READING BARNETT

"Whether you agree with them or not," Ichiro Tokugawa announces, turning a page in Blueprint For Action, "these are markedly bold words." To coincide with Thomas P.M. Barnett's appearance in Second Life-- now some 11 hours away-- we commissioned SL book publisher Falk Bergman to create a virtual edition of Barnett's latest book. Tom was kind enough to authorize, with his publisher's willing assistance, publication in SL of a substantial excerpt from Blueprint-- specifically, the Preface, Glossary, and the extended Afterword "Blogging the Future", where Barnett offers striking predictions about the world through the framework of his ideas. (Then again, that a major publisher like Putnam was more than happy to expedite the process of creating a Second Life edition of a book with their imprint on it-- that says something striking about our present.)

Falk has been improving his book technology since converting Cory Doctorow's latest novel into an 8 foot book over the Summer. The new version of his book is now entirely handheld, with a built-in animation for turning the pages (activated by clicking on the left or right page while in first-person mode.) Happily, the autograph function is still there; Tom sent us a digitized image of his signature for the in-world signing. Copies of the SL edition are available via a dispensor outside the UN entrance of Barnett Island (see below), and at the Welcome Area. Getting your book signed means showing up to the event and bringing out your copy for him to click on.

FINAL PREPARATION AND LOGISTICS

Thomas P.M. Barnett will appear in Second Life today at approximately 11:30am Second Life Time (i.e., Pacific Standard), at the United Nations building located on Barnett Island, a 64 acre land mass comprised of four regions: Barnett Old Core, Barnett New Core, Barnett Seam, Barnett Gap.

For those who can't attend in-world, the event will also be simulcast on the Second Life homepage. Of course, I'll be running a cleaned-up transcript of the event on this blog starting (hopefully) tomorrow.

Attending live: Provided your computer has the techical specs listed here, a free SL account can be created and downloaded here.

Seating is limited; reserve a place at the event by joining the Barnett Readers group: from the Second Life interface, click "Find", then the "Groups" tab, then in Find enter "Barnett Readers", then "Join Now".

Co-hosted by Jerry Paffendorf (in-world name, "SNOOPYbrown Zamboni") of the Second Life Future Salon sponsored by the Acceleration Studies Foundation. Thomas Barnett's avatar is by lilith Pendragon, who also brought us the in-world incarnation of Cory Doctorow; the United Nations General Assembly Hall is by Ichiro Tokugawa.

UPDATE, 6:42pm: Event went marvelously well. Snoopybrown has already posted the full transcript. My own version starts running tomorrow-- same event, but in bite-sized pieces, a bit of added context, and, well, more pictures.

11/2: FINAL UPDATE, 11/2: TRANSCRIPT OF BARNETT'S APPEARANCE BEGINS HERE