Bruce Sterling

Bruce Sterling with a brilliant speech on Geeks and Spooks

I’ve got Bruce Sterling on the Brain—here’s some big excerpts from CATSCAN 12: “Return to the Rue Jules Verne”

These are the people who invented “la vie de Boheme.” They invented the lifestyle of the urban middle-class dropout art-gypsy. They invented its terminology and its tactics. They brought us the “succes de scandale,” the now time-honored tactic of shocking one’s audience all the way to the bank. And the “succes d’estime,” the edgy and hazardous life of the critics’ darling. The doctrine of art for art’s sake was theirs too (thank you, Theophile Gautier). And the ever-helpful notion of epater les bourgeoisie, an act of consummately modern rebellion which is nevertheless impossible without a bourgeoisie to epater, an act which the bourgeoisie itself has lavishly financed for decades in our culture’s premiere example of Aldissian enantiodromia—the transformation of things into their opposites.

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The Paris Bohemians were the first genuine industrial-scale counterculture. This was the culture that created Jules Verne. It deserves a great deal of the credit or blame for origination of the genres of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. It has a legitimate claim on our attention and our loyalties.

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Professor Seigel’s book is especially useful for its thumbnail summary of what might be called the Ten Warning Signs of Bohemianism. According to Seigel, these are:

1. Odd dress.
2. Long hair.
3. Living for the moment.
4. Sexual freedom.
5. Having no stable residence.
6. Radical political enthusiasms.
7. Drink.
8. Drugs.
9. Irregular work patterns.
10. Addiction to nightlife.

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In reality, these Ten Warning Signs are every bit as old as industrial society. Slackers, punks, hippies, beatniks, hepcats, Dead End kids, flappers, jazz babies, fin-de-siecle aesthetes, pre-Raphaelites, Bohemians—this stuff is old. People were living a vividly countercultural life in Bohemian Paris when the house in which I’m writing these words was a stomping ground for enormous herds of bison.

Bruce Sterling is blogging! Super-duper-cool!

What now? Some possible answers from Bruce Sterling and others. Worth a serious read.

If ever there was an example of the problem with Dead Media – ( Bruce Sterling’s essay about DM ) – it’s this one – where the original Viking data was in a data format which apparently nobody remembers anymore. That’s crazy!

via Nettime. Archives here.

Keeping a journal is a responsibility, once you start it. But what does one do when there is precious little to share? I’m in transition now. Lots of irons in the fire. Things on my mind.

Other people have things about to happen as well. The new Bruce Sterling interview in Locus indicates a new nonfiction book from him called Tomorrow Now sometime soon. William Gibson is working on a new book, no idea of the release date. David Byrne has a new album due to be released soon. There’s a new biography of Talking Heads out soon.

So much stuff. Meanwhile, visions of new articles for artlung.com are gelling in my head. Stay tuned.

Inspired from a posting to DigitalEve SanDiego... I dredge up a wonderful speech from Bruce Sterling on “Wooing the Muse of the Odd” – it’s about pushing at boundaries and being unique. Design is not about limitations. It’s about possibility.