shocking thing about the book is the banality of the designer’s advice: “If you’re short, don’t worry about it.” “Clip and trim your nose hairs.” “Make friends online.” “Know yourself.” Try to imagine Dr. Phil grooving on some pharmaceuticals at the Milan Furniture Fair and you start to get the picture. Predictably, the book is rife with evidence of Rashid’s narcissism, but even those passages don’t relieve the painful tedium.

========================================================
FreshMeat #14 from Steve Portigal

               (__)                     
               (oo) Fresh                  
                \\/  Meat

FreshMeat – It’ll heat you up and it’ll cool you down…
=========================================================

Here’s an assemblage of books that have caught my eye.
I own most of them (at least one was a library book),
I’ve started to read most of them, and I’ve even
finished a quite a few. Some of them I’ve probably
had for a few years, even.

Note that the year listed may be inaccurate - between 
different editions, paperback, reprints, or releases in 
various countries, it was difficult to be completely 
accurate (well, it didn't seem like it would be of any 
benefit to formulate a consistent date system).

+++++++++++++++++++++

Litter Only
Alexandra Martini
2001

Neat little photo essay of public garbage receptacles
from around the world. Too tightly bound to really get
a good look at a lot of the pictures, however. The kind of
book that makes many of us think "hey, I could have done
that…"

+++++++++++++++++++++

Walker Evans: Signs
Walker Evans, Andrei Codrescu
1998

A personal fetish of mine is photographing signs,
especially old ones. This is a book of wonderful
(and old) pictures of wonderful (and even older)
signs.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Open Here: The Art of Instructional Design
Paul Mijksenaar, Piet Westendorp
1999

This is a beautiful collection of illustrations that
explain how to use products. How, where, and when to
pull, push, insert, twist, spin, shake, connect,
remove, and so on. A celebration of the ephemeral.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Understanding Comics
Scott McCloud
1994

Presented as a comic novel, an exploration of the
"user interface" of comics – how a page of framed
illustrations with captions and balloons works as
a narrative form. The author places himself as a
character in the book, explaining his theories with
plenty of examples. A very non-threatening format for
dealing with some complex stuff. Something about his
visual style is kind of annoying to me, too much
"Sunday Funnies," with the veneer of underground
comix.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Reinventing Comics
Scott McCloud
2000

Again, a comic novel format, some furthering of the
same theories, taking into account new methods of creating
and consuming comics (i.e.,the Internet).

+++++++++++++++++++++

Art & Fear
David Bayles, Ted Orland
2001

An earnest if repetitive piece of encouragement – Art is
work, allow yourself to fail, "practice, man, practice…"
and beyond.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress
Debra Ginsberg
2001

An enjoyable memoir about a woman who spends many years
as a waitress. She interrupts her narrative to offer up
interesting mini-lectures on the world of food service
the kitchen romances, the politics of tipping, etc. The
narrative was more engaging than the information, however.
I was hoping for some proto-anthropological insight, but
I didn’t find it.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Big Hair: A Journey into the Transformation of Self
Grant McCracken

1996

A very readable and provocative book that documents the
cultural bringing you along for quite the ride, provoking you with experiences and opinions regularly. I was sad when it was over.

+++++++++++++++++++++

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Malcolm Gladwell
2000

Required reading. You can even just pick a chapter and
cruise through it. Seems to be written at a slightly lower
level than his New Yorker articles (some of which are
integrated into the text of this book).

+++++++++++++++++++++

Uncommon Wisdom
Fritjof Capra
1989

A big thinker documents his intellectual explorations with
other big thinkers.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Soloing: Realizing Your Life’s Ambition
Harriet Rubin
1999

More than a guide to freelancing, the attempt here is to
pave a pathway to self-discovery, illumination, and of
course, self-actualization. All while pulling down some
pretty mean coin.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Leading at the Speed of Growth: Journey from Entrepreneur
to CEO
Katherine Catlin, Jana Matthews
2001

Based on a study of 500 business leaders who made it,
looking at how to lead, and how to grow.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Work Hard & You Shall Be Rewarded: Urban Folklore from the
Paperwork Empire
Alan Dundes, Carl R. Pagter
1992

Ever see an office with a "you don’t have to be crazy to
work here (but it helps)" sign? Or a round TUIT? This book
is one in a series that assembles this widespread yet
hard-to-trace form of urban folklore.

+++++++++++++++++++++

The Experience Economy
B. Joseph Pine, James H. Gilmore, B. Joseph Pine II
1999

"Goods and services are no longer enough," and "work is a
theater & every business a stage."

+++++++++++++++++++++

Star-Spangled Canadians
Jeffrey Simpson
2000

The Canadians in the U.S. – what brought them here, what
are they doing here, and what is their sense of national
identity? The author interviewed me (a Canadian) when he did
a pass through Silicon Valley in researching this book. And
no, I’m not in it. Damn!

+++++++++++++++++++++

Tropic of Hockey: My Search for the Game in Unlikely Places
Dave Bidini
2002

The author travels around the world to play hockey,
comparing his own imperative to learn and play the game
in 1970s Toronto with what he finds in Hong Kong, Dubai,
and Transylvania.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Inventing Desire: Inside Chiat/Day: The Hottest Shop, the
Coolest Players, the Big Business of Advertising
Karen Stabiner
1993

The author spent a year inside Chiat/Day (before they
were TBWA), studying the creative process, the egos,
the innovative office environments, the ad campaigns,
and the clients. Very engaging, but a little too
positive.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Truth, Lies and Advertising: The Art of Account Planning
Jon Steel
1998

Account Planning is the process of creating advertising
that connects with consumers. As opposed to? The writing
style makes Newsweek seem like Umberto Eco.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Where the Suckers Moon: The Life and Death of an Advertising Campaign
Randall Rothenberg
1995

An incredibly revealing document of how Subaru put their
account up for review, considered several agencies, and
selected one. And then how the agency (and their client,
Subaru) screwed it up.

+++++++++++++++++++++

My Life As a 10-Year-Old Boy
Nancy Cartwright
2001

The woman who does Bart Simpson’s voice details her
career as an actor, a voice actor, and most interestingly,
as Bart. Good document of the process of making an episode.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Have Not Been the Same: The Canrock Renaissance 1985-1995
Michael Barclay, et al
2001

An extraordinarily detailed (and thick) document of the
radical in Canadian music (the bands, and the business),
in the post-Adams/Hart/BTO/Loverboy era.

+++++++++++++++++++++

PCAT: Preparation for the Pop-Culture Aptitude Test: Rad ’80s Version
John Sellers
1998

I spent the 80s watching a great deal of TV, music videos,
and listening to the radio. And I am blessed/cursed to
remember most of it (not just the recycling-friendly bits
that VH1 has chosen to exhume). This book is a detailed
and challenging review of those (and other) elements of
80s pop culture.

—

What are YOU reading?