Eponymously Yours, W. Skeffington Higgins

Mac Montandon's new book Jetpack Dreams has just been published. I met Mac at the Rocketbelt Convention in 2006, and since then we have corresponded occasionally. He set out to chronicle the past and future of the jetpack, and emotions about the jetpack.

It's being promoted very effectively, having been reviewed by Wall Street Journal, Time, and GQ. And it popped up at Boingboing yesterday.

Mac has also started a Jetpack Dreams blog and you can read excerpts from the book at his site. I liked this:

As I began telling friends and colleagues about my plan, I quickly realized that I was far from alone. In fact, just about every (male) friend I told, regardless of age, responded with what can only be called spazzy enthusiasm. One guy, a majestically ironic twenty-something magazine editor, confessed manically to me: “Yes! Yes, totally. I remember sitting in class when I was a little kid just wishing I could blast off with a jetpack and get out of there.” He gripped the side of his chair to demonstrate and shook like a hipster epileptic while making throaty blast-off noises: “Shhhhrrrrrruugghhhh!”

We were having lunch in one of those Manhattan restaurants where the wait staff consists entirely of supermodels, and by acting so publicly geeky, he was ensuring that he would never get to date one. By extension, my friend was basically telling me that he’d rather talk about jetpacks than have sex with a supermodel.

I am braced for the possibility that Jetpack Dreams will not be entirely flattering. One review quotes a description of rocket belt enthusiasts: "These are the anonymous, doughy faces of obsession." But since the book does seem to address certain aspects of the twenty first-century Zetgeist, it may prove to be popular.

The most remarkable thing about the launch (sorry, I can't help myself) of this book is that it comes with a trailer. That's right, a trailer.


Jetpack Dreams Trailer from Mac Montandon on Vimeo.

More books should have trailers, I think.

The world needs more computers that look like this.

Technically, I guess, the Iwoodkiosk is a kiosk casemod for the G5 Imac.

Once upon a time, if you bought a letterpress or a stove or a sewing machine, it had polished wooden parts, and the cast-iron parts had vines or leaping stags. Why shouldn't computers be decorative? We have just lived through many years of beige boxes. Time for something different.

I'd love to see these guys come up with a desktop model!