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Filed under: Little Words Tagged: books, Jonathan Taylor, Kindle, Tyler Cowen
Jonathan Taylor writes:
In the longer run I expect "annotated" books will be available for full public review, though Kindle-like technologies. You'll be reading Rousseau's Social Contract and be able to call up the five most popular sets of annotations, the three most popular condensations, J.K. Rowling's nomination for "favorite page," a YouTube of Harold Bloom gushing about it, and so on.
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Hello! We're a small band of media enthusiasts, culture addicts, and journalists based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Emdashes, formerly a New Yorker fan site, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, politics, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
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Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Writing on theater: reviews (for Time Out Chicago; imperfect but workable search results)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
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Comments
How depressing: the electronic equivalent of reading a used textbook by a very confused person who’s unclear on the concept that underlining and highlighting are of no use whatsoever if they’re used all the time, while a bunch of carnival barkers try to tell us what we’re missing.
Don’t we have enough barriers to engaging with books?
P.S. And on further reflection (in my deepening gloom), I imagine that such annotations would be a ripe field for product placement, as well.
Maybe at least there will be an ‘annotations on/off’ button?
It’s funny — this pessimistic view had not occurred to me at all. I saw it as rather a positive thing — the five most popular glosses would probably provide excellent context, interpretation, etc. Maybe I’m too Wikipedia-influenced. But I certainly concede the point that it would be a barrier to the simple process of a person encountering a text.
There will be upsides, I’m sure - unexpected amusements and benefits, probably.
But Facebook’s latest move is sure to open the web — and, indeed, all electronic media — to annotations and product placements of this kind. Our view of the web will be further shaped and guided by the electronic company we keep (i.e., that difficult person from work whom we friended on Facebook because we didn’t want to risk offending him/her (our boss?); or even that person we know from high school whose frequent FB posts mean they score well on FB’s algorithm and so their taste in post-Rapture video heavily influences the videos Amazon chooses to show us …). It’s not a pleasing prospect — though I’m sure that same former friend from high school would be appalled by the un-Christian, society-destroying fare I prefer — like The New Yorker.
I’ve wandered from the original topic, but sadly, not that far. Isn’t that, after all, the beauty of online life? “Only connect,” as E.M. Forster said. We’ve figured out how to do that — and look where it’s taking us.