Well, @WalterIsaacson was signing at the same table as me at #sxsw so we got to catch up between doing our penmanship. Excited to read his Leonardo book. And he’s put #thedialoguesbook on his reading list! #graphicnovel A post shared by Clifford Johnson (@asymptotia) on Mar 11, 2018 at 1:38pm … Click to continue reading this post
Yesterday Henry Jenkins and I had a great chat as a Facebook Live event. The video is here. The conversation started with the movie Black Panther, but wandered into many topics related to culture, media, science, representation, and beyond. Among other things, we talked about what we enjoyed about the movie, what graphic novels and comics we’re reading now, and what comics source material we’d love to see given a film treatment. Oh, yes, we also mentioned The Dialogues!
Enjoy!
I was on the Talk Nerdy podcast recently, talking with host Cara Santa Maria about all sorts of things. It was a fun conversation ranging over many topics in science, including some of the latest discoveries in astronomy using gravitational waves in concert with traditional telescopes to learn new things about our universe. And yes, my book The Dialogues was discussed too! A link to the podcast is here. You can find Talk Nerdy on many of your favourite podcast platforms. Why not subscribe? The whole show is full of great conversations!
This week there are two opportunities to hear me talk about The Dialogues in person, for you to ask questions, and to get your own personally signed copy!
On Thursday at 7:00pm I’ll be chatting with writer M. G. Lord at Vroman’s bookstore in Pasadena. We’ll talk about the book of course, but probably about science and art and writing and a whole lot of things in general. There’ll be a Q&A of course. Then I’ll sign the books you bring to me. More details here.
On Friday at 7:30pm I’ll chat with Griffith Observatory’s curator Laura Danly as part of their excellent All Space Considered show. It’ll be up at the Observatory and there’ll be a Q&A and of course books on hand for you to obtain and I’ll sign them for you. More details here.
Come to one, or come to both if you like, as time, geography, and tastes dictate. They’ll be quite different events with different emphases!
Over on instagram (@asymptotia – and maybe here too, not sure) I’ll be posting some images of developmental drawings I did for The Dialogues, sometimes alongside the finished panels in the book. It is often very interesting to see how a finished thing came to be, and so that’s why … Click to continue reading this post
Happy New Year!
Yesterday, the NPR affiliate KCRW’s Press Play broadcast an interview with me. I spoke with the host Madeleine Brand about my non-fiction graphic novel about science, and several other things that came up on the spur of the moment. Rather like one of the wide-ranging conversations in the book itself, come to think of it…
This was a major interview for me because I’ve been a huge fan of Madeleine for many years, going back to her NPR show Day to Day (which I still […] Click to continue reading this post
Partly due to reader enthusiasm the book is temporarily hard to find online. BUT, while out there doing your last minute shopping, stop in a physical bookstore and check the Science section and you can often find it, as I did a couple of times yesterday. B&N seems to have … Click to continue reading this post
Attention New York! Philly is ahead of you right now. Yes that’s right, Philadelphia is beating you… but Greenbay-Appleton in Wisconsin: c’mon, not one? Don’t make me come over there! #jointheconversation #science #thedialoguesbook #salesgeography #graphicnovel
On a serious note, I must say Thank You to lots of people:
(1) for buying and appreciating the book, all across North America. So much so that it is having to be restocked everywhere. (Go ahead and order – new stock is on the way!)
(2) for telling friends and followers about the book (in person and on social media, etc). Word of mouth is really important for this book, so please keep doing that.
(3) for reviewing the book on amazon, on goodreads and elsewhere. You’re getting all kinds of people excited about having conversations about science!
Last week the always-interesting Maria Popova of Brain Pickings wrote a piece about the book. I was pleased to see what she wrote because it was clear that she really understood many of the several things I was trying to do in making the book. (I say this because my expectation is usually that people aren’t going to click with it because it does not fit narrow presuppositions for either a non-fiction science book or for a graphic novel.) So this was a very pleasant surprise indeed. There’s no point trying to paraphrase her, so let me simply point you there with this link.
The book also made the roundup of top Science Books for 2017 on NPR’s […] Click to continue reading this post
So I’ve been waiting for some time to tell you about this clever joke by eminent physicist Anthony Zee. Well, I think it is a joke, I’ve not checked with him yet: The final production period for The Dialogues was full of headaches, I must say, but there was one thing that made me laugh out loud, for a long time. I heard that Tony had agreed to write a blurb for the back cover of the book, but I did not see it until I was finally sent a digital copy of the back cover, somewhat after everything had (afaik) gone to print. The blurb was simple, and said:
“This is a fantastic book — entertaining, informative, enjoyable, and thought-provoking.”
I thought this was rather nicely done. Simple, to the point, generous…. but, after a while… strangely familiar. I thought about it for a while, walked over to one of my bookcases, and picked up a book. What book? My 2003 copy of the the first edition of “Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell”, by A. (for Anthony) Zee. I turned it over. The first blurb on the back says:
“This is a fantastic book — exciting, amusing, unique, and very valuable.”
The author of that blurb? Clifford V. Johnson.
Brilliantly done.
Now that #thedialoguesbook is out is I get even more people telling me how they can’t draw. I don’t believe them. Just as with science (and other subjects), everybody has a doorway in to a subject. It is just a matter of taking time to finding your individual Door. Individual doors is what makes us all wonderfully different. For me it is mostly geometry that is my Door. It gives a powerful way to see things, but isn’t the only way. Moreover, I have to work hard to not be trapped by it sometimes. But it is how I truly see things most often – through geometry. Wonderful geometry everywhere.
(Image above courtesy of Cellar Door Books in Riverside, CA.)
Happy Thanksgiving! This coming week, there’ll be two events that might be of interest to people either in the Los Angeles area, or the New York area.
The first is an event (Tues. 28th Nov., 7pm, Co-sponsored by LARB and Chevalier’s Books) centered around my new book, the Dialogues. It is the first such LA event, starting with a chat with writer and delightful conversationalist […] Click to continue reading this post
All the parts of my interview with Henry Jenkins have been posted now. You can find them here, here, and here. The latest, posted today, talks about a nod to the superhero genre that I playfully do in the book, as well as my slightly unhealthy obsession over architectural details in the making of the book! (But of course, you knew that from reading this blog regularly…!)
-cvj
Just after waking up today I read Henry Jenkins’ introduction to an interview that he did with me, posted on his fascinating blog (Confessions of an ACA-Fan: about culture, media, communication, and more). I was overcome with emotion for a moment there – He is very generous with his remarks about the book! What a great start to the day!
I recommend reading the interview in full. Part one is up now. It is a very in-depth […] Click to continue reading this post
I went a bit crazy on social media earlier today. I posted this picture and: There’s been a first sighting!! Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgh! It EXISTS! It actually exists! In a bookstore (Cellar Door Books in Riverside)! (But believe it or not a copy has not got to me yet. Long story.) http://thedialoguesbook.com … Click to continue reading this post
