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Blue Ant > I started a Tumblr

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I've been wanting to start a Tumblr about a particular topic as a hobby because I have such an overabundance of free time. Nothing was really striking me, but I've been reading "Zero History" by William Gibson, and I remembered, particularly in his newer novels, how dense they are with references. Some are real, some are not real, some of them are right on the brink of being real. I remember when I saw Gibson do a reading for the release of the new book, and during the Q&A, he was asked about the potential of hyperlinks in ebooks. He sort of shrugged at the idea, but answered that, since the Internet became widespread, when he writes, he doesn't feel the need to explain everything he mentions. It's as though novels are now are somewhat suspended in a cloud of information readily at the fingertips of almost every reader.

Fifty pages in and I found myself on the subway, googling references on my phone to see if he made it up or if it's a real thing that's out there. Also in his newer novels, he writes in present day. Gibson is noted as saying "The future is here — it's just not evenly distributed." His books are filled with existing items that are on the very fringe of awareness, or on the brink of becoming mainstream. It makes for a participatory reading experience, and it's a reason he's one of my favorite authors.

And so, the Tumblr. The very geeky Tumblr. For now known as Blue Ant after the corporate identity of eccentric, wealthy puppet-master Hubertus Bigend, whose curiosity drives the events of Gibson's most recent three novels. In it, I'll pick some little item mentioned in the book and explore the story behind it. It will be fun. And it will let me write little pieces about cool things. The general topics will be fashion, marketing, computing, design, corporate espionage, all great stuff even if you have no clue who William Gibson is.

I'll repost stuff on the website. Here's the inaugural post:

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Steampunk bleeds into industrial history at annual Watch City Festival

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One weekend a year, the steampunks come out in the streets of Waltham, and it feels like home. In the much-preserved 19th century factory town just outside Boston — with displays of linotype machines the size of refrigerators, reanimated steam engines, and clocks, lots and lots of antique clocks —you can feel like you’ve sort of fallen out of time.

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Captain Marvel seeks new heights for women in comics

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The new Captain Marvel is definitely not the first female superhero. In fact she’s not even the first female Captain Marvel. But she might end up being the first truly feminist icon in mainstream superhero comics — if her series manages not to get cancelled. The upcoming series, written by Kelly Sue DeConnick and drawn by Dexter Soy, features longtime Marvel character Carol Danvers as the new Captain, promoted from Ms. Marvel, and DeConnick has made it clear in a recent CBR interview that she will be a different sort of female lead:

“C’mon now, people: prove me wrong. Show me that a female-led book about the power of the human spirit, about the many guises of heroism, a book wherein no one gets raped or puts her cervix on display, can break six issues, won’t you?”

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My Bloody Valentine

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To mark the day, a love story between a geometric shape and the organ we know as the heart, spanning centuries and traversing medieval battlefield, cathedral, gambling hall and bedroom. Author Iain Gately details the long and meandering path the figure ♥ or cardioid, and the organ that pumps blood, took before they were united in current culture as the icon of love we call "heart." The ♥ symbol has been attributed to regeneration as a Classic Greek image of vine leaves, Viking tributes to Odin signaling battle madness, a sign of courtly love in medieval times, sacred love of Christ for the church, and low connotations of various body parts. As for the organ, its biological function was mysterious until the 17th century, and throughout history the physical seat of love has wandered to other organs, notably including the liver.

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Penguin Stew

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Turn-of-the-century Antarctic explorers had a cute, disgusting secret for fending off scurvy in a wasteland lacking fruits and vegetables. They ate wild, vitamin C-rich penguins. They ate penguin steak, they ate penguin stew, they ate penguin eggs, they fed them to dogs, they burned their fat for fuel. Sometimes the poor, unsuspecting creatures would waddle right into camp, unaware of this strange new animal wandering toward the South Pole for the first time. Other times, the men would lure their happy feet in with a song. Discoblog has a gross little history of penguin cuisine among late 19th century explorers, referencing a recent paper in Endeavor, and the journals of Frederick Cook.

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Paying for it

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Originally posted on mrchair March 17, 2011.

Within minutes of the email and website announcement of the NYT paywall details, Twitter was all aflutter.

Cory Doctorow made his rote attack against all things not free and open to the public. His basic argument is, this paywall is flawed as a way to keep freeloaders out of their content. It will piss people off, and people will stop linking to the Times because they won't want to, by extension, piss of their readers.

The other general negative sentiment is that the site will hemorrhage traffic, lose ad revenue, etc. This may all be correct, but I'd wager, and the Times is wagering big time, that none of that matters.

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Spilled ink over Borders bankruptcy

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Originally posted on mrchair 2/17/2011.

The coincidence is not lost on me that the week I purchased a Kindle is the week Borders Books & Music — the big box version of a bookstore that I grew up on — filed bankruptcy and announced it would be closing 30% of its stores.

Nor do I take it lightly.

When I was an all-joints adolescent growing up in suburban Phoenix, Borders served as an entry point and an escape for me. In the same way media conglomerate Blockbuster introduced me to all the movies I’d never seen before (and my first job), so did the towering brick and mortar bookstore facilitate my introduction to the joys of reading, but also just spending time around books.

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Crashing Nader's party

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Originally posted on mrchair, 4/6/2004. Fiery Portlanders lined up outside in droves, so passionate about the liberal cause that they would support it to point of sabotaging Democrats in the 04 election. Other fiery Portlanders picketed the first crowd, so passionate about that exact same liberal cause that they would protest their own people to save the Democrats in said election.

Then there were the socialists, the mayoral race stumpers, the Greens, local petitioners, the press, and inside a woman was performing an awful lounge version of “Anarchy in the UK.”

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A fascinating evening at a local bar

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Originally posted on mrchair, 6/2/2008. A couple of weekends ago, around midnight, everyone was going home from the bar and I didn't feel like it yet. You know, those moods where you have to stay out in public and can't quite withdraw into your little bunker quite yet. So I walked around the neighborhood and watched folks carouse Capitol Hill on a late Friday night.

I slid into the most obscure bar I could find for a nightcap, which in retrospect I'm 90 percent sure was a gay bar. I sat at the bar next to an unattended drink, and its owner soon returned. He was one of those guys who looks about 10 years older than he probably is, and was missing his top-front four teeth.

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Scuba Gear

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Originally posted on mrchair, 7/2/2008.  So Jamie and I were talking about urine tests the other day, and while regaling a classy story of a time I had to take more than one urine test and was unable to go, I revealed a little-known fact. When I was about 12 or so I had a testicular torsion. A torsion is when one of the testicles (or to mrchair readers, 'testacles') becomes partially twisted, cutting blood flow, endangering the testicle and causing a gnawing pain that no 12-year-old boy should ever have to endure. Much less tell his mom about.

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