Computers
are fundamentally different from modern books in the same way
that printed books are different from monastic Bibles: they are
malleable. Time was, a "book" was something produced by many
months' labor by a scribe, usually a monk, on some kind of
durable and sexy substrate like foetal lambskin. [ILLUMINATED
BIBLE] Gutenberg's xerox machine changed all that, changed a book
into something that could be simply run off a press in a few
minutes' time, on substrate more suitable to ass-wiping than
exaltation in a place of honor in the cathedral. The Gutenberg
press meant that rather than owning one or two books, a member of
the ruling class could amass a library, and that rather than
picking only a few subjects from enshrinement in print, a huge
variety of subjects could be addressed on paper and handed from
person to person. [KAPITAL/TIJUANA BIBLE]
Most new ideas start with a precious few certainties and a lot of
speculation. I've been doing a bunch of digging for certainties
and a lot of speculating lately, and the purpose of this talk is
to lay out both categories of ideas.
This all starts with my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic
Kingdom [COVER], which came out on January 9, 2003.
Pages:
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