My book has gotten such scant review attention it’s had me musing about falling trees and forests, and what happens to sound waves when there’s no ears for them to crash into.
I think it's the medium, but the disintermediation that makes the Internet so toxic but also interesting has spread to old media, where it's toxic but nowhere near as interesting. The booboisiie didn't used to have media platforms. Now they do.
I finished reading it all over the weekend. Scribbled notes all over it. I have recommended it to a number of my social media contacts in my personal network.
It is truly well done, and I admire the depth of your knowledge. The intersecting networks of conspiracies in historical context was well documented. And I am a fan of Hofstadter as well, often reflect on what he'd be saying now. :)
I wish I knew someone sufficiently famous & well-connected to get it the attention it very much deserves.
Bless you for reading and thinking and recommending. That's all anyone can ask for!
I'm frustrated but not mystified by the lack of review attention. It's one of those publishing stories--my editor got transferred to a different imprint and the book was effectively orphaned. If I hadn't worked in and around book publishing for forty-something years I wouldn't understand why they would buy something and then bury it alive, but the same kind of thing happens in the recording business too. It's not a conspiracy, just a symptom of the sickness that is corporate book publishing.
One thing that I've noticed over the last few years is how casually and deeply saturated in conspiracy theories we are ... and ones that are just bonkers to me. Like having someone tell me they won't get the Covid vaccine because magnets will stick to your shoulder; this is just so demonstrably false I don't understand how anyone can maintain the belief in the first place (this person was talking to someone [me] who has had the vaccine and all boosters and magnets don't stick to their [my] shoulder.)
What I can't get over is how quickly we normalize the insanity, and how numb we are to the racism, misogyny, and homophobia. I give Trump credit for recognizing the power of bigger and bigger lies. Nice normal people don't want to admit how crazy and deplorable so many of us are. It's our Achilles heel
I was just thinking about Neal Postman's argument in Amusing Ourselves to Death where he piggybacked McLuhan's "medium is the message" to argue that television had lowered political discourse. Social media takes that pernicious effect and makes it orders of magnitude worse; and they've been absolutely toxic when it comes to spreading dangerous conspiracy beliefs.
I think it's the medium, but the disintermediation that makes the Internet so toxic but also interesting has spread to old media, where it's toxic but nowhere near as interesting. The booboisiie didn't used to have media platforms. Now they do.
I finished reading it all over the weekend. Scribbled notes all over it. I have recommended it to a number of my social media contacts in my personal network.
It is truly well done, and I admire the depth of your knowledge. The intersecting networks of conspiracies in historical context was well documented. And I am a fan of Hofstadter as well, often reflect on what he'd be saying now. :)
I wish I knew someone sufficiently famous & well-connected to get it the attention it very much deserves.
Bless you for reading and thinking and recommending. That's all anyone can ask for!
I'm frustrated but not mystified by the lack of review attention. It's one of those publishing stories--my editor got transferred to a different imprint and the book was effectively orphaned. If I hadn't worked in and around book publishing for forty-something years I wouldn't understand why they would buy something and then bury it alive, but the same kind of thing happens in the recording business too. It's not a conspiracy, just a symptom of the sickness that is corporate book publishing.
Thank you so much for the Amazon review! So nice to see it this morning.
One thing that I've noticed over the last few years is how casually and deeply saturated in conspiracy theories we are ... and ones that are just bonkers to me. Like having someone tell me they won't get the Covid vaccine because magnets will stick to your shoulder; this is just so demonstrably false I don't understand how anyone can maintain the belief in the first place (this person was talking to someone [me] who has had the vaccine and all boosters and magnets don't stick to their [my] shoulder.)
What I can't get over is how quickly we normalize the insanity, and how numb we are to the racism, misogyny, and homophobia. I give Trump credit for recognizing the power of bigger and bigger lies. Nice normal people don't want to admit how crazy and deplorable so many of us are. It's our Achilles heel
I was just thinking about Neal Postman's argument in Amusing Ourselves to Death where he piggybacked McLuhan's "medium is the message" to argue that television had lowered political discourse. Social media takes that pernicious effect and makes it orders of magnitude worse; and they've been absolutely toxic when it comes to spreading dangerous conspiracy beliefs.