As students, Fulford and Gould would argue about music. Fulford was acquiring a taste for jazz and other forms of popular music, which Gould dismissed. Having to argue with someone as informed and quirkily opinionated as Gould forced Fulford into becoming an ad hoc critic, thus beginning a second career on top of journalism. - The Nation
We are aware, of course, that we might be wrong, because we know that on certain issues we have changed our minds, and therefore must have been wrong at least once. Nonetheless, at any given moment, we believe that we are right. The contrary would be ridiculous. - 3 Quarks Daily
Despite the pandemic, book sales were up over all last year, but mostly for places like Amazon; bookstore sales fell by more than twenty-eight per cent. Even at stores where sales held steady or increased, profits declined as customers migrated online, raising shipping and delivery costs. More than one bookstore closed every week in 2020, and many of the...
He started drawing for the magazine 65 years ago. “Hitting the century mark in age, it’s a nice number” for the brain to consider, Jaffee said with a warm laugh Thursday from his New York home — even if some body parts don’t “seem to appreciate it.” - Washington Post
The performing arts, heritage sector and spectator sports – areas of the economy that depend on ticket sales– have lost more than 60 per cent of their GDP value. The only subsector to suffer more is air transportation, down 87 per cent on its GDP. - The Globe and Mail (Canada)
Jagoda sang and wrote songs that connected her to her grandmother in Yugoslavia. "They were songs of home and family, of love and Hanukkah, many of them in the diasporic language — Ladino, a form of Castilian Spanish mixed with Hebrew, Arabic and Turkish — spoken by the Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain by King Ferdinand and...
Can there be hope for regular humans when the Grammy Awards can't get the sound right on Zoom? "The multiple acceptance speeches during the Premiere Ceremony that suffered from echoing, distortion or absent volume felt like a big miss for a show of its stature." - Variety
TikTok has dramatically changed how songs, pop in particular, get made. "In some cases, performers are trying out ideas on the platform to see if they catch on. In other cases, major labels are signing new artists with suddenly viral hits and adding superstars to remixes in hopes of boosting their profile." - The New York Times
The author is pleased by the support from his publisher, but the hate has truly ramped up. Sathnam Sanghera: "In a way, it proves the need for this conversation. No conversation or theme I’ve ever tackled is as dysfunctional as empire. It’s like, the strength of opinion out there is in inverse proportion to the amount of knowledge." -...
"The belief that every novel is a self-accounting is timeworn: Some early readers of Lolita suspected that only someone with the mentality of a child predator could have conjured the depraved Humbert Humbert. Publishers, meanwhile, often appear to want readers to see books as thinly veiled autobiography, and their publicity campaigns typically emphasize authors’ personal connections to their work."...
Perhaps they're not used to the world of 2021. "The truth underlying their emotional, often highly personal defenses of Allen is that he’s become subject to the forces of change that have finally begun to challenge the old world order, when a girl’s place was tantalizing Allen or other actors on screen, no matter how nerdy or neurotic those...
No, really. "Sharing user names and passwords with even your closest relations can have woesome consequences" - and the Netflix crackdown might help save your identity in the future. - Wired
That is, the fast food chain, not underground trains. The reason: "Product placement in TV shows is a reality the world over. But South Korea’s terrestrial stations are prevented from inserting commercial breaks during programming, meaning many Korean companies must be creative about getting their wares in front of viewers." - The New York Times
That's what it's poised to do in 2024, or so the predictions say (on the other hand, who could have predicted that every family with children would be stuck at home needing some Disney to stream when Disney+ debuted in 2019?). - The Guardian (UK)
