Peep Diaries A Globe and Mail Top Book 2009

Posted by: Hal
Tags: blogging, news

Happy to say that The Peep Diaries appears on the Globe and Mail Top 100 books of 2009 list. Check it out.

Comments: -2-, Add yours…

 

Final Peep Event For 2009

Posted by: Hal
Tags: hal, culture

My final Peep event! It’s in Peterborough, Ontario as part of the great Cooked and Eaten Reading Series.

Here are the details.

Are We Not Peep?: an examination of the new transparency

With: author Hal Niedzviecki, Professor Alison Hearn and web developer, Glenn Eve

Thursday, December 10th, 2009, 7pm
Artspace, 378 Aylmer St., North
Tickets: $8 at the door

Hal will be giving a multimedia presentation about the book which will be followed by what I expect to be a lively panel discussion including Hal, Professor Alison Hearn and web developer, Glenn Eve. Questions will centre around how this new culture is changing our world.

Hal Niedzviecki’s writing has appeared in newspapers, periodicals across North America including The New York Times Magazine, Playboy, Adbusters, the Utne Reader, the Globe and Mail, the National Post, Toronto Life, Walrus, and Geist. He is the author of many books including most recently The Peep Diaries: How We’re Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors. Alison Hearn is a Research Associate at the Centre for Policy Research in Science and Technology at Simon Fraser University focusing on visual and tele-visual theory and culture, media art activism, and on the university as a cultural and political site. She is currently working on a book about reality television entitled Real Incorporated: Explorations in reality television and contemporary visual culture. Glenn Eve has spent the last 30 years designing software applications for national and multinational organizations. He has also spent way too much time pulling projects back from the flaming abyss. His new venture, purpledog Digital, creates web based interactive story telling tools for small businesses who simply need to get the job done.   More Readings and Info at cookedandeaten.com

Comments: -1-, Add yours…

 

My Last Toronto area Peep Event is Tonight

Posted by: Hal
Tags: hal

It’s at 8pm at McNally Robinson bookstore, which is in the Shops of Don Mills, 1090 Don Mills Road, Toronto.

I’ll be showing Peep clips, talking about the general weirdness of contemporary culture from balloon boy to Raymi the Minx, and generally having a good time.

Come by and say hi and contribute to the discussion.

This event is sponsored by Walrus Magazine as part of their Walrus Reads series at McNally and Walrus staffer and talented writer Stacey May Fowles will host and lob questions at me to get the conversation started.

See ya tonight!

 

Comments: -2-, Add yours…

 

People I No Longer Talk To

Posted by: Hal
Tags: relationships, blogging, exposure, favourite, personal, diary, culture

Here’s my Peep Site of the moment:

People I No Longer Talk To

A blog redolent with regret, nostalgia, and bewilderment featuring the true stories of people who have fallen out with other people and no longer speak with them, often for no particular reason.

Here’s a short sample from a much longer post: “Phil. We met through a mutual high school friend. After college, and into our twenties, we became the best of friends. We saw each other often and talked on the phone. He was always involved in dysfunctional relationships, including a 16 year old girl that he started seeing when he was in his late 20s. He bought her breast implants and she dumped him shortly thereafter - he never even got to see his $3,000 investment.”

Enjoy.

Comments: -4-, Add yours…

 

Word of the Year 2009: Unfriend

Posted by: Hal
Tags: surveillance, blogging, exposure, news, personal, hals-life, peep-the-game

I start off my book The Peep Diaries by noting that the 2008 word of the year as identified by the Webster’s New World Dictionary was Overshare. (Read the original blog post here.) Now the new Oxford American Dictionary has stepped up to the plate to preach the new lexicon of Peep to the linguistically inventive masses, giving us Unfriend as their 2009 word of the year. (Lamely, Webster’s went with Distracted Driving as their word of the year…is that even a word? It’s more like a phrase…regardless, it’s not catchy and it won’t last.)

Unfriend, of course, is the term we use when we drop someone from Facebook. It’s a word remarkable for its brevity, cruelly, silliness, utility and ambiguity. Were they even your friend in the first place? Probably not. We unfriend when someone we’ve invited to our broadcast breaks the (unstated) rules of peep. For instance, if some loser from junior high starts posting pictures of me at 13 years-old wearing my seer sucker suit, white leather shoes and oversized plastic framed glasses then it’s unfriend time. And detag time, too. (Ah detag…an excellent candidate for 2010, me thinks…)

Also in the running for this year’s prize: sexting.

Well that concludes the peep vocabulary lesson for this year.

ps– plenty of discussion in the blogosphere regarding the choice of unfriend…here’s a link that links to various bloggers opining…

Comments: -1-, Add yours…

 

 
Page 1 of 2  ||   1 2 >

The Bloggist

Hey, I’m Hal Niedzviecki. I’m a writer/thinker who lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wife and daughter. Up till now I’ve always considered myself a private person. But at the same time I’m fascinated by people who effortlessly open themselves up to the whole world. So I’ve… more...

Twitter

it’s a miracle: i’m actually cleaning my office.

Hal Niedzviecki :: ·9:49AM

amazing broken pencil advertising deal: $35 ads in the mag and online. just a few spots left! http://ping.fm/NJvb2

Hal Niedzviecki :: ·13:48PM

Tag Cloud

 

Archive Months

February, 2010
January, 2010
December, 2009
November, 2009
October, 2009
September, 2009