In 1930, Bob Brown predicted that the printed book was bound for obsolescence. The time has come, he insisted, to rid the reader of the cumbersome book. He invented a machine that would allow one to read books and any text extremely fast and in a hyper abbreviated form. He called these abbreviated texts, with em dashes replacing words: readies. He envisioned sending the condensed texts through wireless networks. The Readies, describes these eponymously named abbreviated texts and his plans for a reading machine, but since he printed only 150 copies, the volume is practically unknown outside of a small circle of scholars. With this new edition, Craig Saper hopes to introduce Bob Brown's Roving Eye Press books to a new generation of readers.
In 1930, Bob Brown predicted that the printed book was bound for obsolescence. The time has come, he insisted, to rid the reader of the cumbersome book. He invented a machine that would allow one to read books and any text extremely fast and in a hyper abbreviated form. He called these abbreviated texts, with em dashes replacing words: readies. He envisioned sending the condensed texts through wireless networks. The Readies, describes these eponymously named abbreviated texts and his plans for a reading machine, but since he printed only 150 copies, the volume is practically unknown outside of a small circle of scholars. With this new edition, Craig Saper hopes to introduce Bob Brown's Roving Eye Press books to a new generation of readers.
Robert Carlton Brown (1886-1959) was an American author,
journalist, publisher, and collector. Born in Chicago. Brown wrote
pulp fiction, non-fiction, cookbooks, avant-garde publications, and
experimented with a book of visual poetry; he also contributed
pieces to various magazines and newspapers in New York City and
established journals in Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, and London. In
1929, he and his wife temporarily settled in France where they
became involved in the expatriate literary community in Paris.
While there, he established Roving Eye Press to promote a reading
machine that he invented. His literary works include What Happened
to Mary (1913), The Readies (1930), Globe-Gliding (1930), Words
(1931), Gems (1931), and Readies for Bob Brown's Machine (1931). He
also wrote or co-wrote a number of best-selling cookbooks,
including The European Cookbook (1936), 10,000 Snacks (1937), The
Wine Cook Book (1941), and The Complete Book of Cheese (1955).
Craig Saper is Professor and Director of the Language,
Literacy, and Culture Ph.D. Program at UMBC in Baltimore, Maryland,
USA. He is the author of Intimate Bureaucracies (2012), Networked
Art (2001), Artificial Mythologies (1997) and has edited or
co-edited volumes on Electracy: Gregory L. Ulmer's Textshop
Experiments (2015), Posthumography (2010), Imaging Place (2009),
and Drifts (2007). He has published widely on Fluxus and visual
poetry and serves as the Reviews Editor and Blog Report columnist
for Rhizomes.
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