Agent Palmer

I haven’t done a Geek Space post in a while, and while the “Two Bakshi Walls” post is in this house and this office, to be specific, the last time I wrote about a shelf, it was back in my previous living space.

So I decided that I would focus on the shelf that is literally behind me when I sit at my desk to write, podcast, edit, work, all of the things. This shelf is pretty cool, though I’m in front of it and it isn’t seen much. This post will change all of that.

How did the PayPal service that we take for granted today come to pass? How close did it come to going under more than once? Just how precarious was its position in the fintech field?

These questions are answered in The Founders: The Story of PayPal and The Entrepreneurs who Shaped Silicon Valley by Jimmy Soni. This book is more than just a story about the supposed PayPal Mafia; it’s the story of Silicon Valley success.

Today, the average content creator is likely to get “canceled” by either the right or the left because what they said was ideologically different.

But decades ago, the Smothers Brothers were removed from the airwaves because they were ideologically ahead of their time, and perhaps because they were trying to ruffle a few feathers along the way.

The point is, Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” by David Bianculli is more than a walk through a different time.

Two years after the first publication of Douglas Coupland’s Souvenir of Canada, a brilliant if unconventional guide to Canadian culture, he published Souvenir of Canada 2. After all, it all couldn’t be distilled down into just one singular volume.

Unlike the first book which contains a smattering of personal anecdotes, this book is much more personal to Coupland, in both the stories of his family and the way this book is written. It feels like he’s telling you these things personally.