carmodynamics

Sculpting Order From Chaos ★ johncarmody.com

Full Stack Development + Interactive Design + Teaching

My career has taken me... from managing a software store to database systems manager to network administrator to network emergency response technician to manager of information systems to web master to web developer to web designer to university professor.

What’s common to all these skills & roles?
Data management and design – the constant in all the information revolutions since Gutenberg.

Just look at this page from top to bottom for a sample of all the creative things I do in the realms of physical & digital media.

If you can describe it, I can build it and teach it: custom WordPress dev + data-driven interactive solutions for organizations which need something more than something off the shelf.

The sweet spot, that is, between development, design and data - that's where I work and reside.

Helping organizations & schools emerge from outdated systems, practices and standards is a specialty. Contact me to see how you and your students can get exactly what you want.

email: information (at) johncarmody (dot) net

Clients
Museums & galleries; foundations; law firms; journalists; restaurants; thoroughbred stables; energy companies; pro rock bands, & many others.
Teaching
Interactive web dev; graphic design; A/V post-production; book design; animation; art history; many more. Adjunct Professor at George Washington University and Montgomery College.
Skills
WordPress dev; interactive web design; project management; new media storytelling with data-driven maps, charts, galleries & timelines; audio & video editing; much more.
Biography
Upon being expelled in December of senior year I became a high school drop-out; before that, aptitude tests reported I was best suited to be a farmer.
Reading
I threw out my television more than 25 years ago, which leaves me plenty of time for reading.
Studio
My work studio is a co-mingling of the obsolete and the cutting edge, a regular Collyer Mansion for the modern man.
Photography
It took me awhile to go digital – a penultimate apostasy in my book. Want to see what I can do with a crummy camera?
Music
I cannot read or write a note of music — I taught myself by ear to play different instruments & write songs in sundry styles & genres.
Video
These are mostly time-lapse experiments – I shot the imagery and composed and performed the soundtracks.
Projects
Highlights of lectures, client and faculty work, proofs of concept in JavaScript, graphic design, live data sets, animation, information design and more.
News
Recent additions to this site: web projects, design projects, photo galleries, original music & video — you name it.
Resources
An archive of articles which tie into the web projects I build, the university courses I teach and the lecture audiences I address.

Can You Solve
“The Great Wall of Music”?

Can you spot the 12 differences?

A section of my studio was featured in the Washington Post Magazine's “Second Glance” section.

This installation evokes the better elements of a New York loft, a Berlin nightclub, a London used book & record store and an LA pawn shop. All in a Washington cellar.

I work inside a growing piece of art, an overlay of a gallery, performance space, design office and recording studio.

SOME CLIENT, FACULTY & PERSONAL WORK

Working with clients of all sizes, I am highly skilled at creating custom database-driven interactive solutions using WordPress, PHP, mySQL, jQuery, AJAX & Bootstrap. Database management is a specialty.

Most people in my field do web development *or* web design – I do both back- and front-end. I am well-versed in creating innovative applications serving up API-driven rich content from Scribd, Flickr, SoundCloud, YouTube, Twitter, Google Custom Search, Disqus, Wufoo and others.

I specialize in creating interactive storytelling experiences through integrating custom programming and open-source APIs in WordPress

Montgomery College

Media Arts & Technologies: Fundamentals of Graphic Design, II
Media Arts & Technologies: JavaScript Fundamentals
Media Arts & Technologies: Professional Website Development
Media Arts & Technologies: Web Portfolio (Capstone Course)

George Washington University

Graphic Design: Layout and Design of the Book
Digital Media Design: Frame-By-Frame Animation
Digital Media Design: Interactive Web Design I

The Corcoran College of Art + Design

Art History: Digital Media Culture
Graphic Design: Junior Studio Core, Graphic Design III
New Media Photojournalism: Graduate Program, Audio Production: Speed of Sound
New Media Photojournalism: Graduate Thesis, Directed Study
New Media Photojournalism: Senior Thesis, Directed Study
Digital Media Design: Senior Thesis, Digital Media Design IV
Digital Media Design: Junior Studio Core, Digital Media Design III
Digital Media Design: Interactive Web Design II
Digital Media Design: Interactive Web Design I
Digital Media Design: Sound Design
Digital Media Design: Flash Animation

The Catholic University of America

Interactive Media Design: Audio Production & Design
Interactive Media Design: Video Art w/Final Cut Pro
Interactive Media Design: Intro to Dreamweaver
Interactive Media Design: Intro to Flash

Seminar Presentation – the National Press Foundation

Information Design: A Foundation in Web Publishing Tools

Seminar Presentations – US General Accounting Office

Graphic Design: Web Design For Print Professionals
Information Design: Transitioning from Print to Web Publishing

Information DesignRetrosheet: dataset of play-by-play accounts of pre-1984 major league baseball games
Graphic Design7 Principles of Universal Design
Web DesignTutorials and inspiration all about CSS animation.
Web Designutorial: Duo Layout With CSS3 Animations & Transitions (Pt. 1)
Web Designutorial: Duo Layout With CSS3 Animations & Transitions (Pt. 2)
Web DesignVisual interface for cubic bezier timing functions, and seeing the results in real time
Web DesignEasy CSS Animation Using @keyframes
Web Designcreate CSS3 keyframes animation in your browser
Web DesignCSS | Keyframe Animation Syntax
Web DesignCSS Border-Radius Can Do That? | Webdesigner Depot
Web DesignCreating Non-Rectangular Layouts With CSS Shapes
ColorSchemeColor.com shares color combinations in detailed information on hexadecimal colors codes and converts them to RGB and CMYK equivalents.
Web DesignPHP – Flatten or Merge a Multidimensional Array
Web Dev + DesignHow to Prevent Form Spam by Using The Honeypot Technique
Web DesignBlock POST requests based on referer header using .htaccess
Web DesignBetter Honeypot Implementation (Form Anti-Spam)
Web Design10 Examples of Unorthodox Container Shapes Created with CSS
Web DesignHow to disable submit button once it has been clicked?
Web DesignHow do I use a PHP session to prevent duplicate form submissions?
WordPressWorried about WordPress and GDPR? Start Here
TypographyWeb Font Optimization
Web DesignGrid by Example – CSS Grid samples
Web DesignCSS Grid 3×3 grid examples
Web DesignUse Clip Path to Vary Your Designs on the Web

more resources >>

Some Of My Custom Designs @ TEEPUBLIC

Custom Face Mask Designs, Too

SOME OF MY ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS

I cannot read or write a note of music.

I taught myself by ear to play numerous instruments and write & arrange words, music and melodies into songs.

This is a small sampling of original songs, audio collages, time-lapse videos and photography I’ve composed, recorded, shot and otherwise created over the years.

This includes musical work I composed for instruments I cannot play (violin, cello, piano, baritone saxophone, tenor saxophone, others.)

I played in a lot of bands, made recordings, saw some parts of the USA that whet my appetite for travel seen through the windows of a band van.

Original Song:
“I Really Didn't Mean It”

When I wrote “I Really Didn’t Mean It”, I was thinking of a 'Buck Owens backed by the Stones in '65 with the drummer from Blondie' kind-of-thing, with a bouncy Buddy Holly-type guitar solo too.

This song was performed here by one of my 1st bands, The Revellaires, released on Top Records. Play it loud. Sing along.

>> Send it to your friends, make 'em feel better.

Words + Music © John Carmody.

Original Video:
“RESOLUTION NO. ONE”

“Resolution No. One” was influenced by Salvador Dali, Man Ray, Edward Hopper and The Who.

The goal was to create something that reflected brooding mood and intensity, solitude and anonymity. I wanted to shoot and edit time-lapse footage with people and animals and nature.

Listen closely to the soundscape I built for it – all the water, wind & bird sounds are signals from shortwave and pirate radio stations.

Photography + Audio © John Carmody.

All You Need To Know About Me

I went and pulled the plug more than 25 years ago, as an experiment in essential living.

Since 1992 I have been studying American heritage while living a pop culture hermitage.

That means: no TV, no Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram, no texting, no celebrities, no sports, no video games, no crummy music, no credit cards, no debt, no logos, no smart phone, no trends…

You get the idea.

Books Read, 2020: 35

Ironweed
William Kennedy
1983 - Fiction
Some Faces In The Crowd
Short Stories, 1938-1953
Budd Schulberg
1953 - Fiction
John Brown
The Making of a Martyr
Robert Penn Warren
1928 - Biography
Let Me Be Frank With You
Richard Ford
2014 - Fiction
The Mind Of God
The Scientific Basis For A Rational World
Paul Davies
1992 - Philosophy & Religion
The Man Who Knew Coolidge
Being the Soul of Lowell Schmaltz, Constructive and Nordic Citizen
Sinclair Lewis
1928 - Literature
The Conquerors
Roosevelt, Truman & the Destruction of Hitler's Germany
Michael Beschloss
2002 - History
Strategies For Winning
A Top Football Coach's Game Plan for Victory
George Allen
1990 - Sports
Notes From Underground
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1864 - Literature
Jack Benny
An Intimate Biography
Irving A. Fein
1976 - Biography
The Names
Don DeLillo
1982 - Fiction
World’s Fair
E. L. Doctorow
1985 - Fiction
A Michener Miscellany
1950-1970
James A. Michener
1973 - Non-Fiction
Street Without Joy
The French Debacle In Indochina
Bernard B. Fall
1964 - History
Judgment Day
James T. Farrell
1935 - Literature
“The Good War”
An Oral History Of World War II
Studs Terkel
1984 - History
Angle of Repose
Wallace Stegner
1971 - Literature
Until The End Of Time
Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe
Brian Greene
2020 - Physics & Math
Rabbit Is Rich
John Updike
1981 - Fiction
Goodbye, Columbus
And Five Short Stories
Philip Roth
1959 - Literature
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
An Inquiry Into Values
Robert M. Pirsig
1974 - Non-Fiction
For Our Beloved Country
American War Diaries from the Revolution to the Persian Gulf
Ed., Speer Morgan & Greg Michalson
1994 - Journals & Letters
Titus Andronicus
William Shakespeare
1588 - Drama & Screenplay
Civil Disobedience
Henry David Thoreau
1849 - Literature
The Pit
A Story of Chicago
Frank Norris
1903 - Literature
A Reporter’s Life
Walter Cronkite
1996 - Biography
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
And Selected Stories
Steven Crane
1893 - Literature
The Irish Way
Becoming American In The Multiethnic City
James R. Barrett
2012 - History
The Fifth Column
Stories of the Spanish Civil War
Ernest Hemingway
1938 - Drama & Screenplay
Rabbit Redux
John Updike
1971 - Literature
Women With Men
Richard Ford
1997 - Literature
The Supreme Court
William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court
1987 - Law
An American Dream
Norman Mailer
1964 - Fiction
The Saddest Summer of Samuel S
J. P. Donleavy
1966 - Fiction
House Of Meetings
Martin Amis
2006 - Fiction

Books Read, 2019: 41

Neuroplasticity
How Our Brains Change In Response To Our Actions
Moheb Costandi
2016 - Physics & Math
The Wars of Watergate
The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon
Stanley I. Kutler
1990 - History
Counterblast
Marshall McLuhan
1969 - Communication Theory
Rome At War
AD 293 - 696
Michael Whitby
2002 - History
Tortilla Flat
John Steinbeck
1935 - Fiction
Blood Meridian
Or the Evening Redness in the West
Cormac McCarthy
1985 - Literature
Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game
William Kennedy
1978 - Fiction
All Those Mornings At The Post
The 20th Century In Sports
Shirley Povich
2005 - Journalism
White Trash
John King
2001 - Fiction
Daddy’s Boy
A Son's Shocking Account of Life with a Famous Father
Chris Elliott with Rebuttals by Bob Elliott
1989 - Humor
Plan of Attack
The Definitive Account of the Decision to Invade Iraq
Bob Woodward
2004 - Journalism
Tried By War
Abraham Lincoln As Commander In Chief
James M. McPherson
2008 - History
Cruising Paradise
Tales, 1989-1995
Sam Shepard
1996 - Literature
Elmer Gantry
Sinclair Lewis
1927 - Literature
A Lost Lady
Willa Cather
1923 - Fiction
Six Crises
Richard M. Nixon
1962 - Government & Political Science
The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan
James Farrell
1934 - Literature
The Python Years
Diaries, 1969-1979
Michael Palin
2006 - Journals & Letters
Call If You Need Me
Uncollected Fiction & Other Prose
Raymond Carver
2001 - Literature
Flight of the Eagle
The Grand Strategies that Brought America from Colonial Dependence to World Leadership
Conrad Black
2013 - History
Who I Am
Pete Townshend
2012 - Biography
No Country For Old Men
Cormac McCarthy
2005 - Fiction
The Essential Groucho
Writings By, For, and About Groucho Marx
ed., Stefan Kanfer
2000 - Humor
Rabbit, Run
John Updike
1960 - Literature
Our Gang
Philip Roth
1971 - Literature
O Albany!
William Kennedy
1983 - History
Of Mice And Men
John Steinbeck
1937 - Literature
The 42nd Parallel
John Dos Passos
1930 - Literature
Sex, Time and Power
How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution
Leonard Shlain
2003 - Physics & Math
Billy Bathgate
E. L. Doctorow
1989 - Fiction
In Review
Pictures I've Kept
Dwight D. Eisenhower
1969 - History
The Red Badge of Courage
And Other Stories
Stephen Crane
1895 - Literature
Deliverance
James Dickey
1970 - Fiction
Main Street
Sinclair Lewis
1920 - Literature
Thirteen Days
A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis
Robert F. Kennedy
1967 - History
To Chain The Dog Of War
The War Power of Congress in History and Law
Francis D. Wormuth & Edwin B. Firmage
1986 - Law
The Killer Angels
Michael Shaara
1974 - Fiction
Haircut & Other Stories
Ring Lardner
1922 - Fiction
Babe: The Life of Oliver Hardy
John McCabe
1989 - Biography
The Lay of the Land
Richard Ford
2006 - Literature
The Journals of Lewis & Clark
ed. Bernard DeVoto
1807 - Journals & Letters

Books Read, 2018: 41

Narcissus and Goldmund
Hermann Hesse
1930 - Literature
The Gospel In Brief
Leo Tolstoy
1893 - Philosophy & Religion
A Journal of the Plague Year
Daniel Defoe
1722 - Non-Fiction
The Enemy Had It Too
A Play In Three Acts
Upton Sinclair
1950 - Drama & Screenplay
Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury
1953 - Fiction
Amerika
Franz Kafka
1927 - Fiction
On The Road
Jack Kerouac
1957 - Fiction
The Gangs of New York
An Informal History of the Underworld
Herbert Asbury
1928 - Non-Fiction
Once There Was A War
Dispatches from Europe & Africa, 1943
John Steinbeck
1958 - Journalism
Lie Down In Darkness
William Styron
1951 - Literature
Dean Acheson
The Cold War Years, 1953-1971
Douglas Brinkley
1992 - History
The Ginger Man
J. P. Donleavy
1955 - Literature
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
1925 - Fiction
The Man With The Golden Arm
Nelson Algren
1949 - Literature
Looking Forward
Franklin D. Roosevelt
1933 - Government & Political Science
The Proud Highway
Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman 1955-1967
Hunter S. Thompson
1997 - Journals & Letters
The Naked City
Malvin Wald & Albert Maltz
1948 - Drama & Screenplay
Mad As Hell
The Making of "Network" and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies
Dave Itzkoff
2014 - Sociology & Culture
In Cold Blood
A True Account of a Multiple Murder and its Consequences
Truman Capote
1965 - Non-Fiction
The Information
Martin Amis
1995 - Literature
A History of Knowledge
The Pivotal Events, People and Achievements of World History
Charles Van Doren
1991 - History
The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
1887 - Biography
Beyond Category
The Life & Genius of Duke Ellington
John Edward Hasse
1993 - Biography
Walden
Or, Life in the Woods
Henry David Thoreau
1854 - Literature
Touching and Imagining – An Introduction to Tactile Art
Poems & Essays, 1973-1984
Jan Švankmajer
2014 - Art & Design
Washington Goes To War
David Brinkley
1988 - History
Legs
William Kennedy
1975 - Fiction
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain
1884 - Literature
President Nixon
Alone In The White House
Richard Reeves
2001 - History
The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit
Sloane Wilson
1955 - Fiction
Remembering Laughter
Wallace Stegner
1937 - Fiction
Hammer of the Gods
The Led Zeppelin Saga
Stephen Davis
1985 - Biography
In Retrospect
The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam
Robert S. McNamara
1995 - Government & Political Science
Catch-22
Joseph Heller
1961 - Literature
The Ugly American
William J. Lederer & Eugene Burdick
1958 - Fiction
What Makes Sammy Run?
Budd Schulberg
1941 - Literature
The Letters of the Rožmberk Sisters, 1449-1482
Noblewomen in Fifteenth-Century Bohemia
Ed., John M. Klassen
2001 - Journals & Letters
Young Lonigan
James T. Farrell
1932 - Literature
Red Rat Race
Morris A. Bealle
1953 - Journalism
Hal Blaine and the Wrecking Crew
The World's Most-Recorded Musician
Hal Blaine
1990 - Biography
A Swell-Looking Girl
Stories, 1929-1931
Erskine Caldwell
1959 - Fiction

Books Read, 2017: 39

Man of the People
A Life of Harry S. Truman
Alonzo L. Hamby
1995 - Biography
The Commanders
Bob Woodward
1991 - Journalism
Three Films
Battleship Potempkin | October | Alexander Nevsky
Sergei Eisenstein
1974 - Drama & Screenplay
Band Of Angels
Robert Penn Warren
1955 - Literature
Gilliamesque
A Pre-Posthumous Memoir
Terry Gilliam
2015 - Biography
Neutrino Hunters
The Chase to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe
Ray Jayawardhana
2013 - Physics & Math
The Tumult and the Shouting
My Life In Sport
Grantland Rice
1954 - Journalism
What Hath God Wrought
The Transformation of America, 1815 - 1848
Daniel Walker Howe
2007 - History
The Bad Seed
William March
1954 - Fiction
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Carson McCullers
1940 - Fiction
Short Cuts
Robert Altman & Frank Barhydt
1993 - Drama & Screenplay
A Tour On The Prairies
An Account of Thirty Days in Deep Indian Country
Washington Irving
1833 - Biography
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
Neil deGrasse Tyson
2017 - Physics & Math
The Public Arts
Gilbert Seldes
1956 - Communication Theory
The Jack Benny Show
The Life & Times of America's Best-Loved Entertainer
Milt Josefsberg
1977 - Biography
The Fables of Ivan Krylov
1769-1844
Translated by Stephen Pimenoff
2017 - Poetry
The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne
1850 - Literature
Ragged Dick
Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot Blacks
Horatio Alger, Jr.
1868 - Fiction
Hard Times
An Oral History of the Great Depression
Studs Terkel
1970 - History
The Day of the Locust
Nathanael West
1939 - Fiction
Life on the Mississippi
Mark Twain
1883 - Literature
I Married A Communist
Or, The Woman On Pier 13
Robert Stevenson
1949 - Drama & Screenplay
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
Hunter S. Thompson
1971 - Journalism
In Confidence
Moscow's Ambassador to America's Six Cold War Presidents (1962-1986)
Anatoly Dobrynin
1995 - Government & Political Science
Being There
Jerzy Kosinski
1970 - Fiction
Lincoln’s Constitution
Daniel Farber
2003 - Law
Manhattan Transfer
John Dos Passos
1925 - Fiction
The Prince
Niccolò Machiavelli
1513 - Government & Political Science
Leonardo’s Brain
Understanding Da Vinci's Creative Genius
Leonard Schlain
2015 - Art & Design
No More Vietnams
Richard Nixon
1985 - Government & Political Science
1066
The Year of the Conquest
David Howarth
1977 - History
Ragtime
E. L. Doctorow
1974 - Fiction
Herblock: A Cartoonist’s Life
Self-portrait and Views of Washington from Roosevelt to Clinton
Herbert Block
1993 - Biography
Tobacco Road
Erskine Caldwell
1932 - Fiction
How The Other Half Lives
Studies Among The Tenements Of New York
Jacob A. Riis
1890 - Journalism
All The Pretty Horses
Cormac McCarthy
1992 - Literature
Darkness At Noon
Arthur Koestler
1941 - Literature
Keith Moon
The Life & Death of a Rock Legend
Tony Fletcher
1998 - Biography
Animal Farm
George Orwell
1945 - Literature

Books Read, 2016: 37

The Gutenberg Galaxy
The Making of Typographic Man
Marshall McLuhan
1962 - Communication Theory
Longitude
Dava Sobel
1995 - History
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Philip K. Dick
1968 - Fiction
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
Capt. Ted W. Lawson
1943 - History
On The Beach
Neville Shute
1957 - Fiction
Thinking With Type
A Critical Guide
Ellen Lupton
2004 - Art & Design
The Wayward Bus
John Steinbeck
1947 - Literature
Crossing To Safety
Wallace Stegner
1987 - Literature
Off The Record With FDR
The War Years 1942-1945
William D. Hassett
1958 - History
Specifications Grading
Restoring Rigor, Motivating Students & Saving Faculty Time
Linda B. Nilson
2015 - Education
Finale
The Reagan Years
Thomas Mallon
2015 - Fiction
The Bell Jar
Sylvia Plath
1963 - Fiction
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
1793 - Biography
The Big Picture
On the Origins of Life, Meaning & the Universe Itself
Sean Carroll
2016 - Physics & Math
Six Amendments
How and Why We Should Change the Constitution
John Paul Stevens, US Supreme Court Justice (ret.)
2014 - Law
Death of a Salesman
Arthur Miller
1949 - Drama & Screenplay
Notes From A Dead House
Fyodor Dostoevsky
1862 - Literature
Real Peace
Richard Nixon
1984 - Government & Political Science
Stars In Their Courses
The Gettysburg Campaign, June-July 1863
Shelby Foote
1963 - History
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72
Hunter S. Thompson
1973 - Journalism
Zero K
Don DeLillo
2016 - Fiction
The Johnstown Flood
The Story Behind The 1889 Disaster
David McCullough
1968 - History
A Walk on the Wild Side
Nelson Algren
1956 - Fiction
The Jungle
Upton Sinclair
1906 - Literature
Working
People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do
Studs Terkel
1974 - History
Hells Angels
The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs
Hunter S. Thompson
1966 - Journalism
Babbit
Sinclair Lewis
1922 - Fiction
Don’t Wait for the Next War
A Strategy for American Growth and Global Leadership
General (ret.) Wesley K. Clark
2014 - Government & Political Science
Here, There and Everywhere
My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles
Geoff Emerick
2006 - Biography
Sound Man
A Life Recording Hits with The Stones, The Who and Led Zeppelin
Glynn Johns
2014 - Biography
Waiting For Lefty
And Other Plays
Clifford Odets
1937 - Drama & Screenplay
The Big Rock Candy Mountain
Wallace Stegner
1943 - Literature
Voices From Chernobyl
The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
Svetlana Alexievich
1997 - Literature
The Executioner’s Song
Norman Mailer
1979 - Fiction
Claudius The God
And His Wife Messalina
Robert Graves
1935 - Literature
The Imperial Presidency
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
1973 - History
Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey
1840-1870
Lillian Schlissel
1992 - History

Books Read, 2015: 34

Harpo Speaks…About New York
Adolph Marx
1961 - Biography
Not Too Old To Cut The Mustard
Jumping Bill Carlisle & Friends Talk About His Life & the Country Music Business
Anita Capps
2000 - Biography
The Prank
The Best of Young Chekhov (1880-1882)
Anton Chekhov
2015 - Literature
Polk
The Man who Transformed the Presidency and America
Walter K. Borneman
2008 - History
A Study In Scarlet
Arthur Conan Doyle
1878 - Fiction
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Thornton Wilder
1928 - Literature
In The Wake of the Plague
The Black Death & the World it Made
Norman Cantor
2001 - History
All Quiet on the Western Front
Erich Maria Remarque
1928 - Literature
Libra
Don DeLillo
1988 - Fiction
Requiem For A Dream
Hubert Selby, Jr.
1978 - Fiction
Notes on the Death of Culture
Essays on Spectacle and Society
Mario Vargas Llosa
2012 - Sociology & Culture
A Detailed Analysis of the Constitution
Edward F. Cooke
1958 - Law
Paterson
Volumes I - V
William Carlos Williams
1946 - Poetry
Art & Physics
Parallel Visions in Space, Time and Light
Leonard Schlain
1991 - Physics & Math
The Story of a Bad Boy
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
1870 - Biography
Independence Day
Richard Ford
1995 - Literature
The Spectator Bird
Wallace Stegner
1976 - Literature
O Pioneers!
Willa Cather
1913 - Literature
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Harriet Jacobs
1861 - Biography
White Mule
William Carlos Williams
1937 - Fiction
The Time Machine
H.G. Wells
1895 - Fiction
The Haldeman Diaries
Inside The Nixon White House
H.R. Haldeman
1993 - History
Travels With Charley
John Steinbeck
1962 - Literature
John Barleycorn
Or, Alcoholic Memoirs
Jack London
1913 - Literature
Law and the Nation
1865 - 1912
Jonathan Lurie
1983 - Law
Days of Wine and Roses
David Westheimer
1962 - Fiction
One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
1963 - Literature
That Man
An Insider's Portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt
Robert H. Jackson
1954 - Biography
Harlot’s Ghost
Norman Mailer
1991 - Fiction
Looking Backward
Edward Bellamy
1888 - Literature
Equus
Peter Shaffer
1973 - Drama & Screenplay
Seven Plays
Sam Shephard
1981 - Drama & Screenplay
A People’s History of the United States
Howard Zinn
1992 - History
The Autobiography of Joseph Stalin
Richard Lourie
1999 - Fiction

Books Read, 2014: 34

The Unvanquished
William Faulkner
1938 - Literature
Blockade Diary
Under Siege In Leningrad, 1941-1942
Elena Kochina
1990 - Literature
The Luck of Roaring Camp
And Other Stories
Bret Harte
1869 - Fiction
Groucho And Me
The Autobiography
Julius H. Marx
1959 - Biography
The Glass Cage
Automation and Us
Nicholas Carr
2014 - Sociology & Culture
From Here To Eternity
James Jones
1951 - Fiction
The Zone of Interest
Martin Amis
2014 - Fiction
The Autobiography of Mark Twain
1877-1910
ed., Charles Neider
1959 - Biography
The Communist Manifesto
Karl Marx + Frederick Engels
1848 - Philosophy & Religion
The Iron Heel
Jack London
1908 - Fiction
Slaughterhouse-Five
Or, The Children's Crusade
Kurt Vonnegut
1966 - Fiction
It Can’t Happen Here
Sinclair Lewis
1935 - Literature
Homer & Langley
E. L. Doctorow
2009 - Fiction
Plain Speaking
An Oral Biography of Harry S Truman
Merle Miller
1974 - Biography
From Eternity to Here
The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time
Sean Carroll
2010 - Physics & Math
The Plot Against America
Philip Roth
2004 - Fiction
Hitchcock and Bradbury Fistfight in Heaven
ed., McSweeney's 45
2013 - Fiction
Good Hunting
An American Spymaster's Story
Jack Devine
2014 - Government & Political Science
Bad Monkey
Carl Hiaasen
2013 - Fiction
All The King’s Men
Robert Penn Warren
1946 - Literature
Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1940
How Americans Lived Through the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression
David E. Kyvig
2002 - History
Morning And Noon
A Memoir
Dean Acheson
1965 - Biography
Killer Of Crying Deer
William Orem
2010 - Fiction
Barabbas
Par Lagerkvist
1950 - Literature
The 480
Eugene Burdick
1964 - Fiction
Big Bets & Black Swans
Policy Recommendations for President Obama in 2014
ed., Brookings Institution
2014 - Government & Political Science
Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
Philip K. Dick
1974 - Fiction
The Friends of Eddie Coyle
George V. Higgins
1970 - Fiction
Nixonland
The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America
Rick Perlstein
2008 - History
The Human Comedy
William Saroyan
1943 - Literature
The Sportswriter
Richard Ford
1986 - Literature
My Silent War
The Autobiography of a Spy
Kim Philby
1968 - Government & Political Science
Winesburg, Ohio
A Group of Tales of Ohio Small-Town Life
Sherwood Anderson
1919 - Literature
Frankenstein
Or, The Modern Prometheus
Mary Shelley
1831 - Literature

Books Read, 2013: 36

The Crucible
Arthur Miller
1952 - Drama & Screenplay
Last Exit To Brooklyn
Hubert Selby, Jr.
1957 - Literature
Six Months In 1945
FDR, Stalin, Churchill & Truman - from World War to Cold War
Michael Dobbs
2012 - History
The Circle
Dave Eggers
2013 - Fiction
The Millennium
A Comedy of the Year 2000
Upton Sinclair
1907 - Literature
God’s Little Acre
Erskine Caldwell
1933 - Literature
Return of the Thin Man
Dashiell Hammett
1935 - Drama & Screenplay
NW
Zadie Smith
2012 - Fiction
Confederates in the Attic
Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War
Tony Horwitz
1998 - History
I, Claudius
From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius
Robert Graves
1934 - Literature
Go East Young Man
Short Stories on Class in America 1917-1931
Sinclair Lewis
2005 - Literature
Dewey Defeats Truman
Thomas Mallon
1997 - Fiction
The Art of Intelligence
Lessons from a Life in the CIA's Clandestine Service
Henry A. Crumpton
2012 - Government & Political Science
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Or, Life Among The Lowly
Harriet Beecher Stowe
1852 - Literature
Visual Explanations
Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative
Edward R. Tufte
1997 - Art & Design
A Democrat Looks At His Party
Dean Acheson
1955 - Government & Political Science
The Wanting Seed
Anthony Burgess
1962 - Fiction
Flatland
Edwin A. Abbott
1884 - Physics & Math
Cosmopolis
Don DeLillo
2003 - Fiction
Sabbath’s Theater
Philip Roth
1995 - Literature
London Fields
Martin Amis
1989 - Literature
The Hunt For KSM
Inside the Pursuit and Takedown of the Real 9/11 Mastermind
Terry McDermott and Josh Meyer
2012 - Government & Political Science
The Luck of Barry Lyndon
William Makepeace Thackeray
1844 - Literature
Amity & Sorrow
Peggy Riley
2013 - Fiction
Affection and Trust
Personal Correspondence, 1953-1971
Harry S Truman and Dean Acheson
2010 - Journals & Letters
Fellow Travelers
Thomas Mallon
2006 - Fiction
Pakistan On The Brink
The Future of America, Pakistan & Afghanistan
Ahmed Rashid
2012 - Government & Political Science
The Good House
Ann Leary
2013 - Fiction
Freedom
Jonathan Franzen
2010 - Literature
The Thin Red Line
James Jones
1962 - Literature
Give Me Everything You Have
On Being Stalked
James Lasdun
2013 - Biography
Marjorie Morningstar
Herman Wouk
1955 - Literature
Time’s Arrow
Martin Amis
1991 - Literature
Junky
William S. Burroughs
1953 - Literature
Hedy’s Folly
The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr
Richard Rhodes
2011 - Biography
Sunday Nights at Seven
The Jack Benny Story
Jack Benny
1990 - Biography

Books Read, 2012: 38

American Nations
A History of the 11 Rival Regional Cultures of North America
Colin Woodard
2011 - History
Narcopolis
Jeet Thayil
2012 - Fiction
Escape From Camp 14
One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West
Blaine Harden
2012 - Non-Fiction
Citizen Soldier
A LIfe of Harry S Truman
Aida D. Donald
2012 - Biography
Visual Strategies
For Scientists & Engineers
Felice C. Frankel & Angela H. DePace
2012 - Art & Design
A Farewell To Arms
Ernest Hemingway
1929 - Literature
Cities of the Plain
Cormac McCarthy
1998 - Literature
Swamplandia
Karen Russell
2011 - Fiction
Midnight Rising
John Brown & the Raid that Sparked the Civil War
Tony Horwitz
2011 - History
Envisioning Information
Edward R. Tufte
1990 - Art & Design
Washington, D.C.
A Novel
Gore Vidal
1967 - Fiction
Lionel Asbo
State of England
Martin Amis
2012 - Fiction
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
Maria Semple
2012 - Fiction
The Counterlife
Philip Roth
1986 - Fiction
Complete Stories
1943 - 1982
Truman Capote
2004 - Literature
American Diplomacy
George F. Kennan
1952 - Government & Political Science
Logavina Street
Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood
Barbara Demick
1996 - Non-Fiction
The Dictator’s Learning Curve
Inside the Global Battle for Democracy
William J. Dobson
2012 - Government & Political Science
Canada
Richard Ford
2012 - Fiction
The Education of a Typographer
ed. Steven Heller
2004 - Art & Design
The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen
2001 - Fiction
Page One
Inside the New York Times & the Future of Journalism
ed. David Folkenflik
2011 - Journalism
Mao II
Don DeLillo
1991 - Literature
A Visit from the Goon Squad
Jennifer Egan
2010 - Fiction
The Years of Lyndon Johnson
The Passage of Power
Robert A. Caro
2012 - History
Grouped
How Groups of Friends Influence the Social Web
Paul Adams
2012 - Sociology & Culture
The Angel Esmeralda
Nine Stories
Don DeLillo
2011 - Fiction
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
Ken Kesey
1962 - Literature
The Best American Science Writing
ed. Jesse Cohen
2010 - Physics & Math
Watergate
A Novel
Thomas Mallon
2011 - Fiction
The Design of Everyday Things
Donald A. Norman
1988 - Art & Design
Satan Is Real
The Ballad of the Louvin Brothers
Charlie Louvin
2011 - Biography
The Cleanest Race
How North Koreans See Themselves
B.R. Myers
2011 - Non-Fiction
The Long Goodbye
Raymond Chandler
1953 - Fiction
The Orphan Master’s Son
A Novel
Adam Johnson
2012 - Fiction
Sound Reporting
The NPR Guide to Audio Journalism and Production
Jonathan Kern
2008 - Journalism
The Hidden Reality
Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos
Brian Greene
2011 - Physics & Math
Reclaiming Fair Use
How To Put Balance Back In Copyright
Patricia Aufderheide & Peter Jaszi
2011 - Law

Books Read, 2011: 38

Night of Camp David
Fletcher Knebel
1966 - Fiction
Collected Works, The Screenplays Vol 2
1971-1978
Paddy Chayefsky
1995 - Drama & Screenplay
The Visual Miscellaneum
David McCandless
2009 - Art & Design
Eisenhower
The White House Years
Jim Newton
2011 - History
I Married A Communist
Philip Roth
1998 - Literature
Stasiland
Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
Anna Funder
2002 - Non-Fiction
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Edward R. Tufte
1981 - Art & Design
The Art Of Creative Advertising
Michael Antebi
1968 - Art & Design
Life In Year One
What The World Was Like In First-Century Palestine
Scott Korb
2010 - History
The Great American Novel
Philip Roth
1973 - Literature
The Song of the Lark
Willa Cather
1915 - Literature
You Are Not A Gadget
A Manifesto
Jaron Lanier
2010 - Sociology & Culture
The Stranger
Albert Camus
1946 - Literature
Famine Ship Diary
The Journey of an Irish Coffin Ship
Robert Whyte
1847 - Biography
White Noise
Don Delillo
1985 - Fiction
Nothing To Envy
Ordinary Lives In North Korea
Barbara Demick
2010 - Non-Fiction
Mr. Citizen
Harry S Truman
1960 - History
The American Civil War
A Military History
John Keegan
2009 - History
The Boys of Summer
Growing Up Within Shouting Distance of Ebbets Field
Roger Kahn
1971 - Biography
The Big Sleep
Raymond Chandler
1939 - Literature
Augustus
A Novel
John Williams
1972 - Literature
Making Movies
Sidney Lumet
1995 - Biography
The PEN/O Henry Prize Stories: 2011
The Best Stories of the Year
ed. Laura Furman
2011 - Fiction
Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure
Matthew Algeo
2009 - Biography
My Antonia
Willa Cather
1918 - Literature
Bomb Power
The Modern Presidency and the National Security State
Garry Wills
2010 - Government & Political Science
Underworld
Don Delillo
1997 - Literature
The Moviegoer
Walker Percy
1960 - Fiction
Jefferson Davis Gets His Citizenship Back
Robert Penn Warren
1980 - Fiction
The Next Decade
Where We've Been..and Where We're Going
George Friedman
2011 - Non-Fiction
Cognitive Surplus
Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age
Clay Shirky
2010 - Sociology & Culture
Change By Design
How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations & Inspires Innovation
Tim Brown
2009 - Art & Design
The Humbling
Philip Roth
2010 - Fiction
The Art of Immersion
How the digital generation is remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the way we tell stories.
Frank Rose
2011 - Sociology & Culture
Chuck Amuck
The Autobiography of Chuck Jones
Chuck Jones
1992 - Biography
The Lost Peace
Leadership in a Time of Horror and Hope, 1945-1953
Robert Dallek
2010 - Government & Political Science
Cyber War
The Next Threat to National Security
Richard A. Clarke
2010 - Government & Political Science
Marshall McLuhan:
You Know Nothing of My Work
Douglas Coupland
2010 - Biography

Books Read, 2010: 36

The Big Idea
George Lois
2008 - Art & Design
The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
Reif Larsen
2009 - Fiction
How To Read Literature
Thomas C. Foster
2007 - Fiction
Indignation
Philip Roth
2008 - Fiction
American Pastoral
Philip Roth
1997 - Literature
Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov
1957 - Literature
Rock Springs
Richard Ford
1987 - Fiction
Lord of the Flies
William Golding
1954 - Literature
A Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole
1980 - Literature
The Satanic Verses
Salman Rusdie
1988 - Literature
The Plague
Albert Camus
1948 - Literature
The Next 100 Years
A Forecast for the 21st Century
George Friedman
2009 - Non-Fiction
The Big Switch
Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google
Nicholas Carr
2008 - Sociology & Culture
How Wars End
A History of American Intervention
Gideon Rose
2010 - Government & Political Science
The Real War
Richard Nixon
1980 - Government & Political Science
Presidential Command
Presidential Leadership and the Making of Foreign Policy
Peter W. Rodman
2009 - Government & Political Science
The Great Gamble
The Soviet War in Afghanistan
Gregory Feifer
2009 - Government & Political Science
Kissinger 1973
The Crucial Year
Alistair Horne
2009 - History
Goodbye Columbus
Philip Roth
1959 - Literature
The Trial
Franz Kafka
1925 - Literature
Portnoy’s Complaint
Philip Roth
1967 - Literature
Methland
The Death & Life of an American Small Town
Nick Reding
2009 - Non-Fiction
The Great Depression
A Diary
Benjamin Roth
2009 - Biography
Stop Stealing Sheep
And Find Out How Type Works
Erik Spiekermann
2003 - Art & Design
Thinking With Type
A Critical Guide
Ellen Lupton
2004 - Art & Design
Truth In Comedy
The Manual of Improvisation
Charna Helpern et al
1984 - Sociology & Culture
Hail, Hail, Euphoria
The Marx Brothers in Duck Soup
Roy Blount, Jr.
2010 - History
Zero History
William Gibson
2010 - Fiction
Inbound Marketing
The New Rules of Social Media
Brian Halligan
2010 - Sociology & Culture
The Grand Design
Steven Hawking & Leonard Mlodinow
2010 - Physics & Math
A Brief History of Time
Steven Hawking
1988 - Physics & Math
The Little Book of String Theory
Steven S. Gubsner
2010 - Physics & Math
Physics of the Impossible
A Scientific Exploration
Michio Kaku
2008 - Physics & Math
Number
The Language of Science
Tobias Dantzig
1930 - Physics & Math
The Shallows
What the Internet is Doing to our Brains
Nicholas Carr
2010 - Sociology & Culture
Understanding Media
The Extensions of Man
Marshall McLuhan
1964 - Communication Theory

Books Read, Top 30

The Journals of Lewis & Clark
ed. Bernard DeVoto
1807 - Journals & Letters
Frankenstein
Or, The Modern Prometheus
Mary Shelley
1831 - Literature
The Luck of Barry Lyndon
William Makepeace Thackeray
1844 - Literature
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Or, Life Among The Lowly
Harriet Beecher Stowe
1852 - Literature
How The Other Half Lives
Studies Among The Tenements Of New York
Jacob A. Riis
1890 - Journalism
The Jungle
Upton Sinclair
1906 - Literature
O Pioneers!
Willa Cather
1913 - Literature
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Thornton Wilder
1928 - Literature
I, Claudius
From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius
Robert Graves
1934 - Literature
The Big Rock Candy Mountain
Wallace Stegner
1943 - Literature
All The King’s Men
Robert Penn Warren
1946 - Literature
Paterson
Volumes I - V
William Carlos Williams
1946 - Poetry
The Ginger Man
J. P. Donleavy
1955 - Literature
A Walk on the Wild Side
Nelson Algren
1956 - Fiction
The Autobiography of Mark Twain
1877-1910
ed., Charles Neider
1959 - Biography
Catch-22
Joseph Heller
1961 - Literature
The Gutenberg Galaxy
The Making of Typographic Man
Marshall McLuhan
1962 - Communication Theory
Understanding Media
The Extensions of Man
Marshall McLuhan
1964 - Communication Theory
The Imperial Presidency
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
1973 - History
Plain Speaking
An Oral Biography of Harry S Truman
Merle Miller
1974 - Biography
Requiem For A Dream
Hubert Selby, Jr.
1978 - Fiction
The Real War
Richard Nixon
1980 - Government & Political Science
A Brief History of Time
Steven Hawking
1988 - Physics & Math
Art & Physics
Parallel Visions in Space, Time and Light
Leonard Schlain
1991 - Physics & Math
Time’s Arrow
Martin Amis
1991 - Literature
Independence Day
Richard Ford
1995 - Literature
In Confidence
Moscow's Ambassador to America's Six Cold War Presidents (1962-1986)
Anatoly Dobrynin
1995 - Government & Political Science
American Pastoral
Philip Roth
1997 - Literature
Visual Explanations
Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative
Edward R. Tufte
1997 - Art & Design
Lincoln’s Constitution
Daniel Farber
2003 - Law

409 Books Read between
January 2010 & September 2020.

That's 1 book every 9.59 days
or 3.17 books a month
for 10.75 years.

Every title on this list is a 100% genuine book, of course: not one was consumed on a device.

Average year of publication? 1958.

What Do I Read?

Click here for the big list of books.

Me?

Aptitude tests in high school reported I was best suited to be a farmer.

Expelled my senior year from Gonzaga College High School in Washington, I was a high school drop-out for awhile, living the life of a musician, playing shows and trying to get my bands signed to record contracts.

Eventully I was accepted by the Catholic University of America despite having neither a high school diploma nor GED or SAT scores. I made Dean’s List and graduated from CUA with a BA in American History. >> Would you like to know more? <<

Unplugged Since 1992

For over 25 years now, I have been studying American heritage while living a pop culture hermitage:

no TV
no celebrities
no radio
no sports
no crummy music
no car
no logos
no credit cards
no debt
no cell
no smart phone
no eBooks
no texting
no blogging
no twitter
no blackberry
no facebook
no video games
no consumerist wastage
no trends

Photos of My Studio

Click here to see more photos from the Washington Post Magazine shoot, as well as other photos taken over the last 18 years as this space has evolved.

Would you like to know more? Click Here

johncarmody.com ★ Full Stack Development + Interactive Design + Teaching ★ Sculpting Order From Chaos

carmodynamics

Sculpting Order From Chaos ★ johncarmody.com

Full Stack Development + Interactive Design + Teaching

I Do It All

X Marks The Spot

Need A Hand?

Contact

email: information (at) johncarmody (dot) net

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Can You Solve “The Great Wall of Music”?

SOME CLIENT, FACULTY & PERSONAL WORK

I specialize in creating interactive storytelling experiences through integrating custom programming and open-source APIs in WordPress

Montgomery College

George Washington University

The Corcoran College of Art + Design

The Catholic University of America

Seminar Presentation – the National Press Foundation

Seminar Presentations – US General Accounting Office

Information DesignRetrosheet: dataset of play-by-play accounts of pre-1984 major league baseball games

Graphic Design7 Principles of Universal Design

Web DesignTutorials and inspiration all about CSS animation.

Web Designutorial: Duo Layout With CSS3 Animations & Transitions (Pt. 1)

Web Designutorial: Duo Layout With CSS3 Animations & Transitions (Pt. 2)

Web DesignVisual interface for cubic bezier timing functions, and seeing the results in real time

Web DesignEasy CSS Animation Using @keyframes

Web Designcreate CSS3 keyframes animation in your browser

Web DesignCSS | Keyframe Animation Syntax

Web DesignCSS Border-Radius Can Do That? | Webdesigner Depot

Web DesignCreating Non-Rectangular Layouts With CSS Shapes

ColorSchemeColor.com shares color combinations in detailed information on hexadecimal colors codes and converts them to RGB and CMYK equivalents.

Web DesignPHP – Flatten or Merge a Multidimensional Array

Web Dev + DesignHow to Prevent Form Spam by Using The Honeypot Technique

Web DesignBlock POST requests based on referer header using .htaccess

Web DesignBetter Honeypot Implementation (Form Anti-Spam)

Web Design10 Examples of Unorthodox Container Shapes Created with CSS

Web DesignHow to disable submit button once it has been clicked?

Web DesignHow do I use a PHP session to prevent duplicate form submissions?

WordPressWorried about WordPress and GDPR? Start Here

TypographyWeb Font Optimization

Web DesignGrid by Example – CSS Grid samples

Web DesignCSS Grid 3×3 grid examples

Web DesignUse Clip Path to Vary Your Designs on the Web

Some Of My Custom Designs @ TEEPUBLIC

Custom Face Mask Designs, Too

SOME OF MY ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS

I cannot read or write a note of music.

I taught myself by ear to play numerous instruments and write & arrange words, music and melodies into songs.

Original Song: “I Really Didn't Mean It”

When I wrote “I Really Didn’t Mean It”, I was thinking of a 'Buck Owens backed by the Stones in '65 with the drummer from Blondie' kind-of-thing, with a bouncy Buddy Holly-type guitar solo too.

Original Video: “RESOLUTION NO. ONE”

“Resolution No. One” was influenced by Salvador Dali, Man Ray, Edward Hopper and The Who.

Can You Solve
“The Great Wall of Music”?

Original Song:
“I Really Didn't Mean It”

Original Video:
“RESOLUTION NO. ONE”