hello, my name is:
Marc Hummel. (Philadelphia.) Writer; coffee enthusiast; reader; computer/internet nerd; stationery geek; music fan; literacy advocate.
recent tunes:- Shearwater – You As You Were
- Shearwater – dread soverign
- Shearwater – Breaking The Yearlings
- Shearwater – Meridian
- Shearwater – Star Of The Age
- Shearwater – Believing Makes It Easy
- Shearwater – Pushing The River
- Shearwater – Run The Banner Down
- Shearwater – Open Your Houses
- Shearwater – Believing Makes It Easy
Tag Archives: books
Introspective to a Fault
Heard a really really good conversation about the “hidden value” of introverts on WHYY’s Radio Times. The guest was Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking
It made me feel a little less crazy and a lot more organized. Check out the conversation here. Seriously an amazing piece of public radio. Good host, good guest, and great callers.
I Think I Have the Right to Grow
Author Eric Klinenberg has a new book about the rise of living alone in the U.S. and elsewhere. In an interview with the Smithsonian, he highlights some of the research (in Seattle, San Francisco, Denver, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and Chicago 35-45% of people live alone), and suggests that technology makes it possible, desirable even, to be connected while alone:
The next thing, I would say, is that we live today in a culture of hyperconnection, or overconnection. If we once worried about isolation, today, more and more critics are concerned that we’re overconnected. So in a moment like this, living alone is one way to get a kind of restorative solitude, a solitude that can be productive, because your home can be an oasis from the constant chatter and overwhelming stimulation of the digital urban existence.
I’m wary of suggesting that something like Facebook enables genuine human connection, but I’ll grant that we’re better off with it than without it.
Get the book: Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone
{via andrew sullivan}
How Whole Foods Primes You to Shop
This article about Whole Foods primed me to buy this book about tricky marketing and the way we’re manipulated to buy more stuff. I hope to have a longer post with original quotations & thoughts from the book published soon, but for now check out an excerpt from How Whole Foods “Primes” You to Buy {fast company}. It addresses the sight any grocery shopper is familiar with:
Flowers, as everyone knows, are among the freshest, most perishable objects on earth. Which is why fresh flowers are placed right up front–to “prime” us to think of freshness the moment we enter the store. Consider the opposite–what if we entered the store and were greeted with stacks of canned tuna and plastic flowers? Having been primed at the outset, we continue to carry that association, albeit subconsciously, with us as we shop.
Is Wikipedia to blame for the Internet’s weak copyright ethos?
I was going to write about and recommend a job-hunting book for you today. The book was open on my desk, ready to have an excerpt lifted from its pages when a thought interjected, stopping my fluid henpecking in its tracks. Isn’t it bad manners to use someone’s work without asking? Even if my mention could lead to a future sale or two, as I think a song from an album or a paragraph from a book could, is it right?
So is Wikipedia to blame for our lackadaisical approach to attribution? Collective contribution de-emphasizes the individual. In an age when everybody is an author, what difference does any one particular author make? The Internet makes it easier to steal, and blurs the borders between friendly sharing and theft. But it’s that cultural shift I’m most interested in. Does the mere existence of our huge collaborative content experiment (Wikipedia being a tidy metaphor for the Internet at large here), belittle the work of the individual, leading to softer rules of engagement?
Maybe I’ll write about the book, What Color Is Your Parachute?
The Bicycle Diaries
I haven’t read this yet, but I am intrigued:
Since the early 1980s, David [Byrne] has been riding a bike as his principal means of transportation in New York City. Two decades ago, he discovered folding bikes and started taking them with him when travelling around the world. DB’s choice was initially made out of convenience rather than political motivation, but the more cities he saw from his bicycle, the more he became hooked on this mode of transport and the sense of liberation, exhilaration, and connection it provided. This point of view, from his bike seat, became his panoramic window on urban life, a magical way of opening one’s eyes to the inner workings and rhythms of a city’s geography and population.
Bicycle Diaries chronicles David’s observations and insights — what he is seeing, whom he is meeting, what he is thinking about — as he pedals through and engages with some of the world’s major cities. In places like Buenos Aires, Istanbul, San Francisco, and London, the focus is more on the musicians and artists he encounters. Politics comes to the fore in cities like Berlin and Manila, while chapters on New York City, and on the landscaped suburban industrial parks and contemporary ruins of such spots as Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Columbus are more concerned with history in the urban landscape. Along the way, Byrne has thoughts to share about fashion, architecture, cultural isolation, globalization, and the radical new ways that some cities, like his home town, are becoming more bike-friendly — all conveyed with a highly personal mix of humor, curiosity, and humanity.
Book Club: "The Shallows" by Nicholas Carr.
The Internet and our digital entertainment environment are changing the way we communicate, read, and think of each other and the world. Nicholas Carr’s new book, “The Shallows,”
The issue on my mind tonight, as I self-consciously type and re-type this post, is the unnecessary cautiousness the Internet has instilled on me. I’m not “my self” on the Internet, as I juggle between the opposing ideals of wanting to appear professional – mindful of the likelihood of future Google queries that will be conducted by a potential employer – and authentic, writing about whatever I want to write about.
I think it all stems from the ridiculous concept of the “personal brand.” The notion that you need to have a consistent set of motives and beliefs, and to present yourself according to those principles at all times. Even if your online behavior seems innocuous to you now, you never know what the biases of a future employer may be.
Like that’s all that matters.
Sure, I could write anonymously, but nobody trusts unidentified sources. Anonymity lends itself to harsh bravado; I just want to be genuinely critical.
I think what it comes down to is that there’s way too much information out there about most of us, especially if you’re active in an online community. And if the Internet is the dominant mode of communication, are the majority of us keeping silent for fear of future retaliation of some sort?
Then my alter-ego offers: “Well if you’re talking about something that could get you in trouble later, maybe you shouldn’t be writing about about it in the first place.” But then I’m already censoring myself, I tell alter-me, always thinking about where to draw the line – a mindset that completely kills free expression. Perhaps I’m being just a tad insecure, but doesn’t the fear of being watched in the future have the same chilling effect as if you’re definitely being watched right now?
The Internet and our digital entertainment environment are changing the way we communicate, read, and think of each other and the world. Nicholas Carr’s new book, “The Shallows,”
The issue on my mind tonight, as I self-consciously type and re-type this post, is the unnecessary cautiousness the Internet has instilled on me. I’m not “my self” on the Internet, as I juggle between the opposing ideals of wanting to appear professional – mindful of the likelihood of future Google queries that will be conducted by a potential employer – and authentic, writing about whatever I want to write about.
I think it all stems from the ridiculous concept of the “personal brand.” The notion that you need to have a consistent set of motives and beliefs, and to present yourself according to those principles at all times. Even if your online behavior seems innocuous to you now, you never know what the biases of a future employer may be.
Like that’s all that matters.
Sure, I could write anonymously, but nobody trusts unidentified sources. Anonymity lends itself to harsh bravado; I just want to be genuinely critical.
I think what it comes down to is that there’s way too much information out there about most of us, especially if you’re active in an online community. And if the Internet is the dominant mode of communication, are the majority of us keeping silent for fear of future retaliation of some sort?
Then my alter-ego offers: “Well if you’re talking about something that could get you in trouble later, maybe you shouldn’t be writing about about it in the first place.” But then I’m already censoring myself, I tell alter-me, always thinking about where to draw the line – a mindset that completely kills free expression. Perhaps I’m being just a tad insecure, but doesn’t the fear of being watched in the future have the same chilling effect as if you’re definitely being watched right now?
