Some book stuff & Scroobius Pip
Walter Isaacson is interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air about his new book Einstein: His Life and Universe. Isaacson will be reading from his book at the Jimmy Carter Library at 7 PM on April 19 (Thursday). Get yourself a chai latte and listen to the interview on NPR’s Fresh Air – then check out the reading if it is your thing. I haven’t read any of Isaacson’s books, but come on, it’s Einstein. I’m 67% sure I’ll be there to check it out.
Wired has a nice piece on the lengths that authors, publishers, film makers, etc,. will go to avoid calling works “sci fi.” The late Kurt Vonnegut (how weird is that) said that he “was never happy with the label of ‘science-fiction writer’, which he described as being put into a drawer that “serious” critics use as a urinal.” The Wired article mentions the “post-apocalyptic” novel The Road specifically, and I’ve mentioned how silly it was to not call Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go sci-fi. Get over it already.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution weighs in on the travails of Atlanta’s independent book scene. Their article says that Chapter 11 book stores will reduce its size to one location – Emory. That’s contrary to the word on the street, which had indicated that all of the stores would be closed. We’ll see how it plays out. I don’t think it looks good.
This week’s video: Watch Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip and get your priorities straight (via VSL).
Updated: Visit Vonnegut’s web site.
April 13, 2007 7:00 am 
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By Russ, April 13, 2007 @ 8:39 am
Ah! Never Let me Go! I forgot about how much i utterly loved that book the first eight times I read it…then gave it away as a gift, never desiring to purchase another.
maybe i shall.
By Frank, April 13, 2007 @ 9:15 am
Isaacson’s interview is well worth a listen, and as Cos used to say at the beginning of “Fat Albert,” you might learn something before it’s done. The visual of a bowling ball on a trampoline, in his explanation of why large objects in space have gravitational pull, made the little light bulb in my head finally go on. The book sounds good, too.
By Beth (The Decatur One), April 13, 2007 @ 11:02 am
I’m very interested in reading the Einstein book and would love to go to the author’s talk … but I think I’m going to a poetry reading at Tech that night.
By DJ Cayenne, April 13, 2007 @ 11:34 am
Russ: On “Never Let Me Go” – I’m hugely in the minority on that book in wanting it to read more sci-fi-ish. I needed to know more about how things got to that point, etc. See my objections in the link above.
Frank: That’s the beauty of Einstein, making hopelessly complex ideas understandable.
Beth: It is National Poetry Month, no? That sounds cool. Shoot us the details, and we’ll post something on that event as well.
By Herman Glimscher, April 13, 2007 @ 11:43 am
The problem with labels like “sci-fi” or “mystery” or whatever for some authors is that it’s like wearing a jacket that’s too tight. The genre tag limits your movement. So, finally, you give the jacket away to Goodwill and the people who thought it looked good on you hate you for having given away the jacket and the people who didn’t think of you as the guy who used to wear that terrible jacket. This is why I prefer sweaters.
By DJ Cayenne, April 13, 2007 @ 1:03 pm
To use Herman’s metaphor, Ishiguro was invited to a costume ball and went in his every day attire.
By Dr J, April 13, 2007 @ 1:41 pm
DJ, I’m RELATIVELY sure that you’ll make it to that reading.
I put the pun in CAPS to make sure everyone got it.
Feel free to use this one among the other Einstein fans at the Carter Ctr.
By Shaft, April 15, 2007 @ 4:02 pm
I’m reading the Einstein book right now (which is shocking given its considerable girth — the oddsmakers in Vegas have me a 3-to-1 underdog on completing it). But I was trying to describe the bowling ball/trampoline thing to my wife, and she couldn’t get past the “but the only reason the bowling ball skews the trampoline’s surface is gravity” response — i.e., I was using gravity to explain gravity. I couldn’t counter it (although perhaps Einstein could have).
By DJ Cayenne, April 15, 2007 @ 9:18 pm
It’s the mass of the bowling ball that bends the trampoline. The effect on the trampoline is gravity. She is confusing gravity with weight. — I have no idea if that is accurate. Try saying it with a straight face and see if she goes for it.
By Shaft, April 16, 2007 @ 9:13 am
I couldn’t even keep a straight face reading it. I’m not even going to try it.
As a guy with an engineering degree (and therefore someone who slept through more physics classes than many of you), I think what Einstein was trying to say was that the trampoline represents the “ether” and that something massive like the bowling ball bends it, causing other objects to follow the trajectory of the bent ether; i.e., the other objects aren’t “attracted to” the bowling ball, but rather naturally follow the ether and are forced to alter their course because of the disruption caused by the bowling ball.
That’s not right either, but I think I can at least keep a straight face with it.
By Ms. Journo-friend, April 16, 2007 @ 1:01 pm
If you’ve listened to Isaacson’s talk on NPR, the reading might be a bit repetitive. I watched him tape an interview with a talk show in DC a couple months ago, and he said almost exactly the same things then, the same way, that he said on NPR…. It was fascinating — the first time around.