Rain Barrel: Whole Earth Reviewed

January 24, 2001

If you have ever followed an attempt to ban a book (as I have done once, attending weekly public sessions at the local school board to watch fundamental Christians try to ban study of Timothy Findley's The Wars), you will frequently come across claims that certain books must be banned because they have the power to irrevocably change a vulnerable mind forever.

Which is completely true when you think about it (but not a sufficient reason to ban a book, mind you). Isn't that why we read books? To be changed by the experience?

My fragile mind was irrevocably changed by a magazine that I stumbled upon when I was in high school.

I still remember the chain of events that led up to my the encounter: I first stumbled upon Computer Lib / Dream Machines in the local public library. The forward of the book was penned by Stewart Brand, editor of something curious called the Whole Earth Catalog. I soon learned that my library had this 'bible of the sixties' and the well-stocked magazine store down the block had the catalogue's magazine equivalent: the Whole Earth Review. I bought a copy and it blew my mind. A subscription almost immediately followed.

From the introduction of the most recent issue of what is now called Whole Earth:

Presenting access to tools was the job of the original Whole Earth Catalog, a job that few other agencies were interested in at the time. A contemporary browser in a bookstore today would be astounded at how bare the shelves were thirty years ago. There was not a shelfful of books on, say, how to give a talk in public, as there is now; there was usually none. Thus, the pointing, selecting, and reviewing the Catalog did was a vital, singular service.
It seems less so now. What happened? Among other things the Web happened. Today the world is awash in self-help, sel-education, self-everything information. You can find any book in print online, and it's in your mailbox in days. Better still, you can find hard-won information on the most obscure passion just by clicking a little. Opening worlds is much easier. What this means is that the next edition of Whole Earth Catalog is here: it's the World Wide Web.
But still, something is missing. Something the Catalogs did, and this magazine still does, that is not found on the Web at large. It was in search of that missing component that I began this special issue. I suspected that one function that Catalogs offered is not being provided by the Web is to highlight the best.

And so the author of this introduction, Kevin Kelly, created a single-issue Whole Earth Catalog of items that he thought of as 'the best'.

Now - I know what you're thinking: anyone can make a list of what they think is best. But not very many people can make as interesting collection as Kevin Kelly. He brings to your attention such books and items as:

an analog atomic clock, the trailmaster trial monitor, The Secret Musuem of Mankind, Extrodinary Chickens, President 2000 Barbie, Finite and Infinite Games, Great Courses on Tape, crystal set projects, shoebox holography, The Technology of Orgasm, Wacom Tablet, CapShare Portable E-Copier, sewing awl. A Framework for Understanding Poverty, Make Your Own Dinosaur Out of Chicken Bones, the Universe Map...

Supplementing the catalog are the articles "How to Design a 10,000 Year Clock" by Danny Hillis, "Blogging" by Mark Frauenfelder, and an interview with artist and architect, Maya Lin.

Whole Earth still bends my fragile mind.


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