July 26, 2006
In Praise of Fab Writers
Jack Shafer lets the rest of us in on a little-known-outside-of-New-York secret: the movies on TV capsules in the NYT are quintessentially beautiful.
One example from his article:
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason: "Makes the first one look like a masterpiece."The only thing better than carefully crafted snark is carefully crafted praise. Enjoy!
Posted by cj at 07:49 AM | Comments (0)
July 23, 2006
random distractions and important debate
"Cape Fear: Superheroes and male anxiety in My Super Ex-Girlfriend." by Dana Stevens is spot on. Describes perfectly the revulsion that the movie's preview caused. I have no intentions of seeing the "film," and I don't think I need to - since I saw so much of it in the damn preview. Amen, sister!
Syd Barrett, co-founder of Pink Floyd, died this week. Rest in peace.
Amiri Baraka led a hip hop workshop Friday night here in Chicago.
He spoke primarily about the need for a united from against war and fascism based on a front against imperialism. He spoke strongly about the need to fully incorporate cultural output into the heart of the resistance: that art cannot be reduced to mere entertainment at a political gathering. He stated that reactionary culture is made to seem normal by reactionary art.
Two other men were on the panel - Sam Lewis from the Elastic Arts Foundation in Logan Square (Chicago) and Andre Mill from the Southwest Youth Collaborative and its University of Hip Hop.
After the lecture, Baraka and his wife Amini Baraka read a bit of poetry. The final poem of the night was the one that got Baraka fired as New Jersey Poet Laureate, "Somebody Blew Up America." While I had difficulty with the line about 4000 Israelis leaving the WTC ahead of the terrorist attack, it makes more sense in the context of his explanation. But more importantly, the many other lines of the poem were extremely powerful and his delivery was mesmerizing.
More interesting than the Wikipedia entry for him is the Discussion of the Wikipedia entry.
Brief bio from University of Michigan. (Part of a course on the Black Arts Movement.)
Posted by cj at 09:14 PM | Comments (0)
June 03, 2006
Printer's Row Book Fair: Read the Fine Print
The fine print is: don't plan on spending an entire day around books for sale without proper transportation. What I mean is, if like me you are compelled to buy more books than you could actually read, then unlike me take a rolling bag with you to a book fair. Silly me, I chose fashion over practicality. I was thinking of taking my backpack, but since my new shirt (from Nordstrom's Rack) was basically backless, I wanted to flaunt that instead of covering it up with a bag. Little did I know that a backpack wouldn't have been enough for the weight of the books I chose. Or did they choose me?
Jane Addams
Here's where it all started. Two very heavy hardcover books on Ms. Jane, co-founder of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Damn woman cost me more than the rest of my books combined. But it was worth it. The author discussion was great and inspiring: nothing has been written about Jane's activism through WILPF and "the definitive history of WILPF has not been written." So, apparently one possible way out of the dilemma of making a living while pursuing my passion for WILPF is to write about our dead history. Well, obviously it's not dead but the part about dead people captures a lot more people's imaginations than the living part. It's late and I should've written this earlier when my inner cynic wasn't trying to get me to go to sleep; but such is life.
Louise K. Knight wrote Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy. I haven't read it yet, but her style is engaging, accessible, and full of depth. Plus, she's a sister WILPFer! So, I highly recommend her book. :)
Katherine Joslin wrote Jane Addams: A Writer's Life. Again, haven't read it but her style seems to be more grounded in university-ese. Indeed, her purpose is to show Jane's importance as an intellectual author, so it makes sense that she writes in a more refined way than Knight, whose purpose was to examine and re-tell the first 40 years of Jane's life.
Since my eyes are drooping, I must go to sleep without telling you about the rest of the fair or the 3 movies I haven't written about yet. manana es una otra dia.
Posted by cj at 11:44 PM | Comments (1)
April 29, 2006
Bono: the book, Love: the book, and other thoughts
The interview format is not as revealing as memoir. There aren't as many beautiful passages in this book as there are in Chronicles, Volume One. Still, it is a compelling read. It offers a way into the mind of An Artist that is accessible and understandable.
Most artists stray farther afield in their pursuit of art than Bono. At the heart of his life the same people remain: his high school sweetheart, their four kids, his high school band mates, and the two close friends from grade school. I've never heard the tale of such a provincial person having such a worldwide impact.
Then again, it is the personal that I look for in biographical material. So I'm left wondering how exactly his marriage works; what his wife is like; how his children feel about his extended absences.
Still, I used to believe it was important to cast aside the past to see the future. Certainly, you can't dwell too much on what's behind you. Bono certainly doesn't. And yet, he's maintained strong relationships with people from his childhood; how many of us can say that? And what is it about our society that pushes people to cast people aside?
Perhaps I'm over-generalizing. In my life, the only constant has been my family, a group of people I am more grateful for everyday. And my college mates are true pillars of friendship. Perhaps something about my restlessness and inability to stay still in the same city for longer than a few years is the reason I marvel at people whose ties are so long-lasting.
Harry Frankfurt, that professor who wrote On Bullshit just published a new book, The Reason of Love. His idea is that the pursuit of love is the key to life. Publisher's description:
This beautifully written book by one of the world's leading moral philosophers argues that the key to a fulfilled life is to pursue wholeheartedly what one cares about, that love is the most authoritative form of caring, and that the purest form of love is, in a complicated way, self-love.I read that description last week and it's been haunting me ever since. As U2 says, "but I still haven't found what I'm looking for." I like the path I'm on and I can see the future: it's still an Impressionist blur but it is bright and shiny and I'm full of excitement at bringing it to fruition.Harry Frankfurt writes that it is through caring that we infuse the world with meaning. Caring provides us with stable ambitions and concerns; it shapes the framework of aims and interests within which we lead our lives. The most basic and essential question for a person to raise about the conduct of his or her life is not what he or she should care about but what, in fact, he or she cannot help caring about.
The most important form of caring, Frankfurt writes, is love, a nonvoluntary, disinterested concern for the flourishing of what is loved. Love is so important because meaningful practical reasoning must be grounded in ends that we do not seek only to attain other ends, and because it is in loving that we become bound to final ends desired for their own sakes.
Frankfurt argues that the purest form of love is self-love. This sounds perverse, but self-love--as distinct from self-indulgence--is at heart a disinterested concern for whatever it is that the person loves. The most elementary form of self-love is nothing more than the desire of a person to love. Insofar as this is true, self-love is simply a commitment to finding meaning in our lives.
I watched BBC World News tonight and was amused at what they consider "world" sport. In their mind world = EU, emphasis on the UK. So congrats to Chelsea!
And poor Cubbies...they got their asses whooped today by the Milwaukee Brewers, 16 to 2. Maybe next year they'll have enough healthy players to have a shot at the big time...
Posted by cj at 11:15 PM | Comments (0)
April 26, 2006
Who do you blog for?
Molly dot com asked the question. I provided my answer in her comments. As of this writing, my comment is awaiting moderation.
Perhaps I shouldn't have been so blunt in my answer. Makes me sound like a free loader who can't hold onto a job. In reality, I'm a passionate woman who wont settle for second best. But since I no longer want to free load off my rents, I'm stickin around my current job so I can be financially independent (and live in Chi-town instead of LaLa land).
This is the link to my comment, in case it's been moderated by the time you read this post.
[Aside: Why can't I get myself off this darn computer before midnight these days?!?!]
Posted by cj at 11:46 PM | Comments (0)
January 13, 2006
Autobiographical Fiction
I'm sure people have been writing autobiographical fiction since the dawn of time. After all, there's a reason for the adage "write what you know." When I first saw A Million Little Pieces in Barnes & Noble, it reminded me of a book I read several years ago. It seemed like a poorer quality, modern update of that book with much more interesting jacket art. So, I didn't purchase it and I've never read it.
For awhile, I was searching for the name of the book aMLP made me remember. It's Junky by William S. Burroughs. I remembered this while reading the introduction to On the Road by Jack Kerouac.
I watched James Frey on the Oprah show (it re-ran over Xmas week). That was before this brouha started. I thought he was uninspiring and that his ridiculous ideas about addiction (that it is not a disease; that you simply decide not to take drugs and then have the ability to have root canal surgery without anesthetics) completely didn't jive with everything I know about addiction. I'm a nicotine addict and I grew up with a drug addict. I thought he was blowing smoke up someone's butt before I had proof of his lies. I couldn't believe that such an inarticulate man made so many millions writing Curse Words In Caps.
I've read the news articles on the controversy. And I read the Smoking Gun expose. Here's the thing: Frey did not write a memoir. He wrote autobiographical fiction and his "prophetic" phrase (hold on) was probably lifted from R.E.M.
There's actually nothing wrong with writing autobiographical fiction. Kerouac has many fans and all of his books were based on his life, seen through a fictionalized lens. Stone Butch Blues is a great explanation of transgender life and is the fictionalized autobiography of Leslie Feinberg.
My problem isn't really with what Frey wrote. It's his unending desire to portray himself as a victim of character assasination. It is the fact that he refuses to recognize that he did NOT write a memoir. Yes, there has been a huge boom in memoirs. No, the difference between memoir and autobiography is not a large as Frey thinks. Memoir chooses points of the author's life to create a good read. It does not give the author license to lie. If the author needs to lie to create a better read, he needs to market his book as fiction (as Frey did when he originally hocked his book to publishers).
I'm disgusted by his hubris. I'm saddened that Oprah Winfrey didn't further distance herself from him. Great, you liked the book. But you should be concerned that the author willfully misled you and your producers regarding the veracity of his tale. Do gooders who fear for the continued health of addicts who were inspired by the book miss the most vital point: neither a former alcoholic nor a billionaire talk show host can lead people to the promised land of freedom from addiction. Each individual must make the choice for herself. Each individual's recovery depends entirely on her own will and exposing Frey as a sham artist should in no way change people's access to healthcare. After all, he doesn't recognize addiction as a disease and his banal advice holds up whether or not you read his drivel.
I'm angry that people who have never dealt with addiction seen Frey's story of salvation as a holy grail which shouldn't be questioned. Plenty of fictional stories have effectively warned people of the problems of drug use; so people should stop blaming the messenger for the brouha over Frey's lies.
More info:
"A Million Little Lies," from The Smoking Gun
"Winfrey stands behind 'Pieces' author" on CNN; includes links to excerpts of the Larry King interview
"Pundits attack author Frey and unhappy reader sues," by Reuters
"Call It Fiction," NYT Editorial (found after writing this post)
Posted by cj at 06:01 PM | Comments (0)
December 27, 2005
Happiness
I looked at the menu, then I looked at my wife. The one thing about her that I always loved was that she was never one of those people who thinks that someone else is the answer to their happiness. Me or anybody else. She's always had her own built-in happiness. I valued her opinion and I trusted her. "You order," I said.Bob Dylan, Chronicles Volume One (the memoir, not the cd)
Posted by cj at 08:55 PM | Comments (0)
December 22, 2005
Remember
That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Posted by cj at 08:43 PM | Comments (0)
November 30, 2005
RIP Stan Berenstain
The Berenstain Bears were some of my favorite characters as a child. Along with Ramona Quimby, they provided hours of reading pleasure during my early reading days. So, it is with great sadness that I acknowledge the passing of Stan Berenstain, who wrote the series with his wife, Janice Grant. Their first editor was Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss). He died of complication of cancer at home at age 82.
More info:
"Stan Berenstain Dies; Co-Creator of Books On Berenstain Bears," by Matt Schudel in WaPo
found via Media Bistro
Posted by cj at 10:41 PM | Comments (1)
September 23, 2005
Oprah Brings Back Relevant Reading
Not that I have anything against the classics. Some are great, once you get past the first twenty or hundred pages. But it sure is easier to read a recently published book. Which is what Oprah is realizing. Although she's a bit snippy about one of my favorite authors (Franzen, with whom she had a tiff right before cancelling the first incarnation of her book club), she's coming back to new books and expanding her genre criteria: "Ms. Winfrey said she intended to widen her choices to an array of genres, including history, biography and historical fiction, to give herself more room to follow her instincts about what makes a positive reading experience."
First up: "A Million Little Pieces," by James Frey, a memoir about addiction treatment. Interesting - I was attracted to that book at Barnes & Noble by its intriguing cover art, but ultimately decided that with all the unread books on my shelf, I wasn't going to give my time to another addict recovery story.
More info: "Oprah's Book Club Reopening to Writers Who'll Sit and Chat,"by Edward Wyatt
Posted by cj at 07:59 AM | Comments (0)
September 16, 2005
Blogging Buzz and Magazine Rejuvenation
Whether or not your words are noticed by the public is largely dependent on how you publish those words.
Blogging as a writing form has gotten a lot of notice from the mainstream media in the past year - mostly because of its direct, immediate connection to readers which can be turned into advertising profits and tons of cash for political candidates.
I do not know how to crack into that upper echelon of the blogging elite. Perhaps it would help if I kept updating my blogs daily instead of allowing other things to consume my time (work, teevee, WILPF, etc).
According to a commentary by Jon Friedman at MarketWatch, blogs stoll the buzz thunder from magazines. And now magazines are trying to steal back their lost thunder by reminding us of the tactile importance of the medium. The American Society of Magazine Editors is holding a contest to find the best 40 covers of the last 40 years, something blogs will never be able to do. Despite jumping head first into the blogospher back in 2001, I firmly continue to believe in the importance, relevance, and staying power of print - especially magazines, books, and Sunday editions of newspapers. (I like the magazine quality of Sunday newspaper articles - how they wrap up a week of news and offer more analysis and back history than daily newspaper articles.)
In related news, the Magazine Publishers of America are trying to convince advertisers that it doesn't matter how much a person pays for the magazine she reads; that even a free magazine offers a point of connection with a consumer. I'm still trying to figure out what everyone means by Return On Investment (ROI). How do you accurately measure that? What makes any advertising good from an ROI perspective? Perhaps I should learn more about how experts are answering those questions. All I know is that monthly magazines really do hold a special place in the lives of their subscribers; and a fleeting place in the mind of their newsstand readers.
Posted by cj at 07:46 AM | Comments (0)
August 27, 2005
Freelance Writing Not a Great Career Move
Ben Yagoda wrote "My Life as a Hack - It was glorious. Now it's over." in Slate.
Its a precautionary tale about the decline and fall of freelance writing. Not that the writing has gone downhill - just that magazines aren't paying enough money to make it a viable career option.
Chalk this up as more proof that my fantasy careers are best left to dreamland. (Other fantasy careers include fulltime peace activist and Creator of Viable Movements for Social Change and singer and actress...the final one being a dream given up long ago in high school when I was firmly told I had no acting abilities.)
Posted by cj at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)
August 18, 2005
Boston Common: Cultural Touchstone or Commercial Brand?
One of the sentiments that stuck with me from the WILPF Congress was the question - what is a resource for all and what is private property? Someone suggested that everyone should visit the Boston Common for an experience of a true communal area. I didn't refute the point, but I did remember the Common being an area surrounded by extrememly high-priced buildings, where the Boston Brahmins hung out.
So I'm curious as to why there isn't a Boston luxury magazine named Boston Brahmins. Instead, there's one named Boston Common. The Boston Globe reports an expansion of New England regional affluent magazines, now that New Englanders have thrown off their silly habit of shunning ostentatious materialism.
I've gotta say I'm not here to shun an expansion of the print industry. But what moron thought it was a perfect selling point to call an exclusive, top 5% net worth readership magazine "Boston Common"???? Talk about a revolting reversal of word meaning. I don't have a problem with luxury magazines per se - I think its healthy for us plebes to understand what the mega-rich are truly about - but for goodness sake, shouldn't the people of Boston revolt against this abuse of their heritage?
More info:
Boston Common Magazine official website. Its part of Niche Media - which gives its mags away to a "highly targeted audience" and has relatively dirt cheap ad rates.
Posted by cj at 09:35 PM | Comments (0)
August 08, 2005
Sadness and Apologies
First, apologies for not writing more frequently. I've been frightfully busy at work and with Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. I'm off to San Francisco tomorrow morning for our Leadership Institute and Triennial Congress and wont be back till Sunday night. I'm going to take my laptop with me, because word on the street is that internet access is available in my accomodations free of charge.
I'm so sad, having finished the new Harry Potter. Its the first time I've really ended one of the books eager for more. I really appreciate the way the female characters were portrayed - something I've complained about in previous books. The ending shocked me and seemed to echo the first Spiderman movie a lil too much. But that's just me. Apparently, a website is offering a t-shirt that gives away the exact page where a significant event happens at the end of the book. Very sad indeed.
Posted by cj at 07:30 PM | Comments (0)
July 28, 2005
Real Women Have Clothes
There's been a lot of criticism of the new Dove ads featuring "normal size women." People tend to fall into two categories - those happy to see women who reflect the true size of the majority of women in America and those unhappy that there's one less source for skinny porn.
Here's the thing - porn has its place. I'm not saying everyone everywhere should be covered up. I'd much rather live in a country where the majority think watching sex on screen is okay than live in this country that thinks making love is shameful, but murdering people on screen is okay. And I enjoy me some ogling at beautiful people, be they male or female.
But I really don't need to be bombarded with pictures of women in their virginal white underwear to respect my individual beauty. I enjoyed the first iteration fo the Dove Real Beauty campaign - where all the women in blonde wigs threw them off to reveal hair in all its varied beauty. I don't really need them to undress to understand the same concept in body formation.
Let me be clear - I've got nothing against the female form. I respect a woman's right to do anything she wants with her body. But how is it enlightened to swap one half naked female form to sell product for another? Why can't we keep our clothes on and still be desirable?
Frankly, I hope my boyfriend never encourages me to be a part of an ad campaign that will plaster my half naked body across America. (Katie Couric gushed on the Today Show about how great it was that one woman's husband encouraged her to be a Dove model.) I prefer to leave some things to the imagination...and provide my love with something that is entirely between us alone.
More:
"Do 'Real Women' Sell? Everyone Has an Opinion," by Jack Tycher in the NY Post
"Look closely -- Dove ads boast mixed messages," by Richard Roeper in the Chicago Sun-Times
Posted by cj at 09:45 AM | Comments (1)
July 19, 2005
Fast Company Editor Jumped Ship
Editor in Chief John Byrne fled Fast Company for the same job at Business Week. To be fair, Byrne spent 18 yrs at BW before takin on the top dog job at FC.
Recently, Byrne sold the editorial merits of FC to its new owner, Joe Mansueto, the founder and CEO of Morningstar.
Mr. Byrne recalled that when Gruner & Jahr decided to sell Fast Company, he was the point of contact between Mr. Mansueto and some of the investment bankers in the deal. "I sold him on the value of Fast Company," he said. He added that every other bidder had planned to shut down the magazine.I find it fascinating that the best written business magazine is so close to shutting its doors. I feel this must be a combination of poor advertiser response to its cutting edge content and lack of support from the higher-ups. (It never helps when your parent company runs away from the U.S. print industry.)
More info:
"BusinessWeek Hires an Editor Away From Fast Company," by Geraldine Fabrikant in today's NYT
Posted by cj at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)
June 07, 2005
Blogging, New Media, Etc.
Last night The NewsHour on PBS had a story about new media - how newspapers are getting more readers online than through subscriptions and how they're doing web-only content, including streaming video and podcasts. Also mentioned was grassroots journalism, and blogging was dimissed as a "commentary-only" realm.
Yesterday, CNN published "Corporations enter blogosphere," by the AP. It's an odd story since it doesn't contain any links to the blogs mentioned.
Heading the pack of corporate hacks is GM's FastLane, a blog that's making me want to get a lil bitty car to replace my gas guzzler.
Intelliseek is a company that gets paid to monitor online buzz. They have a corporate blog that looks incredibly boring and this thing called BlogPulse that monitors blogs.
Richard Edelman heads a PR firm and likes to talk. I haven't read his posts yet, but I guess I'll check it out at a later date.
Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, has short posts here.
Jonathan Schwartz's blog is very techy. Which makes sense, since he's president of Sun Microsystems.
Micro Persuasion is written by a balding white guy about "how weblogs and citizen journalism are impacting public relations." Because the man is even trying to take over blogging.
Stonyfield Farm sponsors five blogs. They make great yogurt and their prez got hooked on the idea while volunteering for Dean's campaign.
Randy Baseler, VP of airplane and death machine manufacturer Boeing, blogs here.
Mark Jen, web-famous for being fired from Google for blogging blogs here (at his new corporate home).
Posted by cj at 04:59 PM | Comments (0)
April 15, 2005
Atlantic Monthly moving from Boston to DC
Katharine Seelye and David Carr report in today's NYT that publisher David Bradley is going back on his original promise to keep the Atlantic Monthly in Boston and is moving it to his publishing headquarters in DC. As previously announced, the magazine is also discontinuing their monthly fiction pieces to make more room for longer articles, particularly focusing on the government.
In an amazing bit of largesse, all of the Boston employees are being offered jobs in DC. If they choose not to move, they'll receive a full year's pay and benefits. Also, the book has been bleeding money - between $4 million and $8 million annually...I wish I had pockets as big as David Bradley.
Posted by cj at 12:08 PM | Comments (0)
April 13, 2005
There is Shit in the Meat
The above sentence kept me up at night and stopped me from reading Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser. It appears on page 197, in chapter 9, which is titled "what's in the meat." Since then, mi chavo started reading the book and because of my competitive nature (I like to learn from books myself instead of learning from someone who has already taken the time to read books), I started reading it again today. I realize now that since I do the majority of my book reading during my hour lunch break, this book is not exactly the best one to be reading. It was amusing when I took the book to McDonald's, where I ate breakfast while learning about the history of fast food companies. Now that I'm actually reading about rendering and feed lots and E. Coli, its not exactly the most pleasant book to have around during mastication.
Its an amazing book. The cover tells me that over one million copies have been sold. I'm sure they have - I've seen the book everywhere. Let's say half the people who buy the book actually read it. (Hey, we all know people buy a ton more books than they read. Just look at my collection for proof.) If half a million people have read this book, where's the outrage? Where's the change in the meat processing industry? I'm relatively sure half a million people didn't have to read The Jungle before Upton Sinclair's expose caused President Theodore Roosevelt to create new standards for meat packing back in the early 1900s. Where or where is our presidential leadership on this subject?
How I forget. Shrub's a good ol' boy with a farm. And good ol' boys think it is okay to feed feces, dead pigs, dead poultry and dead horses to cows. Cows - those animals with four stomachs to process grass, who would never choose to eat dead animals - are eating dead pigs, poultry, horses, and their shit. Oh, and poultry are being fed dead cows.
Another delightful tidbit: according to Charles Gerba, a microbiologist at the University of Arizona, "You'd be better off eating a carrot stick that fell into your toilet than one that fell in your sink." (page 221) That's because of the large amount of shit in ground beef.
Talk about powerful writing. This stuff is definitely having a more significant impact on me than a thriller by Dan Brown...
Posted by cj at 03:06 PM | Comments (0)
March 30, 2005
Freelance Writers Gettin Paid
Reuters reports in the NYT "Settlement in Freelance Writers' Suit." Apparently all the big media corporations were usin freelance pieces online and in databases without paying for the use. The strange part is that writers will get more money if they registered their copyrights. I always thought copyright was assumed by the author unless otherwise specified. I guess I should look into how one registers copyrights.
Posted by cj at 11:25 AM | Comments (1)
March 22, 2005
Quote on Writing
Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease. -Charles Caleb Colton, author and clergyman (1780-1832)
from A.W.A.D.
Posted by cj at 09:04 AM | Comments (0)
March 18, 2005
2 Yrs Too Late, Vatican Bans Da Vinci Code
Twenty million copies have been sold. The book has been translated into forty-four languages. A day late and a dollar short, the Vatican has now officially condemned The Da Vinci Code and asks true Catholics not to read or buy the book.
Apparently, they're alarmed at the growing number of tourists going to Rome on a Da Vinci code holiday. They might also be scared that even more people will be clued into alternative Christian history because the book is being made into a movie starring Tom Hanks.
More info:
"20 Million Copies Later, Vatican Says Don't Read 'Da Vinci Code': The bestserller is a pack of lies that maligns Jesus and harms Catholocism, a cardinal announces." By Tracy Wilkinson in the LAT
Posted by cj at 12:05 PM | Comments (0)
February 15, 2005
Gazing at the Blogosphere's Navel
I thoroughly enjoy reading Daniel Drezner, a poli sci prof.
He wrote "Confessions of a Scholar-Blogger" for the University of Chicago alumni magazine.
He co-authored, with Henry Farrell, "The Power and Politics of Blogs," a powerful statement about the political influence of blogs. It was excerpted in Foreign Affairs magazine. (Link is to a pdf file.)
I'd excerpt from the latter piece, but it's almost five and my brain is already on the train going home.
Posted by cj at 04:53 PM | Comments (0)
February 14, 2005
Bloggers Rule!
Blind Boy Grunt pointed me to The Rambling Gleaner's article, "Bloggers from hell -- or heavensent?" by Charlie Madigan
It's the same old love song to blogging....told anew.
I hadn't heard about the CNN exec who quit after his comments about journalist killings in Iraq were "misinterpreted." And frankly, I don't have the energy to finish reading the article.
Posted by cj at 05:20 PM | Comments (0)
February 10, 2005
Where's My Free Swag?
NY-based websites are getting premiere tickets to fashion week and free samples from beauty companies - in an effort to woo their editorial content. Basically, they're being taken as seriously as print publications and teevee shows.
So the question is - where's my swag?
"Web stylistas scoop up the news," by Jackie Cooperman, International Herald Tribune
Posted by cj at 03:15 PM | Comments (0)
Salon CEO and Editor-in-Chief Resigning
David Carr at the NYT reports that David Talbot, founder, CEO, and editor-in-chief, of Salon is resigning. He'll be replaced by deputies and will remain chairman of the company while working on a book about Robert Kennedy.
It's an interesting article that also details some of the history of Salon and how it's celebrating its first profitable quarter ever.
Posted by cj at 12:31 PM | Comments (0)
February 09, 2005
I wanna work there
I'm not sure how long you'll be able to read the deets of the NY Observer's article on the new Hearst building in NY. It sounds ab fab.
Xanadu in NY: Hearst's Tower Vying With Si's by Gabriel Sherman
Cattiest quote of the article:
Lunchtime rivalries aside, Ms. Black dismissed the notion that Hearst's state-of-the-art, spare-no-detail building even competes with Conde Nast's state-of-the-art, spare-no-detail headquarters.Take that, publishers of Vogue and Vanity Fair!Where Hearst commissioned the developer Tishman Speyer Properties to custom-build its tower from the ground up, Condé Nast signed a lease on 4 Times Square after the Durst Organization had already set the design by the architects Fox and Fowle, and the top 25 floors are leased by Skadden Arps.
"I think [the Hearst building] is completely different. Here we are with 46 stories overlooking Central Park, in a signature building that Hearst owns. This is not a developer building, that's a very important thing. We're not renters, we're not tenants. This is a Hearst-owned building. It's only Hearst inside this building. So, it's a different kind of statement," she said.
(In case you're not a publishing geek, Conde Nast is Hearst's biggest corporate rival.)
Posted by cj at 02:55 PM | Comments (0)
February 04, 2005
Conde's Big Push For Print Ad Dollars
According to Stuart Elliott at the NYT, Conde Nast is spending $400 million to convince advertisers that their magazines are a good place for product placement. I've never understood why print is being squeezed in the ad budget battles. Stop wasting money on teevee ads! All the kewl kids have TiVo anyway. They still need to read their Vanity Fair (and their Cosmo and their Good Housekeeping...).
I used to think Big Corporations were evil. That was, until my paycheck came from one of the biggest media conglomerates. Seriously folks, don't you feel more connected to mags than you do to the latest reality show on teevee? I know I do.
Only problem I see with the Nast's plan is this quote:
"When the Internet had its first explosion, everyone talked about 'the demise of print,' " Mr. Beckman [the president of the Condé Nast Media Group] said, "but video didn't kill the radio star."See, but it did. Video didn't kill radio, but it did kill the ability for un-telegenetic singers (aka ugly folks with tons of ability) to become big pop stars. When was the last time a Bob Dylan type became successful? If you said when Dylan hit it big, you are correct sir.
Posted by cj at 04:08 PM | Comments (0)
January 04, 2005
Boys Are Creating Magazines for Co-eds
First they created websites - annoying affairs with a new medium. Now they're creating beer drenched mags for the collegiate masses. Co-Ed is on sale now and Cheat Sheet is in development. Full deets at NY Daily News. I suppose all the females interested in the market are either (a)writing for college newspapers or (b)interning at Ms. magazine.
Posted by cj at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)
New Editor at Publisher's Weekly
FYI, there's a new publisher at Publisher's Weekly, the trade mag of the book business. Brief account at the NYT.
Posted by cj at 11:09 AM | Comments (0)
December 28, 2004
Susan Sontag Died Today of Leukemia at 71
Obit from LAT republished by the Trib
The obit is *amazing.* I never read Sontag's work and now will search it out. Here are some highlights from the article:
"We live in a culture," she said, "in which intelligence is denied relevance altogether, in a search for radical innocence, or is defended as an instrument of authority and repression. In my view, the only intelligence worth defending is critical, dialectical, skeptical, desimplifying." ...Emphasis added.Sontag was reading by 3. In her teens, her passions were Gerard Manley Hopkins and Djuna Barnes. The first book that thrilled her was "Madame Curie," which she read when she was 6. She was stirred by the travel books of Richard Halliburton and the Classic Comics rendition of Shakespeare’s "Hamlet." The first novel that affected her was Victor Hugo’s "Les Miserables."
"I sobbed and wailed and thought [books] were the greatest things," she recalled. "I discovered a lot of writers in the Modern Library editions, which were sold in a Hallmark card store, and I used up my allowance and would buy them all."
She remembered as a girl of 8 or 9 lying in bed looking at her bookcase against the wall. "It was like looking at my 50 friends. A book was like stepping through a mirror. I could go somewhere else. Each one was a door to a whole kingdom." ...
An early and passionate opponent of the Vietnam War, Sontag was both admired and reviled for her political convictions. In a 1967 Partisan Review symposium, she wrote that "America was founded on a genocide, on the unquestioned assumption of the right of white Europeans to exterminate a resident, technologically backward, colored population in order to take over the continent."
In her rage and gloom and growing despair, she concluded that "the truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Marx, Balanchine ballets, et al., don’t redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history; it is the white race and it alone — its ideologies and inventions — which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which now threatens the very existence of life itself."
Posted by cj at 12:30 PM | Comments (0)
December 27, 2004
Literary Journals Abound
It's great to read an article about the growth of published writing, rather than its demise. While its true that book selling has become more commercial - and so it's ever more difficult to get a book deal - more and more people are using the power of the internet and at home publishing to create literary journals. Theories abound as to why the suddent surge, but one things for certain: if you're interested in new voices in prose and poetry, there are plenty of places to find them.
Here's the NYT article about the phenomenon
Quick Fiction, a journal discussed in the NYT piece
The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, which lists the mags by subject and was also mentioned in the article
Posted by cj at 10:30 AM | Comments (0)