Self-Portrait in a Passport Photo

by Kaia Sand from Intervals published by Edge Books, Washington D.C. 1-890311-14-6

Today I am the tallest
I have ever been

Now I know what it is
with a cup to the ear of thunder

Now I know how it is to crush
dainty book, do penance,
fast on chatter

From this height, I can hold the moon
close like a hat

I am the tallest I have ever been

I wish to postpone
last month's appointments, understand
the sun, apologize to all
the other countries

I frisk myself, policing
the pickpocket, delighted at all
I confiscate

spent three days digging thru my father's antiquarian collection, the accumulated silt of thirty-plus years between the covers of the book business piled up to ceilings sagging above the weight of these timeless tomes. eyes spent and watering from hours at the screen: one of life's ironies, bibliophiles forced to make their livings staring at quivering electronic screens instead of the soft skins of paper they adore. at times i wonder if it's worth it all. if i wouldn't have a better appreciation for books if I was homeless and drunk in La Honda or Big Sur or even Yakima. But I suppose these thoughts burn daylight, and there are always more books.

My friend Eric tipped me off to this new title, recently translated from German. If yer interested I'd grab one, $79 is about as low as this baby is going to get for awhile.

Lifehack Your Books: Dogear, Writing In Books, and Apologizing to Librarians

First, I want to apologize to librarians and to make clear that what I’m about to say applies only to books you’ve bought for yourself. See, since libraries and books that our parents bought for us are our primary mode of book access in childhood, we grow up with a set of norms for how we interact with books. Because all of those books are expected to remain in as pristine of shape as possible for as long as possible, we have a set of rules in our heads.

1. Never write in books
2. Never dogear pages (fold over the corner)
3. Keep dustjackets on the books and add them via bookcovers if they don’t have them.

And, for textbooks, books that your younger siblings need to use later, and library books, those rules are necessary to ensure that the books last long enough to be useful to as many people as possible. However, for books bought for individual use, these rules aren’t necessary. If you adhere to them religiously for your own books (most of which couldn’t possibly wear out via normal use), you’re missing out on some of the best methods for getting the most out of books.

I personally believe that there is no greater respect that can be shown a book than by using it...Read More at
The Glass is Too Big...

Bigfoot Writes Autobio!

Me Write Book: It Bigfoot Memoir, new from Graham Roumieu Bigfootologist and illustrator Graham Roumieu has collaborated with everyone's favorite hairy man-beast to produce Me Write Book: It Bigfoot Memoir. Me get copy in mail now. Book it crazy ha ha good, oogh. Me love!

Like many reclusive celebrities, Big Foot is misunderstood. In his touching memoir Me Write Book he wants to set the record straight, proving that although he's larger, hairier, and more foul-smelling than most of us, he's really not so different underneath.

Only the most cold-hearted among us could look on without compassion as this hirsute Everyman struggles bravely with parental abandonement, Pringles potato crisps, embarrassing moments with peach schnapps, the desperate loneliness of personal ads, and 'roid rage.

thanks boingboing.

Postcolonial readings of Curious George — a childhood favorite — have been mixed.

One camp sees George as a resisting monkey, and the story as a parable for the decolonization of Africa. Another charges that the book is a racist manifesto justifying slavery.

I think everyone can agree on one thing, though: the movie is going to be a piece of shit.

Another bit of shrewd dissemination courtesy of

Psychedelic Information Theory: Shamanism in the Age of Reason

This looks promising

by James Kent

Psychedelic Information Theory: Shamanism in the Age of Reason is a landmark text in the field of psychedelic study. Written by James Kent, former Editor of Psychedelic Illuminations and Publisher of Trip Magazine, Psychedelic Information Theory spans the chasm between science and mysticsm and fully deconstructs the magic of the psychedelic experience in a way that promises to satisfy both skeptics and true believers alike. James Kent has been studying psychedelics, mysticism, neuroscience, and psychedelic culture for over 15 years, and now presents the culmination of his research in one epic volume. In addition to the most complete neurologic deconstruction of various psychedelic mind states ever compiled, Kent also provides an exhaustive analysis of the way information is generated within the psychedelic state, and how that information transcends the personal mind and influences human culture at large. Finally, Psychedelic Information Theory examines the scientific basis of traditional shamanic powers and techniques, and frames a new model for shamanic practice and clinical therapy in the modern world. Destined to become a classic within the field, Psychedelic Information Theory blows the lid off the psychedelic experience and demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt the impact pscyhedelics continue to have on global culture. If you ever wished for a single book that described exactly how psychedelics worked and just why they are so important, then this is the book you have been waiting for!

The Universal Library

by George Dyson

Books are strings of code. But they have mysterious properties — like strings of DNA. Somehow, the author captures a fragment of the universe, unravels it into a one-dimensional sequence, squeezes it through a keyhole, and hopes that a three-dimensional vision emerges in the reader's mind. The translation is never exact.

The Old Testament prophets of the digital revolution — Thomas Hobbes, John Wilkins, and G. W. Leibniz — dreamed of a universal language: the Ratiocination of Hobbes; the Universall Character of Wilkins; the Calculus Ratiocinator of Leibniz. All three prophets saw that given ones and zeros, coding could do the rest. Two centuries later, the New Testament prophet Alan Turing showed that given any method for making — and remembering — distinctions from one moment to the next, you can build a Universal Machine. And if you build (or even just imagine) a Universal Machine, a Universal Language (and a Universal Library) is an inescapable result.

Given one of Mr. Turing's Universal Machines (by definition, equipped with a finite but unbounded tape) it is trivial to write a program whose output is the exact text of all possible books of a given length. This is the last library you ever have to build. Authors are obsolete! When the program comes to a halt (as we know it must) there will no longer be books that have not been written! There will only be books that have not been read! Now, it may take longer than the age of the universe to reach the volume you are looking for, and long before then every atom in the universe will have been consumed as ink, but those are mere details. There will always be new ways to speed up the printers, conserve resources, and weed out unpopular texts. This seems hopelessly unrealistic — but remember how unrealistic Turing's computer appeared in 1936.

The bound universe has been divided, in recent discussions over the digitization of books, into works in the public domain on one side, works under active copyright on the other, and a vast sea of inactive titles drifting in between. For those who dream of a Universal Library, however, any such classification is deficient, because it neglects the most important sector of the literary universe — books that have not been written yet. Read More...

Thanks for the tip BoingBoing

New Litblog Network Metaxucafe opens!

MetaxuCafé is devoted to highlighting the best content from the community of bloggers who write about books.

We serve both the writers and readers and intend to drive traffic to member’s sites and create context around and give permanence to their original writing.

Links galore! This could prove to be a very useful resource.