For the early adopters out there, Follow for Now is now available on Amazon’s digital reader, The Kindle. Now you can get all forty-three interviews, all the pictures, all the goodness, in Amazon’s digital format.

The interviews in this book are bite-size and in-depth by design, so the portability of The Kindle fits its style. The Kindle now sports sixteen shades of gray for clean, clear text and crisper images, and it’s really small and portable. You can check out sample interviews from the book before you decide, but if you’re super impatient, you can get your interview fix in less than a minute.

Follow for Now started off as a digital creation, so maybe this format is its proper home.

Anyway, if you’ve made the jump from atoms to bits with your books, now you can add Follow for Now to your collection.

…

My friend and colleague Mike Schandorf required Follow for Now for his Writing for New Media class this semester at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He snapped this shot of the stack of copies in their bookstore. I’m stoked.

Many thanks, Schandorf. See you soonly.

“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.

I am very stoked to have my work in MonkeyWrench. As their website says, “MonkeyWrench Books is more than just a bookstore. It is a library and educational resource. It is a place for meetings, film screenings, talks, benefits and book readings. It is also a relaxed space to network and make connections over a cup of organic coffee or tea.” They’re located at 110 E. North Loop here in Austin, Texas.

Follow for Now is also available from the following fine places:

• Powell’s in Portland, OR.
• Reading Frenzy in Portland, OR.
• Skylight in Los Angeles, CA.
• Last Gasp in San Francisco, CA.

If you are near any of these stores, support the independent: Buy my book there. If not, it’s also available at Amazon and at its own site.

Thank you,

-Roy Christopher

Spanning over seven years, Follow for Now includes interviews with such luminaries as Bruce Sterling, Douglas Rushkoff, DJ Spooky, Philip K. Dick, Aesop Rock, Erik Davis, Howard Bloom, David X. Cohen, Richard Saul Wurman, N. Katherine Hayles, Manuel De Landa, Rudy Rucker, Milemarker, Steve Aylett, Doug Stanhope, Paul Roberts, Shepard Fairey, Tod Swank, dälek, Eric Zimmerman, Steven Johnson, Mark Dery, Geert Lovink, Brenda Laurel, and many, many more (click here for the full Table of Contents). It includes interviews by John Brockman, Erik Davis, Mark Dery, Paul D. Miller, and myself, among others.

Published through my own Well-Red Bear imprint, Follow for Now is an eclectic, independently-minded snapshot of the intellectual landscape at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It also includes an extensive bibliography, a full index, and weighs in at nearly 400 pages. Click here to look inside on Amazon.

Follow for Now is also available from Powell’s and several other fine retail outlets across the country. You can also join the Facebook Group or find out more.

Thanks for reading,

-Roy Christopher