Storytelling after Twitter | Tomorrow Museum

This is an aside titled 'Storytelling after Twitter' dated 10/29/09

Joel Achenbach in the Washington Post on Age of Twitter lit; “There is much confusion about what, precisely, should vanish in this broad media makeover. Is it print? Or just long stories? Or just bad, boring, dishwater-dull stories? Complicating the situation is that the online world is both increasingly dominant and, for many media organizations, stubbornly unprofitable.” He goes on to say, “The sages say that we’ve reached a situation where “content creation” no longer pays. Only “aggregation” is profitable. It’s a freak variant of Darwinism — the survival of the parasitic. But obviously there will be little of value to aggregate if only rich people and dilettantes can afford to type up their thoughts.” –which I don’t at all agree with, but generally this is one of the better looks at tech-influence literature. (via.)

Posted by Joanne on Oct. 29, 2009

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- All map, no territory. Armory Show preview on Flickr. Internet Archaeology tumblr (via.) Another great Sam Anderson piece in New York mag, this one on ChatRoulette. Los Angeles no longer plays itself. Found that on Interdome, a great blog on the age of atemporality. I can't wait to read Triple Canopy on an iPad. And comics. Are comics suited for digital? Listen to Scott McLeod on this. "There’s Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night," short stories about Rurual Shanxi peasants, by Cao Naiqian, entirely "concerned with the basic instincts for food and sex.” looks interesting. Someone is trying to send Jerry Saltz a message. Do you look pretty or smart? Save the egg drinks! Lauren Cornell on how net art is not new, it's been thriving for nearly two decades now. More from Tom Moody. Bot-Mediated Reality. Alan Lomax in Haiti. Life in a "microstudio" (via.) And in the middle of all that, one woman cried out, "Fuck this." “With enough libraries, all content is free.” - Jessamyn West.
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- “There is no culture here in California, only trash. And we who grew up here and live here and write here have nothing else to include as elements in our work. … The West Coast has no tradition, no dignity, no ethics – this is where that monster Richard Nixon grew up. … [O]ne must work with the trash, pit it against itself.” - Philip K Dick. In a six part series, LAT interviews his friends and family giving a good picture of his middle age, paying particular attention to how California influenced his work. Read I am Alive And You Are Dead, if you haven't yet. And here's me with the PKD robot. His head went missing not to long after that photo was taken. Besdies Blade Runner, of course, most of his books were turned into unremarkable films...but I hope someone does Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said right, as it's one of his more slapstick, cinematic novels. Really though, I would love to see someone like Lynne Ramsey or Darren Aronofsky take on Confessions of a Crap Artist.
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- Siva Vaidhyanathan reviews Viktor Mayer-Schönberger's "Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age." Great title, but very flawed thesis is what I thought at his talk at the Berkman Center a few months back. As Vaidhyanathan points out, he sets up the problem in easily relatable way, however the "expiry date" idea is just too neat, I find it hard to believe Mayer-Schönberger is even serious about it. Previously: Save or Delete: Post-Scarcity vs e-Clutter
  2010-02-03 13:46:27
- Great post on possible design for iPad and iPhones as “hub + satellite” setups.
  2010-02-03 12:50:43
- I'm especially enthusiastic about what the iPad means for art museums, galleries, and artists. Already there are some wonderful iPhone apps from the Van Gogh museum, Louvre, and others...and they might only get better. How about annotated Taschen books? Imagine what you could do with an iPad app for Art Basel? Thomas P. Campbell, Director of the Met tells the WSJ: "We will absolutely continue publishing beautiful books about our own collections. But I also want to make sure that we put energy and attention into getting all the collections online, or as much as is reasonable, because we have two million objects. At a time when scholarship is rapidly advancing, are you best serving a collection by publishing a three-volume catalog of 800 pieces, where much of it becomes out of date within six months?" Previously.
  2010-02-03 12:41:18
- "I am a novelist. That is how I wish to be remembered." -Susan Sontag. Vivian Gornick considers Susan Sontag's self-identification as a novelist in Bookforum. I'm similarly unimpressed with her fiction, as Gornick writes, "Sontag did not qualify for the job. Whichever way she turned, alone in that room, it was not inward." But it's interesting she'd wish to be remember for that which clearly was a struggle for her.
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- Best new blog in 2010 already? Star Wars Modern is pretty great. (via AFC and greg.org)
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- Ask most people why they don't read more and they'll say it's because they don't have enough time, not because books cost too much.
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- Like the Bell Jar, the Cocteau Twins, the poetry of Anne Sexton, and Meshes of the Afternoon, at some point in the life of a young girl with dark interests, you come across the story of Elizabeth Báthory and are unquietly amazed by it. The Transylvanian countess tortured and murdered hundreds of young women. As legend would have it, she once dabbed the blood of a servant girl under her eyes and believed it reduced the signs of aging. But stone cold sadism was her motivation, above any demand for eternal youth. Sound like the perfect role for Tilda Swinton? Why yes, indeed she's lined up for an adaptation. But wait, Julie Delpy wrote, directed, and stars in The Countess, also about Bathory. Much as I love Delpy, the Swinton movie has a script by Elfriede Jelinek, the bitterest writer I've ever read, which I mean as a very good thing.
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