My first book was an interview anthology called Follow for Now: Interviews with Friends and Heroes, and it’s available on Bandcamp. Today is #BandcampFriday, the day when they waive all of their fees, and the money goes directly to the artists. When you order directly from me through Bandcamp, you also get fun stuff like stickers. And if you’re into it, I’ll even sign the book for you!
Follow for Now includes interviews with such luminaries as Bruce Sterling, Douglas Rushkoff, DJ Spooky, Philip K. Dick, Aesop Rock, Eugene Thacker, 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, McKenzie Wark, Brenda Laurel, Gareth Branwyn, and many, many more.
Spanning the seven years of the turn of the millennium (1999-2006), Follow for Now is an eclectic, independently-minded snapshot of the intellectual landscape at the beginning of the twenty-first century — 43 interviews with minds of all kinds. It also includes an extensive bibliography, a full index, and weighs in at nearly 400 pages, all typeset and designed by Patrick Barber.
Ellis Goddard of the Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies says,
“Roy Christopher has long been regarded as an insightful (and sometimes inciteful) inquisitor of Internet-age antics. 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.”
And Maria Popova of Brain Pickings, writes,
“Relentlessly stimulating and insight-packed, Follow for Now is the kind of book I’d like to see published every decade, and devoured every subsequent decade, from now until the end of humanity.”
Get yours from Bandcamp today for Bancamp Friday!
And don’t forget the sequel: Follow for Now, Vol. 2 from punctum books!
The Structural Dynamics of Flow
For this auspicious fifth day of May, may I also recommend The Structural Dynamics of Flow by my dudes Alaska and steel tipped dove.
In the years (decades) since his nascent Atoms Family and Hangar 18 days, versatile emcee Alaska has slowed down his flow. Don’t get it deficient: It’s for our benefit, not his. We’re the ones getting lazier, not him. He’s just making sure we can hear what he’s saying rather than marveling at his breath control. His lyrics are as topical as they are personal, and how many emcees do you know who will rhyme “mercy killer” with “Percy Miller” without pausing for effect?
Beatmeister steel tipped dove has worked with everyone from bulletproof lyricists like billy woods, Mr. Muthafuckin eXquire, and R.A.P. Ferreira to the much artier Tone Tank, Pink Siifu, and Nosaj from New Kingdom. Coming fresh off his Backwoodz Studioz debut, Call Me When You’re Outside, Dove’s production here is as jazzy as it is hazy, the beats swing between ambient loops and orthodox boom-bap. He keeps it all tight while still giving Alaska plenty of room to play.
There’s something both timeless and timely about The Structural Dynamics of Flow. The blending and bending of hip-hop sounds like New York, but maybe an area you haven’t been to yet. Pack your blunderbuss and come along with us.
Thanks for reading and listening,
-royc.
http://roychristopher.com