In the Shadow of No Towers (review 2.5/5)

I can't remember the last time I read a book less than 50 pages--In the Shadow of No Towers weighs in at 42 huge, colorful spreads. Art Spiegelman's recent book brings together a collection of broadsheets illustrated in the years following 9/11, and also shares the notable cover from the September 23, 2001 issue of the New Yorker. It feels like Woody Allen meets Charles Schulz, a jittery sort of memoir on the nature of terror and the stress of memory. There's a recurring motif of the towers' metal structure glowing red, just before their collapse. So there's this palpable sense of anticipation that to some degree lasts even today, just waiting for the other shoe to drop. The work is bookended with a couple essays on his relationship with cartooning and politics. Bonus material: Spiegelman has a nice dialogue with NPR about 9/11 and cartooning.

The Ghost Map (review: 4/5)

Here we have the tale of the 1854 cholera outbreak in London. A silent killer is out there, generally freaking people out. Microbiology has yet to exist, so it's a story of man versus mystery. Two men actually, who start out independently and eventually come to know and respect each other. And it's a story of science, with all its contentious fits and starts and stumbles in the general direction of progress. And it's also the story of society, at once enthusiastic and fearful of the magnificient beast they've brought to the planet: the modern city. Compared with the other two Steven Johnson books I read, this one was my least favorite. I originally gave it a 3--but I've grown to like it more and more as I've thought about the ideas inside.

I think one of the best/worst things about Johnson's writing is that he can suggest a tantalizing idea, and then carry on with his main argument as if nothing ever happened. Every so often in The Ghost Map he'll turn a delightful aside, a flash of brilliance... oh, then continue on talking about excrement and miasma and pumps and drainage systems. Many of these nuggets are pretty clearly beyond the scope of the book, but they're so good, I'd love to see some follow-up. I love it when a book can set me off enthusiastically on new investigations, perhaps unrelated to the book itself. And it's in this area where The Ghost Map shines. A few examples that I'm still mulling over...

In talking about the history of ideas and the struggle involved in paradigm shifts, we face the recurring questions:

How could so many intelligent people be so grievously wrong for such an extended period of time? How could they ignore so much overwhelming evidence that contradicted their most basic theories? These questions, too, deserve their own discipline--the sociology of error.1

I love the idea of a "sociology of error." I like the combination of individual psychology and basic cost-benefit decisions (e.g. "Can I still get funding if I promote this dangerous concept?"), with the idea of groupthink. This makes me think of praxeology in the Austrian tradition. There have to be some fundamental traits for how we select and endorse ideas, right?

When discussing one the challenges of epidemiology--its generally undocumented nature--Johnson suggests a contrast: "Most world-historic events--great military battles, political revolutions--are self-consciously historic to participants living through them."2 I think the idea of "self-conscious history" could explain a lot in modern politics and economics. Surely this self-consciousness affects decision making, introducing an element of chutzpah that's largely absent from everyday life. Maybe this leads to a kind of semiotics for events, how they are perceived, communicated, and given response.

Lastly, Johnson's last quarter of the book is circles around the "triumph of urbanism."3 You can see some of his current work peeking out here--recently manifested in his writing about the Long Zoom, the web service outside.in, and his new column Urban Planet ($). I don't think I'm as optimistic as Johnson is about urban society (probably because I'm more politically cynical), but there are some cool thoughts about the metropolis providing a critical mass of local knowledge, expertise, spontaneity, economies of scale, etc.

Hm. There's a lot of food for thought here. It's a keeper.

--- Footnotes, for those following along at home. 1. page 15, more on 126 2. page 32 3. page 203

Weekend recap

I got back from Virginia this afternoon. There are few things that can make you appreciate stillness like driving 1400 miles. Funny thing about driving solo: you know you're getting bored when you start talking to yourself. And you know it's getting even worse when you stop talking to yourself. But it was a pleasant trip all in all. Great wedding, good friends, perfect weather, and all of my bad dancing that I'd really prefer others not to remember. Staunton was a cool little town with some great old-school architecture in the historic district. I spent quite a bit of time pounding the pavement in the surrounding neighborhoods. Noteable landmarks were the campuses of Mary Baldwin College, and the Virginia School for the Deaf and the Blind. I also discovered that Staunton is the home of the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and the Blackfriar's Playhouse, a modern-day replica of the 16th-century Blackfriar's Theatre in London.

I noticed one particular thing when I was walking around that I thought was a little odd. Staunton is a hilly town, and like many hilly towns you'll find the largest, most well-appointed houses on the tops of the hills. Wealth tends to rise like that. No surprise there. But when I was walking around in the town cemetery (the grey area on the map), the pattern was reversed. Down at the bottom of the hill near the main road you could find the half-dozen or so sturdy marble vaults for the wealthy folk. As you approach the top of the hill the plots were smaller and more densely packed, and the headstones generally more modest. So there's a curious geographic reversal from life to death.

Of course, befitting the South, the very tip-top of the hill was reserved for a monument to fallen Confederate soldiers. Never forget, etc.

November 21, 2006

New York Inquirer interviews Keith Gessen of the literary magazine n+1, sometimes rival to McSweeney's. I like his comments on book reviews:

One of the few rules we have for book reviews is that they can't be about dead authors. It's very easy to say I love Tolstoy or Flaubert or whoever, and my contemporaries are not up to that standard... It’s fun, I'll admit—but in the end nothing could be less interesting or useful. And nothing could tell us less about the way we live now.