The Dead Media Notebook Quotes

“What we need is a somber, thoughtful, thorough, hype-free, even lugubrious book that honors the dead and resuscitates the spiritual ancestors of today's mediated frenzy.”
― Bruce Sterling, The Dead Media Notebook

“Listen to the following, all you digital hipsters. This is Jaqueline Goddard speaking in January 1995. Jacqueline was born in 1911, and she was one of the 20th century's great icons of bohemian femininity. Man Ray photographed her in Paris in 1930, and if we can manage it without being sued by the Juliet Man Ray Trust, we're gonna put brother Man Ray's knock-you-down-and-stomp-you- gorgeous image of Jacqueline up on our vaporware Website someday. She may be the patron saint of this effort. Jacqueline testifies: "After a day of work, the artists wanted to get away from their studios, and get away from what they were creating. They all met in the cafes to argue about this and that, to discuss their work, politics and philosophy… We went to the bar of La Coupole. Bob, the barman, was a terrible nice chap… As there was no telephone in those days everybody used him to leave messages. At the Dome we also had a little place behind the door for messages. The telephone was the death of Montparnasse.”
― Bruce Sterling, The Dead Media Notebook

“There are 14.5 million businesses and home users of the Minitel in France compared with one million plugged into the Internet. Furthermore French Telecom earned nearly $1 billion a year with the system. But government policy will be aimed at weaning the public off the French system and onto the global web. “Only mass Internet use can fulfil government hopes that schools will be fully on-line by the end of the century and that access to main state research centres will be free for everyone.”
― Bruce Sterling, The Dead Media Notebook