Kate McDowell on Storytelling

Everybody told me.  But, until now, I didn't listen. Feed by M. T. Anderson is an incredible book, an utterly absorbing snarky sci-fi read about a future in which our brains are wired for digital communication from birth.  The upside is messaging each other with minds alone.  The downside is all the ads from the corporations who, collectively control the feed, and thereby also control our minds.  When Titus meets Violet, whose feed was installed later than his own, he learns all kinds of things that he hardly has space to absorb in his product-saturated existence, things about socioeconomic differences and how expensive it really is to go to the moon.  Which is where he met Violet, on spring break.  This book has possibly the best first line ever:  "We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck."  But now I'm listening, and I mean really listening, because I finally got (read:  broke down and bought from audi...

From the book The Ethnography of Reading, edited by Jonathan Boyarin (Univ. of California Press, 1992) comes a chapter titled "Keep Listening:  Ethnography and Reading" by Johannes Fabian .  The opening is interesting, walking through arguments about literate vs. oral cultures that have, in short, set them apart and given literate cultures advantages.  On p. 82, he makes an interesting argument.  Writing, Fabian argues, has been dematerialized.  We've paid for "theoretical progress" in our understanding of literacy and/in culture with "a dematerialization of the object of research."  Though he doesn't explore it, I'm curious about the ways that literacy and writing can be thought of as material culture.  If books/scrolls are cultural objects, then is the written page as well, not just its formalist properties, but also its content?  It's simple to say yes, but then again content prompts immaterial interpretation faster than the blink of an...

In my fantasy literature and media for youth class (LIS590VV) this week, there's a student group presentation on role playing games.  Did I mention lately that I love my job? According to this site: http://easydamus.com/character.html I Am A: Lawful Good Elf Ranger (6th Level) Ability Scores: Strength- 12 Dexterity- 12 Constitution- 12 Intelligence- 16 Wisdom- 16 Charisma- 17 Alignment: Lawful Good A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. He combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. He tells the truth, keeps his word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished. Lawful good is the best alignment you can be because it combines honor and compassion. However, lawful good can be a dangerous alignment because it restricts freedom and criminalizes self-interest. Race: Elves are known for their poetry, song, and ...

Contradictions, but not paradoxes, at least not this time.  The two things I need to blog this time are at opposite ends of several spectra...  new and old, nonfiction and fiction, social theory and historical fiction... okay, those last two aren't even on a spectrum together, but you get the point. "The Iron Cage Revisited:  Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields" by Paul DiMaggio and Walter Powell My favorite theorist, from undergrad social theory class, was Max Weber whose talk about the Protestant Ethic and bureaucratization made sense, for me, out of hundreds of seemingly nonsensical bureaucratic experiences.  DiMaggio and Powell take Weber one step further, to discuss why organizations tend toward "isomorphism," or all having the same shape.  Or you could say, looking the same.  Or at least using the same rationale, like when libraries call their people "customers" and borrow from business models.  I lik...

First the book, then the summer in review... Kook: What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave by Peter Heller was an over-a-month page-at-a-time bedtime read for me. And for the most part it worked well that way. The one night when I reached for it during 4am sleeplessness and he was describing the slaughtering of whales, well, that didn't work so much. However. Mostly, it was great, in that it captures the adventurous spirit of a guy who has done a lot of running around alone, and now takes on both surfing and couplehood (SPOILER: marriage, in fact) at the same time. I appreciated the unconventional approach to life that this portrayed, and the author, while not a deeply introspective type, did manage to catch himself being a crappy partner more than once. But the real appeal was the landscape, the descriptions of waves and surfing, and the appreciation of our oceans. Heller has been an activist in defense of marine wildlife, and he sprinkles t...

I'm a Jones fan from well before the Harry Potter crazes, and this book, while not one of her absolute best, will not disappoint. The adventure begins when Aidan's grandmother dies and he arrives on Dr. Andrew Hope's doorstep. Aidan is hoping to find Andrew's grandfather, whom his own grandmother had urged him to find should anything ever happen to her. Andrew has only recently inherited the place from his grandfather, and though he has long been part of a magical family, he seems to have forgotten much of the magic his grandfather taught him as a child. Aidan, on the other hand, seems to be brimming with magic and is overjoyed when he is able to show Andrew the trick of looking at things without glasses in order to see their magical elements. Together, and along with a colorful cast of friends, household servants, and local villagers, they set about restoring the old estate to its former glory. This includes cleaning the "enchanted glass" in the shed/a...

This is something I read, and it is hilarious! http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/013.html Coming soon, Diana Wynne Jones' latest book...