-Grant Morrison
Supergods
Friday, December 30, 2011
The Power of Ideas
Before it was a Bomb, the Bomb was an Idea. Superman, however, was a Faster, Stronger, Better Idea.
Quote of the Day
“Should we trust models or observations?” In reply we note that if we had observations of the future, we obviously would trust them more than models, but unfortunately observations of the future are not available at this time.
-Knutson and Tuleya, Journal of Climate, 2005
List of Best of Lists 2011
A non-exhaustive, highly idiosyncratic list that will be expanded as new lists are encountered:
- Best of The Morning News
- Top 10 Longreads
- Marginal Revolution's most popular posts
- Kirkus Review's best books
- Tom Eisenmann's favorite posts on running startups
- Mark Morford's favorite albums
- lesswrong's rationality quotes
- The Jon Swift Memorial Roundup of best blog posts
- Everything is Miscellaneous' Top Ten Top Ten Top Ten Lists
The Year in Reading 2011
Since 2006, I've been keeping a list of all the books I've read. I don't know whether I want to keep doing this, as it makes me feel like I'm reading less rather than more, trying to finish books that might just as well be left aside, and leaving aside critical books that really ought to be read immediately. The quality of reading takes a backseat to the quantity. Meh.
On the other hand, it's great to look back on the list itself for surprises and reminders. Can it really be that I hadn't read Patrick Rothfuss's Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear or Helen DeWitt's amazing book The Last Samurai until this year? (If you haven't read these yet, go get them.) Other highly recommended fiction includes Lev Grossman's The Magician King, Eleanor Henderson's Ten Thousand Saints, and Neal Stephenson's Reamde.
This was also the year when I read Tim Ferriss's two books, and tried a lot of the self-help methods described in The Four Hour Body. Most of his recommendations still sound like hucksterism but actually work, as opposed to most books on similar topics, which sound reasonable but turn out to be bushwah. Also, Ferriss makes you want to get up and do something about your life. Other excellent books that made me want to get up and move were The Chairs are Where the People Go by Misha Glouberman and Sheila Heti, a book about a man who teaches people how to play charades and how to get your neighbor's bar to be quiet, or something like that; and Steven Pressfield's The War of Art, on how to stop procrastinating (become a professional) and start writing.
Speaking of procrastination and other low-level personality issues, and also speaking of writing, check out Alice Flaherty (The Midnight Disease), Kay Redfield Jamison (Touched by Fire, Exuberance), and John Gartner (The Hypomanic Edge) on how hypomania, temporal lobe epilepsy, and other disorders made writers, scientists and entrepreneurs a bit more of what they are, and will make you wish you were a tiny bit mad. For the film version of this, go see Limitless. Grant Morrison's Supergods is a hypomanic book as well.
Other notable books on economics, psychology and entrepreneurship: James Gleick The Information, Daniel Kahneman Thinking Fast and Slow, which may well be the most important book of the year, Kevin Kelly's What Technology Wants, Steven Johnson's The Innovator's Cookbook.
Four tremendous books on people: Edmund DeWaal The Hare with Amber Eyes, Alexander Theroux The Strange Case of Edward Gorey, which I haven't seen in anyone else's Best Of list, but which quite frankly belongs on everyone's, and Derek Jarman's diaries from the end of his life: Smiling in Slow Motion. If you want to read someone's thoughts on living and loving while dying, all in lapidary prose and great good humor, this one is the book for you.
On the other hand, it's great to look back on the list itself for surprises and reminders. Can it really be that I hadn't read Patrick Rothfuss's Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear or Helen DeWitt's amazing book The Last Samurai until this year? (If you haven't read these yet, go get them.) Other highly recommended fiction includes Lev Grossman's The Magician King, Eleanor Henderson's Ten Thousand Saints, and Neal Stephenson's Reamde.
This was also the year when I read Tim Ferriss's two books, and tried a lot of the self-help methods described in The Four Hour Body. Most of his recommendations still sound like hucksterism but actually work, as opposed to most books on similar topics, which sound reasonable but turn out to be bushwah. Also, Ferriss makes you want to get up and do something about your life. Other excellent books that made me want to get up and move were The Chairs are Where the People Go by Misha Glouberman and Sheila Heti, a book about a man who teaches people how to play charades and how to get your neighbor's bar to be quiet, or something like that; and Steven Pressfield's The War of Art, on how to stop procrastinating (become a professional) and start writing.
Speaking of procrastination and other low-level personality issues, and also speaking of writing, check out Alice Flaherty (The Midnight Disease), Kay Redfield Jamison (Touched by Fire, Exuberance), and John Gartner (The Hypomanic Edge) on how hypomania, temporal lobe epilepsy, and other disorders made writers, scientists and entrepreneurs a bit more of what they are, and will make you wish you were a tiny bit mad. For the film version of this, go see Limitless. Grant Morrison's Supergods is a hypomanic book as well.
Other notable books on economics, psychology and entrepreneurship: James Gleick The Information, Daniel Kahneman Thinking Fast and Slow, which may well be the most important book of the year, Kevin Kelly's What Technology Wants, Steven Johnson's The Innovator's Cookbook.
Four tremendous books on people: Edmund DeWaal The Hare with Amber Eyes, Alexander Theroux The Strange Case of Edward Gorey, which I haven't seen in anyone else's Best Of list, but which quite frankly belongs on everyone's, and Derek Jarman's diaries from the end of his life: Smiling in Slow Motion. If you want to read someone's thoughts on living and loving while dying, all in lapidary prose and great good humor, this one is the book for you.
Kelly Link & Gavin Grant
Two very good interviews with Small Beer Press's Kelly Link & Gavin Grant have surfaced lately: one from 2010 on some of Kelly's writing methods that she's adopted from other writers (ask your subconscious for ideas, put in things you like from other stories, write a lot of first sentences and select the best), and the other from author Alma Katsu (endpaper notes) with both Grant and Kelly about how to run a small press ("odd-shaped books" that others won't publish, but that match your taste are a good bet [if you've got good taste].)
I really like the list of things to put in stories: "fraught family dynamics", "people who make things", "electrical outages". The fifty first lines idea reminds me of the pottery class described by Malcolm Gladwell where the professor grades by the number of pots made, rather than the quality, and ends up with better results.
I also think that Small Beer is one of the most interesting publishers in America, both from the standpoint of the many great books they've brought onto the market, but also in their overall business model as an indie publisher. They produce quite a lot for their size, seem to be profitable, and have a good reputation with both customers and authors.
More: I don't remember whether I have already posted this interview with Link called "All Books are Weird"from Weird Fiction Review.
I really like the list of things to put in stories: "fraught family dynamics", "people who make things", "electrical outages". The fifty first lines idea reminds me of the pottery class described by Malcolm Gladwell where the professor grades by the number of pots made, rather than the quality, and ends up with better results.
I also think that Small Beer is one of the most interesting publishers in America, both from the standpoint of the many great books they've brought onto the market, but also in their overall business model as an indie publisher. They produce quite a lot for their size, seem to be profitable, and have a good reputation with both customers and authors.
More: I don't remember whether I have already posted this interview with Link called "All Books are Weird"from Weird Fiction Review.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
The Incense Game
Now there is a perfume I’m working on that’s inspired by The Tale of Genji that will be made from extremely rare ingredients. It will be fabulously expensive because they’re incredibly hard to get. Much of it has to do with the Japanese ritual of burning incense. There are two words for it: one’s the ritual of burning incense and the other is a game where incense is burned and people are asked either to identify or they’ll burn various things and try to combine a smoke that’s really beautiful. Or people will talk about poetry or literature or what the smell the smoke inspires in them. That was very popular at the time that The Tale of Genji was written.
-Christopher Brosius
about his perfume "In the Library"
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Monday, December 26, 2011
DJ Earworm - United State of Pop 2011 (World Go Boom)
Mashup king DJ Earworm presents the year of pop music, compressed, remixed and summarized.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Links for Later 12-21-11
- The Power of Living in Truth: a Vaclav Havel appreciation
- Mark Thoma: The Economic Divide Makes Everyone Poorer
- Adam Savage on SOPA/PIPA
- Al Jazeera on Bradley Manning
- How hard does James Franco work at Yale?
- Neal Pollack knew Christopher Hitchens better than you
- More on the Egyptian library fire
- Yet more
1% Feeling Put-Upon
Max Abelson reports some solipsistic quotes from members of the 1% who are quite unhappy with their lot in life. Income inequality will do that to a person, especially at the top. The more you make, the more insecure you are that you're going to be able to keep making it--your income volatility goes through the roof, and small changes in your relative ranking have big impacts on how well you do.
Nassim Taleb's fragility of the power law hits hard no matter where you sit. Joshua Brown (Reformed Broker) sees this other side of inequality. Being smart about investing (or anything) is no longer any guarantee of success. The market will eat your lunch.
This common problem of the rich and poor under conditions of high inequality is an idea I'll be working with over the coming year.
Nassim Taleb's fragility of the power law hits hard no matter where you sit. Joshua Brown (Reformed Broker) sees this other side of inequality. Being smart about investing (or anything) is no longer any guarantee of success. The market will eat your lunch.
This common problem of the rich and poor under conditions of high inequality is an idea I'll be working with over the coming year.
Egyptian Scientific Institute Burns Down
In a bizarre modern reinactment of the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, the Egyptian Army and police fired on protestors who attempted to rescue some of the 198,000 volumes contained at Egypt's largest library as the library building burned down. Other protestors had previously thorwn Molotov cocktails onto the neighboring Shura Council building.
Photo: unknown, citation wanted.
Monday, December 19, 2011
A Very Calvin & Hobbes Christmas
"We miss you, Bill." Jim Frohmmeyer and Teague Chrystie discuss the snowman recreation process here.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Looking Toward 2012
I really don't like that my choices in the upcoming election will be
between one candidate who will betray the things I believe in, civil
liberties, progressive taxation, etc., etc., etc., and a crazy person
from the other side (take your pick) who will be even worse.
on the Caver in Chief
also: This.
Links for Later 12-16-11
- A sampling of Japanese kamon (family crests)
- A selection of Christopher Hitchens articles and talks from The Browser
- Slate's collection of Hitchens articles
- Hitchens' Mark Daily memorial article
- A short Kelly Link interview
- SOPA markup delayed indefinitely
- SOPA only supported by astroturfers and industry flacks?
- Bradley Manning pre-trial hearing begins
- Gingrich proposes abolishing Article III of Constitution to save America from having judges
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Links for Later 12-11-11
- Kay Nielsen's fairy tale illustrations are beautiful
- Basquiat's hair
- Charlie Hoehn on working for free to work the way you need to
- Growing frankincense
- Update on the Bradley Manning trial: military objects to 38 of 48 proposed witnesses, tries to select "embedded" journalists. Who's running the prosecution of this thing, Vladimir Putin?
- "Full Unconcealed Panic"
- SOPA and Protect IP Act explained again
- LAPD acts illegally against Occupy LA
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)