So the headline isn’t mine, it came as a demand from my longtime eating partner Shelley, who heard me complain yet again about one of her beloveds — this particular paragon presenting as fat, limp,
Author: Douglas McLennan
Reading With Aimee Mann
LAST week I took a wild guess and approached singer/songwriter Aimee Mann for my musicians-on-writing column, All the Poets. As a longtime fan I had a vague sense that she was literary.
How The Online Global Gig Economy Threatens Us All
While freelance websites may have raised wages and broadened the number of potential employers for some people, they’ve forced every new worker who signs up into entering a global marketplace with endless competition, low wages, and little stability. Decades ago, the only companies that outsourced work overseas were multinational corporations with the resources to set up manufacturing shops elsewhere. Now, independent businesses and individuals are using the power of the internet to find the cheapest services in the world too, and it’s not just manufacturing workers who are seeing the downsides to globalization. All over the country, people like graphic designers and voice-over artists and writers and marketers have to keep lowering their rates to compete.
Why Victorian Thinker John Ruskin’s Ideas Have Fresh Resonance Today
“People get hung up on how eccentric some of his ideas were, but the core of his claims remains relevant and important. That is to say: our aesthetic experience, our experience of beauty in ordinary life, must be central to thinking about any good life and society. It’s not just decoration or luxury for the few. If you are taught how to see the world properly through an understanding of aesthetics, then you’ll see society properly.”
Some Fascinating Conjecture About National Portrait Gallery Attendance Figures
The gallery’s exhibition figures for last year and the first part of 2018—which are not in dispute, because they are ticketed and thus use a different system—will no doubt give the gallery pause for thought, because its contemporary exhibitions have been poorly attended.
Two Mexican Artists Created Acclaimed Murals At LA’s Central Library. Then They Were Deported
For months, the Central Library has not publicly addressed the artists’ deportations or disclosed their case to patrons or press who have covered the “Visualizing Language” exhibit at the Central Library.
Highly Regarded LA Central Library Lit Program Directors Out In Wake Of Mural Artists’ Deportation Controversy
The Los Angeles literary landscape shifted significantly this week with the departure of Louise Steinman from ALOUD, the reading series based at the downtown Central Library that she founded and ran for 25 years. A representative of the Library Foundation confirmed the departure of Steinman and ALOUD associate director Maureen Moore, who was the driving force behind the rotunda exhibit “Visualizing Language” by Oaxacan artists that gained international attention.
Independent Music Festivals Say Live Nation’s Dominance Of Music Industry Is Stifling Competition
The US company or its subsidiaries control some of the country’s biggest outdoor live music events including Latitude, Isle of Wight festival, Reading and Leeds, Parklife and Lovebox. The AIF said Live Nation had a 26% share of the market for events with a capacity of more than 5,000 people, compared to its nearest competitor, Global, with 8%.
How Social Media Is Influencing Book Design
“If I don’t like the cover, I won’t photograph it and put it on my feed,” says Femke Brull, a “bookstagramer” who runs @booksfemme. While she won’t avoid promoting a loved, if less-attractive book, she opts for a snap of the title page instead – even if it is less memorable than a beautifully covered counterpart. And she will “pay extra” for what she considers a better-looking edition.
End Of An Era: The Village Voice Is No More
Three years after buying The Village Voice, and a year after the paper shut down its print edition, owner Peter Barbey told the remaining staff today that the publication will no longer be posting any new stories.