OCCUPY PHOTOS & GRAPHICS

The worldwide Occupy movement has generated some wonderful photos and graphics. Here are some of the best I have come across so far:

THE HISTORY OF THE BEATS

I have Neil to thank for, out of the blue, arriving at my house and giving me this book. As regular readers will know, I have a deep-seated love for the writers and poets of the Beat Generation, forged in my teen years. I was privileged to meet and interview Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs and to engineer (with my son Al) a live internet link-up with Lawrence Ferlinghetti from San Francisco to the Komedia club in Brighton. The many and varied beat posts on this blog are summarised below. I have a big library of beat literature and have read extensively and religiously much beat and beat-inspired texts, biographies and historical accounts. So…
For my money, this is the single best history of the Beat Generation that I have ever read and I will explain why. The story of the Beats – both the main characters and an extremely large supporting cast – is complex. They were, apart from everything else, almost constantly on the move. They were restless souls and tormented ones – constantly falling in and out of relationships. Many of them were bisexual and slept with each other in between or at the same time as maintaining relationships with women.
Out of this emotional maelstrom, out of their wanderings, missions and adventures not only on the highways of America but also in the jungles of Mexico, the medinas of Morocco,  the Beat Hotel in Paris, the Buddhist monasteries of Japan and the streets of Varanasi, allied with their almost constant experimentation with drugs of varying descriptions and illegality, flowed a body of work that continues to inflame minds and spirits and has great relevance in our own times.

 

Treasures from the Beat Library of The Generalist Archive: ‘Beatitude Anthology’ [City Lights. 1960]; first issue of the ‘City Lights Journal’ [City Lights.1963]; First edition UK paperback of ‘The Subterraneans’ by Jack Kerouac [Panther. 1982]; First edition of' ‘The Last Words of Dutch Shultz’ by William Burroughs. [Cape Goliard Press. 1970]

This book will rearrange your understanding not only of the Beat movement but also of the times and politics they moved through. One book, Big Sky Mind, argues that the Beats were the transmission apparatus for introducing Buddhism and eastern thinking into America. The beats in their own time were vilified by the mainstream media, arrested and imprisoned, often deported.

Bill Morgan has done a really wonderful job of integrating all this ferment  into a seamless readable narrative, formidably well-informed and beautifully written. He brings out the humanity of these characters as they battled with their demons and is, by and large, non-judgmental. He has given shape and context to the Beat Generation story and communicates it in a way that makes sense to succeeding generations. These were the pioneers of a revolution in poetics, politics, social mores, activism, communal living, backpacking, altered states of consciousness. Their collective work is like a deep well of inspiration that has great resonance in these troubled times.
Bill Morgan is the American author and editor of more than a dozen books about the Beat writers and has worked as an editor and archival consultant for nearly every member of the Beat Generation.
His UK equivalent is Barry Miles, who was close with both Burroughs and Ginsberg and has written biographies of both them and Kerouac. He has also acted as an archivist  and in 2003, co-edited the revised text edition of Naked Lunch. His latest book ‘In The Seventies’ (following on from his excellent ‘In The Sixties’ a period during which he was close with Paul McCartney, ran the Indica Bookshop and was one of the founders of International Times) adds more to his Beat reminiscences.
Particularly good are his accounts of Ginsberg’s upstate New York commune and adventures on the West Coast plus Burroughs’ early ‘70s sojourn in London (seriously weird). Miles was sound-editing Ginsberg’s tape archive in the Chelsea Hotel and there’s an interesting chapter on another of the Hotel’s residents, the strange and wonderful genius Harry Smith. Also learnt a lot from the chapter on Wilhelm Reich, inventor of the orgone box.
The Typewriter Is Holy by Ted Morgan [Free Press 2010]
In The Seventies by Barry Miles [Serpent’s Tail 2011]
SEE ALSO:
The Sea Is My Brother: The Lost Novel by Jack Kerouac
See IMDB details of the cast and production credits for the ‘On The Road’ movie, directed by Walter Sallis, due for release 2012.
PREVIOUS POSTS
2011

• BEATNIK NEWS: ON THE ROAD MOVIE

2008

• NAKED LUNCH@50

2007

• JACK MICHELINE: BEAT WRITER
• BEAT BOOKS 2
• ON THE ROAD' IS 50: The Scroll
• ON THE ROAD IS 50: Critics, Movie, Lost Play, Esta...
• 'ON THE ROAD' IS 50: A Digital Moment

2006 

The Beat Library [New additions]

2005

ARCHIVE: MEETING ALLEN GINSBERG

ARCHIVE: MEETING WITH BURROUGHS AT THE CHELSEA

W illiam Burroughs & T.S. Eliot Fighting in the Ca...

CURIOUS FACTS: MAGNETIC COWS & COW MAGNETS

Source: www.photos-for-you.com

New developments on magnetic cows which you may not be aware of.
Three years ago, Sabine Begall and colleagues at the University of Duisberg-Essen in Germany published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences which suggested that cows have a statistically significant preference for aligning themselves in a north-south direction, oriented to the magnetic north rather than the geographical pole. They found a similar preference in deer. They concluded that the animals must be sensing the Earth’s magnetic field.
Begall’s team used Google Earth to analyse the orientation of 8,510 cattle at 308 sites around the globe. For the deer they conducted field work in the Czech Republic, observing 2,974 grazing fallow and roe deer in 241 locations as well as checking body prints left by deer resting in the snow.
For more details, including a lively and interesting set of comments on the subject see this Nature article:  ‘Magnetic cows’ are visible from space.’
In 2009 they published a follow-up paper 
Here, we show that extremely low-frequency magnetic fields (ELFMFs) generated by high-voltage power lines disrupt alignment of the bodies of these animals with the geomagnetic field. Body orientation of cattle and roe deer was random on pastures under or near power lines. Moreover, cattle exposed to various magnetic fields directly beneath or in the vicinity of power lines trending in various magnetic directions exhibited distinct patterns of alignment. The disturbing effect of the ELFMFs on body alignment diminished with the distance from conductors. These findings constitute evidence for magnetic sensation in large mammals as well as evidence of an overt behavioural reaction to weak ELFMFs in vertebrates. The demonstrated reaction to weak ELFMFs implies effects at the cellular and molecular levels.
Earlier this year, Lukas Jelinek and other researchers at the Czech Technical University in Prague reported that they had been unable to replicate these results using different Google Earth images.
This paper presents a study of the body orientation of domestic cattle on free pastures in several European states, based on the Google satellite photographs. In sum, 232 herds with 3,412 individuals were evaluated. Two independent groups participated in our study and came to the same conclusion that in contradiction to the recent findings of other researchers, no alignment of the animals and of their herds along geomagnetic field lines could be found.
Burda and colleagues reanalysed the replication attempt and, according to this account in Nature,  they concluded that half of their data should be excluded ‘because some of the pastures are on slopes or near high-voltage power lines, for example, or because the images are too poor to make out cattle, or appear to contain hay bales or sheep instead.’
Looking forward to further developments.
SEE ALSO:
’Animal Attraction’: Like compass needles, cows point north-south /The Economist

A footnote to this story which is also interesting is whether cow magnets have anything to do with this phenomenon. The following information from magnetsource.com who sell them.

Cow magnets are popular with dairy farmers and veterinarians to help prevent Hardware Disease in cattle. While grazing, cows eat everything from grass and dirt to nails, staples and bits of bailing wire (referred to as tramp iron). Tramp iron tends to lodge in the honeycombed walls of the reticulum, threatening the surrounding vital organs and causing irritation and inflammation, known as Hardware Disease. The cow loses her appetite and decreases milk output (dairy cows), or her ability to gain weight (feeder stock). Cow magnets help prevent this disease by attracting stray metal from the folds and crevices of the rumen and reticulum. One magnet works for the life of the cow!

Ru-Master 5 Cow Magnet
The Ultimate Heavy-Duty Cow Magnet!
Patent No. 5128644
Measures 3/4” dia. x 3-3/8” long



Burda responded to this suggestion as follows:
‘Regarding cow magnets and the idea that they would align in the cow’s stomach Note that this practice is not common (mostly also unknown) in most countries where we made recordings. For sure, none of the deer we observed had it in its stomach. Do the people really think that a small piece of magnet (which does not freely align on a table) would freely align like a magnetic needle in a full stomach? And if so would the cow perceive its movements?’
See Steve Spangler’s science video on Cow Magnets on You Tube

SEE OTHER ANIMAL POSTS ON THE GENERALIST

STATE OF THE ELEPHANTS

DOLPHIN & WHALE BUBBLE RINGS

WIERD AND WONDERFUL WILDLIFE

THE DEATH OF AMPHIBIANS 

ASIAN VULTURES

 
 

 

NICK TOSCHES: THE GREATEST

Portrait: Montalbetti & Campbell

Photographyserved.com

THE GENERALIST has a taste for great journalism and fine writing as my regular readers will know. But there has been one name missing from my pantheon until now, a man whose work I have circled round for years without quite connecting with his full mastery – namely the dark lord known as Nick Tosches.

He is, in so many ways, the greatest – a judgement I’ve come to after spending a helluva time working through this chunky hair-raising book ‘The Nick Tosches Reader’ which I have no hesitation in recommending except for those readers of a nervous disposition or those easily offended.

What makes him such a great writer and journalist. This man goes in deep. He combines obsessive research with a unique stylistic ability and a love for the dark side. He has an deep love for early American music and an intense interest in organised crime and corruption. His books include full-length biographies of Jerry Lee Lewis, Sonny Liston and Dean Martin (the latter to be filmed by Martin Scorsese (natch). Talking of which, Johnny Depp has bought the film rights to Tosches’ novel ‘In The Hand of Dante’ which is another helluva strange book.

This Reader is definitely a fabulous way of getting to know the man. If you start at the beginning, do not be put off by the early works which are crude, violent, visceral pieces in the baddest of taste. On the other hand, they may whet you appetite. The bo0ok runs chronologically and includes letters, diary entries, poems, extracts from his books, complete pieces of unpublished journalism. Astonishing stuff.

My favourite pieces are profiles of Patti Smith, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, De Niro, an extraordinary and lengthy piece on George Jones, and an excerpt from ‘Power on Earth’, a book about Michele Sindona, ‘the infamous Sicilian financier who was believed to occupy the throne at the heart of the world's evil, where the secret reaches of international finance, the Mafia, and the Vatican.’

That’s just for starters. The book comes replete with praise for Tosches’ undeniable genius of which I love Jerry Stahl’s comment the best:

‘Nick Tosches stands out as the kind of writer other writers only dream of becoming – amazing at fiction, unparalleled in journalism and biography, and possessed of a stature and genius his lessers can but crouch beneath, gazing up in wonder, awe, and more than a little terror at what this man, in a single, unfinished life, has been able to accomplish on the page.’ Good one, Jerry.

*

Here’s some of the best stuff on the web.

Nick Tosches official bio on exitwounds.com, the website of his collaboration with Hubert Selby Jr, the writer that Tosches himself most admires. As a teenage reader of ‘Last Exit to Brooklyn’, fresh from its release after the obscenity trial, I share his judgement.

Tosches has been a contributing editor to Vanity Fair  since 1996 and several of his pieces are available on-line including his lengthy and wonderful account of his search across continents for a real opium den: 

‘Confessions of an Opium Seeker’

 

Saint Nick is a great interview by Mike Millard which appeared in the Boston Phoenix.

‘For more than 30 years, Tosches has been the nattily dressed scumbag sage of American letters, a cerebral, autodidactic hybrid of Jersey City hood and polymath savant. ("I read a lot," he says of his formative years — despite the fact that they were spent in a town of "few books, many bookies.") His body of work harnesses these two extremes; commingling the sacred and the profane, it is as awash in Seagram’s and semen as it is grounded in the dusky eloquence of Classical epics.’

Another interesting profile piece, My Lunch With Nick Tosches, the Man in the Leopard-Skin Loafers by Rex Doane, which appeared in Salon.

‘Tosches emerged roughly 30 years ago from music magazines like Creem and Fusion where he placed the fringe figures of rock 'n' roll history in proper perspective. Providing a reminder to those at Woodstock that the party started years earlier with R&B giants like Joe Turner. Long before acid there was bootleg liquor. Long before free love there was Hank Ballard who let us know what working with Annie was all about. Along with Lester Bangs, Richard Meltzer and a handful of other noble notables from the era, Tosches elevated rock writing to a new plateau.’

ANTI-NUCLEAR INDIA

India’s operational nuclear reactors, those under construction and the proposed new plants, superimposed on a map of earthquake zone/Graphic IBN Source: dianuke. org

One of the under-reported stories in the Western media is the anti-nuclear protests in India which threaten to derail the country’s ambitious nuclear expansion plans. Even before Fukushima, there was deep concern about the possibility of a nuclear Bhopal. That chemical disaster was the biggest industrial accident in the world, whose effects are still being felt. A nuclear accident would be far worse in a country that has a poor industrial safety record.

Dow Chemical has consistently refused to accept financial responsibility for cleaning up the Bhopal factory site. Despite this still contentious issue, the Indian government passed the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act in 2010 which capped the economic cost to nuclear plant operators in case of an accident and absolved them of liability. Potential nuclear equipment suppliers think this Act is still too stringent; opponents feel it should be strengthened.

*

(Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images)

Here is a good summary of the background story by Janjit Devraj of InsideClimate News

‘When India's central government passed the long-delayed Indo-U.S. nuclear agreement in 2008 and implemented plans to add 40 gigawatts of nuclear power by 2020—10 times its current capacity—it certainly didn't foresee what would happen next. A rare grassroots uprising led by farmers and fisherman took shape in three major states to block atomic megaprojects that locals say would threaten their traditional livelihoods.

Nor did national leaders expect India's intelligentsia—led by retired judges, military leaders, scientists, bureaucrats and academics—to get behind the farmers and fishers and build up such a wall of resistance that some fear it could scuttle billion-dollar deals to import reactors and quash several nuclear projects.

But that's what has happened. Their grievances have now made their way to India's Supreme Court, which is considering a petition to put a stay on nuclear construction until safety reviews of existing plants and those planned along the peninsular coastline are completed.

If the court sides with petitioners it could drive away crucial foreign investment in the rapidly growing nuclear program, local experts say.

Currently, the country has 19 nuclear reactors producing about 4,000 megawatts, only about 3 percent of the country's electricity needs. India, which has refused to sign the 189-nation Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, found itself subject to decades of isolation in the international nuclear trade following its 1974 nuclear weapons test. The Indo-U.S. deal reversed a 34-year-old U.S. ban on supplying nuclear fuel and technology to India.

For American reactor builders like GE and Westinghouse, and foreign investors generally, the pact opened a market for nuclear equipment estimated at $175 billion. For India, the third-largest economy in Asia, it meant the promise of a vast new electricity supply needed for economic growth.

But both sides' expansive ambitions are running up against Indian political realities.’

*

HARJIPUR: The Chief Minister of West Bengal told the central government in August that the state is scrapping plans to allow this Russian-built 6,000 MGW facility to go ahead in the face of mounting resistance.

Hunger strike protest/dianuke.org

Several hundreds of people led by the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) and belonging to the coastal villages around the KKNPP are staging a relay fast, demanding the project’s closure. It began on October 13th and is ongoing.

KOODANKULAM: The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadhu is urging the central government to put plans on hold for adding six new reactors to the existing plant – two reactors constructed but not yet operational – until local concerns are addressed. If it goes ahead, this facility will be double the size of the Fukushima complex. The People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy have been campaigning against the plant since it was initiated in 1988. A total blockade of the plant by local people has been in operation since October 13th

More stories here on IBN  Live. 

Commissioning of India Kudankulam nuclear plant delayed/BBC News Asia/10th Nov 2011

Citizens protest the proposed Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project/ Credit: Greenpeace

JAITAPUR: Opposition is growing against the 9,900-megawatt Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project in the state of Maharashtra on the western coast, to be built by French power developer Areva SA. The plant will cost upwards of $12 billion.

Source: Nuclear Power Daily

Local villagers have been opposing the plant for three years. Clashes between protesters and police in April killed one person and injured at least 20 near the plant site. Protestors are planning a relay hunger fast in mid- November.

OTHER LINKS

Daunting Road ahead for Nuclear Power by M. Somasekhar. The Hindu Business Line

LEWES: NOV 4th

In the middle of the road, blocking the road, outside the Elephant and Castle, in full cry, this wonderful band from our twinned town Waldshut-Tiengen in Germany,play their socks off. Remarkable and moving.

The big day is, of course, tomorrow, This was a very special moment. I was there with my camera.

 

 

THE OCCUPIED TIMES OF LONDON

Pick up the 2nd edition of ‘The Occupied Times’, originally published with a print run of 2000 copies on Nov 2nd. Since then, fears of violent eviction no longer an immediate worry.

www.indymedia.org.uk/media/2011/11//487942.pdf

SYSTEM D: THE FUTURE OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

Here a chart of Europe in the black economy as a percentage of GDP (Gross Domestic Product), estimated for 2010/ EUPEDIA

Thanks to John Trux for turning me on to this essay, by Robert Neuwirth, writer and investigative reporter, which is excerpted and adapted from his new book: Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy. Highlights below, full article here.

The Shadow Superpower

Forget China: the $10 trillion global black market is the world’s fastest growing economy – and its future.

‘Systeme D’ is a slang phrase pirated from French-speaking Africa and the Caribbean …This essentially translates as the ingenuity economy, the economy of improvisation and self-reliance, the do-it-yourself, or DIY, economy.

Today, System D is the economy of aspiration. It is where the jobs are. In 2009, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a think tank sponsored by the governments of 30 of the most powerful capitalist countries and dedicated to promoting free-market institutions, concluded that half the workers of the world -- close to 1.8 billion people -- were working in System D: off the books, in jobs that were neither registered nor regulated, getting paid in cash, and, most often, avoiding income taxes.

In many countries -- particularly in the developing world -- System D is growing faster than any other part of the economy, and it is an increasing force in world trade. But even in developed countries, after the financial crisis of 2008-09, System D was revealed to be an important financial coping mechanism. A 2009 study by Deutsche Bank, the huge German commercial lender, suggested that people in the European countries with the largest portions of their economies that were unlicensed and unregulated -- in other words, citizens of the countries with the most robust System D -- fared better in the economic meltdown of 2008 than folks living in centrally planned and tightly regulated nations. Studies of countries throughout Latin America have shown that desperate people turned to System D to survive during the most recent financial crisis.

Malioboro, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, originally uploaded by Mini Anna {Munandar}. Source: Indonesia Urban Studies

PREVIOUS POST

For more on Robert Neuwirth and his previous book ‘Shadow Cities’ see Vernacular Architecture

SEE ALSO:

In Praise of the Shadow Economy. Interview with Robert Neuwirth by Andrew Leonard/Salon

E-BOOKS1: MICHAEL S. HART

Michael S. Hart, the founder of e-books and Project Gutenberg
died some eight weeks ago.What a remarkable and inspiring man.
This obituary is granted to the public domain by its
author, Dr. Gregory B. Newby.

Michael Stern Hart was born in Tacoma, Washington on March 8, 1947. He died on September 6, 2011 in his home in Urbana, Illinois, at the age of 64. His is survived by his mother, Alice, and brother, Bennett. Michael was an Eagle Scout (Urbana Troop 6 and Explorer Post 12), and served in the Army in Korea during the Vietnam era.

Hart was best known for his 1971 invention of electronic books, or eBooks. He founded Project Gutenberg, which is recognized as one of the earliest and longest-lasting online literary projects. He often told this story of how he had the idea for eBooks. He had been granted access to significant computing power at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. On July 4 1971, after being inspired by a free printed copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, he decided to type the text into a computer, and to transmit it to other users on the computer network.

From this beginning, the digitization and distribution of literature was to be Hart's life's work, spanning over 40 years. Hart was an ardent technologist and futurist. A lifetime tinkerer, he acquired hands-on expertise with the technologies of the day: radio, hi-fi stereo, video equipment, and of course computers. He constantly looked into the future, to anticipate technological advances. One of his favorite speculations was that someday, everyone would be able to have their own copy of the Project Gutenberg collection or whatever subset desired. This vision came true, thanks to the advent of large inexpensive computer disk drives, and to the ubiquity of portable mobile devices, such as cell phones.

Hart also predicted the enhancement of automatic translation, which would provide all of the world's literature in over a hundred languages. While this goal has not yet been reached, by the time of his death Project Gutenberg hosted eBooks in 60 different languages, and was frequently highlighted as one of the best Internet-based resources.

A lifetime intellectual, Hart was inspired by his parents, both professors at the University of Illinois, to seek truth and to question authority. One of his favorite recent quotes, credited to George Bernard Shaw, is characteristic of his approach to life:

 "Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world.  Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves.  All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people."

Michael prided himself on being unreasonable, and only in the later years of life did he mellow sufficiently to occasionally refrain from debate. Yet, his passion for life, and all the things in it, never abated.

Frugal to a fault, Michael glided through life with many possessions and friends, but very few expenses. He used home remedies rather than seeing doctors. He fixed his own house and car. He built many computers, stereos, and other gear, often from discarded components. Michael S. Hart left a major mark on the world. The invention of eBooks was not simply a technological innovation or precursor to the modern information environment. A more correct understanding is that eBooks are an efficient and effective way of unlimited free distribution of literature. Access to eBooks can thus provide opportunity for increased literacy. Literacy, and the ideas contained in literature, creates opportunity.

In July 2011, Michael wrote these words, which summarize his goals and his lasting legacy: “One thing about eBooks that most people haven't thought much is that eBooks are the very first thing that we're all able to have as much as we want other than air. Think about that for a moment and you realize we are in the right job." He had this advice for those seeking to make literature available to all people, especially children:

Michael is remembered as a dear friend, who sacrificed personal luxury to fight for literacy, and for preservation of public domain rights and resources, towards the greater good.

According to the Project Gutenberg Wikipedia entry, as of June 2011, they had 36,000 items in their collection with 50 new e-books being added every week. mostly in English but increasingly a wide variety of other languages including Finnish and Chinese.

There is a useful summary of the history of the e-book phenomenon on Wikipedia here.

e-BOOKS2: THE DEATH OF THE BOOK

THE HYPE CYCLE

Thought it would be interesting and informative to investigate the ‘death of the book’ phenomenon. Look this up on Google and you’ll find 408 million items, Here are the most interesting pieces I have come across in reverse chronological order, prefaced by this wonderful diagram.

Source: graphpaper.com

2011

August 30th: The Death of Books Has Been Greatly Exaggerated by Lloyd Shepherd/The Guardian

According to Nielsen BookScan, the publishing industry standard for book sales data, book sales are pretty healthy, with one significant proviso which I'll come to. Ten years ago in 2001, 162m books were sold in Britain. Ten years later – a decade in which the internet bloomed, online gaming exploded, television channels proliferated, digital piracy rampaged and, latterly, recession gloomed – 229m books sold. So, a 42% increase in the number of books sold over the last 10 years.

April 18th: The Death of the Book by Ben Ehrenreich/Los Angeles Review of Books

Excellent, witty, thoughtful essay (if slightly esoteric towards the end) setting this notion in a long historical context.

‘In a 1913 manifesto, Filippo Marinetti (a futurist of the OG sort) called for “a typographic revolution directed against the idiotic and nauseating concepts of the outdated and conventional book.”

‘The alarm at first built gradually.  In 1999, Robert Darnton, writing in The New York Review of Books, consoled his readers that, all the grim prophecies notwithstanding, “the electronic age did not drive the printed word into extinction.”  The book seemed safe enough for a few years, in more danger from the avarice of the carbon-based conglomerates that ate up all the publishers, than from anything in silicon.  Safe until the fall of 2007, when lady Amazon released her hounds. Within a month of the Kindle’s debut, the New Yorker was writing of the “Twilight of the Books.”  (Cue soundtrack: all minor keys, moody cello.)  The London Times worried that “the slow death of the book may be with us.”

April 6th: 541 Years of the Death of Books/Blurb

In The Body of the Book,* Jan-Dirk Müller recounts how, in the 15^th century, a man in Paris named Guillaume Fichet was worried. He was starting to see the effects of the invention of moveable type, created 30 years earlier, and he didn’t like them. We’re not talking the blogging software, but the actual metal type that was being used to print books in large quantities. In 1470 he wrote that if “everything that can be thought can immediately be written and preserved for posterity [by this new technology] the memory capacity of the cultural system will be overstressed and oblivion will be the result.”

February 21st: Are Reports of the Death of the Book Greatly Exaggerated? by Rabbi Tzv Pittinsky

But, it appears that the book as we know it is dying. Eli Kannai, Chief Educational Technology Officer of the Avi Chai Foundation, recently directed me to a hypothetical Academic Library "Autopsy Report" from the Chronicle of Higher Education. The thesis of this report, which seems highly likely to be proven true, is that by 2050, the library will be no more. Books will become obsolete as all books and journal articles will be fully digitized to be accessed anytime, anywhere using computers or portable e-readers.

Source: Ron Chapple/phillyburbs.com

2010

October 8th: Death of the Book, or Not by Michael Cerveiri/ScribeMedia

Think of the billions living in the developing world where hardcover books can cost half a month’s salary, Amazon doesn’t deliver and local bookstores that can get new books charge even more because of transportation and procurement costs. Think of all these things and you can begin to see validity in Negroponte’s idea.

Books, and the desire for books, are creating a demand for low-cost tablets and the accessibility they afford because physical books themselves are simply, and globally, unaffordable.

September 21st: The Death of the Book Has Been Greatly Exaggerated by Christopher Mims/Technology Review

Here's the reality this kind of hype is up against: back of the envelope calculations suggest that ebooks are only six pecent of the total market for new books.

How can that be possible, when Amazon recently said that ebooks are outselling hard-cover books at Amazon.com? Easy: Amazon is only 19 percent of the total book market. Also, Amazon has something like 90 percent of the world's ebook market.

August 7th: It’s Futurists Versus Consumers As The Death of the Book Is Prophesied by Devin Coldewey/ Tech Crunch

Article triggered by Nicholas Negroponte’s prediction that printed books would be dead in five years. Article concludes:

‘Negroponte posits (and he is not the only one) that the raw information comprised by books will soon be more important and accessible than books themselves. That’s inevitable, as printed books were only ever containers, but they remain effective and popular containers, and I think they still have a lot of life left in them — more than five years, anyway. The age of print is coming to an end, but those of us writing excitedly about it are the only ones in a hurry.’

2000

The Death of the Book by S. David Marsh/Mars Hill Review

Death-of-the-book-as-we-know-it forecasters ply their trade with confidence. It seems there is no test of the prophet in this business and every few years the terms of the prophecy are retooled to reflect the latest technology. Everyone has a new epiphany and the cycle rolls over once more. With the new millennium before us, we are assured anew that paper-based information delivery is on the verge of total collapse (again) and that full content, high-quality virtual libraries and e-books-a-million sites will spontaneously materialize over the Internet to fill the void. Access will be unencumbered and inexpensive (or free). Soon, we are promised, e-book reading devices costing less than $100 will weigh half a pound and hold one million titles.  So "forget paper . . . here come e-books . . . the physical object consisting of bound dead trees in shiny wrapper is headed for the antique heap . . . books are goners."

AN ADDENDUM TO THE ABOVE:

DEATH OF READING

E-Readers Catch Younger Eyes and Go in Backpacks by Julie Bosman New York Times 4th Feb 2011

“Kids are drawn to the devices, and there’s a definite desire by parents to move books into this format,” Ms. Vila said. “Now you’re finding people who are saying: ‘Let’s use the platform. Let’s use it as a way for kids to learn.’ ”

Twilight of the Books by Caleb Crain/The New Yorker 24th Dec 2007

What will life be like if people stop reading ?

AND FINALLY

Book Lovers Fear Dim Future for Notes in the Margins by Dirk Johnson/New York Times 20th Feb 2011

Here’s the London Review of Books article referred to E-Book 1: Short Cuts by James Meek. Meek is reading Peter Mandeslon’s The Third Man

I moved to underline it, only to realise someone had done so already. Oddly, the book was spit new. It wasn’t even on paper. It was an ebook, a digital form of Mandelson’s masterwork that I’d downloaded from Amazon via the Kindle app on my iPad in the hope (futile, as it happened) of gleaning information about an obscure moment in recent British history. How could someone have been there before me? Each copy of each ebook, stored as bits of electronic data, is always new, the pages as white and the text as crisp as the day they were generated. I’d never looked at that page before. Yet there, under Mandelson’s bleak words, was a faint, dotted grey line. I touched the passage with my fingertip, and the explanation appeared in a pale blue balloon: ‘Eight other people highlighted this part of the book.’