on the bookshelves of the digerati
Paul Levinson
author, Digital McLuhan.
Take Today: The Executive as Dropout by Marshall McLuhan. "This book is startlingly relevant. In the '50s, '60s, and '70s, everybody was critical of television. They were more comfortable with motion pictures. Now, at the end of the '90s, people are beginning to like television more, and the Internet receives all the criticism. Parents don't worry about their kids finding out how to make bombs watching television. I started with McLuhan when I was a student at City College of New York, but in those days I didn't appreciate it. He's very hard to read. He has enormous insights compressed into very short bursts."
Jerry Neumann
CFO, Communicade.
Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century by Greil Marcus. "I've always been big on intellectual disputes, and this book is just incredibly entertaining and well written. It starts out as a history of punk rock and the struggle against what Marcus calls the 'society of the spectacle.' The idea is that you should be creating your own art instead of consuming other people's art. With punk music, there wasn't supposed to be a person in the audience who wasn't taking part in the performance. If people are spectators instead of participants, it's easier to sell them commodities. A few years ago, people wanted the Internet to be revolutionary and change the world. Making people participants in the product creation is the first step."
STREET CRED
Network in a Cable
Virtual Velvet Underground
Dangerous Beauty
GloboPOP
Buying Time
Holy Roller
The Feel World
ReadMe
Music
Iridium Showers
Brain Bytes
Fishing the Art-House Stream
Think Fast
Just Outta Beta
Image Conscious
Lonelies Get Linked
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