“People rather like [those] end-of-the-year … columns, it seems. Timothy Egan chipped in “Words for the Dumpster” in the New York Times on December 28th. There are 1,123 comments, nearly all nominating the commenter’s own least-favourite words. At the bottom of this present column are the first few hundred of them. … Now we can turn to a bit of analysis of what annoys people.”
Tag: 01.13.14
The Sexual Food Chain: Is That Where Homophobia Comes From?
Lisa Wade: “So what’s homophobia? Sometimes I think it’s the moment that men feel what it’s like to be prey. See, women are used to it. … But when it happens to men for the first time … it’s like they’ve been treated like a human being their whole life and then, POW, they’re a piece of ass and nothing more.”
Hugo Chávez – The Musical! (We’re Not Making This Up)
Yes, this is a real project, premiering this summer – and you’d never guess where. (It’s not Kazakhstan, but just about that unlikely.)
How Our “Democratization” Of Creativity Is Endangered
“A reluctance to talk about institutions and political change doomed the Arts and Crafts movement, channelling the spirit of labor reform into consumerism and D.I.Y. tinkering. The same thing is happening to the movement’s successors.”
What If a Visitor From 1914 Encountered Someone With a Smartphone?
Tim Wu lays out a Turing Test-style thought experiment – and what its results suggest about the kinds of intelligence we’ve gained and lost over a century of technological change.
Audience Data Increasingly Determines What/How Movies Are Made
“Worldwide Motion Picture Group analyses data from a decade of audience research to determine if a script is marketable and how much money it is expected to make. Some screenwriters are worried Bruzzese’s method detracts from the creative process, but he told the BBC he is helping producers make films that audiences want to see.”
So Art Is A Great Investment? (Maybe Not So Much)
“When looked at more carefully as an investment category, art falls short relative to many of the other assets to which it is frequently – and favourably – compared. These include both traditional and alternative investments, whether public and private equity, gold, wine, or residential property. Its lack of correlation to such assets is also questionable.”
Want To Be Successfully Creative? Build A Machine
“Lots of people like to talk about “the creative process,” but whiff when it comes to having any insight about adaptive Machine structures. In fact, I think our culture generally has trouble seeing how strategy is directly connected with implementation.”
The Best Music Journalism Of 2013?
Jason Gross’s annual list. “Gathering up this list of my favorite music articles of last year is also a nice way to try to chase away the blues about journalism, another industry in desperate, confusing times.”
Could Traditional College Campuses Be Endangered?
“As the business of education moves online, is the traditional quadrangle-dormitory-lecture hall-library configuration really going to be necessary? Could the college campus go the way of – gulp – the bricks-and-mortar bookstore?”