Twitter-organized essay collection to benefit Japan quake, with contributions from Gibson and Yoko Ono

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

(Globe and Mail)

Quakebook excerpts

(via IO9)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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lecti

Willam Gibson, +1000. Yoko Ono, -10000. I guess they have to pay me to read this one.
- Anonymous
  
  Lecti, Yoko Ono’s piece is about a page and a half, so please, if you don’t want to read it don’t. The best parts in this book belong not to professionals or the famous but to those who were there. Spend the lousy 10 bucks and if you can tell me you weren’t the least bit affected by this book I’ll donate yet another 1000 yen to Red cross on your behalf.
boo

Just hoping that the use of the poster by Canadian signalnoise for the digital ‘cover’ of the book is being acknowledged.
- Anonymous
  
  It is credited properly on the copyright page.
grikdog

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/catalogs/eqs7day-M5.xml

Magnitude 5+ aftershocks off the coast of Honshu are a daily fact of life in Japan, recently. And the beating goes on….
Anonymous

Give a little, learn a lot, help the people in Japan. It’s a great read. It captures a moment of history from the viewpoint of many. The essays and short-pieces are moving and unforgettable.