Catch up links
A gathering of links and resources relating to this year's posts. For browsing, study, and amusement.
Read time? An eternity, if you click and click and click. This week: Catch-up with salmons in the luggage, flight attendants, Henry the sex robot, an unusually quiet beer bar, etc. Next week: Post topics for the remainder of the semester and a pivot to my book project in late December.
Some of these links are good to share, I bet. How about sharing the whole post?
I often run across articles that relate to topics I’ve written about. Readers send me links, too. I think it’s good to share a selection of them, grouped under the titles of posts I’ve written, just so that people can catch up if they enjoyed a post or so that they can catch up on one they missed. Everyone can get an update.
Such grouped resources simplify diving in — even if it’s just into a new rabbit hole. Some of the links may lead to paywalls, the spawn of the devil. You can avoid them sometimes by doing a web search of titles. Often authors or others have posted PDFs of academic articles — legally, too, I believe.
If you run across a resource that you think I’d enjoy, let me know with an email to technocomplex@substack.com.
Unread books. Plus: pulp fiction covers.
After seeing the video of Umberto Eco walking through his humongous personal library, Paolo Mangiafico, a friend of mine from Duke University Libraries, recommended that I fetch Umberto Eco’s How to Travel with a Salmon. Paolo thought the English translation title was odd and mysterious; in Italian it was published as Il Secondo Diario Minimo, which he read when he was traveling in Italy a while ago. I got the English translation and discovered a brief chapter devoted to Eco’s responses to visitors who wondered about his reading habits after seeing his personal library. Like, “Have you read all of these books?!” Eco’s response:
In the past I adopted a tone of contemptuous sarcasm. “I haven’t read any of them; otherwise, why would I keep them?” But this is a dangerous answer because it invites the obvious follow-up: “And where do you put them after you’ve read them?” The best answer is the one always used by Roberto Leydi: “And more, dear sir, many more,” which freezes the adversary and plunges him into a state of awed admiration. But I find it merciless and angst-generating. Now I have fallen back on the riposte: “No, these are the ones I have to read by the end of the month. I keep the others in my office,” a reply that on the one hand suggests a sublime ergonomic strategy, and on the other leads the visitor to hasten the moment of his departure.
Eco, Umberto. How to Travel with a Salmon & Other Essays. Translated by William Weaver. 1st Harvest ed. A Harvest Book. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace, 1995.
Poignant recollection of books and parents. Lloyd, Christopher. “Saying Goodbye to My Parents’ Library.” Wall Street Journal, August 27, 2022. https://www.wsj.com/articles/saying-goodbye-to-my-parents-library-11661572861.
White shirts. Really!
A good poem, and, um, I don’t think she likes white shirts much. Ahmed, Dilruba. “The White Shirt.” VQR, Summer 2022. https://www.vqronline.org/poetry/2022/06/white-shirt.
Robots. Once again, with feeling!
In this fall’s seminar, we’re just now beginning to discuss Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun and we’ll be taking a critical look at sex robots, too (though not touching anything, thank goodness.) So, the topic of robots, empathy, and how they figure into possible future lives will be on our minds.
Hm. Does something need to be sentient to be respectful? Babushkina, Dina. “What Does It Mean for a Robot to Be Respectful?” Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 26, no. 1 (2022): 1–30. https://doi.org/10.5840/techne2022523158.
Legs? Four of them might be more practical. Maybe wheels would be optimal, actually: Kleinman, Zoe. “Tesla’s Optimus and the Problem with Humanoids.” BBC News, October 7, 2022, sec. Technology. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63130363.
Navigating a one-way street of human emotion: Nyholm, Sven, and Lily Eva Frank. “It Loves Me, It Loves Me Not: Is It Morally Problematic to Design Sex Robots That Appear to Love Their Owners?” Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 23, no. 3 (2019): 402–24. https://doi.org/10.5840/techne2019122110.
Kim and Kylie don't like algorithms
Ah, the wonders of the German language! Where else could you encounter something like Fernsehisierung (“television-izing” or maybe “television-ification”)? If you can’t read German, Smith might teasingly say you’re a slacker. I say you could just use Google Translate and get it, mostly. Beckers, Maja. “Justin E. H. Smith: ‘Wir erleben eine Fernsehisierung des Internets.’” Die Zeit. September 3, 2022, sec. Kultur. https://www.zeit.de/kultur/2022-09/justin-e-h-smith-social-media-fernsehen/komplettansicht.
An attempt to explain the graveyards of social media. Brandom, Russell. “How Platforms Turn Boring.” The Verge, September 22, 2022. https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/22/23365781/tiktok-youtube-bootleg-ratio-social-platforms-original-content.
Look way at the bottom of this post from the ever excellent Café Anne. “If you look around the internet, it just feels very creaky. It feels very old. Facebook is effectively over. It’s like its parent company doesn’t care about it anymore. And Instagram, as we have known it, is over, and is now changing into TikTok.” Kadet, Anne. “Whatever Happened to Friendster?” Substack newsletter. CAFÉ ANNE (blog), August 29, 2022.
Shaping the shapers
Friendly, yearned for skies
Selections reported from Northwestern University’s Transportation Library. Think of this when you get your bag with a peanut and a cracker in it. Wilson, Benét J. “See the Meals U.S. Airlines Were Serving Passengers in the 1960s.” The Points Guy, June 5, 2021. https://thepointsguy.com/news/meals-airlines-serving-passengers-1960s/.
Just what you were waiting for: the Braniff Boutique. Yes, I liked Braniff when I was a teen, but not enough to wear commemorative underwear. A bookmark for airline nostalgia: “Braniff Boutique - Braniff Airways Licensed Curated Products.” Accessed October 3, 2022. https://braniffboutique.com/
Seems like there’s no want of applicants, amazingly: Sampson, Hannah. “Bad Passengers and $37K a Year: Who Wants to Be a Flight Attendant Now?” Washington Post, October 5, 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/10/05/flight-attendant-salary-job-passengers/.
Muzak. Like the air, only sweeter & A really long piece of music
No Muzak? Well, enjoy the quiet corner. A website to help you avoid “piped music” in the UK at least: “Quiet Corners – Places Free from Piped Music Recommended by Pipedown Members.” https://quietcorners.org.uk/. Pipedown (UK) is adamantly opposed to Muzak and its ilk.
Yes, I think it’s still open post-pandemic, though the Internet is quiet on that. A bar with the best name and quiet “like a library” so you can hear other’s burps: The Quiet Project: Interview with Jason Taylor at Burp Castle, NYC. YouTube video. New York City, 2019.
Similar videos and some more quiet information (mostly relating to Ann Arbor, Michigan) are at “The Quiet Project” (https://thequietprojectusa.wordpress.com/)
So you know about earth-shattering silence performed in 1952: Hermes, Will. “The Story Of 4’33".” NPR, May 8, 2000. https://www.npr.org/2000/05/08/1073885/4-33.
Even though this post is just a bunch o’ web links, you still might have a comment.