natecooper.net

Kind of a little excited by seeing this pic.

John King reviews ‘Atlas of the Real World’ concluding it puts us in our place

Fascinating project by Nina Katchadourian hundreds more photos on her site. I like the idea making poetry out of book spines.

(via A Cup of Jo)

The NY Public Library Blog has an interesting article on compulsive collecting. What medias are worth collecting? How much is too much? Interesting thoughts from a librarian + what to do about VHS.

From the article:
“Several years ago, the New York Public Library received someone’s huge home library as a bequest. Along with several colleagues, I went to assess exactly what kind of collection we were dealing with. Stepping through the doorway of that apartment was like encountering some nightmare possibility of my own future self. Each wall was completely taken up with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves; each bookshelf was double and sometimes even triple shelved with books; the wooden floors were piled high with tottering columns of books that left only twisty little passageways to walk through; books filled the clothes closets, kitchen cabinets, and every other available bit of surface space.”

[link]

Ever since my sister brought up that she had never heard anyone use the word “hipster” before (saying that she had heard of “scenesters”) I’ve been curious about the distinction between hipster and scenester and what they mean in our modern vocabulary.

My recent move to New York has reinvigorated my own internal debate abotu the whole “Hipster” versus “Scenester” thing since I have noticed further regional distinctions.

When I was in Santa Cruz an aquantence of mine mentioned that they tend to use the word “Hipster” in Nor Cal and “Scenester” in SoCal. Here are some defintions I’ve found to ground your understanding:

Hipster Definition (Urban Dictionary)
Scenester definition (Urban Dictionary)

From these general definitions I can gather two general senses of the distinctions:
1. Scenesters are about image and dress and what is “in”
2. Hipsters are intellectuals (or pretend to be) who watch independent movies and read

The regional issue that is tripping me out having recently moved to the east coast is that it seems to me that the term “Hipster”, like in Northern California, is more in-vogue in New York than the term “Scenester”. I would suspect this is simply because from what I can tell every one in New York reads.

But what seems a bit anachronistic to me is the fact that generally one is called a hipster here just for looking a certain way, the way being, to me, typically San Francisco. I don’t think that everyone in San Francisco is a hipster but I do believe that if any of my friends from San Francisco were to come out here they would immediately be labeled a “Hipster”, a distinction they would not warrant back home.

I myself prefer the more tradition definition of the term hipster (found here) which is more in-line with beat culture. It is alluded to in the definitions from the Urban Dictionary but mostly in derisive ways. Still if you were to go with that definition then most likely no one is a hipster any longer.

How to Tell you’re Reading a Book by Dan Brown

I’ve only read “The Davinci Code” but good to hear he keeps plugging along I guess.

libri vox reads your favorite public domain stories to you. Pretty nifty.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/books/review/25sante.html

Interesting article on the biography of Timothy Leary. Kind of a breif overview of his life. The article lead me to this entry on Wikipedia about the Diggers. They were apparently an avante garde theater group that opened “free stores” in the 60s in SF. A free store is a store whose entire inventory is given away for free. Go figure..

This is one of the saddest things I’ve heard in forever. If Moe’s closes next then good-bye Berkeley… Cody’s Books Closing.