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“Jazz Is Dying” As Metaphor For The Larger Culture

Matthew McKnight examines Jazz At Lincoln Center: “While the obituary writers may have been right—something’s dying—they have been preoccupied with the wrong thing. By looking for signs of vitality in measures of jazz’s popularity, it becomes easier to ignore what the music, according to Marsalis’s definition, is: a refinement of empathic listening, a model for improvisation, and an embodiment of meaningful time perception. If this is right, then the supposition that jazz is dead carries meaning beyond itself. What if we are witnessing the death, or suffocation, of a society that values careful listening, serendipity and, like a jazz ensemble, the dedication to finding common ground?” – The Point

The Tricky Euphemisms We Use To Judge One Story Better Than Another

“There are objective criticisms you can make, you can point stuff out, but how you decide to rate or value the things done well, how much you penalise the things done less well—it’s a semi-random choice. It’s also hard to distinguish from the exercise of deep prejudice. You can use a softer word than prejudice, like bias, or even turn it into a term of praise—you can call it taste.” – Prospect

The Future Of Publishing? This Should Depress You

Mieke Chew recalls a conversation she had with a Croatian publisher about the decrease in book criticism in the four years she has been doing publicity. “He was like, ‘Yeah, that happened in Croatia ages ago,’ and I said, ‘Well, what happened to all the critics?’ and he said, ‘They have blogs now, which barely fucking anyone reads.’ ” That leaves listicles and best-of roundups in place of a robust conversation around books, Chew says, and, as a result, she’s watched many of her colleagues in the industry run to any internet celebrity they could find to help get their books some attention. “Pandering to influencers is just, like—I’d rather fling myself off a cliff,” she says. – Publishers Weekly