As an update to my writeup about William Gibson at the CBC Book Club, the podcast of the event has been posted over at Studio One for your listening pleasure.

William Gibson’s stretched stooped figure curls over book and microphone under yellow lights that hang like a field of beauty salon hair dryers before an unlit neon sign tracing out the words Studio One on a wall deep within the bowels of the CBC. He has just returned from touring in the States and Europe, hitting a dozen cities in twice as many days while promoting his new novel, Spook Country. He is honed at this point. Listening to him read, you realize that this is how his writing is …

“Tom Sawyer got it right. Why paint a fence when you can get your friends to do it for you for free? He would have been the perfect new-media mogul. Spending time and money creating content on the Internet is so hopelessly dated, so dotcom, so very, very 1.0. The secret of today’s successful Web 2.0 companies: build a place that attracts people by encouraging them to create the content — thereby drawing even more people in to create even more stuff…” – Time, May 8th 2006
Hmmm…case in point: …

The Gonzo Fist by Paul Pascarella .
Paul Pascarella writes:
I would just like to be clear on the logo that you are refering to, the Gonzo fist, or the actual Gonzo logo with fist, name and dagger blade. The two thumbed fist with peyote button was originally designed by Hunter and a local Aspen artist named Tom Benton. It was first used I believe as a Freak Power symbol when Hunter was running for Sheriff in Aspen in 69′ when Benton designed the poster.
The actual Gonzo logo that you …

A very cool collection of Russian covers of Bret Eason Ellis novels, the above being for The Informers…
…a Kubrickesque fake trailer for Lunar Park on YouTube…
…and Bret Easton Ellis on the Why the Teletubbies are Evil.
More on Ellis over at Not An Exit.

September 23 – 30 is Banned Books Week which recognizes those great works of literature that society for one reason or another has taken issue with. Catcher in the Rye, Ulysses, Of Mice and Men, The Great Gatsby, all of these works at some point have been put on trial for the ideas they advance. In fact, 42 of 100 books listed by the Radcliffe Publishing Course as the best novels of the 20th century have been challenged or bannd.e
As part of this celebration, Google has posted a page …

“Something had gentled the rain, taking the madness out of it.”
From today’s New York Times: the “unmistakable prose” of Micket Spillane (1918-2006).

Douglas Coupland doesn’t want to end the Book Club meeting on a positive note. They always end upbeat he explains. For once, he wants things to end darkly. “Doomed. We are all doomed.” He throws this out there as his final words. “Quit your job. There is no hope.”
It is this topic of life’s darker edges that seemed to continue to be addressed over the course of the two hour discussion tonight that was being recorded for an upcoming episode of North By Northwest, hosted by Sheryl MacKay and Georgia …

“For many, including myself, the voice at the start of “The Trees” belongs to Kafka’s letters themselves, speaking directly to the reader: “we are like tree trunks in the snow.” Picture a field after a recent snowfall.”
A beautiful article by Rob Giampietro on the relationship of Zen Buddhism, Franz Kafka and typography over at the newly redesigned Design Observer.

There was a true rock n roll buzz flowing through the bar of the Yale Hotel last night, as though one might expect Bono or Neil Young to step onto the small hallowed stage and play a solo set. Tickets to the event had been hard to come by. If you listened close enough, you could catch tales of backdoor dealings and namedropping to gain access. The only other way had been to write an online 200 word essay on why you deserved an invitation to this most heinous meeting …