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publications

Christian has written (and contributed to) a surprising number of books. Many are out of print and some were frankly forgettable. Here are the keepers.


Designing Social Interfaces

Principles, Patterns, and Practices for Improving the User Experience

img_book-dsi

This book presents a family of social web design principles and interaction patterns that we have observed and codified, thus capturing user-experience best practices and emerging social web customs for web 2.0 practitioners. [+]

Book's website

Other publications

The Grateful Dead in Concert

Essays on Live Improvisation

gd-in-concert

Buy

Christian contributed a brief allegorical short story to this volume called “The Thing is the thing is the thing is the thing is there is no thing.”
This book offers a spirited analysis of the unique improvisational character of Grateful Dead music and its impact on appreciative fans. The 20 essays capture distinct facets of the … [+]

Designing Social Interfaces

Principles, Patterns, and Practices for Improving the User Experience

img_book-dsi

Buy

This book presents a family of social web design principles and interaction patterns that we have observed and codified, thus capturing user-experience best practices and emerging social web customs for web 2.0 practitioners. [+]

The Power of Many

How the Living Web is Transforming Business, Politics, and Everyday Life

powerofmanny

Buy

The development of social networks on the Web touches countless aspects of our everyday lives. With instant access to people of similar mindsets, near or far, we can readily form partnerships with more people and in more ways than ever before. It’s now possible to use Internet tools to organize a rally, energize a political … [+]

Coffeehouse

Writings from the Web

cohobo

Buy

An anthology of stories, poems and essays originally published on the World Wide Web. The purpose is to capture the zeitgeist of the web’s creative community, and to give readers a chance to enjoy some of the best and most notable original works that have appeared in this form. [+]

Nightjar

Stories and Poems

dragonfly__small

Buy

Anthology of work from Too Many Cooks Press.

Latest posts

All posts here

Bringing the rain

November 21, 2011

Earlier this year I was in New York on business so of course I spent some time hanging out with my brother, codename “xourmas.” (We have a little duo when we play together called the Power & Mighty.)

He taught me a few cover tunes he had been working on over the past little while, and soon afterward I was back home in Cali rehearsing with the Kincaid and I introduced those two tunes to the band.

The first one is a tune by an obscure band called the Greenhornes called “There is an End.” The second is a classic psychedelic lovesong by the German band Can, called “She Brings the Rain.” The former has a lyric in it that goes “Spring brings the rain,” so I’ve always associated the two songs. (One other I’d also associate with these is Morphine’s “You Look Like Rain” – another one I’d like to learn some day.)

Anyway, TRK quickly recorded a few live takes of both songs and a few of them came out pretty well. We’ve gradually been putting up our carefully recorded studio cuts on our new Bandcamp site, but I can’t resist sharing these more off-the-cuff live demo takes, so here are a few more for our multitudes of fans:

  • There is an End
  • She Brings the Rain

(I consider these two recordings to constitute an EP that I call “Tribute to Xourmas.”)

 

This ain’t no cocktail you buy in a bar

October 11, 2011

One of the songs I’ve been playing the longest with the Reuben Kincaid is an original by Dan Brodnitz aka Cecil aka Dan about prison booze called “Pruno.”

In fact, before the Kincaid even got together Pruno was one of the first tunes Dan taught me and that we played together, and it was one of the first songs I recorded myself playing with Dan, when I started to get the idea that this playing music together thing is actually pretty cool. At the time we were playing it on piano and uke but not TRK plays it in our current power trio format, with Dan on guitar (sometimes acoustic, sometimes electric), the Reverend So-Called Bill on bass, and myself on ukululu, of course. Vocals on the “I don’t want to be right” chorus by hillbilly leprechaun Samuel, who would himself never make or consume pruno.

Over the last few years we’ve played the song scores of times, usually with some major or minor flubs. The version I’m posting today is done in the slow epic/anthem mode, and has its share of clams, but is also a fairly representative demo of how we play “Pruno” today:

Pruno (demo)

UPDATE: Shared with the gracious permission of Dan Brodnitz!

Must-share flotsam: Dylan and the Band live

October 4, 2011

For your listening pleasure, this Bob Dylan and The Band 1969-1970 Compilation DVD:

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Press mentions

All mentions here
iai

The IA Institute reports that they added the slides and video from my keynote at the Italian IA Summit to the institute’s library, in the latest issue of the monthly IA Institute Newsletter.

iiasummit

Video of my keynote from the Italian IA Summit 2011 in Milan. [+]


Short Bio

Christian Crumlish is a senior director of product for AIM, past director of the Information Architecture Institute, and co-chair of the monthly BayCHI program. He is the author of The Power of Many and co-author of the new Designing Social Interfaces from O’Reilly Media and Yahoo! Press.

Resume / CV

Elsewhere on the web

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