This is in McSweeny’s Internet Tendency: “A Reminder to Submit Your First Week Attendance to the Registrar, in the Style of Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses” by Ben Steere.
This is from The New Yorker: “Why AI Isn’t Going To Make Art,” by Ted Chiang. Chiang is the author of extremely thoughtful speculative fiction, and also has the world’s best answer to the question “What is Artificial Intelligence?” Chiang’s answer: “A bad choice of words in 1954.”
This is a book you can preorder; it’s highly recommended by people who know about the subject: “The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers.” This thought-provoking work traces the origins of voucher-based education reform to mid-twentieth-century fears over school desegregation. It shows how, in the intervening decades, a cabal of billionaire conservatives supporting a host of special political interests–including economic libertarianism, religious choice, and parental rights–have converged around the issue of education freedom in an ongoing culture war. Through deliberate policymaking, legislation, and litigation, Cowen reveals, an insular advocacy network has enacted a flawed system for education finance driven largely by dogma.
Here’s another book you can preorder: “The Great When. A Long London Novel,” by Alan Moore. “The year is 1949, the city London. Amidst the smog of the capital stumbles Dennis Knuckleyard, a hapless eighteen year-old employed by a second-hand bookshop. One day, on an errand to acquire books for sale, Dennis discovers a novel that simply does not exist. It is a fictitious book, a figment from another novel. Yet it is physically there in his hands. How?”
This is a piece by Cory Doctorow’s Pluralistic site about Corporate Bullshit. It’s also a book review about a book of the same title.
This is the website of Jon Katz: Bedlam Farm Journal. Katz is a former journalist, producer, and novelist who’s moved to a farm in upstate New York and has become an accomplished photographer and prolific blogger. He posts about his life on Bedlam Farm, their animals (look for Zip the Barn Cat), and the community.
Jon’s wife, Maria Wulf, also has a website, Full Moon Fiber Art. It’s also an Etsy store where you can buy the good she makes, some of it made from wool from the sheep who live on Bedlam Farm. Maria posts about her life on the farm and often shares videos featuring the animals. Once again, look for Zip.
