Are you guys digging the new poem theme? It’s getting a lot of hits!
“Thursday’s child has far to go…” What exactly does the poem mean by this? It’s mysterious. But, I’ve tried to put together some “far to go” lit and entertainment links to match the theme.
(I’ll be traveling to St. Louis Wednesday, so I’m prepping this edition Tuesday evening.)
According to the poem, “Wednesday’s child is full of woe.”
Today’s sample of stories fits the bill.
Tuesday’s child, alleges the poem, is “full of grace.”
Tuesday’s readings on lit and entertainment certainly are!
Electric Lit is spreading the grace around, with Katya Ungerman‘s list of “The Best Graphic Novels I’ve Ever Read.”
Bill Morris at The Millions asks why we are “drawn to something in the character of people who are willing to break the law in order to perform a service they see as vital to mankind and the planet” and examines four works (novels and a film) about eco-terrorists.
But, maybe you’re looking for something a little more practical and prosaic. Well, if you need a way to check an EPUB file to make sure it will be accepted by different ebook stores, Dianna Dilworth at GalleyCat has a suggestion.
Finally, at Granta, Sophie Lewis interviews Israeli author and film-maker Etgar Karet, who reminds us that:
[U]sing the word ‘peace’ destroys the actual possibility of peace occurring. Instead we should stop using ‘peace’ and start using ‘compromise’ … in Israel the word ‘peace’ has a kind of Masonic aspect: you pray for peace. But if you use ‘compromise’ you cannot ignore that there is someone on the other side; you cannot ignore that you have to give up on something to achieve it. Peace could be a gift. It’s a word that doesn’t assume any responsibility. It’s not attached to you, nor to the other side. And ‘compromise’ is not utopian. In Israel many people say we’ll never have peace. Why? Because they’ll always hate us. But you can have a compromise with somebody who hates you. It’s OK! They don’t have to like you. You just have to agree that you’ll stop trying to kill each other and then you’re getting somewhere.
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Style guide: Texts, performances, and periodicals (including websites) are italicized. Key persons are in bold.
I understand that Amazon’s size is a problem for the marketplace. I am a strong antitrust advocate.
However, I also understand being the biggest guy in a fight doesn’t categorically make you the bad guy. Most importantly, I understand that spreading lies and logical fallacies, however well-intentioned, is toxic to the integrity of public discourse and therefore hurts everyone in the long run.
A lot of Amazon’s critics don’t seem to understand those last two critical facts.
For example, thriller writer Lee Child has been getting a lot of press lately for a BBC Newsnight interview in which he tries to dismantle Amazon’s position in their dispute with contract-fumbling, deadline-bumbling Hachette. But, when you take a close look at his logic, if you can call it that, not only does it fall apart but it displays a remarkable lack of basic knowledge and reasoning.
Specifically addressing Amazon’s arguments about the economic efficiency of selling ebooks at lower prices, Child calls Amazon’s claims “disingenuous,” then sneers:
There is a very specialized branch of science that you can examine these propositions with. It’s called arithmetic.
Let’s remember that Child is invoking disingenuousness and arithmetic. They’re the ropes with which he’ll hang himself. Continue reading
There’s an all-out reactionary assault against the evil leviathan Amazon which, unfortunately, is manifesting itself as a foolish defense of the greater evils of incompetence and irrationality.
Galley Cat and the New York Times are mistakenly puffed up about the idea that Amazon misinterpreted George Orwell by quoting him out of context, ignoring the fact that the full quote not only says essentially what Amazon said it did—that “Orwell was suggesting collusion” (if only sarcastically). Check it out for yourself. It’s incredible how invested partisanship can blind you to what’s right in front of your eyes. And, NYT’s in-depth analysis of Orwell’s position on paperbacks, showing that he believed they would hurt publishing as a whole, was proved wrong by history.
Quite ironically, Amazon’s bashers accuse the company of behaving like Orwell’s Ministry of Truth simply because Amazon uses technology (Did these people even read Ninety-Eighty Four?) while they mimic MiniTruth’s tactics, tacitly rewriting inconvenient history by not pointing out how low-cost paperbacks actually made books available to a broader spectrum of readers and amenable to many more reading opportunities than hardbacks. Orwell’s sarcasm about collusion was more on-point than his economics.
But, never mind all that when you can shout “gotcha!” and pretend you caught Amazon with their pants down.
Inveterate Amazon-basher Melville House is reduced to truly desperate attempts to deny the complexity of the situation, boldly claiming that “everything else is irrelevant” when compared to Amazon’s profits and power. I agree that Amazon’s dominance is problematic, but when you have to suppress or misrepresent the other side’s evidence and arguments, it’s pretty much a confession that you don’t have a logical leg to stand on.
Which nicely segues into the most egregiously inane slash-piece against Amazon lately, a quasi-viral piece in the Los Angeles Times, wherein Carolyn Kellogg punches her way through a squad of straw men while pretending to pick apart Amazon’s position.
I feel compelled to write a brief follow-up on Crossbones, since my preliminary review was posted just before the season finale—which was also the series finale as the show wasn’t picked up for a second season, a fact that really showed in those dual closing episodes.
When I read that Ralph Lauren was … okay, before I even got to what he was doing, I remembered that his real name is Ralph Lifshitz. I’m sure Mr. Lifshitz is a great guy, and I like his clothes alright. But that is a funny name.
But, when I read that Ralph Lifshitz Lauren was starting a children’s literacy program—which is a wonderful thing and kudos to Mr. L!—I still couldn’t help thinking that this odd thought would be a cool logo for the program:
Let me preface this by confessing a bias: I really like gunpowder fantasy. On the other hand, I think the sub-genre focuses too much on pirates, as if they were the only thing going on between the rise of fire-arms and the Industrial Revolution. So, when NBC announced it was airing a series about Blackbeard, particularly on the tails of Black Sails on Starz, I wasn’t sure I wanted to ride another buccaneer bandwagon.
Then, I heard that John Malkovich was starring. Continue reading
