The Invention of Air

After two false starts, I finally completed Steven Berlin Johnson’s The Invention of Air: A story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America (You see what he did there with that Oxford comma?).

Two false starts not for length, it’s only 254 pages including index, but it has been a very busy year. I had interruptions.

The Invention of Air is the biography of Joseph Priestley, an enlightenment era intellectual who had a profound impact on the lives of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams; the reigning American intellectuals among the founding fathers of the United States. Johnson is an excellent story teller who does a superb job of weaving the narrative of Priestley’s life into the tapestry of the revolution era British colonies, and shining a light on his influence upon the fledgling U.S. nation. First from across the pond, both as a friend and life-long pen-pal of Franklin’s; then as an author of international recognition who’s writing had a profound influence upon the thinking of Thomas Jefferson; and later in America, after fleeing British persecution, where he became a formidable figure — as an outspoken critic of the Adams administration — and close friend until death of Jefferson.

Priestley, a polymath, was an English theologian who denied the divinity of Christ, and believed that the concept of the trinity was a blasphemous corruption of Christian teaching, equating it to idolatry. Priestly set up the founding principles of the Unitarian Church in his seminal work, Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion. He was a pioneering electrician, inventor of carbonated water (soda-water), and the first published chemist to isolate Oxygen (O2); as well as a political philosopher and a lifelong educator. He, perhaps more than any of his peers, understood the political and theological implications of quickly advancing technology. His often quoted, “The English hierarchy has reason to tremble even at an air pump or an electrical machine,” should resonate with any learned person who has observed the impact of the internet on authoritarian regimes today. If early American history is of interest to you, the book is a must read.

Everything Bad...

Everything Bad is Good for You:
How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter

Last week I read Steven Johnson’s, Everything Bad is Good for You. A couple of years late is better than never.

The basic premise, as the name would imply, is that video games, television and other consumptions of our mass media culture are not dumbing us down, but making us more intelligent. If you have any doubt, his arguments are very persuasive. He cites the perceived contradiction as being a general confusion between content and structure. Because someone finds the content of a movie, tv show, or video game to be base- full of sex and violence, and without social merit, one assumes that the media is therefore “dumb” or plays to the least common denominator, hence dumbing us down. Turning this conventional wisdom on its head, he convincingly argues that once content is disregarded, and we focus on structure, it is apparent that our entertainment is becoming much more complex. And not just more complex, but more complex in precisely the manner that forces us to give our brain’s pattern recognition muscle a workout (just the sort of problem solving logic that a standardized IQ test measures for). He then uses James Flynn’s research into rising IQ test scores to bolster his argument.

I’m not a serious gamer myself, but I can attest, from what gaming experience I do have, that the software that must be mastered in order to be proficient at any of the contemporary hit video games is astoundingly complex, and easily more mentally challenging than learning most mainstream business software applications (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, et al.).

At 238 pages, it is a quick read- I put in a leisurely day and a half, but it could easily be read in one day on a plane. I enjoyed the book, and I recommend it to all. It is both thoroughly researched, and yet easily accessible.

The paperback edition has an endorsement on the cover from Malcolm Gladwell, and if you like Mr. Gladwell’s work, this title should also be to your liking.

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My most recent prior read was The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson, former Editor-in-Chief of WIRED magazine. My current read is also from another WIRED alumni, former Executive Editor, Kevin Kelly— his 1994 Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World. At 13 years, it is still quite relevant, and all the more impressive, given the time of change, directly related to its subject matter, that has transpired in the interim since its original publishing. I may post more when I’ve finished the book.

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Maybe I should add a recommended book list after my right column link list.

Constructivist Design Books

Oh serendipity. I was looking through a box of leave-behinds and takeaways— the miscellaneous detritus of functions invited or attended, looking for the handbill from a 1990s Miami Beach arcade. I never found it. But I did come across a more recent stack of exhibition pamphlets, including the one shown above from the 2002 MoMA exhibit of Constructivist book cover designs: The Russian Avant-Garde Book | 1910-1934.

In my usual stream of conscious, it made me think of a book that I’ve been watching for some time on eBay- debating a purchase. There is a bookseller in Moscow named yellowcaptain. He has many fabulous books on Soviet era art and design. I don’t know his relationship with the publisher, but he sells the same list of titles over and over. This one is on book cover design:

Borr: Book Cover Design of Bor-Ramensky

Excerpt from the description: The book tells the story of quite forgotten extraordinary self-taught designer, Konstantin Georgievich Bor-Ramemsky. His truncated signature, Borr (or BorR), has gone down as a kind of pseudonym. He was born at the turn of the century and died in action in 1943. He worked as graphic designer, stage designer, interior designer and worker’s club decorator in Siberia, Georgia and Moscow. In the Western and Russian literature, only one of his works is referred to, but attributed incorrectly.

After finding the pamphlet (up top) from the 2002 Constructivist book cover exhibit at MoMA, I looked into whether an exhibition catalog had been published, and if so, was it still in print. It was, and it is:

The Russian Avant-Garde Book 1910-1934

Excerpt from the description: This richly illustrated catalogue accompanied the 2002 exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art of a major collection of Russian avant-garde books. Often hand-made and hand-printed in limited editions, these books were, in many instances, the result of collaborations between poets and painters. Among the well-known artists represented are Natalia Goncharova, El Lissitzky, and Aleksandr Rodchenko.

The book cover designs concentrate more so on the typography. This is what interests me. I have one book on this era in my home library, but it is focused on advertising posters, not book covers:

Soviet Commercial Design of the Twenties

Excerpt from the description: A richly illustrated account of one of the most original, influential and exciting aspects of post-Revolutionary art: commercial graphic design, during the short-lived period of Lenin’s New Economic Policy.