A series exploring the media “input” of a group of people — our commercial semiotician colleagues, from around the world — whose “output” we admire.

Kingston, New York…

SEMIOVOX

What forms of media do you “take in” the most regularly/frequently, during a typical day or week?

JOSH GLENN

I don’t read as voraciously as I once did, but I always have several genre novels going. Typically, I’m simultaneously re-reading an old favorite (right now, Charles Stross’s Glasshouse), plus something obscure (to me, anyway) that I’ve discovered through my ongoing research (Suzy McKee Charnas’ Walk to the End of the World), plus a contemporary work (Charlie Jane Anders’ latest, Lessons in Magic and Disaster). I’m constantly reading proto-sf from c. 1900–1935, for the Radium Age series that I edit for The MIT Press. Also, for the first time ever I’ve been tapped to be a beta reader — for a dark fantasy / gothic horror novel in progress by my friend and semio colleague Ramona Lyons. It’s so good!

I subscribe to the digital version of the New York Times, which I peruse each morning, and then that’s it — no more news for the rest of the day. But after having spent years working in media (magazine, newspaper, website), I remain fond of print. So through a wonderful print-focused local shop, Curious Kingston, I subscribe to Harper’s and The Baffler. I prefer magazines whose editors are concerned not with what they suspect I might want to read, but rather with what they want me to read. I skim my wife’s New Yorker too, and I try to support zines published here in Kingston — Good Neighbor is a favorite.

I subscribe to comic books via World’s End, my local comics shop. Right now: James Robinson and Jesus Merino’s Los Monstruos (Dark Horse), Farel Dalrymple’s Robot Tod (Floating World), Patrick Horvath’s Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees: Rites of Spring (IDW), Deniz Camp and Javier Rodríguez’s Absolute Martian Manhunter (DC/AU). And I subscribe to an ever-changing variety of newsletters. One permanent subscription is to my friend and collaborator Rob Walker’s excellent substack The Art of Noticing — which Rob describes as “ideas, inspiration, and provocations for creativity, work, and staying human.”

Alas, I don’t watch much TV — for a semiotician, that’s not something to brag about. Recent series I’ve managed to stick with include The Bear, Adolescence, and Murderbot. I enjoy some unscripted shows, like Queer Eye and The Great British Bakeoff. I subscribe to BritBox, so I can stream series like Ludwig, Chewing Gum, and Get Millie Black.

I watch movies constantly, often ones I’ve seen before, which I’ll play in a corner of my computer screen with the sound off while working on a project. I absorb such silent / silenced movies — less so their plots than their blocking, camera angles, and so forth — almost subdermally.

SEMIOVOX

What work of literature (old or new) would you recommend to someone trying to make sense of today’s world?

JOSH GLENN

Philip K. Dick’s hastily written science fiction from c. 1964–1973 predicts our present moment here in the USA: environmental collapse, escapist virtual experiences, smartphone-enabled hookups, manipulative authority figures, capitalist moguls with godlike pretensions, neofascist regimes that portray themselves as champions of liberty, robots who show empathy and human beings who do not, paranoids who are right and paranoids who are wrong, American presidents and other world leaders who cannot be anything other than meat puppets or evil aliens… and in general, a bewildering sense that the distinction between reality and illusion, fact and fiction, has become blurred — perhaps forever.

SEMIOVOX

What music — genres, particular artists and songs — do you listen to during a typical day?

JOSH GLENN

I barely listen to music during the day — I’m not someone who needs to have a constant soundtrack. Quite the contrary. When I’m working on a semiotics project, though, I feed music to that part of my brain that otherwise would distract me. To that end, four times a year I make a new playlist. I try to include mostly music that I don’t know well — both contemporary and older stuff. I experiment with algorithm-driven recommendation engines, while also seeking recommendations from trusted human sources, like my adult sons Sam and Max.

It’s so tempting to listen only to music that one liked in one’s teens and twenties! I’m making a concerted effort not to go that route. Songs from my latest playlist do include selections from the ’60s (The Troggs’ “Hip Hip Hooray,” Jerry Lee Lewis’ “I’m on Fire,” Love’s “You Set the Scene”), ’80s (H.R.’s “It’s About Luv,”), and ’90s (The Neckbones’ “Hit Me”). But most of the tracks are newer, including: Whitney’s “Dandelions,” fakemink’s “MAKKA,” Dean Blunt and Elias Rønnenfelt’s “1,” The Trusty Knife’s “Now You See Me Now You Don’t,” Evelyn’s “I’m A Dog,” Ginger Winn’s “Socrates,” Palinstar’s “Feels Better Now,” Hayes Carll’s “Progress of Man (Bitcoin & Cattle),” The Hogslop String Band’s “Ooh La La,” Charley Crockett’s “Crucified Son,” and MJ Lenderman’s “Wristwatch.” I’m trying….

MEDIA DIET: GIANLLUCA SIMI (Brazil) | HIBATO BEN AHMED (France) | MARIE LENA TUPOT (USA) | EUGENE GORNY (Thailand) | YOGI HENDLIN (Netherlands / USA) | INKA CROSSWAITE (Germany / South Africa) | SÓNIA MARQUES (Portugal) | ĽUDMILA LACKOVÁ BENNETT (Czechia) | BRIAN KHUMALO (USA / South Africa) | JIAKUN WANG (Shanghai) | FRANCISCO HAUSS (China / Mexico) | ASHLEY MAURITZEN (England) | STEFANIA GOGNA (Italy) | BECKS COLLINS (England) | ANTJE WEISSENBORN (Germany) | MARIANE CARA (Brazil) | MARTHA ARANGO (Sweden) | PAULINA GOCH-KENAWY (Poland) | COCO WU (Singapore / China) | JOSH GLENN (USA) | JENNIFER VASILACHE (Switzerland) | ANDREA BASUNTI (England) | SARAH JOHNSON (Canada) | MARIA PAPANTHYMOU (Greece) | VICTORIA GERSTMAN (Scotland).

Also see these global semio series: MAKING SENSE (Q&As) | SEMIOFEST SESSIONS (monthly mini-conferences) | COVID CODES | SEMIO OBJECTS | COLOR CODEX | DECODER (fictional semioticians) | CASE FILE | PHOTO OP | MEDIA DIET | TATTOO YOU (semioticians’ tattoos).