Author: Bradley J. Fest

Hyperarchival Leap-Day Eve Links

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So, first my good friend Alexander Provan, editor of the excellent Triple Canopy, and accomplished writer in his own right (see him, for example, on our post-nuclear future and Yucca Mountain at The Believer), is interviewed in this fairly interesting article on the future of literacy, print culture, etc (“Post-Print: Digital Publishing Comes of Age”) written by Ian Erickson-Kery over at The Eye.

Uncylopedia: what happens when Wikipedia intentionally gets it wrong. I find this fascinating in the extreme, and pretty much what I (sometimes) mean by “hyperarchival.”

In commemoration of DFW’s 50th b-day, 46 things of his to look at on the internet.

Star Wars Uncut: mashing together homemade scenes of Star Wars into one, gigantic, hyperarchival gem.

(Since I’ve been playing quite a bit of Skyrim recently [and am actually currently planning on writing a bit for it here], “Fuck Forever, and Never Die.” Though I’m not sure really why sex is really part of this conversation, this is a fairly interesting article.)

And from io9: “Rock You Like an Apocalypse: Art that Destroys the World!” A whole smorgasbord of eschatological imagery. A couple examples:

Notice What’s Missing?

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As I’ve been thinking about a lot quite recently, it seems that there is a multiplication of risk projections, and they are tied together in a kind of disaster ecology, but nuclear war (let alone war in general, below) does not appear to be part of the eschatological imagination of the present. Enjoy.

Archives: Hardcore and Otherwise (and Nukes)

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So, it looks like the time has come when late-90s–early-00s hardcore is hitting the archival stage. I picked up the quite excellent Building a Better Robot: 10 Years of the Mr. Roboto Project, which, to my mind, reads like a mini handbook to quite a bit of the hardcore/indie scene of the first part of the last decade. Even though I experienced it in Tucson, Pgh doesn’t really seem that far away. . . .

Mr. Al Burian is revolving in the same orbit in his review, “Nicely Dressed Noise,” of the hyperarchival Touchable Sound: A Collection of 7-inch Records from the USA. (Is this is the state of hardcore? needing to emphasize how it is now just an entry into the[/our own personal] archive? Could be worse. They could be mashing up Drive Like Jehu. Oh, wait.)

There is a blog that seriously just shows bookshelves. It is called Bookshelf Porn. Ah, bookshelves. A sample.

And nukes: one “minute” closer to the end of the world, and “How to Get a Nuclear Bomb” by William Langewiesche over at The Atlantic from December of 2006.

Post-ThxGiving Links: DFW Syllabi, Imminent Danielewski Hyperarchivalism, billions and billions of dollars, and the Bomb (as always)

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Katie Rophie over at Slate discusses David Foster Wallace’s syllabi: “The Extraordinary Syllabi of David Foster Wallace: What His Lesson Plans Teach us About How to Live.”

The New York Times‘ Julie Bosman informs us that Mark Z. Danielewksi is going to publish a 27 volume serialized novel, The Familiar, appearing every three months beginning in 2014. I wonder how long each volume will be. . . . Also, an interesting interview w/ Danielewski.

From Inside Higher Ed: report finds literary research an inefficient use of university money according to Marc Bousquet, in his article from The Minnesota Review, “We Work.”

xkcd money chart.

George Orwell on the nuclear bomb.

And a pretty great nuclear bibliography.

From a Nuclear Critical Perspective, Firestorm is Bonkers

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I’ve been testing out DC’s New 52, now and then wandering down to the comic shop, and today I wondered why the hell I hadn’t picked up the first three issues of The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men. The book is written by Ethan Van Sciver and Gail Simone, drawn by Yildiray Cinar, in what sometimes looks to be watercolor, and it is crazily nuclear.

Um. Here is the premise: Some corporation, who supposedly runs the world, is after the missing “Firestorm Protocol.” Unbeknownst to the kinda deepish highschool quarterback in who knows USA, the kid who just so happens to have written a fairly scathing article about the jock in the highschool newspaper, who also happens to be a genius level nerd, has been given the missing protocol by its creator as the result of a private msg board. So when the jock confronts the nerd in the library, and they go out in the hallway to settle it, and the evil corporation (who probably isn’t all that evil, I mean, they are chasing the power to become a nuclear man perhaps so it doesn’t fall into the “wrong hands”) attacks to retrieve it, and to save their lives own lives, the nerd and the jock become Firestorm!? And are able, with their powers combined, to create Fury, a big Power Ranger unleashed by their anger at one another!? And their primary conflict has already been drawn along racial lines. And the nerd is black. It is very promising right now in terms of narrative trajectory. Oh yeah. Firestorms’ powers? So far they seem to be able to turn guns into flowers. And shoot nuclear fire from their hands.

At a certain level it almost doesn’t matter, because this is all really an excuse to post these gorgeous covers. It makes me wanna start a band called The Fury of Firestorm. Oh yeah, and there’s a bunch about the SuperCollider.

Some Links: On the “End” of Postmodernism, Quantum Theory, Apocalypse, and Destroyed Archives

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Edward Docx (sounds like a pseudonym) just wrote a piece, “Postmodernism is Dead,” over at Prospect.

At Nature, Eugenie Samuel Reich reports on a major breakthrough in quantum physics. “But the new paper, by a trio of physicists led by Matthew Pusey at Imperial College London, presents a theorem showing that if a quantum wavefunction were purely a statistical tool, then even quantum states that are unconnected across space and time would be able to communicate with each other. As that seems very unlikely to be true, the researchers conclude that the wavefunction must be physically real after all.”

“Why are Apocalyptic Narratives So Popular?” Why, I don’t know. . . .

Occupy Wall Street Archival Destruction.

My colleague Adriana Ramirez is having her students blog for her class “Narrative and Technology: We Might Be Gadgets.” The class just got done playing World of Warcraft (Blizzard: 2004-2011), and I had the great privilege to deliver a guest lecture a few days ago. Check out the blog here.

America’s growing anti-intellectualism.

And a nice discussion of the archival “Etymology” and “Extracts” section of Moby-Dick (which I’m teaching right now).