Dope Excerpts — Ep 10 / Bread & Circuses

It's been a hot minute, but I'm more than excited to share this one with you. Not a book excerpt (sorry), but a conversation / interview about a project I created called NEOLOGITRON. This project uses AI to generate neologisms - new words - along with their definitions and an illustration, that all focus on ideas of speculative futures. You can check the project on instagram.com/neologitron The interview itself is an thrilling conversation between me and my AI collaborator, trying to break the black box open a bit and understand how it generates words linguistically, how it deals with bias in the data it pulls, how it understands the aesthetic function of illustrating a concept, and I even ask it to suggest some books to read. It's a pleasant convo. Don't be mad that this ain't an actual book excerpt. I'd argue it's better. Hugs. Love, Adam

For this Excerpt, instead of a book or a text, I re-recorded a lecture that I gave to graduating seniors from Portland State University's School of Art+Design program in May of 2022 (where I used to teach a Senior Thesis course in Design and Collaboration). It's a Glossary of words that I use to frame my approach to life, and wanted to be able to equip the students with a bit of that thinking as they head out of academia. In the original lecture there are simple visuals of the words, and musician Elliot Ross / Moongriffin supported by playing ambient synths in the background to add a vibe. For the sake of this recording, it's just the words. Thank you to Kate Bingaman-Burt for inviting me to speak, and all the students that I had the opportunity to have conversations with. Hope y'all enjoy. 

It's been a while, and I miss the heck out of you. For episode 12 I'm playing with the structure of the pod and sharing some insight on Agnés Gayraud's "Dialectic of Pop," via its incredible table of contents.Thanks for listening.

Today I'm reading the titular short story from Chuck Klosterman's new collection of "Fictional Nonfiction" — Raised in Captivity. Big shout out to Mr. Klosterman who so kindly responded to me sliding in his DMs to ask for permission. Oh, and sorry for the egregious mispronunciation of "taupe." It was the heat of the moment and I fumbled, okay? Enjoy.

In episode 10 of Dope Excerpts, I'm sharing an article from one of my favorite mags, New Philosopher, called "Bread and Circuses." It's about attention, and media, and sport, and politics and oh heck just check it out.

A one-shot super-read of Jay Griffith's book "A Sideways Look at Time." This book is a mesmerizing mix of information on our perception and experience of time, delivered poetically in Jay's whimsical writing style. A conceptual follow-up to Episode 04, and a fun one to read. Thanks for listening.

A dope excerpt of Kevin Kelly's best-seller "The Inevitable," from the chapter on "Becoming." This book looks at 12 technological forces that are shaping our present and future as humankind, and I found it's first section one of the most interesting. Excited to hear what you think.

Hey y'all. Here is reading of a talk that William Gibson gave on media, the future, storytelling and how we adapt to changes in our media environment. It's a long-one, but a goodie. Also, towards the very end I did something a little weird with the editing and there's a transition that feels a little cut short, but hey. I'm learning. Thanks for listening.

Oh, hey. A quick note about some sound issues, how you can get me feedback, leave voice messages and continue supporting this here little show. I appreciate you, and thanks for listening.

Today we're reading a section of the book "Story" by Robert McKee on character and characterization, and reflecting on how the hard choices that we make in our lives define us. Sounds heavier than it is, don't worry. Thanks for listening.