Perhaps my favorite piece of Gibson. It's echoed with me every time I travel for... 18 years now?
"Tuesday, February 04, 2003
OUT AND ABOUT, WITHOUT A LAPTOP
Day two, still not very far from home but starting to see that blogging on the fly and in internet cafes is probably not the best way to keep this updated. Though on the other hand I suspect I get to see more things because I don't travel with a camera. In the peculiar mobile fishbowl of a book tour, the only time I'd have to use a laptop would be the time I have to sit alone, staring blankly into space. I suspect that those moments serve some vital function."
Written on his blog [0] while he was touring for Pattern Recognition(?). His blog is still the most Gibson thing I've read, and I cannot recommend it enough.
Edit: Because I'd be doing a disservice if I didn't mention it. If you're a Gibson fan, read "New Rose Hotel" [1] and watch the film [2].
Heh. I bought Pattern Recognition and got Gibson to sign it on that tour. Not knowing how book tours worked I asked him if he'd seen $local_thing_our_town_is_known_for. "Are you kidding?" he said. "This is a book tour. I don't have time to take a piss."
The tour period entries (Jan to ?) read like someone who obviously hates traveling on book tours, but does it because it's part of the job, and is also kind of fascinated by dissecting his own discomfort.
Everything before was more a collection of weird stuff he learned or was linked to that day.
Thank you, I thought this blog was gone from the internet. His site at one point had a fairly active message board attached to it and I was sad when that went along with what I remember was some sort of author-bloggy appendage.
You're a legend. I've already lost an hour and a half reading these posts. There are 7 years of them!
"In Pattern Recognition, the only physical environments I can think of that evoke Cornell boxes are the basement arcade off Portobello Road, where Cayce sees the book’s first Michelin Man, and Boone’s ex-girlfriend’s rather too perfect apartment in Hongo, and, possibly, Baranov’s fetid caravan. None of these are felt as sympatico environments for Cayce.
But there may be another sort of Cornell box there, in the form of F:F:F, the website where Cayce and her friends have been discussing the footage, in the months before the book begins. I think that’s an improvement, though, as a website can become a Cornell box full of friends. Having seen that happen elsewhere, and been a part of it myself, my best hope for this site would be that, for some of you at least, that will happen for you here. (If it does, it won’t have much to do with me, and everything to do with you.)"
"Tuesday, February 04, 2003
OUT AND ABOUT, WITHOUT A LAPTOP
Day two, still not very far from home but starting to see that blogging on the fly and in internet cafes is probably not the best way to keep this updated. Though on the other hand I suspect I get to see more things because I don't travel with a camera. In the peculiar mobile fishbowl of a book tour, the only time I'd have to use a laptop would be the time I have to sit alone, staring blankly into space. I suspect that those moments serve some vital function."
Written on his blog [0] while he was touring for Pattern Recognition(?). His blog is still the most Gibson thing I've read, and I cannot recommend it enough.
Edit: Because I'd be doing a disservice if I didn't mention it. If you're a Gibson fan, read "New Rose Hotel" [1] and watch the film [2].
[0] http://williamgibsonblog.blogspot.com/2003/02/?m=1
[1] http://www.lib.ru/GIBSON/hotel.txt
[2] https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0133122/