In a blog post discussed far and wide, Clay Shirky observes that the advent of the Web and the current crisis of journalism are basically analogous to the revolution wrought by the printing press 500 years ago. “We’re collectively living through 1500, when it’s easier to see what’s broken than what will replace it. […] Even the revolutionaries can’t predict what will happen.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
The Magazine Business: Not As Bad Off As You Think
“It’s not that magazines are dying; it’s that magazines that were created solely for advertising or market-share purposes are… [But] the current downturn can be good for publishers. Magazines still offer an unsurpassed ability to marry literary ambitions with deep reporting, photography, and visual design.”
Alan W. Livingston, The Man Behind Bozo, The Beatles And Bonanza, Dead At 91
An entertainment executive with a gift for launching the right idea at the right time, Livingston signed the Beatles to Capitol Records, wrote the songs in which Bozo the Clown and Tweety-Bird were born, paired Frank Sinatra with Nelson Riddle, and co-created the long-running Western series Bonanza.
Does The Fear Of Death Move Merch?
A trio of consumer researchers finds that “thinking about one’s demise motivates people to form a strong connection to their material possessions, specifically to the brands that they have purchased. In the face of the great unknown, people develop ‘strong brand identity,’ a melding of their personalities and their possessions.”
Planning A New, Sustainable Paris
“The results of a nine-month study commissioned by President Nicolas Sarkozy, the [ten] proposals aim to transform Paris and its surrounding suburbs into the first sustainable ‘post-Kyoto city,’ a reference to the treaty on climate change, with an expanded Métro system and sprawling new parks.”
The Experience Of Movies Becomes Yet More Incorporeal
“As cinema becomes more portable, more easily created, and less difficult to acquire, it also runs the risk of forfeiting one of its greatest attributes – its physicality. Its necessary exertions… the physical act of seeking and watching. This death will necessarily impact the kind of films we make and how we make them.”
(Saying Horrible Things About) Arthur Laurents (Saying Horrible Things)
“[A]t 91, Laurents is one of the few left standing from the theater’s golden age of bad behavior. As well-known as he is for his writing, he is almost better known for his wronging.”
“All Great Photographs Today Are Snapshots”
“For most of his life, Martin Munkacsi was a madcap adventurer, Candide with a camera.” The great early 20th-century photojournalist is having a retrospective at New York’s International Center of Photography, with new prints made from lost glass negatives which turned up on eBay two years ago.
Bolaño, Filkins Win Nat’l Book Critics Circle Awards
The late Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, one of this year’s literary sensations, took the fiction prize, while The Forever War, NY Times correspondent Dexter Filkins’s examination of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, took nonfiction honors. In a first, the poetry award was split two ways, between August Kleinzahler and Juan Felipe Herrera.
Goodman Theater’s Dennehy Double-Bill Headed To Broadway
“Brian Dennehy, Robert Falls and the Goodman Theater are already planning their next stint on Broadway. A Dennehy double bill of one-acts, slated for the 2009-10 season at the Chicago regional, has been pegged by the theater as a pre-Rialto engagement.” The plays are O’Neill’s Hughie and Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape.