William Gibson

From "Now romancer," Dennis Lim's interview of William Gibson, author of Spook Country.

Our present has become so unutterably brief and ever-changing that we have no ground upon which we can stand and project a future historical arc as H.G. Wells and Robert Heinlein were able to. The short form of that is, none of us know what the hell is going to happen next.

As a New York resident of 10 years, I find that this next observation rings particularly true...

I used to worry that there was no more territory in which bohemias could grow, but now I think they grow best on the Web. You don't need a physical neighborhood where everybody's into the same outfit and drug of choice. You can't really do that anymore because it gets marketed back to you as soon as you try it, but on the Web I think you still can.

Often true: "Magazines are by definition aggregators of novelty."