Exit Strategy - Raw Notes Rev. OD001

This is research data only for an ongoing crowdsourced novels review of Exit Strategy by Douglas Rushkoff.
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About Author

clipped from: en.wikipedia.org Douglas Rushkoff

Douglas Rushkoff (born 18 February 1961) is a New York-based writer, columnist and lecturer on technology, media and popular culture.

Today, he teaches media theory at New York University's (NYU) Interactive Telecommunications Program. Rushkoff is known for being an active member of the cyberpunk movement and was the online associate of Timothy Leary. His rooted, often insightful, views on cyberculture and the media made him a sought after advisor and consultant with many organizations and companies, including the United Nations Commission on World Culture and the Sony corporation. Though an advocate for new technologies, his views lean towards a rational, creative and open source use of technology, making him a founding member of Technorealism. This extends to his broader philosophy as the founder of an online community for discussion of Judaism and related issues, called Open Source Judaism.

Books
# He is currently writing an on-going comic book series for DC Comics Vertigo imprint entitled Testament with art and cover by Liam Sharp.
# In addition to Testament, he recently revealed on the Get Illuminated podcast that he is going to be work on another comic series, as well as another non-fiction book under the supervision of John Brockman, which he stated will be "The book!".
# Exit Strategy (Bull, in the UK) (fiction) (Soft Skull Press, 2002)
# Nothing Sacred: The Truth About Judaism (Crown Publishers, 2003)
# Open Source Democracy: How Online Communication is Changing Offline Politics (Demos, 2003)
# Club Zero-G (graphic novel, with artist Steph Dumais) (The Disinformation Company, 2004)
# Get Back In The Box: Innovation From The Inside Out (CollinsBusiness, 2005)
# Coercion: Why We Listen To What "They" Say (Penguin Putnam, 2000)
# Ecstasy Club A Novel (HarperEdge, 1997)
# Playing the Future: What We Can Learn From Digital Kids -Children of Chaos in the UK (Riverhead Books, 1996)

E-Book History

clipped from: www.wired.com By M.J. Rose | Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Feb, 19, 2002

Syndicated columnist and NPR commentator Douglas Rushkoff's Exit Strategy will be published in print along with footnotes contributed by readers of the free e-book version published last July.

Written as an early 21st-century manuscript discovered in the 23rd century, Exit Strategy is annotated heavily by fictional anthropologists who struggle to understand things like Ritalin, wedgies and The Shining.

More than a thousand people around the world participated in the project, with a disproportionate number from Croatia, Rushkoff said.

The author says the reader's footnotes were better than his own, which was the whole point of the project. "Open source means to prove that collaboration works better than authority, or private authorship, for that matter. Universal autonomy beats slavery to absolutes," he said. "It's the point of the book, too. What my modern-day Joseph learns is that people who build pyramids are slaves -- whether they're physical pyramids or investment ones." Traditional publishers, according to the author, couldn't understand his willingness to surrender his "authority" over his own work by letting others participate. Nor could they understand his desire to "devalue" his copyright by posting a whole book online.

But now a non-traditional small press will publish the print version. Soft Skull Press understands that publishing in the 21st century means allowing readers to participate in the narrative," Rushkoff said. "That's the whole thing our civilization is trying to learn: how to co-author reality, rather than live by decree."

Richard Eoin Nash, chairman of Soft Skull, said the project not only allowed Rushkoff to interact more directly with his readers (and let him become a reader of his reader's writing), but "it allowed for the book's shortcomings as a static thing, a monologue, to be overcome ... (and) turned into a living thing."

Nash expects some readers of the print book will go to the site and add new annotations. Others might go to the site and to the annotations Rushkoff chose to omit from the print version. In subsequent printings, the annotations will continue to be updated.

"So the whole project becomes this fascinating organism, a conversation between people, a dialogue between the e-book and the print book," Nash said.

Visually, the publisher is planning to have the footnotes run in a column alongside the main text -- rather than at the bottom -- so the reader will be able to take in both in an easier manner: The ball will bounce from left-to-right and back, rather than up-and-down, up-and-down.

3-D e-books: Currently, e-books only offer a 2-D experience. But thanks to a grant, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will work on creating one that offers the experience of viewing a book in three dimensions. The $530,000 grant comes from E.S.P. Das Educational Foundation, a private organization in New York City. UNC, along with ibiblio.org, a free online library based at UNC, will use the funding to try to recreate the 3-D effect. Currently, digitizing library collections result in two-dimensional images that leave out key elements, including paper texture and graphical information.

"The 3-D digital library will enhance these components of rare books and historic documents, giving readers the sense that they are actually handling the books," said Paul Jones, ibiblio.org director and supervisor of the new project. He believes the 3-D library will be the first of its kind on the Web.

The 3-D library will consist of an interactive system for viewing rare books and historically significant material in single or collection form, as well as a set of procedures and software tools for scanning, converting and distributing the material online.

Author's review reviewed and rejected: In a battle to defend his work from the slings and arrows of some negative reviews -- including one by Laura Miller on Salon.com -- Caleb Carr last week posted his own review of his most recent book on Amazon.com and gave himself five stars. But readers can no longer view it.

A week after it appeared, Amazon removed Carr's review of The Lessons Of Terror.
Story continued on Page 2 »

Dis-information Comments clipped from: www.disinfo.com douglas rushkoff by Alex Burns (alex@disinfo.com) - November 10, 2002

Witty and always provocative, Douglas Rushkoff is a candidate for the most high-profile (and widely read) cyberculture analyst to emerge from the US in the early 1990s.

Rushkoff's views on the Internet, popular culture and mutant media have influenced and impacted upon government and business policies. Controversy and debate surround most of his seven books, invigorating and defining the limits of cyberculture discourse.

Rushkoff's second book, Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace (San Franciso: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994) was amongst the first books to capture the new subcultures that arose from the collision of psychedelics, raves, industrial music, hacking, chaos theory, and early computer networks. Through direct experience and seminal case-studies, Rushkoff conveyed the Memetic Drift of 1960s hippie rebellion mutating into new forms. From Cyberdelia to emerging Tribalism, Cyberia offered readers an insider's view into hedonistic explorations of human consciousness. Despite its now obvious flaws, it is best read as a snapshot of cyberculture's early years.

Media Virus: Hidden Agendas In Popular Culture (New York: Ballantine Books, 1994) was the book that established Rushkoff's international status as virtuoso media analyst and cyberculture icon. Becoming the virtual textbook on 'mutant media' for advertising agencies, Media Virus featured many now-standard case-studies of culture jamming, hacking, memetic engineering, and media manipulation: the O.J. Simpson trial; the Rodney King videotape; The Simpsons and Beavis & Butthead television shows; rave music; Court TV and COPS; DMT and Ecstasy mindscapes. He was hailed by New Perspectives Quarterly as "the brilliant heir to Marshall McLuhan."

Rushkoff also uncovered close links between Wired magazine and the Global Business Network think-tank, hinting at questionable business practices and conflicts of interest.

The predictable backlash from other cyber-critics became evident when the New York Times newspaper (November 25, 1996) printed claims that Rushkoff was being paid $7500/hr consultancy fees by multi-national corporations to sell generational secrets.

Savaged by Wired, Rushkoff's next book Playing The Future: What We Can Learn From Digital Kids (1996, 1999; published in the U.K. as Children of Chaos) upped the ante, challenging prevailing ideologies regarding Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and the effects of television violence on children. Hostile critics marred the book's public reception, but Rushkoff had already turned his attention to other avenues.

His first novel The Ecstasy Club (1997) convincingly captures the group dynamics and fractured youth culture dreams of Mondo 2000 era ravers and hackers. Considered to be his best book to date, it was optioned by Miramax/Dimension film studios.

Rushkoff has faced vocal critics, notably Mark Dery and Richard Barbrook, who have attacked the breathless optimism and perceived ideological contradictions of his writings, and his multi-national corporations consultancy. In reply, Rushkoff has attacked the New Left's hatred of material success, countered he isn't a mindless 'techno-utopian' as often depicted, and reminded critics he files experiential frontline reports, not over-wordy namedropping academic treatises (Cyberia, Media Virus and Playing The Future were all written prior to August 1995, before the Internet began to 'cross-the-chasm' into popular consciousness).

His high-profile columns for the New York Times Syndicate and NPR All Things Considered radio commentaries, as well as media studies programs for New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program indicate that Rushkoff's views populate the global data-sphere.

Rushkoff's new book Coercion: Why We Listen To What 'They' Say (1999) is his uncompromising critical reply: a timely deconstruction of media wars and manipulative tactics used by postmodern marketers and e-commerce merchants.

Rushkoff continued his infiltration of corporate boardrooms with a report for the PBS documentary Merchants of Cool. With his "open-source" novel Bull (London: Sceptre Books, 2001), Rushkoff has written an allegorical satire of the early 21st century, including footnotes from 23rd century anthropologists. He invites readers of Exit Strategy, the US serialization, to submit their own definitions and footnotes, for possible inclusion in the US print edition.
The views expressed above represent the writer and not necessarily those of The Disinformation Company Ltd.

Interview

clipped from: www.greengalactic.com DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF
Exit Strategy
http://www.rushkoff.com

Green Galactic is a marketing and production media company specializing in youth culture. In addition to general marketing services such as publicity, promotions and public relations, we are emerging as a pop culture solution provider for anyone wanting to effectively reach and deliver to hip markets.

Visionary Douglas Rushkoff Readies Exit Strategy, The World's First "Open Source" Novel. Novel Excerpted in August Issue of Yahoo! Internet Life Magazine and Released on Magazine's Web Site as Serial.

New York, NY (July 8, 2001) – Visionary Douglas Rushkoff announced today that he is launching Exit Strategy, his latest bombshell on our complacent media culture, as the first ever "open source" novel. Debuting his work on the Web site of Yahoo! Internet Life – the world's leading consumer lifestyle magazine covering the Internet with more than 5.3 million readers, Rushkoff invites the general public to add to his story by contributing original footnotes. The author will then include the best 100 footnotes in the final edition of the novel, which will be published in both print and electronic formats. Exit Strategy's online serialization on Yahoo! Internet Life's Web site (http://www.yil.com/rushkoff/) will begin on July 8th and continue for fourteen weeks. The novels first chapter will be excerpted in Yahoo! Internet Life's August issue, on newsstands July 17th.

Rushkoff's "open source" concept, originally developed by computer programmers to expand their work with peers, is a huge departure from traditional book publishing as well as the early attempts at online publishing. Exit Strategy is written in the form of a manuscript that is "found" in the 23rd Century by a group of anthropologists. In trying to explain the nascent 21st century culture to people of their own era, the anthropologists clarify the text with extensive footnotes. Rushkoff invites the public to devise their own footnotes and add their own social commentary throughout the novel, all in the voices of 23rd century scholars. As the book evolves with more footnote commentaries, Rushkoff will lead online discussions on Yahoo! Internet Life's bulletin boards about how the novel is evolving.

"By opening the footnotes to the world, I'm giving everyone a chance to futurecast - to imagine how things will be different," explained Rushkoff. "It's also an opportunity to look at our world today and its shortcomings from a very new perspective. The novel I've written is just the starting point for this collaborative writing project. Ultimately, the footnotes will become more important than the novel itself."

Exit Strategy is a satire of today's market and technology obsessed culture, told from the point of view of a young Jewish hacker-turned-venture-capitalist. The story takes place in 2008, when Silicon Alley has once again turned unabashedly 'bullish.' Looking back, society blames the 'crash of 2001' on people losing faith and focusing on revenues instead of simply speculating.

"Exit Strategy, itself, is an example of the power of interactivity to create a better whole; it's truly visionary," said Barry Golson, Editor in Chief of Yahoo! Internet Life magazine. "We are proud to be working with Douglas and our readers to create one of the world's first interactive novels."

In the spirit of the project, Rushkoff will also publish two editions of the book electronically with iPublish.com at Time Warner Books. First, iPublish will release a beta edition of the work in September. Then, iPublish will publish the open source edition which includes readers' footnotes selected by Rushkoff.

"This is the kind of project that made me interested in eBooks," said Zachary Schisgal, Rushkoff's iPublish.com editor. "You could never undertake a project with this kind of imagination and interactivity in print."

Douglas Rushkoff is the author of seven best-selling books on new media and popular culture, including Cyberia, Media Virus, Playing the Future, GenX Reader, Coercion, and the novel Ecstasy Club. He can be heard as a biweekly commentator on NPR's All Things Considered, and he regularly appears on TV shows from NBC Nightly News to Larry King Live and Politically Incorrect. Rushkoff's writing can be read in numerous top publications; his monthly column on cyberculture, which is distributed through the New York Times Syndicate, appears in over thirty countries.
Rushkoff, a frequent lecturer to worldwide university and corporate audiences, also hosts and writes documentaries, including PBS's acclaimed Frontline documentary "The Merchants of Cool". For the past three years, he has been an adjunct professor of virtual culture at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program. On the boards of half a dozen new-media companies as well as several global organizations, Rushkoff graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University and received an MFA in directing from California Institute of the Arts.

About Yahoo! Internet Life

Yahoo! Internet Life (www.yil.com) is the world's largest consumer lifestyle magazine covering the Internet. The publication, which has a circulation of 1.1 million, is read monthly by more than 5.3 million people. In March 2001, Yahoo! Internet Life was named one of Adweek's Hot List Top 10 Magazines 2001. Chronicling the culture, content and community of the Internet, Yahoo! Internet Life has a licensing and promotion agreement with Yahoo, Inc. but remains an editorially independent magazine. It is not owned by Yahoo, Inc. It is owned and published by Ziff Davis Media and is one of three publications under the Consumer Media Group, which also includes Family PC and Expedia Travels.

Reader Reviews

clipped from: www.amazon.com Customer Reviews

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
plug-in, February 11, 2006
Reviewer:Kenji Siratori (Japan) - See all my reviews
"EXIT STRATEGY, the body encoder that the technojunkie was debugged to the human body pill paradise apparatus of this abolition world plug-in, to send back out cruel emulator of hyperreal HIV=scanner form era respiration-byte." - Kenji Siratori, author of Blood Electric

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
new way to live the modern life, February 10, 2005
Reviewer:W. Yuan (Malden, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME) So everything is a game? If we don't think it is, if we take it too seriously we are going to end up being bulls or Jamie. But if we play it as a game, we will have fun? Then if we play the game, we have to understand the rules of the game. If we don't know that it is a game, we live in it, do we become "bad" charactors--bulls, or do we become "Jamie"--the painfully concious person? I think Rushkoff is telling the reader to play, engage, and get out. Engage, play, win or lose, get out.

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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Pleasant Surprise, December 12, 2003
Reviewer:William McDonald (Jacksonville, NC USA) - See all my reviews
You can tell Rushkoff is a greenhorn novelist, as the plot falters at points. You often get the feeling that he's trying a bit too hard, but the care that he put into the novel just seeps through to cover up in technical failings. I love the human face Rushkoff puts on the dot.com mentalities of the late 90's. I was just waiting to piss on this book (it was given to me by a friend that usally has taste of that sort), but it was at least moderately enjoyable all the way through and absolutely outstanding a great deal of the time as well. PLUS, Dzama's illustrations are just great. Only thing I wish it that there were more of them.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
what a ride!, November 18, 2002
Reviewer: A reader
my god. this one blew me away. amazing i hadn't heard of it through normal review channels. destined to be a cult classic, rips through the end of the 20th century like no other satire. written in a wry witty way, with insight and humor.

weird to say, but it's a warm book about some cold people.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
fantastic book .., September 26, 2002
Reviewer:G. MCPHERSON - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME) This is truly a must own book. If you are not familiar with this book, enjoy it, even savior it while you're reading it. This is the type of book that you never want to finish and when you do, you're practically bummed. The storyline is very innovative, the humor sharp and the pacings quick. The bottomline is this book is an excellent read.

I would love to go into particulars about the book but it's kind of a hard one to summarize. I would say that it's almost a cross of The Illuminatus Trilogy and SNOWCRASH. This next comment sounds like a lofty claim, but to me, this book was much better then stephenson's SNOW CRASH.

If you enjoy groundbreaking SCI-FI, I would highly recommend you looking further into this book. I can honestly say that it amazes me that this book never got more fanfare. Critics miss the boat all the time but this book is so good that it should have a grass roots or cult movement that keeps it selling.

Buy a copy, maybe that'll be the start, maybe not but I promise that after you finish reading the book you'll agree.

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