[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Gv49ZAYAnsBBRrMS1uvMyG3p21i1lrA2"] IN France, bookstores and literary culture thrive, in part because of laws privileging books and protecting their producers and disseminators. A recent discussion in the New York Times Book Review asked if we need a similar system here. The provocative critic Daniel Mendelsohn starts by talking about cultural differences between … [Read more...]
Techo-Utopianism and the TED talk
MOSTLY, I try to dig into the arts and culture in this blog. But there are times when digital technology demands attention; technology has become the water in which we all -- musician and scribe and architect alike -- swim. That's why I'm especially pleased to nudge readers toward a piece that's been floating around for a while which even some informed people may have missed: "We need to talk … [Read more...]
Author Sven Birkerts on Culture Crash The Book
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="l18iXkqE0pAKSvY5UNL4M81fXOJAntvm"] ONE of the first and most eloquent books on the transition away from the world of print to a new one dominated by digital communications came 20 years ago from the veteran literary critic Sven Birkerts. The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age was funny, sad and prescient, and served as important foundation … [Read more...]
The Winner-Take-All Culture: Beyonce’ Edition
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="s7QjDjoKc7tKlcAxYUDRApP9riUN4cz9"] NO, you're not reading an article from the Onion, but rather a news report of an an extreme and literal instance of the winner-take all culture. This brief story from Poynter, "News station lays off journalists, will play Beyoncé songs instead," quotes Houston Chronicle reporter David Barron: Radio One owns the station, known as … [Read more...]
The Origins of the Creative Impulse
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="CjGJi1ElzHO4Eiypu9nm3yJ0WNWxidhx"] WITH the release of my book getting close, I'm going to start salvaging some of the great epigraphs that helped me tell the story -- in some cases, the history or even prehistory -- of the creative class. These, then, are other people's words which helped me to explain things, but which I lost in the edit. Here is the first, from … [Read more...]
Poet Dana Gioia Endorses Culture Crash the Book
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="i8fGP35j28y9jQ6G5JGv4lGoSeq95eDP"] NOTORIOUS to some, beloved by others, the California poet has this to say about Culture Crash, my upcoming book: Scott Timberg has written an original and important study. He explores some of the most pressing cultural issues affecting the arts and intellectual life with remarkable clarity. This is the first analysis of our current … [Read more...]
Musician Dean Wareham Raves on About Culture Crash the Book
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="vyqP11F1681n3YcQlEIIXhqmzlNi3MAa"] ONE of my favorite indie rock musicians -- a member of Galaxie 500, Luna, and Dean & Britta -- has endorsed my upcoming book. Here's what he says: I read Scott Timberg’s pieces every week without fail. It’s great to see his book Culture Crash debunk the mumbo jumbo about the long tail, file-sharing, free information, and … [Read more...]
The Big Lie of Jeff Koons
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="vgKZ6xRHRblYrS2DIdm6RSmRakPmvRv4"] IS it possible that the most characteristic artist of our time could also be almost entirely full of b.s.? From what I can tell, that's exactly what we've got. Over the last week or so I've been underlining lines from Jed Perl's New York Review of Books piece on the art world's Gilded boy, thinking and talking about Perl's argument, … [Read more...]
Author M.G. Lord on Culture Crash
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="gXQfcIniw8p3iX6eCSgrKCkQ9mR6Oq04"] Over the next few weeks I'll be posting the endorsements I get for my upcoming book Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class, due in January from Yale University Press. With coolness and equanimity, Scott Timberg tells what in less-skilled hands could have been an overwrought horror story: the end of culture as we have … [Read more...]
Will Indie Film Survive?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="u8nyNEUGiw9T3t2MS4otkepc3HaoApPt"] ONE of the casualties of our current cultural situation is the erosion of the middle -- the middle class, the midlist author, the middlebrow, and the mid-budget film. Independent film, with its interest in boundary pushing and risk-taking, may not seem to belong in that company, but it's vulnerable to all the same forces. The New … [Read more...]