Books

I love reading! When I get a chance, I check out the cool magazines and journal you really can't find in any place but a university library. Thing like:

JOURNALS AT MIT

Humanities Library
  • Poetry - good stuff.
  • Stern - nice photos, I like to see what the Germans are worried about, and figure out the Far Side cartoons.
  • IEEE Annals of Computing History - good crypto stuff every once in a while.
  • Popular Photography - oh well.
Barker Library
  • Computers and Security - good Brit journal.
  • ACM Sig on Security.

Actually, I prefer to read techie stuff over at the LCS Reading Room.

Rotch Library

This is my favorite library, they have an excellent collection (they have all kinds of good Beardsley books, even collected letters), nice architecture, and good ventilation!

  • CineFex - cool journal about all the special E-FEX in media today. Their font is too dark though.
  • European Photography - beautiful B&W.
  • Design - Cool Design Magazine.
  • View Camera - photo magaine between Popular Photo and Euro Photo.
  • American Cinematographer - a nice "trade-ish" magazine
  • I D - International Design - a pretty design magazine with some focus on typography... The latest (2.96) was a nice retrospective, had a section on some of my favorite designers.. including the sassy Fabion Baron.

Two neat things that a read there recently: 

The latest volume of Screen has a picture of the fem Vampira and has a paper entitled
"Primal scenes and the female gothic: Rebecca and Gaslight."

(Also of interest, Fall/Winter Public Art Review is "Net-Works" to those interested
in the Net, and Fall 95 Film-Quarterlies "Japanese Animation: Magical Girls and
Atomic Sperm)

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get my hands on a good typography magazine.

CHRISTMAS 95 READING BRINGE

As part of my Christmas 95 Reading Binge, I got to indulge myself with the following books: z

    Card, Orson Scott. Abyss. This is the only Card book I haven't read, and I put it off because it was a serialization, but I wasn't disappointed. I still haven't seen the film though.

    Banana Yoshimoto. NP. One review said, "An ethereally mesmerizing... novel of Japan's Generation X." I don't know about that. Another said something about "Deeper than just trendy" and I guess that is closer. I did enjoy it a lot, the "mystery" of the book got to be a little tiring, but the personal reflections were quite sentient.

    Harrison, Ted. Stigmata: A Medieval Phenomenon in a Modern Age. The old psychogenic purpura returns. A nice little book. I would have preferred if the author would have been a little more opinionated himself, and if it had some photos. It ended up feeling terribly wishy-washy and anecdotal.

    Burstein and Kline. Road Warriors: Dreams and Nightmares Along the Info Highway. Didn't touch it, deal with it too much during school!

    Rice, Anne. Memnock the Devil. A relatively short book for Anne, and very little of it has to do with Vampires. Rice has reached the point many Sci-Fi authors reach after a few novels, the universe of their making becomes equally if not more important than the characters. Here she explores the theological context of Satan. Interesting, and it is always nice to read something where the author assumes the reader knows something of theology, philosophy, and history.

I did like the poem by her husband a great deal:

What God Did Not Plan On

Sleep well,
Weep well,
Go to the deep well
As often as possible.
Bring back the water,
Jostling and gleaming.
God did not plan on consciousness
Developing so
Well. Well,
Tell Him our
Pail is full
And He can
Go to Hell.

    Melton, J. Gordon. The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead. Pretty good. Unfortunately, the editor doesn't use the finer reference systems of other works such as the Britanica, or Fern's Encyclopedia of Religions. As a consequence, whole paragraphs are repeated in multiple sections. Also, it gets to be a little opinionated with regards to Bauhaus!

    Jacobs, and Kokrda. Photography in Focus. A little dated, dry, and stilted.

    Langford, Micahel. (ed.) Creative Photography. Pretty good. Text-bookishy, but done in a very clear manner.

    Freeman, Michael. Film: Making the Most of Films and Filters. I only skimmed parts of this.

    Liz Harvey. (ed.) Shoot: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about 35mm Photography. Excellent book! Not at all like a text, instead various photographers write on specific topics. The result is that one gets a very real feel for what another was thinking when considering the attributes of a shot.

    Michael, Beaumont. Type: Design, Color, Character & Use. Very good book when considering color (as in rainbow colors) of type. Also, a must read for WEB designers since he even goes into colored text on colored or image backgrounds. He even considers color design with respect to the 10% of the population that is color blind! Interesting.

VOCABULARY

I like words too. I'm on a mailing list where I get a word a day, I also like the new words that one will see in WIRED or other places. Of course, I can never remember the new words, because even if they are clever, you rarely see them again.

Here are a few from noted by the American Dialect Society:
--Anxious class: Middle-class people worried about economic security.
--Astroturf: Phony grassroots movement created by special-interest advertising.
--Big box: Large chain store specializing in one kind of merchandise.
--Brownfield: Vacant city lot.
--EQ: Emotional intelligence.
--Gaydar: A gay person's ability to spot other gays.
--Generation Y: Post-post baby boomers.
--Home meal replacement: Takeout.
--Joe six chip: Ordinary Joe with computer.
--Starter marriage: First marriage.
--24-7: Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
--Testilying: Lying under oath.
--Waymazin: Really amazing.
--Whatever: Gratuitous remark.
--They: Singular gender-neutral pronoun.
--Trunking: Taking a joyride in a stolen car and locking the owner in the trunk.
--V-chip: Computer chip that screens out TV violence.
--Webliography: Bibliography of material on the Internet.

© 1997 NrrrdBoy