Kindling

Newsweek’s recent cover story on the Kindle, Jeff Bezos’ version of an iBook clearly not designed by Apple, is a real hoot. Towards the end of the article all kinds of experts wax philosophical about the death of the manuscript. In the future, it seems, books will no longer end, they will just get footnotes, forever. They will become “more of a process than a product.” It works so well for Hollywood screenplays.

So instead of one person going off by him or herself and actually accomplishing something, narratives will become something akin to boardroom meetings. Well since producers are now “auteurs,” I don’t see why entire book clubs can’t become “authors.” As long as they can make a few decisions without Oprah.

My favorite line – “Michael Chabon will have to rethink how he writes for this medium.”

Yeah, right after he dusts off his Pulitzer.

Tactile

I posted draft one of my writing page, dotkalm. It will work as the storage space for dotkalm blog. Any pieces I get published or refer to here will be linked to there. It’s also where I can send someone who simply wants to read my stuff.

The design is my effort to bring back the analog desktop. Right now it is just a background image, but one I can easily subtract to and from. Eventually you’ll be able to click on the various items I leave on my desk. Maybe flip through it with Flash. Maybe I’ll start a timeline. What was on my desk back in October of ’09?

I like that it feels tactile. I can jot on a post-it with a crayon and stick it up there or truly cut and paste a clipping. I can scribble. I also like that it’s chaotic. Just like I might find something hidden on my desk that I forgot and get inspired, so might the random surfer bumpspark against something they didn’t expect.

It’s messy. That’s the idea.

Bumpspark* Heart

Jarvik puts it much better than I could in his ubiquitous Lipitor ads. He was pursuing a career in architecture until his father died of a heart attack. He went into medicine with the mind of an architect.

Medicine + architecture = artificial heart.

Bumpspark.

Return To Source

Where better to locate the pilot bumpspark than the first American escape, the archetype for the artist’s retreat? Where better for poetry and science to meet than in the footsteps of Thoreau and Emerson? The Walden Woods Project will host part of the conversation between Alan Lightman and Robert Pinsky at their Thoreau Institute.

This is getting really good.