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Various people have been asking me what the comics were that Jack referred to in his Interesting2007 talk. He's handily posted a list here. And a transcript of the whole thing here. Thanks Jack. Now all we need is a reading list from Matt.
UPDATE: Matt's done his list too.
One of the things that sadly dawns on you as you get involved a little in publishing (either as author or receiver of much publishing related near-spam) is that most of the people promoting books have a very limited understanding of the book they're actually promoting, ie they've probably not read it. I'm sure this is more true of business books or books about cafes than regular stuff, but reading the thing would seem to be at least the minimum requirement.
Which is why Penguin seems such a refreshing contrast. As well as regularly doing interesting and imaginative stuff they also show some signs of being familiar with the authors they're promoting. Promotional items in shipping containers? That's nicely Gibson. Hurrah.
One of the things I like about living and working in London is that whenever you're early for something (and I like to be early) there's almost always a fantastic church nearby where you can go and soak in calming architecture for 5 minutes. Went to the Farm Street Church this morning and it's lovely, acted as a nice counter-balance to the low level of contemplation and reflection in most of my appointments. I'm extremely not religious but church architecture still has the power to slow you down for a minute.
Thinking Machine 4 is a chess game that becomes art by showing you some of the complexity underlying the computer's thinking. It looks lovely and if you're not very good at chess (like me) seeing the potential patterns and shapes under the game seems to help you get better. And it's just nice to watch. (via Andrew Walkingshaw)
One of the things that's bugged me for ages is the mess of cables and wires you get from all your chargers and adaptors. But, until they perfect wireless power, there's seemingly no alterative to the nasty tangle of charging stuff. But then, yesterday, in a bid to achieve something in an otherwise success-free week I bought a cheap bowl from Habitat, drilled a big hole in the back, poked some wires through and hey presto - domestic wirey neatness.
Then in order to achieve some small measure of greenness I plugged them all into one of those mechanical timer things so it switches everything off after about 2 hours of charging, which should be enough for all of them.
To be honest, I'm quite pleased with myself. I'm not very handy normally, but this actually seemed to work.
Chris has written a really interesting post about venues, the experience of going to things and the way venues and events could make themselves more interesting and useful by better using digital stuff.
It's prompted me to finally write something that's been wobbling around my head for a while - the benefits of the kind of benign "taste stalking" you can do with things like upcoming, last.fm and twitter. If I was going to slot it into Chris's breakdown of the different experiences I think I'd called it 'sharing the discovery'.
That's probably over-complicating things. What I mean in practise is this:
I've found a few people online who seem to have similar tastes to mine, but better and more enthusiastic. They're much more likely to seek interesting events out, they're better informed about what's coming up and what's likely to be good and they're more energetic about actually going to them. Their concert-going taste is like mine but better. And what upcoming lets me do is ride their coat-tails to event happiness. I don't have to religiously read Time Out and comb through upcoming I just keep an eye on what they're going to, and I go to some of the same things. (Which is why it feels slightly like stalking, and now I write it down maybe it's more creepy than I realise, hmm, maybe I should stop.)
I do the same thing on Last.fm. There are a few people who's taste seems to be similar to mine but again, they're just that little bit more into a particular genre, they're more informed, more dedicated. And Last let's me sample what they're listening to. They're a taste surrogate for me. I've found a lot of good music that way. It's like listening to tapes in your mates bedroom when you're 14.
I've realised that I also do this with political opinion, I simply don't feel informed enough about so many issues to know what I think about them, so I just find someone who I tend to agree with on the big things and then make them an opinion surrogate. For a long time my political opinion surrogate was David Aaronovitch but then I read this interview with Dave Rowntree and realised I agreed with everything he said, so maybe it'll be him from now on.
The beauty of services like last and upcoming is that other people's enthusiasms and expertise can be turned into gifts without them having to do any extra work. There doesn't seem to be an equivalent for books, or am I missing something?
I think of this aspect of the gift economy as social slipstreaming. We're all like members of the peloton, it works because everyone takes turns to be upfront battling through and everyone slipstreams from their efforts. Everyone takes a turn, everyone contributes, that's how it works. Your enthusiasms, your interests are your contribution. I guess mine is cafes, I hope that's enough.
Hmm. I'm not sure I'm saying anything new here, just making up jargon, but it's passing the time while the kettle boils.
A few people have asked where I got all the badges made for Interesting. (And other things.) I got them from 50pbadges and they're brilliant. They seem to arrive only seconds after you order them. And if you order enough they cost less than 50p.
I've enjoyed the tweets I've been getting today. They've added up to a perfect portrait of a British Summer Sunday.
"I napped and read comics instead of working" - "Falling in love with strangers on the tube" - "Watching the shadows lengthen in the garden and listening to the jingle of an ice cream van" - "Royalty, retired tennis players and Bryan Ferry" - "Making refried beans out of value baked beans" - "On way home after wet but lovely welsh camping weekend" - "Cuppa then a short summer stroll (in the wind and the rain)" - "Sausages etc"
Rory's written smartly about twitter and facebook here and I'm sure there's all sorts of compelling herdy reasons why they work, but there's also just something beguiling in the way that people can use a few words to evoke their lives. It's lovely.
