2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake is a fundraising anthology of essays about the Japan quake and tsunami. It was organized on Twitter and published in a very short time (it’s a Kindle book). Contributors include Yoko Ono and William Gibson, who explains his motives to the Globe and Mail:
His contribution begins with a description of a weird scene he once witnessed in Tokyo while riding in a taxi along an elevated highway and seeing into a lit room where a naked man sat at a long marble table. That unsettling vision leads him into “this strange meditation on the profound restlessness I was feeling after the quake and the tsunami, which made me feel I should go there, I should do something. I don’t even know if it was an urge to help. It was an urge to make sure one of my favourite places was there…”
“These are what the Victorians would have called occasional pieces: ‘on the occasion of the great earthquake.’ The form is an ancient one, but the platform is up to date. … In the past, it was gathered after the fact. Now, we have this facility to respond in real time.”
2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake
(via IO9)