1994 Bill Gibson interview talks ebooks, net balkanization, online radicalism

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William Gibson interview: Boing Boing exclusive

William Gibson's most recent novel, Zero History, was recently published (Cory called it an "exciting adventure that wakes you to the present-day’s futurism").

I asked William a few questions by email. Here are his answers:

The paperback edition of your newest novel, Zero History, is out. Now that Kindle sales top both hardbound and paperback book sales on Amazon, it doesn't seem as important to have a paperback release. Or does it?
I think I bought a total of maybe four new hardcover novels, as an undergraduate, so I still think of the hardcover as a sort of word-of-mouth trailer for the mass market paperback. And I still see people expressing impatience, on Twitter, that a given title isn't out in paperback. Maybe Kindle et al aren't quite that evenly distributed yet.

What things are keeping your interest lately?
The sheer surreality of the Republican presidential primary, Libya, Iain Sinclair's monolithic ongoing anti-Olympics project (Hackney, That Rose Red Empire and now Ghost Milk), the "gray man" concept in personal security, the culture of personal aerial drones, parts of the United States as newly undeveloped sub-nations and the foreign outsourcing thereof...?

How have your interests changed? By that, I mean, what used to interest you but now doesn't? And vice versa?
I don't really lose interest in things I've been very interested in, but there's limited room on the working face. ?

Do you have a "daily carry?" If so, what are the things in it?
A very thin, almost weightless wallet, made of a material called Kuben (which is sort of like Dyneema but less fancy-looking) deployed in front pocket. (I had a walletectomy for a back issue; back-pocket carry is murder on the back, plus much less secure.) A steel-cable Muji keyring with keys and a SwissTech Utili-Key 6-in-1 tool (which looks like a key). A Montblanc roller-pen from before they become a luxury brand (I found one on eBay after reading Hiroshi Fujiwara's fascinating book Personal Effects).?

What do you think of the DIY/Maker movement, with individuals now about to make 3D printed objects at home, and sharing 3D models for all sorts of things online?
My grandfather owned a small-town lumberyard, and old-fashioned hardware stores have always been among my very favorite retail environments. I grew up with the idea that most of the environment we actually inhabit is the result of human labor. Anyone who can make something really well, more or less from scratch, has my respect. So I see DIY/Maker activity as extremely healthy. I'm not sure that owning a machine that can make something more or less from scratch impresses me quite as much, but I have no personal experience of that yet.?

What do you think of the way industrial design is going -- for cars, electronics, medical devices, etc.
Generally, I like the way those things are looking, but it's a rare day I see anything new that I *really* like. I saw a photograph of Dieter Rams' basement workshop recently. Man alive. Would I have liked to be a fly on the wall in there.?

I'm not going to ask you about any specific movie development projects you have cooking, but I have general question -- Almost every fiction writer I know who has worked with the Hollywood movie industry has told me they hated the experience and hated the results. Has you experience been better?
Liking the Hollywood movie industry is like liking war. Some people do like war, though, and I've sometimes enjoyed my own experience of the Hollywood movie industry. People who haven't actually been there, been fully in it, with some paid role on which something actually depends, really have very little idea. One of the more oddly hellish things about it is that so many of its civilian consumers assume that they understand exactly how it all works. There's a huge subsidiary industry filmgoers pay to keep them convinced that they have insider knowledge, actual experience of the beast itself. They don't. 

You don't really get it until you're in a situation in which some entity has invested sixty or seventy million dollars in something and seems to be in the process of deciding that your creative input may be endangering that investment. It's an experience that will definitely get your fullest attention.?

I enjoyed your recent essay in Scientific American titled, "Life in the Meta-City." Can you talk about why you wrote this?
Thanks. They asked me. And I suppose writing for Scientific American was a sort of bucket list item! Plus I have always been interested in cities.?

You have a great Twitter feed. What are your feelings about reading and participating in social media?
Glad you enjoy it. I find it completely ludic, pure play. 

Twitter is really my only experience of social media, so far. I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I'd had access to some sort of agreeable social media in my early teens. I think I would really have liked it, so then I feel a little sorry for my younger self. Then I remember that all of that stuff might still be around, and I feel a huge relief that it isn't.?

What do you worry about? I'm talking about loose nukes, global warming, economic meltdown, creeping fascism.
All of the above, and anything else in that general ballpark. As one does. Sometimes I remember that I evidently assumed that Ronald Reagan was probably about as weird as it was going to get; that that all seemed a bit over the top, a grave if semi-comic but blessedly temporary anomaly. That's scary.

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Feds raid Gibson Guitar

Federal agents raided Gibson Guitar last week and confiscated what the Fish and Wildlife Service claim may be illegally harvested Madagascar ebony and other woods from protected forests. This follows a 2009 raid resulting in an ongoing court case, "United States of America v. Ebony Wood in Various Forms." From the Wall Street Journal:

The question in the first raid seemed to be whether Gibson had been buying illegally harvested hardwoods from protected forests, such as the Madagascar ebony that makes for such lovely fretboards. And if Gibson did knowingly import illegally harvested ebony from Madagascar, that wouldn't be a negligible offense. Peter Lowry, ebony and rosewood expert at the Missouri Botanical Garden, calls the Madagascar wood trade the "equivalent of Africa's blood diamonds." But with the new raid, the government seems to be questioning whether some wood sourced from India met every regulatory jot and tittle.

Gibson Guitar Corp CEO Henry Juszkiewicz responded in a public statement issued by the company:

The raids forced Gibson to cease manufacturing operations and send workers home for the day while armed agents executed the search warrants. “Agents seized wood that was Forest Stewardship Council controlled,” Juszkiewicz said. “Gibson has a long history of supporting sustainable and responsible sources of wood and has worked diligently with entities such as the Rainforest Alliance and Greenpeace to secure FSC-certified supplies. The wood seized on August 24 satisfied FSC standards.”

Juszkiewicz believes that the Justice Department is bullying Gibson without filing charges.

“The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India. (If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal.) This action was taken without the support and consent of the government in India.”

"Guitar Frets: Environmental Enforcement Leaves Musicians in Fear" (Thanks, Greg Long!)

"Gibson Guitar Corp. Responds to Federal Raid"

UPDATE: Fretboard Journal's Michael Simmons, points us to "an article we did a while ago about CITES and the Lacey Act, the two laws that triggered the Gibson raid, and it gives some good background on what the issues are." A Guitar Lover’s Guide to the CITES Conservation Treaty

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