The Art of Slow Reading

Posted on July 20, 2010 by Ian Stewart

… a literary revolution is at hand. First we had slow food, then slow travel. Now, those campaigns are joined by a slow-reading movement – a disparate bunch of academics and intellectuals who want us to take our time while reading, and re-reading. They ask us to switch off our computers every so often and rediscover both the joy of personal engagement with physical texts, and the ability to process them fully.

“If you want the deep experience of a book, if you want to internalise it, to mix an author’s ideas with your own and make it a more personal experience, you have to read it slowly,” says Ottawa-based John Miedema, author of Slow Reading (2009).

via The art of slow reading | Books | The Guardian.

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The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of The Bicameral Mind

Posted on June 21, 2010 by Ian Stewart

I have never wanted to recommend so wholeheartedly a book that I’ve felt was so preposterous. And I mean that most un-ironically. Is there a book anywhere so deeply weird and fascinating as this one?

In short, The Origin of Consciousness suggests that until well after the invention of writing mankind was not conscious. This is crazy. A totally crazy idea. Instead of what we think of as conscious thought—that is, the you inside of you that’s aware of itself and aware of you thinking—man’s mind was bicameral, or made up of two distinct separate parts. Two non-conscious selves, one that accepted orders and one that gave orders.

Oh, and the order-giver spoke in the voice of god.

Or rather, a cacophony of gods. And that’s just the beginning. It gets crazier from there. I wish I could graph just how crazy it gets as the whole history of western civilization is completely reinterpreted based on this insane idea but when the vertical gets too high graphs stop making sense.

I’m not sure I’ve ever read anything so good. Like me, you’ll probably think it’s totally crazy—and fascinating. Check out the Julian Jaynes Society for an introduction.

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I’m growing a soul patch. Somehow this has not stopped or reverted the aging process. Ironically, it may actually be accelerating it. My initial observations suggest that this is the result of a conflict with my graying hair. More data is required.

Posted on June 9, 2010 by Ian Stewart | 4 Comments

Check out Robert J. Sawyer’s Wake

Posted on June 2, 2010 by Ian Stewart

Have you read Robert J. Sawyer’s Wake yet? It’s one of those set-in-the-day-after-tomorrow idea-thrillers that I’m starting to wish I’d really read more of. The kind of book where blogging, open-source competitors to Google, and the infrastructure of the web are the laser beams and starships.

And because it’s shamelessly Canadian you get paragraphs name-checking Stephen Wolfram immediately followed (literally—in the next paragraph) by kids playing street hockey yelling “Car!”

I don’t normally recommend books in a series (Wake is the first volume in a WWW series—all the titles start with W) but Wake is a fun diversion that also points to some really, really, neat current ideas about consciousness, information, and what it means to be human. Check it out.

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One-column Madness

Posted on May 28, 2010 by Ian Stewart

I went and made a one-column, no-header-image, version of Twenty Ten using the Custom CSS upgrade. Madness.

I (currently—you know how these things are with your personal blog, right?) plan on actually making this look like something but in the meantime, here’s the current custom CSS I’m adding to the Twenty Ten stylesheet.

Continue reading →

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Happy WordPress Day

Posted on May 27, 2010 by Ian Stewart

Today is the the 7th anniversary of the release of WordPress and today I’d like to say how thankful I am for it’s existence. I am.

WordPress is being used around the world, every day, to enrich our lives. It’s a tool that makes anyone a publisher. Think of the revolution that followed the printing press. Now imagine the printing press as a portable device anyone could carry with them—for free—sending pamphlets, essays, literature, and poetry, out around the world instantly.

Imagine that. It’s amazing.

So, thank you, WordPress. And by that I mean thank you to everyone working on WordPress; everyone contributing plugins and themes; everyone writing about WordPress; and everyone using WordPress. Thank you for keeping this ball rolling.

Here’s to many more: cheers.

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What cooking has taught me about excellence: It’s easier to be excellent—or, at least, to get on that path towards it—when you surround yourself with opportunities to fail comfortably.

Posted on May 18, 2010 by Ian Stewart | Leave a comment

Wondering Where The Lions Are

Posted on April 17, 2010 by Ian Stewart

I had to spend a few extra minutes in the grocery store parking lot when this came on the radio. Wait. That makes me sound really old. I was actually somewhere really cool. A loft apartment. Yes. And, uh, it was an expensive custom-made Japanese stereo. Not the radio in my reliable and safe car.

Anyway, this a great song. Listen to it. Again, if you’ve heard it before.

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Weathercraft

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Ian Stewart

I’m really looking forward to reading Jim Woodring’s latest Frank comic, Weathercraft—I won’t understand it all but I’m looking forward to it nonetheless.

Like Dave Fleischer, I think cartoons are most enjoyable when they depict things you could never see in real life. On the other hand, pure fantasy interests me not at all. Everything in the Frank comics has its basis in reality…or at least in reality as I see it. I guess that could be a significant qualifier.

That’s from the pretty decent Comic Book Resources interview, Woodring Practices “Weathercraft”. And, if you’re not familiar with Frank, watch this—and you’ll be anxious to read Weathercraft too.

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The Hasty Smear of My Smile

Posted on April 3, 2010 by Ian Stewart

If you’ve never read Alan Moore and Peter Bagge’s horribly awesome Kool-Aid Man bio piece you pretty much need to stop what you’re doing and read it right now.

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