“After analysing the winning novels of six literary awards from the past 15 years, the British-American novelist Nicola Griffith concluded that books written by men about men or boys were far more successful than those written by either sex and offering the point of view of women or girls.”
Tag: 06.02.15
Music Critic Gets Fed Up, Snatches Cell Phone From Hand Of Oblivious Audience Member
David Patrick Stearns: “And just because the [Vienna] public is among the most cultured on the planet doesn’t mean the cellphones are under control. Despite a preconcert warning announcement, one woman pulled out her phone just as Lisa Batiashvili had begun the quiet, slow-burning opening movement of Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1. Only eight rows from the stage, the phone kept beeping and burbling, its owner entranced by it and oblivious to those nearby shooting her daggers. So the problem was addressed American-style …”
The Poet On His Island: The Final Interview With 2011 Nobel Laureate Tomas Tranströmer
“The stroke Tranströmer suffered in 1990 paralyzed him on one side, stealing most of his speech. … Over the afternoon I ask questions that Monica translates into Swedish, and then he responds, to which she seeks greater clarification, and on it goes. In between, Tranströmer steers her questions and extrapolations with his face, his few words, gestures, and the tone of his voice. They touch and regard each other constantly throughout this process. It is hard to tell, watching the two of them, who is the conductor, and who is the symphony.”
The Case From ‘Serial’ Gets A Sequel Podcast – With More New Evidence
“If the listeners who were hooked by Serial have tuned into Undisclosed – a follow-up podcast from different producers – they may find themselves surprised by how much there is left to discover about the murder and investigation that followed. If Serial‘s thesis is that facts are elusive, Undisclosed‘s counterpoint seems to be that the past is less murky than you might think.”
Serious Filmmakers Are Trying Out 3-D – So Why Aren’t They Taking It Seriously?
Daniel Engber: “I’ve been looking forward to the moment when 3-D emerges as a mode unto itself – not a gimmick or a money-making adjunct to the standard fare but an art form of its very own. … With some notable exceptions, the new breed of uppity 3-D seems less like an exploration of the format than an exercise in camp appropriation – a way of punching up at corporate greed and spoofing Hollywood excess.”
TV Is Losing Ad Dollars. Meanwhile The Internet…
“Mobile advertising and social gaming will see steady double-digit growth. Other media, like the global music market and magazine publishing, will grow less than a percent annually on average. The only decline will be in newspaper publishing, which will see advertising drop roughly 3 percent a year through 2019.”
Does Living In Skyscrapers Change You Psychologically?
“Given the age of our species, living more than a few stories up is a very recent phenomenon. This tempts one to conclude that high rises are unnatural, and some would argue that what is unnatural must be, in some way, harmful.”
How Streaming Is Changing The Music Business (For Good And Bad)
“For a large part of the recording industry, the move to embrace streaming actually solves a long-time paradox: one of ownership. Over digital music’s 30-year evolution, from the public introduction of the compact disc in 1981 to the international expansion of Spotify in the last half-decade, the question of whether listeners owned the music they purchased got murkier.”
Now That Everyone’s A Photographer, It All Seems So Democratic. Except For Artists…
“Many artists are ready to self-fund their first opus because they believe that they need a release early on in their career rather than after having developed a 30 or 40 years practice. That’s fine if it changes their life. But if it doesn’t make a difference, I wonder if they’ll be in a position to spend another 20 or 25,000 dollars the next time around. In a way, it has become about whether or not you have access to money, rather than the value of your work. It isn’t as democratic as we like to think.”
Four Essential Truths About Today’s Pop Culture (Trust Me, You’ll Feel Better)
We live in a wonderful age, an age in which no one tells us to put away our childish things. This makes us think these things never stopped being for us.