• My Brain Dump of Influential Inputs

  Filed under Culture, Economics, Education, Literature, Politics, Popular Culture, Sharing, Social Media, Technology
  May 18

  Update

  I’ve had a few people thank me for the list, and while it may be some time before I get any robust feedback, hopefully people will find something useful, mind-altering, or entertaining out if these recommendations.
  A friend of mine recently asked me for some suggestions of good stuff to read, as she’s on a bulk-it-up read-avore diet. Here’s my list of the past year or three’s “Must-reads”—

  Non-Fiction

  Misha Glenny, “McMafia”
  If Capitalism won the Cold War, why is the world worse off now than it was then? A very, very scary read… but then I WANT to know what’s hiding under the bed!

  Douglas Rushkoff, “Life Inc.”
  Does more to clarify WHY the world is the way it is now than any other book I’ve read. Ever.

  Noami Klein, “No Logo”
  Journalistic work about the ascendency of branding in our world, and the marketing/propaganda efforts that made it so.

  Naomi Klein, “Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”
  Exposes the cabal of Chicago School economics and multinationals & imperial ambitions of certain nations, and the effect this is having on the world.

  Naomi Wolf, “The Beauty Myth”
  Brilliant dissection & analysis of the economic creation of beauty and how gender roles & stereotypes have been pegged to a market valuation, just like gold or oil.

  Naomi Wolf, “The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot”
  A polemic on the end of the republic and the creation of an empire. Says more emotively what Noam Chomsky has put forth in some of his works on the subject. While published in the height of the Bush/Cheney years, when totalitarianism seemed a more overt danger in the US, all the forces that created that risk are still in place, and could become ascendant again. The parallels to the death of the Roman republic seem terrifyingly strong to me. There is (or was—you never know when stuff gets pulled—very Orwellian!) a YouTube video of Wolf lecturing to a University audience on this topic. A must see!

  Sam Harris, “Letter to a Christian Nation”
  Epistle to wake up, grow up, and put aside childish things, stop believing in the “Sky Bully” and stop using “Faith” as a control of others with less power. Not as dry or ego-filled as Dawkin’s “God Delusion”, it’s tightly structured, and soundly written.

  Rhonda Britten, “Fearless Loving”
  Seemingly out of place on this list, I found this book helped me understand myself, and how I fit into the world, why I thought about things and emotional attachments to things, and how to stop worrying—or at least begin to stop—about what people thought about me, or whether they would like me.

  Three Novels:

  Arthur C. Clarke & Stephen Baxter, “The Light of Other Days”
  A brilliant romp through what happens to society when the rules of time, matter, and therefore people change from those we all assume work.

  Andrew Davidson, “The Gargoyle”
  This thing is a gothic romance. The best damn gothic romance I could never contemplate picking up, much less flash though, enjoying every word, and being completely transported. Magical work. Literally.

  Will Ferguson, “Happiness™”
  Another “Magical Reality” tale, about the search for that ultimate, final, universally effective self-help book… what if someone actually wrote it? How would the world we know, designed to make each of us as miserable as possible to generate a maximum as possible profit, look like if we could no longer be positioned or restrained by our fears & neuroses?

  Video

  But of course books aren’t the only way to ingest information. A few videos online that I found both moving and enjoyable:

  Joss Whedon, accepting the award from the Harvard Humanist Society:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTY8-XPhTzQ&feature=player_embedded

  Joss Whedon, delivering a keynote speech at the Equality Now Conference:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYaczoJMRhs

  George CarIin’s two most memorable routines:
  George Carlin – Religion is bullshit.

  George Carlin – Saving the Planet

  And, this video of the noted author & co-father of the cyber-punk sub-subgenre, Bruce Sterling, delivering the keynote to Reboot-11.

  Other

  For a continuous feed of things happening in our world, filtered & focused by intelligences not yet in the power of the Status-quo media channels, and unbeknownst to them, these upstarts are cybernetically enhanced! BoingBoing.Net

  If you are aurally inclined, tune into the Blog/Podcast DyscultereD where hosts Anthony Marc, Andrew Currie & Mike Vardy tell it like it is (or at least, how they think it is) about technology, politics, culture, entertainment, gaming, etc. with a uniquely Canadian spin.

  And, for more another eye-opening experience, Cory Doctorow is Canada’s own superhero: a mild-mannered Science Fiction author by day, evil corporate giant prosecutor by night. Cory has written Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom, a short story collection calledA Place So Foreign and Eight More, Eastern Standard Tribe, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, a collection of essays called Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present, and the current run of books Little Brother, a NY Times best seller, Makers, & just released, For the Win. So why aren’t those books all up in the Novels section?
  Because Doctorow’s really hard to categorize (like, *blush* me)—he’s an activist (ex-Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation), an entrepreneur, a journalist, and an extremely outspoken & passionate advocate for sane, intelligent legislation regarding creative works, intellectual property, and copyright. You can find free downloadable copies of his stuff at his site, Craphound.com.

  2 Comments

2 Responses to “My Brain Dump of Influential Inputs”

1. 

   Miles Harrison said on June 16th, 2010 at 9:45 pm

   I gotta say the list’s non-fiction content seems to be a bit slanted towards the what’s wrong with America genre. Kinda like shooting fish in a barrel. To turn the herd a little towards the rest of the world, I MUST add this beautifully written non-fictional class act by Bill Bryson: A Short History of Nearly Everything.
   http://tinyurl.com/88wlj
   Never has such complicated topics been explained with such clarity and levity. Bryson is an American treasure IMHO. This is minimally biographical unlike most of his other entirely biographic ripping yarns. He steps back a bit and satisfies his and our sense of wonderment about the real world.

2. 

   bmcraec said on June 17th, 2010 at 11:13 am

   Thanks Miles; I know I’ve got it heavily weighted towards “the end is nigh”, which doesn’t help people work towards any solutions… in my defence, I will plead that before the healing commences, we must be aware of the problem!

   I shall add that book to the teetering pile that doesn’t fit on the bookshelf…

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