Scans Book

BOOKBOOK

This is Not a Book

This is a BookThis is a Book

By: No OneBy: Alex Lucas

“To understand paradoxes is to be able to hold two conflicting ideas in your head at the same time.This is not a sentence, This is not a sentence, This is not a sentence, This is not a sentence.

It’s about merging two things that seem incongruent into something that, some how, makes sense.”This is not a sentence, This is not a sentence, This is not a sentence,

-Frank Chimero- This is not a name

“To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things machines, armies, multitudes, shadows in the jungle and on the moon; to see man’s work...

“To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things machines, armies, multitudes, shadows in the jungle and on the moon; to see man’s work...

BOOKBOOK

This is Not a BookThis is a Book

This is Not a Book

By: No OneBy: Alex Lucas

BOOKBOOK

This is Not a BookThis is a BookThis is a Book

By: No OneBy: Alex Lucas

Often times paradox and absurdity are mistaken for one another. I think there’s a subtle, but important difference. Absurdity is paradox’s immature little brother. Absurdity is spineless. Two incongruent things are placed side-by-side. The supposed value is amusement from the randomness. Absurdity often seems a pale imitation of paradox. The Simpsons is paradox. Family Guy is absurdity. There’s a big difference between saying “Sleep, that’s where I’m a viking!” and showing a chicken fight scene for 5 minutes. Paradox has insight, absurdity lacks it. Paradoxes have meaning. (Which is confusing, in and of itself.) Often times paradox and absurdity are mistaken for one another. I think there’s a subtle, but important difference. Absurdity is paradox’s immature little brother. Absurdity is spineless. Two incongruent things are placed side-by-side. The supposed value is amusement from the randomness. Absurdity often seems a pale imitation of paradox. The Simpsons is paradox. Family Guy is absurdity. There’s a big difference between saying “Sleep, that’s where I’m a viking!” and showing a chicken fight scene for 5 minutes. Paradox has insight, absurdity lacks it. Paradoxes have meaning. (Which is confusing, in and of itself.)

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Often times paradox and absurdity are mistaken for one another. I think there’s a subtle, but important difference. Absurdity is paradox’s immature little brother. Absurdity is spineless. Two incongruent things are placed side-by-side. The supposed value is amusement from the randomness. Often times paradox and absurdity are mistaken for one another. I think there’s a subtle, but important difference. Absurdity is paradox’s immature little brother. Absurdity is spineless. Two incongruent things are placed side-by-side. The supposed value is amusement from the randomness. Absurdity often seems a pale imitation of paradox. The Simpsons is paradox. Family Guy is absurdity. There’s a big difference between saying “Sleep, that’s where I’m a viking!” and showing a chicken fight scene for 5 minutes. Paradox has insight, absurdity lacks it. Paradoxes have meaning. (Which is confusing, in and of itself.)

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This is not a

BOOK

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Paradox can prove to be very revealing about human nature and the way that we speak. If someone says to you “I’m a compulsive liar,” do you believe them or not? That statement in itself is a paradox, because it is self contra-dictory, which is precisely what a paradox is.At the most basic level, a paradox is a state-ment that is self contradictory because it often contains two statements that are both true, but in general, cannot both be true at the same time. In the aforementioned example, can someone be both a compulsive liar yet telling the truth at the same time? After examining the examples from works of literature, one will see that a paradox is not just a witty or amusing statement. Paradoxes have serious implications in the world of literature, because they make statements that often sum up the the main ideas of the work.What is the purpose of using such a statement then, instead of just forthrightly stating the work’s intent? One reason is that to do so would be boring. It is much more interesting for a reader to carve out the meaning, than to have it fed to them on a silver platter.

Furthermore, summing up the totality of the work in one statement is more memorable. “I must be cruel to be kind” is a famous statement that has transcended history, whether or not people know where the words originally came from.

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“Paradoxes have serious implications in the worldthis is not a quote”

“We typically discuss writing “We typically discuss writing

for ourselves versus publishing for m

any”for ourselves versus publishing for m

any”

One of the core beliefs of improv theater is the idea of “Yes, and…” meaning that each step in an improvisational process is accepting previous contributions and is additive in nature. Improvisation is more akin to building with clay than sculpting out of marble: things are added and attached rather than excess being carved away. The process is not freeing people out of blocks of marble, it is building something out of nothing. Rejection squelches unforeseen possibilities in the interaction and cripples participants’ desire to contribute. Frameworks for improvisation must remain positive.

The challenge (and potentially t h e a r t ) o f c r e a t i n g t h e s e frameworks is balancing the inherent incongruency of some ideas that comes with setting limitations versus trying to create an atmosphere of acceptance that maximizes potential. The art is having participants understand that anything goes, but not everything.

Creating these frameworks and building them on the idea of acceptance means that there will always be an element of ambiguity in the results. But, designers and users will become more and more accustomed to ambiguity as more of these platforms are built, because their utility will not be obvious.

As the format of contribution proliferates through more of what designers make, more new, powerful Wrent from Facebook. The value proposition of Facebook is clear: stay in contact with friends and share with them. But, what’s the use of Twitter? No one can say definitively, because there is no right way to use it. For some, it’s a news feed, for others, it’s a way to communicate with friends, and for others, it’s a way to keep in contact with brands.

It’s why Twitter fascinates some and beguiles others. Twitter can’t craft a clear value proposition on their homepage to say what the site is for, and if you are someone who needs convincing, that’s frustrating, because everyone is talking about the site. If you are observant, Twitter’s popularity in spite of its utility ambiguity is a sign that something big is happening on a larger scale. We are no longer building hammers with one specific use, or even a swiss army knife that can do many different things. What we are building is more akin to two pieces of stone, from which someone can make their own tool for their own specific uses: arrowhead or hand axe. The most flexible frameworks for improvisation will not only have improvised content, but also improvised utility. Often times, the utility is the interaction.

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para--adox

para--adox

Most of our blogs, our new digital mantelpieces, are a collection of the things we find. Our collections are made public—others are given access, and we call this sharing. But it is an odd sort of sharing, where what we have found is indeed made available to others, but it is not quite a gift. A collection and a gift may both live in boxes, but they are different because the intent of each is conflicting. A collection is made for me (even if I let you look through it), while a gift is chosen for you. To truly share something is to give a gift, and if I am keeping an online collection for me, how can I make it a gift for you?

I’ve always wanted to have a blog where I could share the things I like: items of timely interest and the different curiosities I’ve amassed in my personal files the past few years. These things really should be shared (in the true sense) because they are gifts. Many of them were given to me, and if there is a benefit to the idea of giving a digital gift, it is that each time it changes hands, a copy is made. I do not lose my gift by giving it to you. Gifts may spread further and travel farther.

Every time I tried to create a blog to share these things, however, I was largely disappointed with the outcome. The formats optimized for collecting then sharing seemed to strip out so much of the stories behind what I was sharing. The schemes for blogging reduced what I was trying to share by dissecting the stuff and arranging it all in a chronological order. I wanted to do more than give people access to the things I found interesting. I wanted to truly share it by wrapping each thing in a story. There’s a scene in an episode of The West Wing where President Bartlet has his personal aide Charlie go on the hunt to purchase a new carving knife for the holidays. With each knife Charlie brings to the Oval Office, Bartlet shoots down his selection, citing the details he finds important. This happens several times, and finally Charlie brings the best possible knife he can find in Washington. President Bartlet inspects the knife closely while Charlie describes the finer details of what makes this knife the finest knife available. And with that, President Bartlet refuses the knife, much to Charlie’s exasperation. But then, Bartlet produces an heirloom knife of his own, apparently made by Paul Revere and in his family for generations, and gives it to Charlie as his Christmas gift.

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This is what good gifts feel like. We are educated to the nature of them so that we may appreciate them more fully. This is the point of sharing some-thing, whether it is a family heirloom, a collection of images, a shared video on YouTube, or a piece of writing on a blog. For us to properly value it, we must understand the quality of it and have a story to understand why it is so precious. Something travels from me to you, and in the process, we both gain. It is odd when we talk about writing: our modes are at the extreme ends of the spectrum in the size of our audience. We typically discuss writing for ourselves versus publishing for many, but don’t spend a great deal of time thinking about what it is like to write for one person. We may write for one individual frequently through things like email, but it is not often considered, and hardly ever celebrated. My friend Rob Giampietro said “there’s something about writing for one other person, the epistle, the letter, the thought that’s offered to someone specifi-cally—it’s very special indeed.” He said this in an email, which makes the point self-referential in the best possible way.

“This is not a quote; this is not a quote!”

“Good jokes. Good concepts. Good design. I think all three share a firm foot in the realm of paradox.”

“Good jokes. Good concepts. Good design. I think all three share a firm foot in the realm of paradox.”

“This is not a quote.”

“This is not a quote.”

The Mavenist could be said to be a response to these shortcomings of the blogging format, and an attempt to warm up the tone of communication to explore differ-ent ways of sharing and suggesting online. The format is much like a traditional tumblog, but each shared item has a bit of a story attached, and these shared items are strung together into a conversation between two friends. A gift must have a giver, but it must also have a recipient. For the first post, my friend Rob and I are chatting about games, permutations and loops. Over the next few weeks, there will be more posts, some with me, some with Rob, others that will have neither of us involved.

An offering opens a dialogue, and each post on The Mavenist is an attempt to capture that conversation of recommendations as true sharing, stories intact. It is a discourse that is aimless, but that trusts its own momen-tum. It is improvisational in structure, and the conversation only works through the acceptance of what the other has offered. It is meant to be celebratory. But, even more than all of these things, The Mavenist is meant to allow two friends be available in response to one another and in the process to create gifts for those who may be interested in them.

Here are things we love. Here, you may have them.

“Here are things we love. Here, you may have them.”“This is not a quote, This is not a quote. This is not a quote. This is not a quote.”

to see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to; the women that men love and many children; to see and to take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed; Thus to see, and to be shown, is now the will and new expectancy of half of humankind. To see, and to show.”

to see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to; the women that men love and many children; to see and to take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed; Thus to see, and to be shown, is now the will and new expectancy of half of humankind. To see, and to show.”