Flatland Revisited #3

A truly impressive bit of stop-animation from the NZ Book Council entitled “Where Books Come To Life”, although I daresay a fair number of books died in the making-of.

Actually, speaking of which, I was reading this thing from Clay Shirky last night that seemed to be saying “well if you like bookshops so much, why don’t you club together and buy one?” – which is a bit like saying “well if you like it so much, why don’t you marry it?”

But isn’t really like that at all. He’s quite interested in Mutualisation is Clay – only he spells it with a ‘z’. Groups of people getting together and buying infrastructure off their own bat – rather than being permanently under the aegis of some sort of top-down control.

I saw on the twitters the other day that someone was going to their kid’s school (or somewhere) to protest about various lacks of spending or whatever. I used to live in the country when I was a kid – waaaaay out in the country. 50 miles up a gravel road from the nearest shop. My Mum and Dad were school teachers at a school that looked after local farmers kids – almost all of which were Maori as it happens.

Anyway – there wasn’t really anyone to protest to, so my Mum and Dad and the locals all got together and built a massive swimming pool for the school. It was the 60s. You could do things yourself back then.

God-damn that’s a digression. Still. There it is. I bet the swimming pool is still there. It’s often easier to get people to donate time than money – especially if it’s a chance to meet other people.