Midday at Elliott Bay. Trained as an ecologist before the term had much currency in the culture (this is over forty years ago), Stewart Brand has all this time been at the forefront of seeing and critiquing changes in community, society, systems, the planet itself. He edited the now-legendary CoEvolution Quaterly (later Whole Earth Review), the many editions of the Whole Earth Catalog (1968 - 1985, including a National Book Award-winning volume for 1972), is president and co-founder of The Long Now Foundation and co-founder of the Global Business Network. His books have included The Media Lab, How Buildings Learn, and The Clock of the Long Now—and they now include the just-released Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto (Viking). Among those with early praise: James Lovelock, Edward O. Wilson, Wade Davis, Roger Kennedy, Witold Rybczynski, Neal Stephenson, Brian Eno, and more. "Stewart Brand defines iconoclastic, and has now raised the bar with the most important work of his lifetime, likely one of the most original and important books of the century ... Shibboleths, ideological cant, and green fetishes are put to the side with the clarity and expertise gained by years of research, and forethought, a mindbending exploration of what humankind can do and must do to retain the mantle of civilization. The highest compliment one can give a book is 'it changed my mind.' It changed mine and I am grateful." - Paul Hawken. Please check with the Elliott Bay Café at (206) 682-6664, www.elliottbaycafe.com for special lunch options available as part of this program.