Tech · MIT Technology Review
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In an outline for the overall work, Brand says his goal is to “end with the nature of maintainers and the honor owed them.” The idea that maintainers are owed anything, much less honor, might surprise some readers.
Key facts
- In 1985, Brand published the Whole Earth Software Catalog, the last of the series, and also cofounded the WELL—the Whole Earth ’Lectronic Link, a pioneering online community famous for, among other
- He tells them that Bill Gates once shorted Tesla’s stock, only to lose $1.5 billion
- In 1966, Brand co-produced the Trips Festival, where bands like the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company performed for thousands amid psychedelic light shows
- Brand’s 1994 book, How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built, argued against high-modernist architectural ideas
Summary
The handsome new book Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One, by the tech industry legend Stewart Brand, promises to be the first in a series offering “a comprehensive overview of the civilizational importance of maintenance.” One of Brand’s several biographers described him as a mainstay of both counterculture and cyberculture, and with Maintenance, Brand wants them to understand that the upkeep and repair of tools and systems has profound impact on daily life. As he puts it, “Taking responsibility for maintaining something—whether a motorcycle, a monument, or our planet—can be a radical act.” Radical how? Actually, maintenance and repair have been hot topics in academia since the mid-2010s. Brand is right, too, that maintainers haven’t gotten the laurels they deserve. It’s hard to think of any other reason to put a computer in the door of a refrigerator.
Born in 1938, Brand is 87 years old. Maintenance: Of Everything connects to every stage of Brand’s life. Brand has always been interested in tools and fixing things, but rarely has he focused on the systems that need the most care. More than a half-century ago, Brand was a member of the Merry Pranksters, a countercultural, LSD-centered hippie collective famously led by Ken Kesey, the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest . In 1966, Brand co-produced the Trips Festival, where bands like the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company performed for thousands amid psychedelic light shows.