Nick Harkaway talks about Web 2.0...

...as it relates to authors and publishing, and, surprise, it relates to libraries as well. Take some of this those lessons he mentions and move them from publishing reps to librarians and they still make a lot of sense. He also includes space capsule artifacts and witty banter, and relates the internet to a pub. The most simple and most important idea he mentions (and writes in < big > letters) is "The internet is not a broadcast medium." Yes. Yes. Yes. To read Harkaway's post, go to: http://www.nickharkaway.com/2009/04/you-have-to-be-there/ (or perhaps you a fast clicker person and have already clicked on the title link).

Harkaway is also the author of The Gone Away World. You can read a review of this book here (written by yours truly): http://omnidawnblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/nwf-fiction-review-feature-1-trevor.html

Letter to electricity

(for Robert)

We were deluged
with your absence
the sky hanging low
we reaching out
our mouths moved
and I noticed
curvature of
lips and sound
then the lights
they went out
out where you might be
now I’m writing
this to you and to
all electricity
the rain outside
that night accompanied
by light and wind
was, is not architecture
when the sky
is hung to sleep
every star a pill
of potential dreaming
the old constellations
still there and no one
reading them at all
we opened our mouths
so you could speak
only stars spilled
forth driving and flickering
possibilities and languages
frozen in static
so this is a letter to you
a tracery of what might
this is a letter to you
to electricity.