Why do trade publications publish anonymous reviews? “There are nearly 500 books a day published in America, or enough in a year to fill an average-size college library. No one could possibly read reviews of them all, let alone the books themselves. Even the team of Stakhanovite readers at Publishers Weekly can cover only about 10,000 books a year. Faced with this annual tsunami of literature, we all must grasp at any bit of solid support that comes to hand. We have no choice but to seek advice. That’s one reason why Publishers Weekly and Kirkus cling to their policy of anonymity: It suggests a magisterial, objective, authoritative source, unsullied by personal biases. Yet the opinions actually on offer in these magazines are every bit as quirky, perverse and prone to bias as they are in publications where the writers must take responsibility for what they say.”
Blog
Promotion Wars – Where Are The Publishers?
Writers now spend an extraordinary part of their lives promoting their work. “Now, more than ever, the book-promotion machine is working against the interests of the writers it has been set up to promote. Now, as never before, the marketplace is devouring the hand, the arm and the head that feed it. Authors of all shapes and sizes have become either the dupes or accomplices of a publishing industry that is exploiting its writers as its unpaid representatives.”
Arkansas Legislators Want School Texts To Define Marriage
Some Arkansas legislators want the state’s public school textbooks to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman — just like the recently approved amendment to the state Constitution.
Music Sales Dip One Percent In 2004
Music sales were down again slightly in 2004, but there’s hope for the industry. “Hit by piracy, Internet song swappers and saturated markets, music sales fell in 2004 by one percent to $32.1 billion. But 2005 will make up for the damage with a one percent increase, said research group Informa. Over the next six years, the music publishing industry will return to the $39 billion sales levels last seen between the years 1997 and 2000, before the invention of cheap CD burners and file swapping services such as Napster.”
Is NPR Racist, Or Is Smiley A Greedy Control Freak?
“When Tavis Smiley walked away from his National Public Radio show last month, he did not go quietly. In a series of interviews, he cast aspersions on his former employer, telling Time: ‘It is ironic that a Republican president has an administration that is more inclusive and more diverse than a so-called liberal-media-elite network.'” But NPR claims that the real reason Smiley declined to return to its air was a disagreement over salary and creative control. Smiley isn’t exactly denying the charge, but claims that the network’s unwillingness to meet his demands showed a lack of respect, and implies that race was a factor.
A Bank That Looks Like Europe
The unexpectedly vibrant design selected last week for the new headquarters of the European Central Bank has critics almost giddy with delight. “What makes the design more than a superficial attempt to spice up the European Union’s image is its subtle relationship to 20th-century architectural history. Its bold forms nod to the idealism that was once embodied in International style Modernism but also critique it, expressing a more nuanced view of Europe’s role in the emerging global culture.”
Better Late Than Never
It’s been three months since the musicians of the Cleveland Orchestra agreed to a new two-year contract, averting a strike and seemingly marking a truce between the players and their management. But a letter sent by the orchestra’s president to key donors late in the negotiating process has the musicians still fuming over its assertion that they were making “financially unrealistic and institutionally ruinous demands.” The musicians have now sent a letter of their own to many of the original memo’s recipients in an attempt to repair what they view as their wrongfully damaged image.
The Pentagon Wants To Read Your Mind
The pentagon has given a scientist a “$5 million grant to work on her theory that by monitoring brainwaves she can detect whether someone is lying. She claims the system has an accuracy of between 94% and 100% and is an improvement on the existing polygraph tests, which rely on heart rate and blood pressure, respiratory rate and sweatiness.”
MoMA’s Truitt Goes To The Hospital
Tyler Green reports that an Anne Truitt piece on display at the Museum of Modern Art has come down. “She was a dame, a solid dame. They called her Catawba and she was short and squat, which is good enough for me. Her green and black bands soaked up light the way a napkin soaks up the sweat that falls down a beer glass.” Why is it gone? Damage caused by a visitor…
The Decency Crackdown: Year Two
For nearly a year, broadcasters have been wailing about the FCC’s harsh and occasionally confusing crackdown on what it views as indecent content, and many programmers are still not entirely sure of what type of content will or will not pass muster. On the other side of the screen, conservative “family” groups have been considerably emboldened by their successes in the past year, and are becoming more overt than ever in their attempts to make television safe for innocent eyes.