Tuesday's Trio

There are some bizarre contradictions in my recent move from education to Dial House.

1) It is a recession and I am going from "recession-proof" education to a marketing think-tank shop. But, that is using generalizations. I deeply believe this recession is an incredible shake-up of a world that pushed industrial age principles into the information age. Now that we are entering the conceptual age, we can't allow the old way of doing things to fuel our economy/business/livelihood. So, I actually see Dial House's innovation as much safer than traditional college education ... for my extended future at least. There is going to be a whole lot o rebuilding going on.

2) I will read more now that I am leaving education. The Academy puts more emphasis on teaching and industry relations than personal research/exploration. Dial House expects us to read like the libraries are on fire and our minds are civilization's last hope of collective wisdom.

So, I bought 3 books this morning:

1) "The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian: The Original Adventures of the Greatest Sword and Sorcery Hero of All Time!" -Robert E. Howard

I haven't read much Conan, except in comic form. I recently saw an REH (above Conan creator) quote from a letter to Clark Ashton Smith (23 July 1935):

It may sound fantastic to link the term "realism" with Conan; but as a matter of fact--his supernatural adventures aside--he is the most realistic character I ever evolved. He is simply a combination of a number of men I have known, and I think that's why he seemed to step full-grown into my consciousness when I wrote the first yarn of the series. Some mechanism in my sub-consciousness took the dominant characteristics of various prizefighters, gunmen, bootleggers, oil field bullies, gamblers, and honest workmen I had come in contact with, and combining them all, produced the amalgamation I call Conan the Cimmerian.

This reminded me of the Steve Job definition of creativity:

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask a creative person how they did something, they may feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after awhile. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or have thought more about their experiences than other people have. Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. They don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions, without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better designs we will have.

Anyway, Conan seems like a great study in creation, story, barbarianism ... and just plain kick-assery.

2) "Light at the Edge of the World: A Journey Through the Realm of Vanishing Cultures" - Wade Davis

I would like to say I am choosing this book because one Amazon reviewer describes it as, "Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, and Rudyard Kipling all wrapped into one epic poem." But frankly, the shit knife story got me. (I am secretly hoping the combined reading of these two turns into an incredible buddy-movie inspired dream with Conan and the Inuit Elder playing the leading roles.)

3) "Porn & Pong: How Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider and other Sexy Games Changed Our Culture" - Damon Brown

I am not a gamer; I play a bit, barely segmented as a "casual gamer" (which is rare for a dude of my interests & demographics.) However, I love gaming culture. I think it is the whole otaku thing. Things with such obsessive interest make beautiful case studies. The learnings are so obvious, but they can then be applied more subtly to milder interests.

Anyway, I don't know when these will get read. I have so many more books than dedicated reading time. But, I thought I'd share.