RSVP: Recent outbreaks of random structural violence

Asteroids on sinister trajectories, suicide bombers in china shops. Epidemic this and high-cholesterol that. The failure of the Western metaphysic. Soaring cheese prices. Black holes of uncertain provenance and appetite lurking in the centers of our galaxies, shrinking public spaces in which to smoke, vanishing marine fisheries, incompatibility between relativity and quantum theory, Sarah Palin, language extinctions, cross-species viral infections, cougars in suburban gardens, friggin’ Chihuahuas everywhere not to mention toy poodles, global warming, entropy… Where will it all end? … Read more

Spinning in our pre-graves rools, OK!

* PRE-OBITS. P.J. O’Rourke has recently suggested a way to help draw readers back to newspapers.


No industry in living memory has collapsed faster than daily print journalism,” he suggests. “You can still buy a buggy whip, which is more than can be said for a copy of the Rocky Mountain News, Cincinnati Post, or Seattle Post-Intelligencer.”

What’s needed, he suggests, is a new kind of feature: “What I propose is “Pre-Obituaries”—official notices that certain Read more

Blacksmiths & blockheads? “Payment and reserved copyright are at bottom the ruin of literature”

“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”
  (reported by Boswell, in his Life of Johnson)

Attributed to Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the renowned author and lexicographer, that’s one of the most famous writerly aphorisms in the English language.

Others have seen things differently.

Arthur Schopenhauer, for one (1788-1860), had this to say about the matter:

“There are above all two kinds of writer: those who write for the sake of what they have to say and Read more

Blacksmiths & novelists revisited: The Scott Adams Theory of Content Value

Collin’s not the only one comparing professional writers to blacksmiths, these days. Scott Adams, e.g, of “Dilbert” fame, presents his Adams Theory of Content Value: “As our ability to search for media content improves, the economic value of that content will approach zero.”

The fate of the author in the age of digital gizmodery (with apologies to Scott Adams):

Among other things, Adams predicts “that the profession known as ‘author’ will be retired to history in my lifetime, Read more

Unemployed Blacksmiths and Novelists Support Group

It was all foretold in Finnegans Wake. It could have been, anyway.

There’s just no end to human ingenuity. Now you don’t even have to buy an e-book reader to suffer Internet interconnectivity. Ubimark has developed a way for readers to evoke Web connections from a print book by way of cellphone camera and browser. Have a look at the following item (short article & video), “Putting the Web inside the printed book.”

Ubimark, iPads and Vooks Read more

Starving writers & gouty moguls

New penance for starving writers: black-pepper oatmeal cookies (from Scotland, culinary capital of the universe). I have them with sencha tea.

My companion du jour says they aren’t sweet, aren’t delicious and are way too expensive (only available at Villa, in Bangkok). Neither has she any use for hair shirts or unheated garrets.

Actually, in Bangkok all garrets are unheated, at least by human design. Same goes for the penthouses, for that matter. What do starving writers and gouty moguls … Read more

Cross-cultural onomatopoeia

My friend and fellow scrivener Steve Van Beek lives in the area currently cordoned off by the security forces—right there in the middle of both the political heat and Bangkok’s worst heat wave in years. He’s waiting to see whether a repairman can get through to fix his ailing air-conditioner.

In passing, Steve also tells me the expression “to be on the fritz” dates from the very outset of the 20th century, and probably derives from the sound of … Read more

Apocalyptic cosmophobia

Jack, here. Looking back at the earlier exchange (22 April 2010) between Collin, S. Tsow and “Osho”—and then looking at Collin’s notion (today) that the iPad will end human existence as we’ve known it—I reckon the following is apropos.

Apocalyptic cosmophobia.

Just roll that one around on your tongue. A genuine cocktail party conversation stopper. DAVE BERRY HAS PROBABLY ALREADY USED IT TO NAME A NEW ROCK BAND.

Apocalyptic cosmophobia may first have been used to refer to popular readings … Read more

More universes

I see Jack is touting Bill Page’s book The Nirvana Experiments (which is in a state of suspension, publication-wise, prospective publishers please note).

Coincidentally, given my last post regarding this universe, possible other ones, and connections between them, Bill reviewed Dawkins’ The God Delusion recently, and I’ve abstracted the following passage:  

[T]o his credit, Dawkins defines his terms clearly. He is attacking what he calls the God Hypothesis: The belief that “there exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed
Read more