A Wired Universe

I habitually read Rolling Stone cover to cover the very day it slips through my mail slot, but when it comes to essential reading my lifetime subscription is being slowly but surely supplanted by Wired.

As of 2003 I had never read Wired – assuming, perhaps, it was a magazine for electricians – when my then boss bought me a subscription to commemorate the end of my tenure as a co-op. “This magazine,” she said,” is full of people like you.”

When I first started reading it I didn’t exactly catch her meaning – at a surface level I felt much more akin to the musicians in RS than the various inventors and whatnot that graced the pages of Wired.

Four years later as I read their Geekipedia and realized I already knew about roughly 90% of the 149 entries I finally caught her drift: I’m not like these people, I just think along the same lines.

Anyway, all that was to say that I was amused but also depressed by their smarmy Geekipedia illustration of the blogosphere, because it didn’t contain very many actual blogs, by which I mean blogs that are not just corporate or political fabrications of internet reality. And then I noticed a tiny satellite around the death star that is Boing Boing – Kottke.org. And, though I don’t actually know the man, and doubt he’s ever read CK, it was a comforting thing to see a name of an actual person who’s been around as long as me in the face of link aggregators and new media.

(click the above for a huge version)

This issue of Wired also featured my lead-off link topic, an interview with Ridley Scott, who 25-years after the fact has completed a final cut of Blade Runner. I adore that he was so committed to the narrative of his film that he refused to rest until it was perfected. If only we could all be so dedicated to our arts.

Oh, I can finally deploy this link: Ethicurean recently featured an essay on Wired’s catering.

Have you ever encountered a benign link that you know inexplicably-yet-instinctively you must click? that’s the feeling I had when Katharine Evan‘s name popped up in some random comment chain I was reading this weekend; I didn’t know why, but I had to know who she was. Imagine my delight to find the website of a talented illustrator who has worked on major films like Transformers and a household favorite Constantine.

A very wired person, I’d say. I never expect to encounter these sort of people in actual internet life, which is ridiculous in light of the fact that I used to live with a girl who majored in exactly this sort of thing. Katharine lamentably doesn’t have much work online, but she does have an extensive list of links to industry colleagues and students.

Well met, Ms. Evans. And, while we’re on the topic, check out the charming animated short Clik Clak online for free.

Oh, and watch two robots play Gnarles Barkley’s Crazy. Real robots, mind you, not computer animated ones. Via Telescreen.

(And, while you’re on YouTube, watching the Sesame Street Pinball short, aka 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12. Take that, Feist.)

Wow, way to connect all those links to each other in a way that seemed intentional. And now, the hits that are quick:

23 album covers that changed everything. Via LHB.

Ta Da Lists is an online to-do list-making tool. Via No One’s Watching.

Comm geeks unite: a periodic table of branding elements. I might seriously send this to my Vice President. Thanks Debbie Millman.

Unclutterer reminds us that a bigger HDTV means increasing viewing distance – not always a living room friendly combination.

Mighty Goods could alter the orbit of Elise’s entire home existence with everlasting LED tealights and handy wine wedges.

Smogr posted a great Flickr set of retro arcade photos.

Creepy-ass photo of the day from Pruned. Their past few posts have featured intruiging architectural elements from the fascinating Désert de Retz, a “romantic French folly garden.” If your high school French has a half-life similar to mine you can also learn a bit on French Wikipedia. All super-interesting; I’m pretty darn close to buying the coffee table book.

Finally, since everyone I know seems to be reading this lately, does anyone want to see Amadeus at the Wilma? I really like the movie, and would love to see it on stage.

fin