Martone, Bell, etc.

As usual, there's plenty of food for thought in the latest edition of Chapter 16--like this, for instance:

"I think our ability to represent reality has become so good that we are on the edge of replacing reality with representations of reality. I also believe that some of us, those of us who are older, may mourn that passing. But it needs to be seen, the passing 'reality,' for what it was—a synthetic construction composed by a less complex media."

That's Michael Martone talking about how technology is literally reorienting us. Click here to read the rest of my interview with him. If rewired civilization doesn't appeal to you, read about a woman who escaped it in Margaret Renkl's review of Claiming Ground, a memoir by Laura Bell about her life in rural Wyoming. And be sure to check out all the rest of the new stuff here.

The Young Cicero Reading, Vincenzo Foppa, 1464.