WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.860 align:middle line:90%


00:00:01.860 --> 00:00:05.130 align:middle line:84%
So maybe one more
thing since it's late.

00:00:05.130 --> 00:00:14.460 align:middle line:90%


00:00:14.460 --> 00:00:17.830 align:middle line:84%
So I was asked to do something
for the Harvard Design

00:00:17.830 --> 00:00:18.330 align:middle line:90%
Magazine.

00:00:18.330 --> 00:00:20.400 align:middle line:84%
It was to talk about
the relationships

00:00:20.400 --> 00:00:27.420 align:middle line:84%
between reading and sort of
generic architectural spaces.

00:00:27.420 --> 00:00:29.547 align:middle line:84%
So I wrote seven
or eight entries.

00:00:29.547 --> 00:00:30.630 align:middle line:90%
And this is the first one.

00:00:30.630 --> 00:00:33.960 align:middle line:84%
And I had really gotten into
this category of literature

00:00:33.960 --> 00:00:36.870 align:middle line:90%
known as grey literature.

00:00:36.870 --> 00:00:43.220 align:middle line:84%
Grey literature are things that
are published by corporations.

00:00:43.220 --> 00:00:48.240 align:middle line:84%
You know, they often sort of
mark scientific disciplines

00:00:48.240 --> 00:00:51.013 align:middle line:84%
where you sort of collect
data and the data eventually

00:00:51.013 --> 00:00:52.680 align:middle line:84%
goes into the publication
of an article,

00:00:52.680 --> 00:00:54.630 align:middle line:84%
but this is all the
pre-publication material.

00:00:54.630 --> 00:00:58.050 align:middle line:84%
So it's memorandums, brochures,
all that sort of stuff.

00:00:58.050 --> 00:01:03.190 align:middle line:84%
And I was reading about grey
literature because, I mean,

00:01:03.190 --> 00:01:05.610 align:middle line:84%
there seems to be a sort of
correlation now between sort

00:01:05.610 --> 00:01:08.520 align:middle line:84%
of literary practice and
information management.

00:01:08.520 --> 00:01:10.500 align:middle line:84%
So I was really
interested in, oh,

00:01:10.500 --> 00:01:12.450 align:middle line:84%
well what kinds of
information today

00:01:12.450 --> 00:01:16.830 align:middle line:84%
could pass as a kind
of literary product.

00:01:16.830 --> 00:01:21.570 align:middle line:84%
And so I look up Wikipedia, and
there's a subset under a grey

00:01:21.570 --> 00:01:24.270 align:middle line:84%
literature, and it's called
Malin - grey literature.

00:01:24.270 --> 00:01:28.170 align:middle line:84%
And Malin - grey literature is
material that's deliberately

00:01:28.170 --> 00:01:30.670 align:middle line:84%
designed to destroy
itself over time.

00:01:30.670 --> 00:01:32.640 align:middle line:84%
It's printed on
fugitive materials

00:01:32.640 --> 00:01:34.770 align:middle line:90%
that thwarts citationality.

00:01:34.770 --> 00:01:35.830 align:middle line:90%
You can't locate it.

00:01:35.830 --> 00:01:36.690 align:middle line:90%
You can't order it.

00:01:36.690 --> 00:01:38.010 align:middle line:90%
It's just hard to get track of.

00:01:38.010 --> 00:01:39.840 align:middle line:90%
So it's a librarian's nightmare.

00:01:39.840 --> 00:01:42.510 align:middle line:84%
So when I look up
this Malin - grey,

00:01:42.510 --> 00:01:44.610 align:middle line:84%
I do a Google search
on Malin - grey,

00:01:44.610 --> 00:01:46.920 align:middle line:84%
and there are only two
other references to it.

00:01:46.920 --> 00:01:49.230 align:middle line:84%
And both of them claim that
Malin - grey is a fraud,

00:01:49.230 --> 00:01:51.930 align:middle line:84%
that someone has gotten into
the Wikipedia entry and actually

00:01:51.930 --> 00:01:54.780 align:middle line:84%
created this fake category
known as Malin - grey.

00:01:54.780 --> 00:01:58.770 align:middle line:84%
Anyway, this is sort
of on grey literature.

00:01:58.770 --> 00:02:01.860 align:middle line:84%
This is called "Plus
Minus Carrot Sign Themes."

00:02:01.860 --> 00:02:05.130 align:middle line:90%


00:02:05.130 --> 00:02:07.050 align:middle line:84%
"In a time of
surplus information,

00:02:07.050 --> 00:02:09.960 align:middle line:84%
reading renders itself
a pictorial subset,

00:02:09.960 --> 00:02:12.810 align:middle line:84%
of data mining, of
bibliographic control

00:02:12.810 --> 00:02:16.500 align:middle line:84%
end of dynamic
visualization technologies.

00:02:16.500 --> 00:02:19.110 align:middle line:84%
Just as English novels
by Difo and Richardson

00:02:19.110 --> 00:02:22.050 align:middle line:84%
mind the diaristic and
epistolary for new narrative

00:02:22.050 --> 00:02:24.900 align:middle line:84%
circuits, the edges of
the new literary field

00:02:24.900 --> 00:02:29.440 align:middle line:84%
emulate information management
or communications systems.

00:02:29.440 --> 00:02:30.630 align:middle line:90%
What is a reading?

00:02:30.630 --> 00:02:33.810 align:middle line:84%
An indolent time based
operation on data,

00:02:33.810 --> 00:02:36.660 align:middle line:90%
in short a medium, a corollary.

00:02:36.660 --> 00:02:38.940 align:middle line:90%
The medium requires markup.

00:02:38.940 --> 00:02:41.220 align:middle line:84%
What the Greeks
rendered via polises,

00:02:41.220 --> 00:02:43.800 align:middle line:84%
we do with information
processing.

00:02:43.800 --> 00:02:47.400 align:middle line:84%
Like love, the oldest medium
of human communications,

00:02:47.400 --> 00:02:52.380 align:middle line:84%
reading a book becomes visible
via the delays it creates,

00:02:52.380 --> 00:02:56.070 align:middle line:84%
hence the diverse and lovely
deliriums of non reading,

00:02:56.070 --> 00:02:58.600 align:middle line:84%
saving a book for
later, saying one

00:02:58.600 --> 00:03:03.120 align:middle line:84%
has read a book when one hasn't,
carelessly fanning the pages,

00:03:03.120 --> 00:03:06.180 align:middle line:84%
skimming and index
lightly with a forefinger,

00:03:06.180 --> 00:03:09.180 align:middle line:84%
perfuming some
pages with the rose.

00:03:09.180 --> 00:03:11.610 align:middle line:84%
As the librarian in
Robert Musil's Man

00:03:11.610 --> 00:03:14.460 align:middle line:84%
Without Qualities
understands, all reading

00:03:14.460 --> 00:03:17.280 align:middle line:84%
is really just a potential
form of non reading,

00:03:17.280 --> 00:03:19.740 align:middle line:84%
and the most beautiful
histories of reading

00:03:19.740 --> 00:03:23.370 align:middle line:84%
are those in which no
books actually appear.

00:03:23.370 --> 00:03:27.270 align:middle line:84%
What is the trajectory of
the thing called attention?

00:03:27.270 --> 00:03:30.940 align:middle line:84%
Something that reminds me
of a few summers or autumns,

00:03:30.940 --> 00:03:33.900 align:middle line:84%
or in this case, a few
books that carried around

00:03:33.900 --> 00:03:36.780 align:middle line:84%
when I went to Athens High
School in the mid-seventies

00:03:36.780 --> 00:03:42.180 align:middle line:84%
but never read until after my
mother died in August 2013.

00:03:42.180 --> 00:03:45.030 align:middle line:84%
Chief among these books was
a blue and white covered book

00:03:45.030 --> 00:03:48.540 align:middle line:84%
entitled Fortran
IV and The IBM 360

00:03:48.540 --> 00:03:52.060 align:middle line:84%
and Richard Brautigan's
Trout Fishing in America.

00:03:52.060 --> 00:03:54.330 align:middle line:90%
I still have both these books.

00:03:54.330 --> 00:03:57.060 align:middle line:84%
On the fly page of my
copy of trout fishing,

00:03:57.060 --> 00:04:00.630 align:middle line:84%
there are no photos of
trout fishing or America.

00:04:00.630 --> 00:04:03.030 align:middle line:84%
Someone has written
my name and the date

00:04:03.030 --> 00:04:09.180 align:middle line:84%
with a fat black felt tip pen
followed by the year, 1977.

00:04:09.180 --> 00:04:12.510 align:middle line:84%
The hand that wrote that
name was probably mine.

00:04:12.510 --> 00:04:15.870 align:middle line:84%
Nearly every day, every school
day, during high school,

00:04:15.870 --> 00:04:18.149 align:middle line:84%
I carried that copy of
trout fishing around

00:04:18.149 --> 00:04:20.730 align:middle line:90%
in a yellow JanSport backpack.

00:04:20.730 --> 00:04:24.210 align:middle line:84%
When I sat at study hall,
or at lunch, it was there.

00:04:24.210 --> 00:04:26.820 align:middle line:84%
The first thing I took
out and laid on the tables

00:04:26.820 --> 00:04:30.660 align:middle line:84%
next to the Fortran book,
my backpack or my lunch.

00:04:30.660 --> 00:04:33.570 align:middle line:84%
And so it was, as
far as I remember,

00:04:33.570 --> 00:04:36.390 align:middle line:84%
carrying a book
that I had not read,

00:04:36.390 --> 00:04:41.040 align:middle line:84%
that came closest in my mind
to approximating a real life

00:04:41.040 --> 00:04:43.740 align:middle line:90%
experience I had not yet had.

00:04:43.740 --> 00:04:47.190 align:middle line:84%
I thought if I carried that book
around, I would fall in love,

00:04:47.190 --> 00:04:49.050 align:middle line:84%
or someone would
fall in love with me

00:04:49.050 --> 00:04:51.120 align:middle line:90%
within the next few min--

00:04:51.120 --> 00:04:52.810 align:middle line:90%
months-- sorry.

00:04:52.810 --> 00:04:55.260 align:middle line:84%
And if you looked, you
can see that my copy has

00:04:55.260 --> 00:04:58.140 align:middle line:84%
had its salmon colored
cover ripped off,

00:04:58.140 --> 00:05:01.770 align:middle line:84%
making it what Hans Christian
Andersen deemed a picture

00:05:01.770 --> 00:05:03.750 align:middle line:90%
book without pictures.

00:05:03.750 --> 00:05:04.890 align:middle line:90%
And it is true.

00:05:04.890 --> 00:05:06.990 align:middle line:84%
This coverless
copying now gives me

00:05:06.990 --> 00:05:09.570 align:middle line:84%
a partial memory,
like an image traced

00:05:09.570 --> 00:05:13.130 align:middle line:84%
in recto of my mother
sitting in her rocking chair

00:05:13.130 --> 00:05:16.130 align:middle line:84%
reading Agatha Christie's
The Affair at the Bungalow

00:05:16.130 --> 00:05:19.010 align:middle line:84%
or her favorite version
of The Tale of Genji,

00:05:19.010 --> 00:05:23.930 align:middle line:84%
translated Edward G.
Seidensticker, Knopf, 1978.

00:05:23.930 --> 00:05:27.560 align:middle line:84%
And sometimes, when the
weather is a little damp,

00:05:27.560 --> 00:05:29.930 align:middle line:84%
the coverless version
of trout fishing

00:05:29.930 --> 00:05:33.710 align:middle line:84%
offers up an image of my sister
and me with our twin bamboo

00:05:33.710 --> 00:05:36.350 align:middle line:84%
fishing poles sitting
by a lake in front

00:05:36.350 --> 00:05:39.290 align:middle line:84%
of the Athens Lake
Motel, the only motel

00:05:39.290 --> 00:05:42.860 align:middle line:84%
that I remember existing, and
probably the only motel that

00:05:42.860 --> 00:05:46.400 align:middle line:84%
existed in Athens, Ohio,
during the long years

00:05:46.400 --> 00:05:49.820 align:middle line:84%
between high school and college,
that time and place where

00:05:49.820 --> 00:05:53.810 align:middle line:84%
most of the fairy tales of
an adult's life come to rest

00:05:53.810 --> 00:05:56.180 align:middle line:84%
and are prohibited
from ever leaving."

00:05:56.180 --> 00:05:57.630 align:middle line:90%
Thank you.

00:05:57.630 --> 00:05:59.480 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:05:59.480 --> 00:06:00.470 align:middle line:90%