I spent most of last week in Mexico City, luxuriating in Pedro Meyer and Nadia Baram’s hospitality and listening to my partner, Bob Stein, speechify about the networked book. He founded the Institute for the Future of the Book, upon one of whose experiments this blog was originally modeled, and defines “book” as the thing we use to move big ideas around.
That future is electronic, which felt a little ironic since I was working furiously on the proposal for the print version of Staying Vertical. Clearly that pound of paper will be only one component of the project. The thinking out loud that preceded it is accessible on this blog. The conversations that follow it will take all kinds of forms, online and off. The multimedia aspect will be highlighted in a portfolio on ZoneZero. This extraordinary web gallery for photographers around the world was founded 14 years ago by Pedro, an eminent photographer and digital pioneer. Nadia, the site’s picture editor, is documenting couples in their 70s in a set of heart-stopping images.
Their generous offer came out of the blue and it’s got me thinking about my material it in a whole new way. While wrangling with text is familiar, the challenge now is to blend image and audio into very compelling, very short stories. I’m on it.