Divine Aphasia

About Me

I am Evan Silberman. I go to Hampshire College. I quit Facebook. I like getting email.

I attended Anime Boston 2008 (aka Line Con '08) and, thanks to some tenacious line-sitting, got to see the pillows from the second row. That was really awesome.

Currently Reading

This list changes infrequently and will never be complete, as I am almost always in the middle of many things. I'll be gradually filling it in.

The Glorious Cause
Robert Middlekauf
A history of the American Revolution. I started reading this sometime during my junior year of high school; haven't finished yet. Learned a lot about the social context of the Revolution that I hadn't gotten before, though.
Understanding Media
Marshall McLuhan
I'm getting close to done on this one. Lots of epic-sounding ruminations on technology and media. Short on evidence, perhaps, but still presents a very convincing hypothesis about the impact of media technologies on human society. Seems almost current in light of the Internet and social technology. (see also: The Machine is Us/ing Us)

Recommended Reading

I actually have finished these. This list will grow monotonically as I decide to put things on here.

Europe Central
William T. Vollman
A ridiculously long, sprawling, and complex novel about Germany and the USSR before, during, and after World War II. Kind of high art Shostakovich romantic fan fiction. It's pretty outstandingly good. At least I think it is. It took me over a year to read it. Give it a shot, anyway.
Lessons in Virtual Tour Photography
Chris Bachelder
A free e-book novel taking the form of an instruction manual. Written in the imperative mood.
If on a winter's night a traveler
Italo Calvino
More metafiction. More second-person narration.