Trickster Makes This World
by Lewis Hyde · first published 1997
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Lewis Hyde's ambitious and captivating Trickster Makes This World brings to life the playful and disruptive side of the human imagination as it is embodied in the trickster mythology. Most at home on the road or at the twilight edge of town, tricksters are consummate boundary-crossers, slipping through keyholes, breaching walls, subverting defense systems. Always out to satisfy their inordinate appetites, lying, cheating, and stealing, tricksters are a great bother to have around, but paradoxically they are also indispensable culture heroes. In North America, Coyote taught the race how to dr
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…and artistry, and how the gifting ethos is necessary for any culture to thrive. If you think ESR had the last word on how open source works, you need to read this. Another book of interest by Hyde is Trickster Makes This World, wherein you learn the hacker archetype - the giver of technology; the player of tricks - has been around since prehistory. It's not a coincidence that those two aspects are always seen together.
on “Ask HN: What is the most mind blowing book you've ever read?” ↗I don't exactly disagree, but I do suggest reading "Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art" by Lewis Hyde. There is a reasonable argument to be made that a lot of art is enlivened by the cantankerous, unpredictable and unyielding nature of the media we use to create…
on “Will Smith's concert crowds are real, but AI is blurring the lines” ↗