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Thursday, March 17, 2011

Things I've been reading

1) The Force Acting on a Disparate Body by Christopher Rowe. This is a truly lovely story with a sort of trippy, state of consciousness, points of interest story. It's interesting how as the bodies of water get bigger the amount of detail about the riding also seems to get bigger or more abstract. The speed of the narration picks up as well with the largeness of the body of water. While the narrator begins his journey there are several minutes/paragraphs dedicated but the Pacific Ocean is crossed in a matter of about a sentence or two.
You can listen to the story being read by Miette as you lay your sleepy head down here.

2) Sven Birkerts has an essay in the new issue of Lapham's Quarterly on the prospects and importance of idleness. It's an all-encompassing essay with some definitively quotable sentences.

3) Rory Litwin over at Library Juice Press has some compelling and interesting thoughts on the use of library statistics in day to day decision making that are worth interacting with and thinking about.

Have sort of discovered Grooveshark which I knew about but the streaming capabilities of the local network, for a variety of reasons, were not really supporting Grooveshark's use. However, they are now. Have been really enjoying Fang Island, really big sound with a lot of different rhythms and mostly instrumental. When the vocals come in they are huge, at least a 100 to a 150 people that mostly consist of open vowels and handclaps. Davy Crockett and Daisy are really excellent.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

For the love of books

Dear Anonymous Generous Individual,
If you have 1) extra copies of the following or 2) an unfulfilled desire for philanthropy that you would like to satisfy or 3) need something else to write off of your taxes, I am really interested in the following list of books, in order of desire, and can't quite afford to purchase them all right now.
Please email me at jeremy(dot)mcginniss(at)gmail.com to get my shipping address and to let me know how many of the following titles you are willing to generously supply.

I look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks,
Jeremy

The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry) - Siva Vaidhyanathan
The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom - Evgeny Morozov
Here comes Everybody: Clay Shirky
The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain
The New Media Reader - Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground - Kevin Poulsen
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood - James Gleick;
Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other - Sherry Turkle
What the Best College Teachers Do - Ken Bain
Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution Howard Rheingold
Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling - Kembrew McLeod
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom - Yochai Benkler