Interview with William Gibson

My favorite author, far and away. Just finished his new novel, Zero History. Here are a few bits that caught my attention in the interview:

  • I find Twitter to be the most powerful aggregator of sheer novelty that humanity has yet possessed.
  • “I think the concept of “mainstream” is probably becoming archaic in some sense.”
  • “The mainstream is more digestible by osmosis”
  • “I wonder if we’ll ever have consensus (again)?”
  • “Generally, we don’t know what we were doing with something until we quit doing it.”
  • “When I see Glenn Beck –to the very small extent I do, if I can help it– it’s like Devo’s vision made flesh”
  • “I now write with the assumption that someone will google every unfamiliar word and term as they go through the book.”
  • “The footnote now lives in cyberspace, a click away”