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24 March 2006
Fri, 24 Mar 2006 00:48:00 GMTThe Last Whole Earth Catalog
Steward Brand
The Whole Earth Catalog is a phenomenon way before my time, but it’s been referenced in all the interesting stuff I’ve read for awhile, and I looked it up in the school library.
It’s a collection of recommendations, stories and articles assembled by hippies in the late sixties, it’s tagline Access to tools. The guy behind it is Stewart Brand, quite the impressive early technologist.
There’s lots of stuff in there, I only flipped through the pages. Skimming and taking note of anything that looked particularly interesting.
I was hoping that I’d get the version ended “stay hungry, stay foolish,” and I thought this would be it. But I read through both the beginning and the end, and didn’t find it. The back page is a picture of the earth from space under the words “We can’t put it together. It is together.” A great thing to say. Too bad it’s quickly coming apart.
This was apparently to be the ‘last’ edition, but it looks like later editions were printed. Brand mentions near the end in a section on the organization’s history that one day he was driving to work and realized he’d stopped having fun; so he decided to stop the thing right where it was. Coincidentally, he stopped feeling it right about when the catalog went from cult to mainstream status.
There was some good talk on the Whole Earth Catalog and the whole hippie scene in sixties california within What the Doormouse Said, which probably convinced me to write TWEC down on my booklist and eventually read it. I think the whole techno-hippie scene depicted in the book completely fascinating, wouldn’t mind finding it’s progeny in my age.
Here are the notes I made throughout reading the book, I mostly just took down book titles and authors that looked interesting.
- The Pentagon of Power, Lewis Mumford. 29
- A book on Sumeria, Dr. F. Wong Agolt. 73
- The Sketchbooks of Paolo Soleri. 83
- Dune, Frank Herbert. 180
- The Israel Army Fitness book. 212
- The Elements of Style, William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White. 310
- postmonetary economy. 339
- The Open Classroom, Herbert R. Kohl. 403
- The Five Ages of Man, Gerard Heard. 410
- Education Automation, Buckminster Fuller. 411
- Self Hypnosis, Lawrence Sparks (and the books on meditation, same page). 422
This is really a much better coffee table book then read it once through book, if it weren’t for my disdain of spending money and dislike of physical things I’d pick one up off ebay right away. I’ll be tempted in any case.
Stewart Brand on starting a business:
What you’re trying to do is nourish and design an organism which can learn and stay alive while it’s learning. Once that process has its stride, don’t tinker with it; work for it, let it work for you. Make interesting demands on each other. 438
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