Tag: Science Fiction

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Recurring Themes, Part One: The Dissolution of Trust

“Who put thing together, huh? Me! Who do I trust? Me! That’s who!” — Scarface

One of my recent obsessions has been Shane Carruth’s movie Primer. The story revolves around two engineers who build a device in their garage, a device that turns out to alter time. As intriguing and fascinating as it is, on a deeper level, the science revealed in the film only acts as a catalyst for the evolution of their relationship, which moves from enthusiastic reliance to complete distrust. The two engineers, Abe and Aaron, start off as best friends hellbent on building their machine, but once things get out of control, a rift develops, and the two find that they can no longer work together. Upon first viewing, maybe their scientific discovery overshadows the nuances of their relationship, but once one gets past the idea of time travel (and the subsequently intricate plot structure), the human elements of the story move to the fore.

PrimerSo, after my second viewing of Primer, the idea of fading trust stuck in my head. My terministic screen was then duly haunted by it. Every time I go to a bookstore and I see Micheal Moore’s new book on display (Will They Ever Trust Us Again?), I cringe. I mean, I like Michael Moore, but in the same way that I like Dennis Rodman, Chad Muska, or Andrew WK: I’m not really a fan, but I’m glad he’s there doing his thing. But do I trust him? Not so much.

I’ve also been on a Mike Ladd kick lately. A friend of mine in Seattle turned me on to his music several years ago, and I’ve been geeked enough to try to keep up since. It’s not easy. Ladd is the kind of artist who makes it difficult to be his fan: All of his records are on different labels, many under different names, and often categorized in different genres. Mike Ladd is a poet, a producer, a performer, and more. He’s usually found filed under “Hip-hop,” but genre distinctions cannot contain his work.

In What Language?Anyway, one of his recent records, done with phenomenal pianist Vijay Iyer, In What Language? is an exploration of travel and the breakdown of trust. The record’s namesake is the pre-9/11 experience of Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi: “While traveling from a festival in Hong Kong to one in Buenos Aires. Transiting through JFK, he was detained by INS officials, shackled to a bench in a crowded cell for several hours, and ultimately sent back to Hong Kong in handcuffs. Panahi’s description of this ordeal was widely circulated online. He wanted to explain his story to fellow passengers: ‘I’m not a thief! I’m not a murderer! … I am just an Iranian, a filmmaker. But how could I tell this, in what language?'” The airport represents the intersection of the vectors of travel, commerce, globalization, and culture: This is not neutral territory. Have you been to the airport lately? Do you feel trusted? Do you trust the people searching your bags?

And finally, I just got the new Sage Francis record. It’s title? A Healthy Distrust… (By this point, a pattern had emerged.) If you’re familiar with the work of Sage Francis, then you know where this title comes from. It’s the same distrust of Public Enemy, Refused, or Rage Against the Machine (and the same healthy dose that 49% of Americans currently have).

Like so many other intangibles, trust is a process. It’s something that gets checked and re-checked throughout the lifecycle of a relationship. It’s not something I’ve really put much thought into in a while, but my Primer obsession got me thinking about it. Shane Carruth used a scientific discovery to check the trust between his main characters, saying in an interview, “…some device or power is going to be introduced that’s going to change what’s at risk, what they are liable to lose if that trust is broken. And that’s going to be the thing that unravels their relationship, and not just relationships, I was interested in it because I think it’s universal, whether you’re talking about power structures in politics or whatever.”

Universal, yes. Always at the forefront of conscious concerns, no.

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Literary Conversations and Interviews with Filmmakers

The University Press of Mississippi has been quietly putting out an amazing catalog of books for years now. One such set is their Literary Conversations Series (edited by Peggy Whitman Prenshaw) that consists of interviews and essays with modern literature’s most fascinating authors. I got Don DeLillo, Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, and Jack Kerouac, but the series also includes Tom Wolfe, August Wilson, Robert Penn Warren, Gore Vidal, Ray Bradbury, Gloria Naylor, R. Crumb, Audre Lorde, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, among many others.

Ridley Scott InterviewsThey also put out a similar set called the Conversations with Filmmakers Series (edited by Peter Brunette). These include Ridley Scott, Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Jean Renoir, Tim Burton, Charlie Chaplin, Francis Ford Coppola, Terry Gilliam, and many more. Since each of these books focuses on a specific person, but spans the length of his or her career, one really gets a sense of their attitudes, ambitions, processes, career development, career pitfalls, and, of course, personal tribulations. If you’re interested in any of these creators’ work, then the appropriate book here is indispensable. Hell, even if you’re not necessarily interested in the subject, they’re good. I mean, have you ever seen a bad episode of Behind the Music?

Here’s an excerpt from an interview with Roman Polanski from 1984:

Franz-Olivier Giesbert: After all that you have gone through, you still look only thirty years old. What’s your secret?

Roman Polanski: My curiosity, without doubt. I’m always trying to learn something new. A language or a musical instrument. Old age is an illness that sets in when you don’t want to learn anything new.

Amen.

So keep an eye out for these volumes. They’re all certainly worth checking out.

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Summer Reading List, 2004

Sidney at Jackson Street BooksIn the midst of putting together a Summer Reading List for 2004, I took a lengthy Summer trip, delaying the release of this list until long after summer was officially over. Here, now, is the list of recommended I accumulated and sat on for far too long. Additions and corrections were made in the meantime. Many apologies for the delay, and many thanks to all those who participated.

note: All of the book title links on this page (and there are a lot of them) will take you to the selected title in Powell’s Bookstore (except where noted otherwise).

Gary Baddeley, Publisher, The Disinformation Company

The Yes MenThis is an easy one, Roy, I’m reading proofs of our new books: The Yes Men, which is about those ®TMark guys (remember) who created a fake gatt.org website and ended up being invited all over the world to speak as representatives of the WTO. United Artists released the movie late in the Summer, and we have created the book, which is very funny, but with a serious anti-globalization message.

As for right now, I’m re-reading our book Da Vinci Code Decoded by Martin Lunn because it’s doing so well that we’ve decided to produce a DVD based on it. It’s really deep into stuff like the bloodline of Christ.

I could go on about our own books, but for light beach reading it’s The Rule of Four by Ian Cladwell and Dustin Thomason because I’m interested in the Renaissance text the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili that provides the central theme.

Cynthia Connolly, Photographer and Artist.

Hey, I only have a couple things:

Hank Williams: The Biography by Colin Escott (Little, Brown)

Where I was From by Joan Didion (Knopf)

How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office

Billy Wimsatt, Editor, How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office, Author, No More Prions and Bomb the Suburbs

You mean other than How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office?

Mark Dery, Author, Pyrotechnic Insanitarium, Escape Velocity, Flame Wars

This summer, I did the sociocultural spadework for a book-in-progress — an anti-memoir about my San Diego adolescence, equal parts social history of ’70s SoCal and drive-by cultural critique of border consciousness. I began my excavations of Southern California history, cultural and otherwise, with Southern California: An Island on the Land, by the dean of left-wing California historians, Carey McWilliams (the progenitor of Mike Davis’s archaeological analysis of power, race and real estate in L.A.). Garrulous, generous of spirit, and dryly funny, yet possessed of a backroom dealmaker’s knowledge of how power really works in the Land of the Golden Dream, Williams is the perfect Audio-Animatronic tour guide to Southern California’s Amok Disneyland. His account of the Free Speech Rights in San Diego, in the ’30s, is unforgettable: Emma Goldman came to rouse the rabble and was ushered, by the local constabulary, onto a train to L.A., with a one-way ticket and theUnder the Perfect Sun friendly admonition never to return. The socialist wobblies (IWW members) who came from all over the U.S. to join the protests suffered a less genteel fate: Cops and hired goons dragged them out to canyon country, forced them to kiss the flag, then beat them, some to death, with truncheons. This is rough justice, in the town where the social order and property values trump civil liberties every time. Mike Davis and his collaborators Jim Miller and Kelly Mayhew take up Williams’s song in Under the Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See, a fastidiously researched collection of essays on San Diego’s powerbrokers and the dissident voices — underground journalists in the ’60s, migrant workers and illegal aliens more recently — raised against them.

Finally, before bed, on the beach, and at poolside, there’s The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction 1909-1959 (ed. Hiney, MacShane), much of which is gleaned from Chandler’s La Jolla years, when he would dictate his correspondence late into the night. Written with a pitch-perfect ear for the American vernacular and the grammatical fastidiousness of a man born, bred, and classically educated in England, Selected Letters is an omnium gatherum of blunt, bleakly funny bon mots. On California: “There is a touch of the desert about everything in California, and about the minds of the people who live here.” “We are so rootless here. I’ve lived half my life in California and made what use of it I could, but I could leave it forever without a pang.” On his fan mail: “…[A]nother letter I had once from a girl in Seattle who said that she was interested in music and sex, and gave me the impression that, if I was pressed for time, I need not even bother to bring my own pyjamas.” On himself: “All my best friends I have never seen. To know me in the flesh is to pass on to better things.” Written in the dead of night with a Dictaphone and a bottle of gin, Chandler’s letters are an inexhaustible fund of insights into the noir aesthetic, the sublime agonies of the writer’s life, the American Language (as Mencken called it), and, forever and always, the sunbelt existentialism that shadows the California Dream.

Tom Georgoulias, Contributing Editor, frontwheeldrive.com

Candy by Mian Mian (Back Bay)

Candy is a semi-autobiographical novel about a Chinese girl who ran away to Shenzhen, a city free of state economic control, to escape from the confines of the government job system. She bounces around the underground club/music culture, which is filled with a lot of other wandering Chinese 20/30 somethings who are into music, fashion, and finding their way out of the world their parents created.

Small Town Punk by John L. Sheppard (Writers Club Press)

Lost punk teenagers stuck in a nothing small town, drinking between shifts at dead end fast food jobs, and struggling through their teen years. If you grew up like this, you’ll recognize the authenticity almost immediately. The characters and dialogue are just that good.

All Hands OnAll Hands On: THE2NDHAND reader Edited by Todd Dills (TNI/Elephant Rock)

Best of collection from the free literary broadsheet THE2NDHAND.

Vinyl Junkies by Brett Milano (St. Matrin’s)

Profiles of record collectors and their favorite haunts, hidden and famous. A fairly insightful and tender look at record colleting and obsessive hobbyists in general.

Working Stiffs Manifesto by Iain Levison (Random House)

The funniest book I’ve read in a long time. Read it all in one sitting. A documentary of Levison’s string of dead end jobs, one right after another, and all the hilarious and worthless crap he’s seen during and in between. Perfect.

Shepard Fairey, Artist, Obey Giant

I have not read a good book in a while. The last book I read was this big compilation of interviews from people who shaped the first 2 years of punk called Punk. My schedule has not been leaving time for more than magazine and newspaper articles.

Steven Shaviro, Author, Connected, Doom Patrols, The Cinematic Body, etc.

Process and Reality by Alfred North Whitehead (Free Press)

Whitehead, a hidden influence on such recent thinkers as Deleuze and Bruno Latour, is the most underrated philosopher of the first half of the twentieth century. Surprisingly timely.


The Fabric of the CosmosFabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene (Knopf)

The latest popularization of contemporary physics, going beyond the bounds of science into full-fledged metaphysical speculation.

The Filth by Grant Morrison and Chris Weston (DC Comics)

This mind-bending comic is now available as a single-volume trade paperback novel. Everything you wanted to know (and a lot you didn’t) about the ultimate nature of reality; together with a hero who is forced to battle everything from viral nanobots that take over human bodies, to pornographers who generate bioengineered predatory megasperm, to memetic cloning programs that turn human crowds into orgiastic Stepford Wives who provide the building blocks for an “emergent superorganism” — when all he really wants to do is stay home and care for his cat.

The Iron Council by China Mieville (Del Rey)

The third volume of Mieville’s Bas-Lag trilogy (after Perdido Street Station and The Scar). Mieville writes brilliant, dense meta-fantasy, utterly gripping yet at the same time deconstructing the tropes of the Tolkien tradition. Sort of Lovecraft-meets-Dickens-meets- Marxist theory. To be published in July.

Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire by Michael Hardt and Toni Negri (Penguin Press)

The much-awaited sequel to Empire.

Marc Pesce, Author, The Playful World


The Emperor of ScentThe Emperor of Scent by Chandler Burr (Random House)

The amazing account of the probable discovery of the unlikely mechanism of smell, by renegade scientist Luca Turin. In a classic case of an outsider solving a previously intractable problem, Turin sweeps away a hundred years of accepted-if-hodgepodge theories about the “shape” theory of scent, and discovers something far more interesting: there’s a spectrograph in your nose — or rather, thousands of them. An incredible must-read for anyone who has ever gotten a whiff of the stench of scientific politics, or the scent of victory.

Phil Agre, Associate Professor of Information Studies, UCLA

Here are four very different history books that I recommend.

Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe by Thomas Ertman (Cambridge University Press, 1997)

This is an excellent example of a particular kind of history that compares and contrasts different nations in a systematic way based on a simple theoretical model. The topic is state-building: why did some European countries construct efficient, professionally rationalized bureaucracies where others spent centuries stuck in absolutism or corruption? Ertman argues that the difference has to do with two factors. One was the “starting conditions” left over from the dark ages. In some areas, such as England, the legacy of Roman administration left behind a tradition of strong local governments whose workings were homogeneous. This made it easy to start a parliament and hard not to, and parliaments are a counterbalance to bureaucracies. In other areas, such as Germany, local government was heterogeneous. The other factor was timing. State-building was driven largely by military competition, and countries for which such competition arrived early were less bureaucratic. It’s a theory, and Ertman uses it to analyze aspects of the various countries’ histories that might otherwise have gone unanalyzed. Does the theory explain Afghanistan? Even if it doesn’t, at least it makes clear just how contingent European institutions really are.

The Culture of Civil War in Kyoto by Mary Elizabeth Berry (University of California Press, 1994)

The major difficulty with the humanities is interpretations of things that go beyond the evidence. Despite all the yammer about postmodernism, this really begins with I. A. Richards, whose arbitrary interpretations of literature have been oppressing students for generations. Mary Elizabeth Berry’s book about everyday life in Japan during the century-long civil war that began around 1450 is an impressive lesson in how to interpret history when the evidence is slight. Because Japan lacks a tradition of bureaucrat-monks, and because its cities keep getting burned to the ground in wars, Japanese history is not as well documented as European history. Berry reads the available documents patiently and with admirable sympathy for the people who wrote them — people who in many ways didn’t understand their society any better than we do. It was as if the whole society had melted, so that every detail of their lives could change tomorrow and often did.

The Age of HereticsThe Age of Heretics: Heroes, Outlaws, and the Forerunners of Corporate Change by Art Kleiner (Currency Doubleday, 1996)

This is a journalistic history of an important chapter of the 20th century that could easily have gone unwritten: a generation of attempts, more or less countercultural, to reform and reinvent the corporation. It’s all here: unpredictable experiments in social engineering, weird tales of engineers dropping acid, computer programs predicting the future of the whole world, and the truly odd omnipresence of an Armenian mystic named G. I. Gurdjieff. We’re nowhere near putting these innovations in context. Some of them led to genuine reforms and others did not. Some of them transcended the limitations of 20th century rationalism while others were just irrational. In any event, Kleiner promises a sequel in which he brings the story up to the present day, and I bet it’s going to be great.

Cosmopoiesis: The Renaissance Experiment by Giuseppe Mazzotta (University of Toronto Press, 2001)

Giuseppe Mazzotta is Italian through and through. He is also very smart. The result is a sort of alternative intellectual reality that takes some getting used to. For a short book it is hard to summarize, and not least because the traditions of allegorical writing that Mazzotta reads in such detail are lost to us. So, for example, one poet writes a vast epic to argue with Machiavelli’s psychology, and Lorenzo de Medici and his contemporaries argue about his despotism by, of all weird things, writing Neoplatonic poetry whose numerous layers of meanings Mazzotta revivifies in phrase after unexpected phrase. Maybe it’s just the foreignness of it, but I’m not sure I’ve read a book that was so densely intelligent.

roy christopher, Editor, frontwheeldrive.com

The History of Forgetting by Norman Klein (Verso)

After seeing Norman Klein speak at UC Irvine last March, my girlfriend and I began a frantic search for all of his books. This one is about L.A. and proves a nice companion to Mike Davis’s City of Quartz. Part memoir, part critique, and part fiction, The History of Forgetting is an amazing glimpse at the city — and its past eras — looming at the edge of civilization.

Wounds of Passion by bell hooks (Owl Books)

Subtitled “A Writing Life,” Wounds of Passion chronicles bell hooks’ path to the role of Black public intellectual. It’s a deeply personal account of her struggles at home in Kentucky, leaving there for school at Stanford, her most important relationship during college and after, and all of the other trials that lead to her writing her first book (Ain’t I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism), and indeed her writing life. hooks has always reveled in poetry, lived through words, and escaped in books. Wounds of Passion is a painful, yet liberating glance into one writer’s journey with the word.


Wondrous StrangeWondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould by Kevin Bazzana (Oxford University Press)

I wish I’d gotten this book a long time ago. I have several books about Glenn Gould and this one is by far the most complete look at his life, his music, his eccentricities, hislove of solitude and of Canada, and his passion for composing. Admittedly, my knowledge of classical music is limited, but Kevin Bazzana writes in such a way that one needn’t know the minutia of counterpoint, colour, and timbre. If you’re curious about Glenn Gould, this is the place to start.

Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (University of Chicago Press)

This brilliant little book explores and explains metaphor not as a form of language, but as the central structure of language. Written in clear, easy-to-understand language and rife with excellent examples and extensively explained linguistic concepts, Metaphors We Live By is a book everyone should — and can — read.

A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History by Manuel De Landa (Zone Books)

Meaning to have read this long ago, I grabbed it off the shelf just before leaving on my summer trip, and I’m glad I finally sat down with it. Using applied chaos theory, De Landa rewrites history as a dynamical system. It’s an amazing perspective on what is normally left to the dreaded “grand narrative.”

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman (Scribner)

Leave it to Chuck Klosterman to write the best pop culture book of the year. His previous work, Fargo Rock City, was an excellent piece of commentary on 80s Hair Metal, but Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs proves that its subject matter obviously limited his abilities. This book finds him pontificating on everything from Saved By The Bell and Vanilla Sky to the 80s Celtics-Lakers rivalry as a political metaphor and why Soccer sucks. No one is safe from Klosterman’s keen sense of humor and uncanny knack for what’s going on behind the most seemingly mundane pop culture trends.


[Above, Sidney browses the books at Jackson Street Bookstore in Athens, Georgia. Photo by Roy Christopher]

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The Architect’s Brother by Robert ParkeHarrison

The pieces in Robert ParkeHarrison‘s The Architect’s Brother depict a character named “Everyman” coping with a number of distraught scenarios in which the pace of technology has out-stepped the resources of the earth. As tired as this theme may sound, ParkeHarrison brings a new perspective to each of many glimpses of these possible futures. These images are riddled with melancholy, but the weight is ultimately lifted by an unflagging belief in human agency. Continue reading “The Architect’s Brother by Robert ParkeHarrison”

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A Place So Foreign (and 8 More) by Cory Doctorow

Ah, frustrating read — not because of Cory Doctorow’s stories, but because I wish I’d found them earlier. Not that everyone else won’t enjoy them too, but these stories are perfect for the Web geek, the technoscience hack, the computer nerd, and others of that ilk. Cory is all-of-the-above and then some, and his knowledge and familiarity with all-things-geek comes shining through brightly in the stories in this collection. Continue reading “A Place So Foreign (and 8 More) by Cory Doctorow”

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Philip K. Dick: Speaking with the Dead

Philip K. Dick

Erik Davis contributed the following “interview” with Philip K. Dick to my book, Follow for Now.

After spending the bulk of his life cranking out pulp paperbacks for peanuts, the science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick is now finally recognized as one of the most visionary authors the genre has ever produced. While masterminds like Arthur C. Clarke anticipated technological breakthroughs, Dick, whose speed-ravaged heart called it quits in 1982 when the man was only 53, foresaw the psychological turmoil of our posthuman lives, as we enter a world where machines talk back, virtual reality rules, and God is a product in the checkout line. Continue reading “Philip K. Dick: Speaking with the Dead”

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Summer Reading List, 2003

Jenny abuses her illusions.In the midst of putting together a Summer Reading List, I decided to ask several of my friends for their recommendations. The responses were varied, and they’re all listed below for your Summer Reading pleasure. Many thanks to all those who participated.

note: All links on this page (and there are a lot of them) will take you to the selected title in Powells Bookstore (except where noted otherwise).

Ashley Crawford, Writer, Editor, Transit Lounge

Cosmopolis: A Novel by Don Delillo (Scribner)

Despite savaging by the critics this a cool, ironic read that slices into the cold psychology of contemporary Western society with wry amusement. Those expecting another Underworld were disappointed, but considering the range that Delillo has tackled over the years one should be prepared for shifts in gear such as this one.


Pattern RecognitionPattern Recognition: A Novel by William Gibson (Putnam)

After floundering a bit in his last few books, Gibson has found his pace again with this one. His female protagonist is on the chase for elusive footage on the web. It’s a story that replicates elements of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest and Mark Z. Danielwski’s House of Leaves. What’s especially interesting about it is Gibson’s exploration of a world that in some ways he helped create.

Personally I have just finished Infinite Jest (Little, Brown) after avoiding on the bookshelf for years due to its astonishing heft. But, as the hype that surrounded it when it appeared years ago, it is nothing short of a contemporary masterpiece. Similarly The Best Short Stories of J.G. Ballard (Picador) is a must have.

Also, I can heartily recommend ANYTHING by Jack O’Connell — one of the most underrated authors around. James Ellroy blurb goes: “Word Made Flesh is a tour de force! it’s a chase story, an allegory, and a brilliant riff on language. Jack O’Connel is the future of the dark, literary suspense novel.” Try Word Made Flesh (Perennial), Box Nine (Trafalgar Square), Wireless (Trafalgar Square), and The Skin Palace (Oldcastle Books). All great.

Tom Georgoulias, Technology Editor, frontwheeldrive.com

The BugThe Bug by Ellen Ullman (Doubleday)

In Ullman’s first novel since Close to the Machine, we learn the story of how Ethan Levin, a programmer obsessed with squashing a show-stopper bug in his code, is ultimately brought down by dormant bugs present in his own life. Ullman more than proved herself to be one of the best writers using high tech settings, and The Bug does not disappoint. Highly recommended.

Rebel Code by Glyn Moody (Perseus Publishing)

No longer fringe players in the software world, the open source and free software movements have drastically altered the landscape of the digital era, taking up disk blocks in the bin directories of programmers and on server RAID arrays all over the world. But there was a time when said software was only filling the hard drives of a few radicals — those who either wrote the code or recognized the power it harnessed. Glyn Moody was one of them, and Rebel Code is his documentary of the rise of the open source and free software movements.

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow (Tor Books)

“This cool stunt Cory pulled with his so-called ‘book’ is an act of blatant countercultural aring that is revitalizing our scene… SF is genuinely politically relevant again. It is in a position to say things that genuinely hurt people’s feelings by spelling out the unspeakable in terms that cannot be denied.” — Bruce Sterling

Cory Doctorow’s whuffie is getting up there. His name is dropped at witty spots all over the net and his fiction is showing up not just in the SF rags, but on the front page of Salon and throughout P2P nets. Appropriate indeed, since the open source principles are core to Jules and his gang of merry hackers who work in Disneyland and tweak the attractions for maximum guest entertainment. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is Doctorow’s very relevant tale of ad hocs battling for mind share in a post scarcity society where sheep shit grass (not figuratively), and reputation (a.k.a whuffie) is what matters most. But endorsed digital duplication doesn’t just exist in the Bitchun Society — DAOITMK was released under a Creative Commons license that so that Cory’s entire book is free to anyone who wants a copy or wants to make one. Science Fiction just got a much needed flight path correction.


Tomorrow NowTomorrow Now by Bruce Sterling (Random House)

Bruce Sterling takes on the next five decades in his latest book, steering clear of specs for unreleased hardware, software, and wetware, and instead contemplating topics like genetic engineering, industrial product design, and world politics. Bruce Sterling’s strongest points have always been his social and political commentary and Tomorrow Now is a shinning star. [full review]

The Hacker and The Ants, v2.0 by Rudy Rucker (Four Walls Eight Windows)

Rudy Rucker didn’t just republish his original manuscript of his classic novel The Hacker and the Ants, he tweaked some of the details just enough so that the story is just as entertaining as it was the first time, but also more relevant (and accurate). The original THATA was released during the hey days of VR, cellular automata, and artificial evolution, which makes the 2.0 version even more fun since it feels like flipping through an old issue of Wired that’s more PlayStation 2 than 3DO. Old hippies, a trip into a 4D polygon ant hill, and a walk through a virtual debugger — another mind-tweaking, hilarious romp through transreality by the lead hacker himself.

Richard Metzger: Creative Director, The Disinformation Company; Author, Disinformation: The Interviews

Mister Strangelove: A Biography of Peter Sellers by Ed Sikov (Hyperion)

A decidedly unauthorized biography of the comic genius. What a fucking freak!


Witchin’Witchin’: A Handbook for Teen Witches by Fiona Horne (Thorsons Publishing)

Must be the most subversive book ever written for teenage girls (and that’s really saying something). All the secrets of magick, veiled for centuries, are spilled here for Buffy and Charmed fans in a slick purple and pink package. Give it to your niece for her next birthday. She’ll think you’re the coolest, her parents will hate you. Isn’t it time that someone started smuggling subversion back into the mainstream again?

The Ghastly One: The Sex-Gore Netherworld of Filmmaker Andy Milligan by Jimmy McDonough (Chicago Review Press)

There might be one person reading this who will react as I did when I saw this sucker: “WHAT?!?! An Andy Milligan bio!?!? This I gotta read!” — Well trust me, you won’t be disappointed! It’s amazing that someone put up the money to publish this for all 12 Milligan fans in the world… Mind-rot at its finest!

Dig Infinity: The Life and Art of Lord Buckley by Oliver Trager (Welcome Rain)

At long last someone has decided to give this most immaculately hip aristocrat his due. Must’ve been difficult to research as so much of his Lordship’s life was obscured due to the apocryphal nature of the anecdotes to begin with and owing to the fact that most of his contemporaries are long dead. Still Trager deserves the gratitude of Buckley enthusiasts everywhere. Also comes with a CD of Buckley’s best routines and a Studs Terkel radio interview.

Ridiculous! The Theatrical Life and Times of Charles Ludlam by David Kaufman (Applause)

Exhaustively researched and sharply observed portrait of America’s drag Moliere. This is a major biography of a major (and heretofore unsung) giant of American theater. The late Ludlam, tragically lost to AIDS in 1987 at the age of 44, was truly one of those “larger than life” characters and Kaufman ably captures the soul of the man. A great book and a fun read.


Turn Off Your MindTurn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius by Gary Lachman (Disinformation)

Ex-Blondie member turned occult scholar Lachman’s revisionist history of the hippie era. Where Tolkien, Crowley, Casteneda, Blavatsky and the Manson Family meet the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Beach Boys, and Led Zeppelin with Kenneth Anger acting as a Zelig-like lynchpin throughout.

Joni Mitchell: Shadows and Light by Karen O’Brien (Virgin Publishing)

The definitive Mitchell bio. Even if smoky Joni didn’t really take part, she certainly didn’t hinder access to her family and closest friends. Full of amazing insights into La Mitchell’s turbulent life and uncompromising art. Isn’t it about time this woman got her due? She’s only the best post-Lennon and McCartney songwriter alive.

Mark Dery, Author, Pyrotechnic Insanitarium, Escape Velocity, Flame Wars

Car Crash Culture edited by Mikita Brottman (Palgrave Macmillan).

Experience the blunt trauma of a head-on collision with the future in this penetrating, mordantly funny anthology of essays on our out-of-control obsession with the automobile, and where it’s taking us.

Shapinsky’s Karma, Bogg’s Bills, and Other True-Life Tales by Lawrence Weschler (Penguin)

My current pillow book. A droll little cabinet of curiosities, featuring finely drawn portraits of legendary eccentrics, everyday Dadaists, and wild-eyed true believers.

Brandon Pierce, Editor at Large, frontwheeldrive.com

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough & Michael Braungart (North Point Press)

C2C is about transforming industrial design. McDonough and Braungart envision human industries that that mimic natural systems. They preach ecological, economical, and social consciousness in the realms of architecture, chemical engineering, and all the design spaces in between.


Small Pieces Loosely JoinedSmall Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web by David Weinberger (Perseus Publishing)

The web is changing Everything! and this is one of the first books that breaks down the hows and whys. Weinberger boldly divides the book into chapters with titles like ‘space,’ ‘time,’ ‘matter,’ ‘knowledge,’ ‘hope,’ etc., and cleverly rebuilds each concept in the terms of our web-enhanced world. His optimism lies in the fact that the web is our creation, and this reflects certain human virutes, adding value to our physical experience.

Home from Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler (Touchstone Books)

James Howard Kunstler is forever exploring the wasteland that is the American metropolis. This is the second of three books on urban design authored by this self-trained expert. He wants to provide the unsatisfied urban or suburbanite with the lexicon they need to understand and mitigate their frustration with their ever-expanding, congested, ugly depressing, polluted, or poorly designed environments.

Linked: The New Science of Networks by Albert-László Barabási (Perseus Publishing)

Network models can be used to interpret and explore many types of phenomena: internet connectivity, cellular biology, the economy, society, etc. But are these metaphors meaningful? Do common laws govern all these systems? Linked makes a strong case for the utility of network science. Bridging many disciplines with an over-arching theory brings to mind other trendy sciences such as catastrophe theory, complexity theory, and the like, but net theory seems to have a greater immediate utility that any of these disciplines. With strong publications in journals like Science and Nature, Network science seems to have a secure future.


No More PrisonsNo More Prisons by William Upski Wimsatt (Soft Skull)

This is a book that really opened by eyes to a new world of social issues, some largely unexplored by academia. I was about 20 when I read it, Upski was about 20 when he wrote it, so I was eye to eye with his tone and the feelings he was expressing. When you write, research, self promote, and distribute your first book (Bomb the Suburbs) at age 18, you grow up fast. He brings the underrepresented viewpoint of a young, poor Hip-hop activist to a wide literary audience with wit, energy, and compassion.

Investigations by Stewart Kaufmann (Oxford University Press)

This man is way ahead of the game. His ideas about concern self-organizing systems and complexity are truly understood by few. Wrapping your mind around this one is hecka challenging, so keep some Advil nearby. Some background in biochemistry, thermodynamics, and mathematics will definitely aid your understanding of this book. I admit, I should probably read it again. This man is wicked smart. [full review]

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond (W.W. Norton & Company)

This synthesis of evolutionary biology, anthropology, and psychology produces a remarkably readable and comprehensive work that investigates the big questions behind the rise of civilization. Diamond is a biologist who does not marginalize the importance of culture; this is true integrative thinking. This book earned Dr. Diamond a Pulitzer Prize.


CoercionCoercion by Douglas Rushkoff (Riverhead Books)

This one won the 2002 Marshall McLuhan Award for best media book. Rushkoff breaks down tactics of coercion in the corporate realm, tackling person-to-person strategies, organizational structures, atmospheres, and quickly evolving fields of advertising and marketing. Coercion is simply fascinating at times, but somewhat predictable at others. A great book for people who want to understand their place in the marketplace.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn

In his most celebrated work, Kuhn maps of the path by which science progresses, and picks apart and examines the many forces that can produce profound shifts in scientific thought. From the role and nature of paradigms, to the meaning of the word progress, Kuhn pours light on issues that still pertinent to this day today. 40 years later, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is still an enlightening read.

The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan with Quentin Fiore (Gingko Press Inc.)

McLuhan is a must. His disjointed prophecies are fertile ground critical thought about the interaction of media, politics and culture. His angle, delivery, and tone are completely his own, and have inspired countless numbers of today’s visionaries. This seminal work was way ahead of its time. No one understood him in the sixties, but today people are hearing him loud and clear.

David Weinberger: Author, Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web; Co-Author, The Cluetrain Manifesto

Hmm. This is what I’m reading now:

An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears (Penguin)

A murder mystery set in 1643, as told through manuscripts of several of those involved. Some interesting reflections on science in its youth, but possibly tedious overall.

I’m making my way through Lewis Mumford’s Technics and Civilization (Harvest Books), an astoundingly learned book.

I’m also reading Wolfram’s book (A New Kind of Science, Wolfram Media, Inc.), but I don’t think it can count as summer reading. For one thing, it’s heavier than my beach chair. For another, it’ll be a multi-seasonal book for me. [full review]

Roy Christopher, Editor, frontwheeldrive.com


Disinformation: The InterviewsDisinformation: The Interviews by Richard Metzger (Disinformation) and Uncanny Networks by Geert Lovink (MIT Press)

Apparently, interview compilations don’t appeal to the book-buying public. Call me biased (after all, I do run an interview-based website), but I love them. Put these two with the 21C compilation, Transit Lounge, Peter Lunenfeld’s The Digital Dialectic and maybe one of John Brockman’s many collections (The Third Culture or even Digerati) and you’ve got yourself a pretty damn solid, brief history of turn-of-the-millennium, cutting-edge scientific thought and social theory — in progress.

Interface Culture by Steven Johnson (Basic Books)

Unlike Don Norman, who’s much better at polemic than he is conjecture, Steven Johnson excels at both. Having been published some six years ago and given the nature of its rapidly-evolving subject matter, Interface Culture is surprisingly prescient. Johnson builds up various theories about computing technology then deconstructs them one by one, finally making a few predictions/recommendations as to where the then future of interface design would/should follow. The best part of the book (to me) is its stable grounding in literature and pop culture. Johnson’s examples (regularly running the gamut from Charles Dickens to Sonic Youth) give his arguments a verisimilitude often missing in these kinds of books. Another major point is the fact that his language resists hyperbole and retains a sober tone in its stead — even going so far as to critique those who speak of technology as if it were magic. Oh, and don’t miss Steven’s newest book Emergence (Scribner/Touchstone), it’s an engaging look at emergent phenomena in ant colonies, human brains, urban environments, software, etc. Excellent.

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown/Back Bay Books)

Journalist Malcolm Gladwell has put together what is easily one of the most readable books about social phenomena out right now. Borrowing by analogy from epidemiology, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference is a clear, concise analysis of social epidemics and why they “tip” (“The Tipping Point” is the name given to the moment in an epidemic when a virus reaches critical mass). After studying tipping points in epidemics, Gladwell decided to look for them in other places. He found them in Wolverine’s Hush Puppy shoe sales, Paul Revere’s midnight ride, the child-captivating shows of Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues and the most relevant analysis of teen smoking I’ve yet to read, among other things. Gladwell also covers case studies of people who have successfully manipulated tipping points by launching their own epidemic campaigns.


The Ride of my LifeThe Ride of My Life by Mat Hoffman with Mark Lewman (HarperCollins)

To re-use a well-worn metaphor, Mat Hoffman is the Michael Jordon of Freestyle BMX. An autobiography may seem a bit premature given that he’s only in his early 30s, but The Ride of My Life proves that Mat’s lived the last few decades to the fullest. Inside you’ll find an appropriate ‘zine-style layout, the undeniable wit of co-writer Mark Lewman, all the insanity of Mat’s life-long, limit-shattering, BMX obsession, and more broken bones than an archeology text book. The perfect Summer read.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (Pantheon)

The haunted text of Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves pushes the boudaries of the book that binds it. Often called “post-print,” his novel stretches the medium and is definitely “post-” something (the lay-out alone, which Danielewski did himself, is decidedly nonlinear). The layers of narrative in this story weave a web engrossing to unweave, but impossible to map. In short (maybe), the main storyline is about a tattoo artist who finds the remnants of a book about a film about a house that’s bigger on the inside that it is on the outside. Apparently, neither the film nor the house (nor the billions of references in the footnotes) can be proven to actually exist. The reader follows the tales of the tattoo artist, the writer of the book, and the makers of the film (and inhabitants of the house as they explore its depths), as well as the final editors of the book (told via footnotes). As convoluted as this all sounds, House of Leaves is an elegant, engaging, and ultimately enthralling read.


Writing MachinesWriting Machines by N. Katherine Hayles (MIT Press MediaWork Pamphlet Series)

Speaking of House of Leaves, N. Katherine Hayles ventures inside its cavernous corridors of text in her Writing Machines. Mixing literary genres and writing styles, Hayles explores between the lines of literature and hypertext in search of a materiality proper. With superb design by Anne Burdick, Writing Machines is a fun, enlightening look at the printed word.

Incidentally, enough good can’t be said about the MediaWork Pamphlet Series [website]. These small, but heady books (in which Peter Lunenfeld plays Jerome Agel to the Marshall McLuhans and Quentin Fiores of today) are well-designed, well-written, and well-planned. The first was Brenda Laurel’s Utopian Entrepreneur, and forthcoming is Paul D. Miller’s Rhythm Science. Big issues cower in the face of these small texts.

Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick (Penguin Putnam)

I couldn’t very well make this list without including this one. I read this for the first time in late 1997 (ten years after its release) and it changed my view of the world. Not just because of its revealing, in-depth look at chaos and complexity and its adept synthesis of disparate areas of research, but also because Jim’s writing set my head aflame. I ditched the path I was following and took up a new one (one of the results of my reading this book is the website you’re reading now). I reread this book every year and it never fails to re-align my mind. A true classic.


Steal This BookAnd, as Stewart Brand says, “When in doubt, read a classic. Better still, reread a classic.” These are a few other classics that I reread on a regular: Escape Velocity by Mark Dery (Grove Press), Writing Space by Jay David Bolter (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.), The Media Lab by Stewart Brand (Viking), Snap to Grid by Peter Lunenfeld (MIT Press), War in the Age of Intelligent Machines by Manuel De Landa (Zone), Out of Control by Kevin Kelly (Perseus Publishing), Media Virus! by Douglas Rushkoff (Ballantine Books), Culture Jam by Kalle Lasn (Quill), and Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman (Four Walls Eight Windows).

A few from the ‘to be read’ stack that I’m planning on tackling next:

Connected by Steven Shaviro (University of Minnesota Press)

Stand Up, Ernie Baxter: You’re Dead. by Adam Voith (TNI Books)

Media Spectacle by Douglas Kellner (Routledge)

When Poetry Ruled the Streets by Andrew Feenberg and Jim Freedman (SUNY Press)

Isaac Newton by James Gleick (Pantheon)

Folk Devils and Moral Panics by Stanley Cohen (Routledge)

Gary Baddeley, Publisher, The Disinformation Company

Abuse Your Illusions and Turn Off Your Mind!!!


Nothing SacredDouglas Rushkoff, Author, Nothing Sacred, Exit Strategy, Coercion, etc.

I haven’t been reading. I guess I’d suggest my own Nothing Sacred (Crown Publishing),
Pinchbeck’s book (Breaking Open the Head, Broadway Books) is a fun ride. And I think Michael Chabon has a new one out (Summerland, Miramax).


Cynthia Connolly, Photographer and Artist.

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Penguin)

The Promised Land by Nicholas Lemann (Vintage Books)

“Back to the Land” issue of Cometbus zine

OK… That’s it for now.

Andrew Feenberg, Author, Questioning Technology, Alternative Modernity, Technology and the Politics of Knowledge, etc.

Here’s an egotistical suggestion:


When Poetry Ruled the StreetsWhen Poetry Ruled the Streets by Andrew Feenberg and Jim Freedman, Foreward by Douglas Kellner (SUNY Press)

“More than a history, this book is a passionate reliving of the French May Events of 1968. The authors, ardent participants in the movement in Paris, documented the unfolding events as they pelted the police and ran from the tear gas grenades. Their account is imbued with the impassioned efforts of the students to ignite political awareness throughout society. Feenberg and Freedman select documents, graffiti, brochures, and posters from the movement and use them as testaments to a very different and exciting time. Their commentary, informed by the subsequent development of French culture and politics, offers useful background information and historical context for what may be the last great revolutionary challenge to the capitalist system.”

Sander Hicks, Author, The Breaking Manager

The 12 Caesars by Suetonius (Viking Press)

A frank history of the first 12 Caesars by a leading contemporaneous scholar of Rome. This reminds us that political corruption, hubris and ego are not unique to the current administration.

Steven Shaviro, Author, Connected, Doom Patrols, The Cinematic Body, etc.

You asked about Summer reading. Here are some of the books in my pile, things I hope to get to in the next several months:

Breaking Open the Head by Daniel Pinchbeck (Broadway Books)

Everything But the Burden Edited by Greg Tate (Broadway Books)

Metamorphoses by Rosi Braidotti (Polity Press)

Consciousness: A User’s Guide by Adam Zeman (Yale University Press)

Skin Prayer by Doug Rice (Eraserhead Press)

Isaac NewtonJames Gleick, Author, Isaac Newton, What Just Happened, Faster, Genius, and Chaos.

As it happens, my new book, Isaac Newton (Pantheon), is just being published.

[Above, Jenny abuses her illusions. Photo by Roy Christopher.]

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Nightwork: A History of Hacks and Pranks at MIT by Institute Historian T. F. Peterson

The Massachusetts Institue of Technology has been host to the leaders of innovations in many fields: Artificial Intelligence, media and communication technology, open source development, and on and on. One of its lesser known areas of bleeding-edge innovation has been pranks and hacking. Well, Institute Historian T. F. Peterson is here to set that straight with Nightwork: A History of Hacks and Pranks at MIT. Continue reading “Nightwork: A History of Hacks and Pranks at MIT by Institute Historian T. F. Peterson”

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Guest Post: Ashley Crawford on Prefiguring Cyberculture

Ricocheting from such subjects as The Matrix to James Joyce, Prefiguring Cyberculture (MIT Press) is a dazzlingly ambitious compendium. As in any collection of essays, it is a mixed affair, however, given its scope, and despite the occasional lapse into impenetrable jargon, it is an important addition to the burgeoning world of cyber-theory. Continue reading “Guest Post: Ashley Crawford on Prefiguring Cyberculture”