Seattle at sunset from T-Mobile park, June, 2024

Table of contents

• A Capitalist Library?
• Rheingold's "Virtual Comnunity"
• Parikka, "Media Archaeology"
• Current Reading
• Multi-melting
• Looking Forward

What would a library look like if it was capitalist?  Well, maybe Amazon, true, but also this.  It felt like the Vegas of books - the spectacle of a bookstore that occupies an entire city block with shelves spread across 4 stories and varoious color-coded rooms.

Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon had been something I had long heard of, but I finally got an occasion to visit on a recent road trip, and I'm still trying to get my head around that singular experience.  It's an amazing place, and yet...

...it wasn't quite "there". For a book guy like me*, it's kinda like the Mecca of books. It has new and used books mixed together on the same shelves, and this is what led me to the title of the Capitalist Library.  Powell's has lots of things for every audience: it has the Chapters-Indigo slash Barnes and Noble major label bookstore with new releases and totes and book paraphernalia (and an attached coffee shop); it has the used bookstore, but with new stuff mixed in; and a rare bookstore up on the top floor.

It has everything, but I couldn't find anything.

At least, not anything I had on the list.  Don't get me wrong, I still walked out of there spending about $400 dollars (see below), but while they had books of interest, when I went looking for specific titles  - stuff I need or need to fill in on the bookshelf - it started failing me. I couldn't find anything specific.

It has everything I want, but it didn't have anything I want.  So I ended up talking to some of the not-librarians, the sales staff and associates, if they have certain books, and they were like"No, that rarely comes through", or "We haven't seen that in years". 

I'm kind of too niche for this niche. (that's fine. lol)

There's this funnel that happens; this intake center on the ground floor where they bring in the used books and people bring in their collection or box of books that they're not using, or finished with, and that will get recycled or sold at a profit - back on the main shelves.

A library for a profit. But a lot of it is not there, checked out, or eternally checked out, as it never cycles back through.

What could it have been, if everything was actually there?

Given when it was written, it manages to feel on one hand incredibly dated and cheugy as he engages in the thick description of what a website or portal is (like, we know) while on the other hand providing an incredibly fascinating look at the assumptions and practices that went into the use of the early internet, before it all became so reified and controlled, back when everyone was just figuring out what this new thing was, and taking it for a spin.

It's still worth a read though. Sadly, so much of what Rheingold captured with the early web in 1993 is still with us over 30 years later.  The chapters on Tribalism, Online Activism, and Disinformation (especially in the political sphere) read as true today as when they were written, with only the names changed (and even then some of the players are still recognizable).

There are still lessons to be learned from older media, which brings us to our next book...

Because of course, what value does pop culture news have? Never mind the countless hours of work put in by untold numbers of staffers and freelancers in bringing nearly three decades of information together. (You can read about the mtv.com story here.)

But this is exactly what Parikka is getting at here, in his work on the field of media archaeology.  It's a useful text for approaching the field of studying media from an archaeological point of view, something we are working on here as well, whether it's through our look at the bookshelf, or the various episodes devoted to Appendix W or sci-fi history on the related podcasts.

The biggest challenge, (or at least top three, you know), is dealing with platforms and the digital archives.  Maintaining these may be well beyond the capability of many scholars now, individually and perhaps collectively.  There are limits to the Internet Archive and The Wayback Machine, and even those are increasingly under attack.  And dynamic web, that of platforms and Web 2.0, is facing similar challenges, in ways we were only just starting to understand when Parikka wrote back in 2012.

Future media archaeologists may have little resemblance to Indiana Jones or Benjamin Franklin Gates, at least in the popular imagination, but perhaps that isn't so far off either.  The role may still exist. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go dust off a screenplay...

This was the book haul from Powell's mentioned above.  A couple new releases, some sci-fi, media theory, memetics, and more.  We'll filter through these in the coming months.

Started grabbing new music earlier this year, starting with the release of Judas Priest's Invincible Shield, and continuing through the road trip.  This was an intentional practice, as I wanted to check out new music more regularly.  Like many of us, this was something I feel I did almost weekly in the 80s and 90s, and there is definitely something different about grabbing a physical copy and listening to it all the way through.

"The Reckoning" is the standout track, and "Frankenstein" and the title track "Humanoid" both solid if a slight step down. "Straight Up Jack" is fun, and feels like an AC/DC tune from the 80's.

There's a couple tunes that are auto-skip for me: the ballad "Ravages of Time" and the mid-tempo rocker "Nobody Gets Out Alive" which is spoiled by one line in the lyrics, and these prevent me from rating it higher, so let's call it a 7.5 out of 10, which is pretty solid for a late career rock act, tbh.

Pretty decent album, all-in-all, with "Madame Guillotine" being the standout track with a singalong chorus and "Fire and Steel" a close second (though the continuous double kick there sounds a little out of style for them).

Perfectly servicable, about a 6/10 if I rate these things.

A diversity of styles makes it harder to categorize, but it is clearly identifiable as its own thing, in much the way of other bands I enjoy like Faith No More.

Still have this one on rotation in the CD player, but haven't found myself skipping through yet.  Think it might be a future classic. 9/10.

And moving on from music, there was still time for a movie in the theater...

At about the halfway point I found myself chuckling as I recognized one of the bits from "The Negotiator" from 1998 with Samuel L Jackson and Kevin Spacey, and apparently this movie *was* based on that, as the original screenwriters of that film are credited here.

It's a well-done thriller with a throwback feel, with the added bonus of being a way to enjoy an old movie without being skeeved out by the presence of Kevin Spacey, I suppose.

(Sadly, I didn't get around to watching either Furiosa or Rise of the Planet of the Apes, so the monkey movie marathon recaps will have to wait for a bit.)

Link to the game is here, and you can read more about the paperclip hypothesis here.

Summer is with us and we're looking forward to Rodeos, Music, and BBQ.

That, plus new material on the Podcast, and a deep dive on the books I grabbed from the aforementioned Powell's book run.

Plus, a foray into analog film.

Until next time, take care and have fun!

Dr. Implausible