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Midweek Miscellany

A nice post about the US cover for The Girl With Dragon Tattoo — designed by Peter Mendelsund — and why it is so different from all international versions at the Knopf website:

[Peter] decided to shift away from the more traditional murder-mystery vibe of the foreign editions, instead providing a neon yellow in-your-face punch, a jolt of energy comparable to what Salander brings to the narrative… Knopf’s twist was achieved with the subtle interaction of the Trade Gothic type and a great piece of art in yellow and orange Day-Glo inks. Add a dash of cyan (shades of colors in the blue/green spectrum) to create the green dragon lurking in the background and a tablespoon of black for the title, flap copy, and Stieg’s photo, and voilà!

HP Sauce — Anis Shivani interviews Calvert Morgan, vice president and editorial director of Harper Perennial, for the Huffington Post:

[T]here’s an intensity of dialogue about writing online–and about fiction in particular–that was not happening ten years ago. A lot of the writers I work with are finding like-minded peers and readers, having a forum for discussion now that simply wasn’t available when the only venues you had to get published were little magazines that were distributed to a handful of shops across the country in physical form. We’re passionate proponents of the physical book and we don’t think it’s ever going to go away, but we also know that these online forums… are promoting the interest that these writers have in each other and in fiction generally in a way that can only be good for contemporary writing.

The 11th Plague — In an extract from his new book, My Experimental Life, author A.J. Jacobs gives up multitasking for a month:

Multitasking makes us feel efficient, but it actually slows down our thinking. Our brains can’t handle more than one higher cognitive function at a time. We may think we’re multitasking, but in fact we’re switchtasking, toggling between one task and another. The phone, the email, the phone, back to the email. And each time you switch, there’s a few milliseconds of start-up cost. The neurons need time to rev up.Apparently, multitasking costs the US economy $650bn a year. I’m starting to think this isn’t a problem along the lines of love handles or bad mobile phone service. This is the 11th Plague.

My first day without multitasking… My brain is not cooperating. What the hell is going on? it whines. Where’s my damned stimulation? I sit at my desk and read the newspaper. That’s all. Without checking my emails or eating breakfast at the same time.

This is awful. I feel as if my brain has entered a school zone and has to slow down to 25mph. My plan is to leave my BlackBerry off until noon. I break down at 11.30am.

See also: James Sturm quits the internet.

And finally…

Last Generation of Typewriter Repairmen — Wired visits 3 typewriter repair shops in the Bay area:

Typewriter repair may be a dying art, but it is not a dying business. All three of the shops…  seemed to generate a comfortable living for their respective owners, supported by an eclectic clientele of collectors, design enthusiasts, prison inmates and tweenage girls.

In every case, however, the technicians in charge say that there won’t be a next generation to take their places. If they are right, as time goes on fewer and fewer of the old manual machines will remain in working order. That said, crops of amateur enthusiasts have sprung up to save other obsolete technologies from disappearing entirely…

For many people, the limitations of early writing machines, with their mono-font and unforgiving keyboards, are part of their charm. That bodes well for the future of typewriters, even after the last professional repairman hangs up his apron.

3 Comments

  1. The piece on the cover is very interesting. I am not sure spacing trade Gothic works very well visually: the impact of the character comes from its tightness, especially in titles! Great design, otherwise.

    http://davidikus.blogspot.com/

    PS. I cannot help but think that the title in English does not make sense & is too remote from the original (the men who did not like women).

    • Dan

      Thanks for your comment David. I think Peter’s covers for these books are terrific (needless to say) — they’re not all like the traditional gun + girl crime fiction covers, but I think you still get a sense that they are thrillers… And I’ve got to say, the Trade Gothic works for me! :-)

  2. I’m going to have to read the WIRED piece. In the mid 80s a friend of mine moved to someplace in the heart of Silicon Valley and got a job selling Olivetti typewriters. I’ve not heard from him since.

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