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Follow for Now

by Roy Christopher (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Paul D. Miller (Contributor), John Brockman (Contributor), Erik Davis (Contributor), Mark Dery (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), Tom Georgoulias (Contributor), Brandon Pierce (Contributor), Mark Wieman (Contributor)

4.33 of 5 stars 4.33 · rating details · 15 ratings · 3 reviews

Spanning over seven years, Follow for Now includes interviews with such luminaries as Bruce Sterling, Douglas Rushkoff, DJ Spooky, Philip K. Dick, Aesop Rock, Erik Davis, Howard Bloom, David X. Cohen, Richard Saul Wurman, N. Katherine Hayles, Manuel De Landa, Rudy Rucker, Milemarker, Steve Aylett, Doug Stanhope, Paul Roberts, Shepard Fairey, Tod Swank, dälek, Eric Zimmerma...more

392 pages

Published February 1st 2007 by Well-Red Bear

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Jan 10, 2009 Elevate Difference rated it 4 of 5 stars

There is a lot to love about Follow for Now, a collection of forty-three selected Q & A’s from the archives of frontwheeldrive.com. Here’s one: Most of the interviews are well under 2000 words, which keeps the pages turning at a quick clip. And here’s another: In the first half of the book, the well-known and obscure interviewees deliver lucid, fascinating answers (and pose further questions) about the state of technology, biology, consumer psychology, and all the intersections among them.

T...more There is a lot to love about Follow for Now, a collection of forty-three selected Q & A’s from the archives of frontwheeldrive.com. Here’s one: Most of the interviews are well under 2000 words, which keeps the pages turning at a quick clip. And here’s another: In the first half of the book, the well-known and obscure interviewees deliver lucid, fascinating answers (and pose further questions) about the state of technology, biology, consumer psychology, and all the intersections among them.

The title comes from the lyrics of a Public Enemy song, which is the equivalent of a Jesus fish drawn in the sand for white guys raised in the 1980s. So all of you Wired subscribers who jam Handsome Boy Modeling School and know what “Obey Giant” means, you are among friends.

However, as much as I like guys who like old school hip-hop, Follow for Now has some issues. First of all, the terribly pretentious and off-putting front matter ought to be addressed, lest an unsuspecting reader open up the book and get so icked out by the preface that they toss it aside in horror—which would be a shame.

Lest you think I exaggerate, behold the opening line of the preface: “This book is decidedly eclectic.” I know. It might as well read: “Pretentious self-important douchiness abounds in many forms.”

The collection is edited, and most of the interviews are conducted, by frontwheeldrive’s Roy Christopher. I am going to harp on Christopher briefly now, for his James Lipton-esque interview style, and his relentless coffee house pickup line parlance. The latter is well illustrated with this line, from an introductory chapter: “To truly understand a concept or argument, one must view the idea from all angles and superimpose the images to construct a complete understanding.” I know. But it does get good, I promise.

Highlights of the collection include writers Douglas Rushkoff and Steven Johnson, and an extended chat with famed “psychonaut” Terrence McKenna. Talking with McKenna, the interviewer cannot accept that he is without ego, as he claims to be since a particularly drawn out psychedelic experience. Of course, there is so much fevered ego on display up to this point that a reader will see much clearer than the interviewer can, that McKenna is of an altogether different species. To his credit, McKenna's interviewer takes him to task for pandering to his new age devotees, and demands an explanation for McKenna's apocalyptic theory, Timewave Zero, which has the end of the world scheduled for December 21, 2012.

The back half of the Follow for Now, with chapters on literature, music, and culture (covering science fiction, obscure hip-hop, and skateboarding respectively) is not particularly accessible to those who don't share the taste. They're probably interesting to one already engaged with the work under consideration, but they lack the broad appeal of the earlier chapters.

At times, Follow for Now is also a pointed historical document. It’s a snapshot from a strange and forgotten (for now) era, when there was no OMG or LOL, wireless was new, and Americans couldn't text out of network.

Review by Ann Raber(less)

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Mar 12, 2008 Ken Southerland rated it 4 of 5 stars

A fantastic aggregate of interviews collected from Roy Christopher's own web site frontwheeldrive.com (now simply roychristopher.com). We don't just hear from scientists, writers, musicians, artists, technologists, and culture watchdogs, but rather people who span multiple classifications. That's what makes these interviewees really fascinating.

If you don't walk away from this book with the desire to check out the work of at least a dozen people represented in this compilation, you simply have n...more

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Jan 15, 2009 Ben is currently reading it

lots of fascinating (and bite-sized) interviews with the technorati class. since many of these come from the turn of the century, the collection is becoming more and more a part of the historical record rather than prognostications about the future.

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About Roy Christopher

I’m an aging BMX/skateboard zine kid. That’s where I learned to turn events and interviews into pages with staples. The pages and staples have long since given way to text-links and scrollbars, but the rest is basically the same. I still ride bikes, and I still skateboard. I do still commit quite a bit to actual pages, too.

My main project from 1997 to 2007 was frontwheeldrive.com. With this site,...more

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