"I found myself reading Monoculture: How One Story is Changing Everythingnon-stop, with a pencil in hand, underlining like crazy. That totally took me by surprise, but then, I didn’t know I’d be reading an astute explanation about what I’ve been feeling recently, something I couldn’t put my finger on. It’s an uncomfortable sense of how everything seems to be monetized, from our work to our personal relationships to our education to our creativity to our charity work. A sense that nothing should be attempted unless its value can be measured and brings advantage. A sense that we should be motivated by keeping up and constantly improving and optimizing ourselves, as if who we are and what we’re doing isn’t and never will be enough because there’s always something new to be achieved."
There's a lot of talk about the future of publishing these days. About the nature of a book. About its form and its value in an increasingly digital environment. It's quite the jungle gym out there.
As is our Hedgie nature, we think books can be winged things that carry stories and ideas to friends known and unknown. That's the nature of most things that are created to be shared - along the way they create conversations and communities.
A good book is a difficult thing to make. A good smart book filled with big ideas? And then produced and distributed independently? Well that is both difficult and a wondrous thing among us. And something I want to help out of the nest.
One of our own little Hedgies, F.S. Michaels, has produced a good smart independent book called Monoculture: How One Story is Changing Everything.
Here's the gist:
As human beings, we’ve always told stories: stories about who we are, where we come from, and where we’re going. Now imagine that one of those stories is taking over the others, narrowing our diversity and creating a monoculture. Because of the rise of the economic story, six areas of your world — your work, your relationships with others and the environment, your community, your physical and spiritual health, your education, and your creativity — are changing, or have already changed, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. And because how you think shapes how you act, the monoculture isn’t just changing your mind — it’s changing your life.
In Monoculture, F.S. Michaels draws on extensive research and makes surprising connections among disciplines to take a big-picture look at how one story is changing everything. Her research and writing have been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Killam Trusts, and regional and municipal arts councils. Michaels has an MBA, and lives and writes in British Columbia.
I had the opportunity to help a little in getting this book on its way. I am an unabashed fan of the writer and a wannabe builder of the conversations that will take place around these big ideas. In the meantime, during Monoculture week at the Hedge, we're going to give this winged thing a little push out of the nest. Y'all come back now...
I first saw the 6 Billion Others project in a bookstore, as a book. (That may be why it was in a bookstore.) Six directors filmed 5,000 interviews in 75 countries, asking people forty or so questions to get at what brings us together and keeps us apart. The result is a portait of humanity across the globe.
Aside from what's in the book, you can watch twenty- to forty-five-minute Youtube compilations of those interviews on topics like love, God, happiness, fears, forgiveness, the meaning of life, and war. Here are a few to get you started.
To whoever owned that red pen and took it to this new library book, Julia Cameron's Faith and Will, thank you for the good giggle and for offering such a perfect demonstration of the point of that paragraph.
Via NPR: So, it turns out your ebook says a lot about you.
"Most e-readers, like Amazon's Kindle, have an antenna that lets users instantly download new books. But the technology also makes it possible for the device to transmit information back to the manufacturer.
"They know how fast you read because you have to click to turn the page," says Cindy Cohn, legal director at the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation. "It knows if you skip to the end to read how it turns out."
Cohn says this kind of page-view tracking may seem innocuous, but if the company keeps the data long-term, the information could be subpoenaed to check someone's alibi, or as evidence in a lawsuit.
And it's not just what pages you read; it may also monitor where you read them. Kindles, iPads and other e-readers have geo-location abilities; using GPS or data from Wi-Fi and cell phone towers, it wouldn't be difficult for the devices to track their own locations in the physical world."
Indie Publishing: How to Design and Publish Your Own Book I don't know how you did with your 2010 New Years' Resolution (mine was to be less cooperative and I did really well at it) but in 2011, I want to publish my own book from start to finish. It's something that I've wanted to do for years and is the brick and mortar equivalent to building a web site from scratch.
When I get around to it (ETA is 2015 at my current pace), Ellen Lupton's Indie Publishing will guide me through the process. It's only 170 pages which is good because I want to publish a book, not read about publishing a book. It covers the basics of indie book publishing: typography (just a hint, don't use Comic Sans), cover design, binding types, and examples of different designs with different kinds of books. For you ezine creators out there there is a section on handmade books.
A description of what you'll find in the bookstore, by Italo Calvino, in his novel If on a Winter's Night a Traveler:
Books You Haven't Read...the Books You Needn't Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To The Category Of Books Read Before Being Written...the Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered...the Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First, the Books Too Expensive Now And You'll Wait Till They're Remaindered, the Books Ditto When They Come Out In Paperback, Books You Can Borrow From Somebody, Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too.
Automatism by Lori Langille has long been a favorite weblog of mine. She recently featured this long abandoned church that had been converted into a second home in Cape Town, South Africa.
While some have turned old churches into wonderful summer homes and cottages, I have a simpler dream. I would love to convert an old church into a private library with the walls covered with books (and of course the obligatory rolling ladder).
Once the books are in place, give me a coffee table with a tabletop radio, a place for my dog to nap at my feet, a reclining chair to read on, and a comfortable sofa (for when I decide to join the dog for a nap). I can't imagine a more enjoyable way to spend a winter storm in Saskatchewan.
I love children's books. While I have yet to have any children, I have a small but growing collection of books that will absolutely be read to any children that I might have one day. In the meantime, I enjoy these myself.
Norman Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth, illustrated by acclaimed cartoonist Jules Feiffer, narrates the journey of Milo, a bored young boy who is swept, after passing through the titular tollbooth, into a strange land where concepts of language and mathematics are ridiculously literalized. He is quickly sent on a quest, accompanied by Tock (a Watchdog) and the Humbug, to rescue the lost Princesses Rhyme and Reason, who alone can restore peace between Dictionopolis and Digitopolis. Along the way he meets many strange creatures who obstruct his way including The Dirty Bird, a creature whose behaviour seems appropriate to recall as our American friends find themselves smack in the middle of election season:
Clinging to one of the greasy rocks and blending almost perfectly with it was a large, unkempt and exceedingly soiled bird who looked more like a dirty floor mop than anything else. He had a sharp, dangerous beak, and the one eye he chose to open stared down maliciously.
"I don't think you understand," said Milo timidly as the watchdog growled a warning. "We're looking for a place to spend the night."
"It's not yours to spend," the bird shrieked again, and followed it with the same horrible laugh.
"That doesn't make any sense, you see----" he started to explain.
"Dollars or cents, it's still not yours to spend," the bird replied haughtily.
"But I didn't mean----" insisted Milo.
"Of course you're mean," interrupted the bird, closing the one eye that had been open and opening the one eye that had been closed. "Anyone who'd spend a night that doesn't belong to him is very mean."
[...]
"Let me try once more," Milo said in an effort to explain. "In other words----"
"You mean you have other words?" cried the bird happily. "Well, by all means use them. You're certainly not doing very well with the ones you have now."
"Must you always interrupt like that?" said Tock irritably, for even he was becoming impatient.
"Naturally," the bird cackled; "it's my job[...]I'm the Everpresent Wordsnatcher[...]"
[...]
"Is everyone who lives in Ignorance like you?" asked Milo.
"Much worse," [the bird] said longingly. "But I don't live here. I'm from a place very far away called Context."
"Don't you think you should be getting back?" suggested the bug, holding one arm up in front of him.
"What a horrible thought." The bird shuddered. "It's such an unpleasant place that I spend almost all my time out of it. Besides what could be nicer than these grimy mountains?"
"Almost anything," thought Milo as he pulled his collar up. And then he asked the bird, "Are you a demon?"
"I'm afraid not," he replied sadly, as several filthy tears ran down his beak. "I've tried, but the best I can manage to be is a nuisance," and before Milo could reply, he flapped his dingy wings and flew off in a cascade of dust and dirt and fuzz.
"Wait!" shouted Milo, who'd thought of many more questions he wanted to ask.
"Thirty-four pounds," shrieked the bird as he disappeared into the fog.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011 at 7:28PM 
