The Land of Lisp

Really. I have the soundtrack to Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby, and now I'm dancing around the house to this. Of course one reason to learn Lisp is Impromptu, the live coding app developed by Andrew Sorensen for Mac OSx. He writes in Scheme, and the tutorials on his site are great. Lisp has got my attention for other reasons too. Expression is critical in modern multimedia coding, where applications are developed and practically thrown away. I really just need a language to build from point A to point B, with out developing a pile of supporting code.

The Lost Thing: I can't wait to see the whole thing.

Shaun Tan is an artist and author who recently made an animated short of his book 'The Lost Thing'. There is a wonderful interview with him online where he talks a bit about his process. He doesn't have children or know many, he says, and so pretty makes what he himself finds interesting. He goes on to discuss the politics of the day while he was writing 'The Lost Thing' and makes a point about bureaucracy and everything in its place. I need to post the trailer for the movie: it's beautiful, but the author is something, and I would recommend his site and the lovely flash site for the film, as well. I was struck by his wisdom: it's funny how we have a space for a certain intelligence in children's literature. It seems that something subtle, but dangerous, in his ideas is safer (though perhaps even more influential) in the context of a child's book.

Alice Cohen imagines Three Girls

Electric Literature just released a new single sentence animation on YouTube. I'm a bit twisted as to where to post it: generally, book news goes on my other blog, but I just posted a trailer over there for Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, and besides, these always strike me as groovy technology, more than literature. I'll link again, though, to an article in Slate critical of the rise of book trailers. The author, Troy Patterson, laments the practice as degenerate, literary commercialism. Somebody should show him the single sentence animations.

New York Times Debate: E-books

Does the Brain Like E-Books? - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com
There's an online debate at the New York Times about E-books which goes into detail about the various design issues, and how the interface affects readers. It's an interesting article with great experts; I'm glad to see the E-Book discussed in technical detail because I suspect the dominance of the format is near upon us, and the existing tools are still far inferior to paper books.

Papa: a photoessay

Papa. « A Continuous Lean.
Blog to blog, I occasionally stumble on something that really makes me think. Recently, I read Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and couldn't help but consider him a brilliant writer, quintessentially American. So much of the language in his books is mired in rural America, and the fifties; he is like Papa was, to the twenties. I read A Movable Feast while I was in high school. My mother was wary, but I think they ought to require it.

Unfolded Book: A Video of Reading a Book

We Make Money, Not Art has a wonderful review of a an art book called Unfolded including a video that demonstrates the book jacket being turned into a poster featuring groovy paper art. The video goes on to record a pair of hands turning the pages of the glossy coffee table style volume, giving you a chance to glimpse the photos of exotic paper constructions inside. It's another teaser for lit on the digital front.

Serial Novels: Back to the Future

Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / Cory Doctorow’s Makers, Part 1 (of 81)
Cory Doctorow's most recent book (described by the author on twitter as an econopocalypse hacker novel) is being serialized on Tor.com. I can't help but notice that RSS Feeds, Email, Bookmarks and QuickDial browsers make revisiting a site so simple, serializing has made a giant comeback. Charles Dickens published his novels this way. Part of the pleasure of lit in installments is that is becomes a social activity: you discuss it with your friends while you wait. Online comics have had this going on, but recently, I've noticed bigger and better publishers leaking on the web as a kind of promotion. It's exciting! A wonderful addition to this series is the illustration by Idiot's Books

Maurice Sendak: Laughing at a Funeral

NOW with Bill Moyers. Transcript. March 12, 2004 | PBS
When the trailer came out for Where the Wild Things Are I was amused to realize the Wild Things were Jews. Of course, as a huge Sendak fan, I knew he was Jewish, and the darkness of his work was distinctively Eastern European, and Jewish to me. But Judith and Ira? A little research turned up this hysterical story about drawing the monsters after cutting up with his siblings while sitting shiva (a Jewish ceremony when someone has died). Love him more than ever.

Carl Jung's Red Book

The Red Book goes on exhibit today, and the New York Times has a gorgeous layout online. Who knew Jung could draw like that? I particularly enjoyed the Deco influences: this is no scribbley notebook à la Cobain, but an uncelebrated document of the Craftman, or Arts and Crafts sensibility.

Electric Literature: New Approachs to Fiction

The online magazine Electric Literature has just launched a new blog called The Outlet. I'm looking forward to their posts: the EL series of single sentence animations on YouTube are tempting teasers for the stories they publish, not to mention an innovative promotion of digital media.