I tend to favor problematic works like Kenji Siratori's (debug.) which I'm
in the process of reviewing; it's a novel, but impossible to follow with
extreme language crashing post-cyberpunk mode and brilliant; there's also
the work of people like Eugene Thacker in it - he edited Black Ice which
I'm in and which is also crashed down into the arena.

Straight lit. doesn't do it for me. There's als McKenzie Wark's Dispos-
itions based on texts written while carrying a GPS that frames them.

Re: The study you mentioned. It seems problematic; of course if one's
being distracted by just about anything it will seem as if there's an iQ
drop. That goes without saying. At a rock concert you drop down to zero.
It's a question of focus. I'm often multi-tasking; I can handle up to
three computers at once, plus the tv, sometimes a book as well if there's
gaps. If anything this gives me greater content 'transversals' - inter-
connections. I'm likely to work simultaneously on, say, a video, sound-
work, and text, without much of a problem.

'Infomania' itself is a cant term, I think. It doesn't necessarily mean
anything more than knowedge management, and we all have strategies for
that, one way or another.

Sue asks, ' I'm particularly interested in those books which are not laden
with academic theory, since there seems to be a preponderance of these.
What about more 'popular' reading, fiction and nonfiction? Have you read a
good novel about the web, for instance, which strikes you as authentic?'

What worries me about the question - a few things, first sorry for playing
the curmudgeon. In fact there's a 'preponderance' of non-academic books,
not the other way around - based on business and entrepreneurship,
personal relationships, 'Idiot's Guides' and so forth. I personally don't
make the distinction between academic and non-academic and pop. Second, I
don't know what a novel 'about' the Web would be, and what would make it
'authentic.' The word 'authentic' bothers me; it implies a kind of
consensus that might not hold. Why not just ask about books about the
Net and the experience of being on line? Then there's Sherry Turkle's work
for example, the 'Being on Line' anthology I did, Reingold's books, some
of the writings of Shawn Wilbur, etc.

Years ago I followed the writings of JZ Herz (hope I have the name right)
on gaming/MOO-type stuff, and there's also 'my tiny life' by Julian
Dibbell, which may be the best indication of the travails of online
community, sexuality, and governance that I've seen so far. Most of what I
read is either too simple or too naive or too Deleuze-Guattari, say,
theory-based. A lot of what I _do_ like - for example 'Twisty Little
Passages' - I've reviewed on a number of lists.

- Alan

http://www.asondheim.org/ nettext at
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projects: http://www.as.wvu.edu/clcold/sondheim/ partial backup at
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