Self-identifying as “longform” has become hot. The start-ups posed an alternative to magazines, which still publish featurettes and front-of-the-book copy, not simply lengthy, in-depth features. The new publications were, by contrast, specialized, and not bound by tradition.
Tag: 03.01.14
If The Arts Are So Open, Then Why Are We So Snarky And Condescending?
“Just like the clip of Charlie White scratching out a few notes on a violin for Al Roker, the recent news from Sochi about violinist Vanessa Mae’s skiing exploits for the Thailand Olympic team was met by fellow musicians on social media not with support, but with a significant heaping of snark and vitriol.”
China’s Import Ban Distorts The Art Market
“Chinese ministries continue to demand high fees for tightly controlled, often highly censored, travelling exhibitions. The only result of the ban is that US citizens and institutions cannot import or collect items traded freely in other parts of the world, including in mainland China and Hong Kong.”
Do The Humanities Really Need Defending?
“They are not under present existential threat. Further: their shrinkage, were it to accelerate, is likely to be less culturally significant than many of us believe. For instance, academic literary criticism could fade while literature itself (and its effects on the world) prospered.”
A Small Device That Lets You Turn Anything Into A Musical Instrument
“Guitars, trombones and violins are so last century. A device about the size of a credit card lets you transform a plant into a piano or make a glass of water behave like a drum.”
The Economics Don’t Add Up – It’s More Difficult Than Ever To Make A Living As A Writer
“Ever since the credit crunch of 2008 writers have been tightening belts, cutting back and, in extreme cases, staring into an abyss of penury. Never mind the money, the very business of authorship is now at stake.”
How Tech Companies Are Redesigning Office Space For Creativity
“Increasingly, Silicon Valley companies are paying builders to fuse their values of speed, change and productivity with their perceived corporate smarts and quirkiness. It is a big shift.”
How Is It That We Let Corporations Define Our Culture?
“I put it to you that there’s something pathetic about all of this. And lazy. We let a corporation that peddles coffee and doughnuts define the culture. It’s phony-baloney but we lap it up, like simpletons.”
Being Elaine Stritch
“One of her close friends — a friend! — calls Elaine Stritch ‘a Molotov cocktail of madness, sincerity, and genius.’ And now she’s the subject of an up-close and sometimes glaringly personal new documentary.”
The Real Guy Behind The Dallas Buyers Club
“Sitting behind a desk. Always by himself. No ‘customers’ lined inside or outside the drab, low-slung office space in a row of buildings close to downtown Dallas. Just this little, well-groomed, cursing man who was shuffling papers, placing calls and working a calculator.”