“Follow for now, power to the people say, make a miracle. D pump the lyrical. Black is back, all in, we’re gonna win, check it out. Yeah y’all c’mon, here we go again!” Instantly those old Public Enemy lyrics came to mind upon seeing the title of this book. And to my great pleasure I discovered that this book was named after those very same words. That’s a good start. So what lies betwixt the pages? Well, this is a collection of various interviews done between 1999 and 2006 for different publications that emphasize people pushing the envelope with music, culture, science, technology, literature, and media. Through these different people there seems to be an attempt to connect a lot of these folks and their ideas with similar undercurrents to a bigger picture. At times I’m not feeling it, and other times it makes total sense. While the author interviews DJ Spooky he shoots off his influences as computer nerds and philosophers who are interviewed elsewhere in the book. Meanwhile, interviewee Brian Coleman discusses his own book about forming a collected history of hip-hop. Shepard Fairey admits to the influence of punk music on his work while Futurama co-creator David X. Cohen shares how half the show’s writers have advanced degrees in science. Some of these people have great ideas and visions for how they interpret culture while others go right over my head. Others just sound like flat-out new age weirdos. About half the time this book works, but the overall pictures is that it is indeed an interesting look on tying together all these differing aspects of society as a whole. In total there are about 45 interviews that range from post-punkers Milemarker, to author Adam Voith, to hip-hop group dälek, to writer Bruce Sterling, to skateboarder Tod Swank, to actor/writer Sean Gullette, and a whole bunch of other weirdos and kooks.

Thanks to HEX for the attention and to Jessie for everything.

——————

As always, Follow for Now is available from Powell’s, Amazon, on The Kindle, and directly from this site.

Here’s an excerpt:

The interviews are as far ranging as they sound. They range from Mark C. Taylor discussing The Philosophy of Culture, to media guru Douglas Rushkoff to Al Burian and the rest of Milemarker and the author Philip Dick. The cool thing is most of these interviews are by Roy Christopher so you follow along as he explores the intricacies of his own interest and in doing so makes them interesting to you. As you read these seemingly unconnected interviews you start to piece together parts of Roy Christopher’s personality as much as you find out about the subject being discussed. What do I think I have found out about Roy Christopher? I think he is all about new ideas and trying to figure things out. I think he is about trying to make connections between things that no one else has connected. At least to me, after reading a few of these interviews you start to see the connections between people like Douglas Rushkoff and Al Burian.

Read the full review here.

Many thanks to David and 410 Media for the attention.

There’s just not much interesting material being covered, even in the music and literature sections, which I feel a lot more comfortable with than, say, the science section. Like when Christopher interviews Milemarker—and time has still not proven to me that they were anything but a pretty boring band made up of some decent writers—and in lieu of trying to make Al Burian squirm a bit or trying to bring a bit of life to a band that’s always been celebrated for its coldness, he asks them “whom they read and respect.” Honestly, man—I couldn’t give a flying shit how some space-rock band has been using their library cards.

In contrast — and though he means it pejoratively — he nails it when he says, “Follow for Now unfortunately seems more interested in the ideas being presented regarding technology, media, literature, etc. than the interviews themselves.” Well, yeah!

Anyway, Rosson may have missed the point of the book, but I appreciate the attention as always.

Many thanks to Dan and his staff over there.

Check it out.

The title comes from the lyrics of a Public Enemy song, which is the equivalent of a Jesus fish drawn in the sand for white guys raised in the 1980s. So all of you Wired subscribers who jam Handsome Boy Modeling School and know what “Obey Giant” means, you are among friends.

However, as much as I like guys who like old school hip-hop, Follow for Now has some issues. First of all, the terribly pretentious and off-putting front matter ought to be addressed, lest an unsuspecting reader open up the book and get so icked out by the preface that they toss it aside in horror–which would be a shame.

Lest you think I exaggerate, behold the opening line of the preface: “This book is decidedly eclectic.” I know. It might as well read: “Pretentious self-important douchiness abounds in many forms.”

Ms. Raber clearly likes my book, but does not care for me, and that’s fine. Her review is thorough, and I appreciate her attention to it. My comment over there was only to correct a misquote.

If you’re still interested after all of that, the book is available on Amazon, Powell’s, and right here at followfornow.com.

Here’s a clip:

The snapshot includes voices ranging from Howard Bloom (a pop music PR star who’s become a biological science fanatic) and DJ Spooky (an aspiring science fiction writer who’s become a hip hop music star), to Howard Rheingold (the virtual anthropologist who interpolates the present through a futuristic lens) and Bruce Sterling (the etymological founder who extrapolates the present into futuristic fiction). Follow for Now thus drops sufficiently many known and intriguing names in its table of contents (and on its cover) to stay on the shelves of both snooty philosophers and free-thinking subculturalites for decades. But the nuggets those names provide are intriguing enough to justify that stay, on those shelves and others. In short, the content is as intense as the cast.

The full review is here.

Founded and directed by my friend and colleague David M. Silver, The Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies is an online, not-for-profit organization whose purpose is to research, teach, support, and create diverse and dynamic elements of cyberculture. I am damn proud to have Follow for Now acknowledged by them.

Follow for Now is available from Amazon, Powell’s, and directly from me.

Follow for Now: Interviews with Friends and Heroes is a collection of interviews put together by Roy Christopher. It features a glowing cavalcade of cyber stars, talking on technology, culture, media, and science. Interviewees include Bruce Sterling, Doug Rushkoff, Brenda Laurel, DJ Spooky, Steven Johnson, Mark Dery, Geert Lovink, and many others. Oh… and ME. At 400 pages long, with interviews conducted over seven years, this is a fascinating group snapshot of key thinkers of the webbed world. Oh… and ME.

Many thanks to Gareth.

fuck yeah. such a diverse collection of interviews from all types of interesting folk. even the people whom i was not familiar with prior to this were great, excluding me cuz i suck at life. really well done, man. i brought it on tour.
best
a.r.

Thanks, Aes!

Brian Tunney conducted the following brief interview with me regarding Follow for Now for Issue 58 (May/June, 2007) of DIG BMX Magazine. Thanks, Brian.

Roy Christopher is a Seattle-based man about town that’s been on the BMX scene for as long as anyone’s bothered to count at this point. We first featured Roy in issue 48 of Dig, discussing his interview-based website frontwheeldrive.com in the “Do You Compute?” section. Since then, Roy’s split his time between Seattle and Alabama, taking time along the way to compile an anthology of interviews he’s collected over the years, and self-publishing his work in the recently released book Follow for Now. The book compiles interviews with luminary and challenging personalities from all walks of life, including musicians, artists, and cultural theorists. And Roy was nice enough to rush me some answers to some wise ass questions about the book. Take some time off from the message boards and read on…

Brian Tunney: What’s the book about?

Roy Christopher: Follow for Now is an anthology of interviews with authors, artists, musicians, emcees, scientists, and Hal Brindley. It is arranged topically according to six rather fluid categories: science, technology, media, music, culture, and literature. What it’s “about” tends to emerge from the spirit of the time over which these interviews were conducted. It’s what one kind reviewer called, “a crisp and substantial remix of the major memes of the last decade or so.”

BT: Who’s featured in it?

RC: Some of the names include science fiction authors Bruce Sterling and Philip K. Dick, musicians Milemarker and Aesop Rock, scientists Terence McKenna and Howard Bloom, cultural theorists Douglas Rushkoff and Erik Davis, Futurama producer David X. Cohen and founder of Foundation skateboards Tod Swank, and contributors include smart folks like DJ Spooky and MC Paul Barman. There are forty-three interviews in all, and it’s an eclectic bunch to be sure, but the themes and ideas are what hold it all together.

BT: What made you want to produce it?

RC: I’ve been doing an interview-based website (frontwheeldrive.com) since 1999, and a friend of mine suggested I try to get it published as a book. So I took the best of the interviews, edited them, arranged them, and compiled them. Selfishly, I wanted a concrete document of the best interviews that had been on the site.

BT: How difficult was it to self publish?

RC: It was way more work and took much longer than I’d anticipated, but there are certainly easier ways than the way I went about it. I insisted that the text be as flawless as possible (so I hired a copyeditor), as well-designed as possible (so I hired a designer), have an index (so I hired an indexer), and printed with quality (so I paid more for printing). I couldn’t be happier with the results, but as I said, self-publishing can be a lot easier than it was in my case. It just depends on what you deem important.

BT: Why would the average BMXer want to read Follow For Now?

RC: I like to think that the average BMXer is an individual thinker. BMX is a huge part of my background and my day-to-day, so I am hopeful that that spirit shines through in the book. There’s also the Hal Brindley interview, of course.

BT: How many chicks have you scored with since the book was published? Has it helped?

RC: I lost count within the first week. Now, I keep a big stick next to the books to beat them away.

BT: How can interested parties find a copy?

RC: Follow for Now is available through its own website, followfornow.com. It’s available through a few others, but that’s the direct line.