Blogging's prior art: "the BLOGG" (Dr. Seuss)

[Taro Toporific]

SF author Rudy Rucker's is running a guest column on BoingBoing and has uncovered the orgin of "Blogging"... Dr. Seuss!

Dr. Seuss's The Shape of Things...-presents the silhouettes of various things: "A bug, a balloon, a bed, a bike/No shapes are ever quite alike." Among all these familiar items and animals, exactly one nonsensical creature is depicted and described:
Suppose you were shaped like these or those,
Or shaped like a BLOGG!
Or a garden hose ....

[kotatsuneko]

way back when i still read fiction, rudy rucker was a fave, tho all those melted bodys did put me off eating while reading his stuff..

he sure must have taken a lot of mescaline or something similar in his time..

[Caustic Saint]

way back when i still read fiction, rudy rucker was a fave, tho all those melted bodys did put me off eating while reading his stuff..

I just picked up Realware recently. I flipped it open and realized it's been too long since I read Software, Wetware and Freeware. Now I've gotta go back and re-read those. Oh well, more train-time fodder.

He does good non-fiction too. The Fourth Dimension: A Guided Tour of the Higher Universes is a work of genius.

[Charles]

I've been a fan of Rucker since his earliest days, I own a prerelease promo copy of "White Light" with a xeroxed letter from John Shirley saying to check out this new crazy writer. That edition is legendary, and one of the most sought after cyberpunk books, there were 100 of these prerelease copies with the letter, I once saw this book&letter given as the first prize in a professional scifi writing contest.

Anyway, IMHO his best work is still out of print, "SpaceTime Do-Nuts." Someone swiped my original copy and it took me almost 15 years to locate another copy.

Rucker has an interesting history, apparently he lost the rights to some of his own books because his old publisher went bankrupt and he can't get the rights back, and nobody can publish new copies. One of those "lost" books I especially want to find a copy of is "The Secret of Life." I don't want to give too many spoilers but there's a really touching scene in the end of the book where the protagonist proposes to his girlfriend. I gave the book to my girlfriend, asked her to read it, and when she was done, I was going to ask her what she thought about the final scene, and then propose to her myself. Unfortunately, I guess she hated the book, and she decided she hated me, because she never spoke to me again, left me, and took the book with her. In retrospect, I think I'd rather have the book back, than have her back.