FORMER: Portland-New York love on PONYtales (currently abandoned)
In 2006, the world produced 161 “exabytes” of digital information - 3 million times the amount of information contained in all the books ever written. Next year, the world will produce 988 exabytes of data.
The Week, via the Columbia Journalism Review
…no wonder I have lost all ability to focus on one thing at a time. As the full article says, “Pick your metaphor: we’re drowning, buried, snowed under.” It’s making me crazy!
And a comment that reposts the forward of a book I read in college (Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death), which posits that the future of Brave New World is more likely than 1984:
As [Huxley] saw it, people will come to…adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.
Postman wrote that in 1985, referring to the proliferation of television. Frightening how prescient it was so long before we all started Twittering. I need to turn off my computer and reread both books.
I’m a Girl Who Talks About Poo
I’m a girl who will shamelessly announce the need to visit the bathroom with some reading material. I’m a girl who has “What’s Your Poo Telling You?” by the toilet. I’m a girl who considered starting a blog called 365 Days of Poo, a photo documentation of my, well…you get it.
I am not obsessed with poo. I don’t have a freaky scatalogical fetish. I just think it’s funny. And since we know everyone does it, let’s just make some fun of it!
Naturally, I laughed my ass off when I discovered a book from the Sprinkle Brigade, a team of merry pranksters who create mini-scenes around disgarded dog poo. Not sure I’d have the stomach for it, but thankfully the photos aren’t scratch ‘n sniff.
Powell's to the rescue! →
One of the reasons I may never actually leave Portland (at least in spirit): Powell’s, supporting quality publishing, small presses, and writers, is still the largest and most popular bookstore in town. Enjoy their spring sale even if you’re as far away as New York. I need to finally purchase a copy of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. And how will I justify this on my unemployment “salary”? By selling my old books to them, of course –- now easy as pie with their online system! I suggest you become a fan on Facebook to keep up with their sales, readings, and the Out of the Book films.
Save the books! →
It’s true, I’m a shameless pop culture addict –– and slowly but surely becoming a Twitter-aholic — but a book of Twitter posts?!? Come on now. Let’s keep some things sacred!
