{"id":36932,"date":"2011-07-10T15:47:38","date_gmt":"2011-07-10T15:47:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/reverse-engineering-john-mcphee-the-loom\/"},"modified":"2011-07-10T15:47:38","modified_gmt":"2011-07-10T15:47:38","slug":"reverse-engineering-john-mcphee-the-loom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/reverse-engineering-john-mcphee-the-loom.php","title":{"rendered":"Reverse Engineering John McPhee | The Loom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/40f83_mcphee_index.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"180\" height=\"190\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\">I&rsquo;ve never met John McPhee, but he&rsquo;s always been lurking around my office. I&rsquo;ve got a number of his books, and I always keep an eye out for his latest piece in the <em>New Yorker<\/em>. I can&rsquo;t count the number of times reading a few lines of his stuff helped get me revved up again for writing.<\/p><p>Recently, <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/alexis-madrigal\/\">Alexis Madrigal<\/a> of the <em>Atlantic<\/em> invited me to participate in a Neiman Storyboard series called <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.niemanstoryboard.org\/2011\/06\/24\/whys-this-so-good-intro-alexis-madrigal-longreads\/\">&ldquo;Why&rsquo;s This So Good?&rdquo;<\/a> Writers pick out a good piece of long-form journalism and try to figure out what makes it so. Having just revisited out McPhee&rsquo;s sprawling 1987 epic on engineering the Mississippi, &ldquo;Atchafalaya,&rdquo; I chose it for my object of study. <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.niemanstoryboard.org\/2011\/07\/07\/whys-this-so-good-no-2-john-mcphee-new-yorker-carl-zimmer\/\">Here&rsquo;s my take<\/a>. And, if you have a free moment to quaff 28,000 words, here&rsquo;s <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/archive\/1987\/02\/23\/1987_02_23_039_TNY_CARDS_000347146?currentPage=all\">McPhee&rsquo;s piece<\/a>.<\/p><p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/nWo3aNRWG99S3qhKuI5TtuxhJ9w\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/40f83_di\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><br><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/nWo3aNRWG99S3qhKuI5TtuxhJ9w\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/0e680_di\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><\/p><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/0e680_8HfTfYPVY90\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/0e680_8zEEavZz194\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&rsquo;ve never met John McPhee, but he&rsquo;s always been lurking around my office. I&rsquo;ve got a number of his books, and I always keep an eye out for his latest piece in the New Yorker. I can&rsquo;t count the number &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/reverse-engineering-john-mcphee-the-loom.php\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36932"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36932\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}