Happy Birthday Olek - Every culture has its coming-of-age rituals. A child is inducted into the adult realm through a transformative experience, whether it's becoming more steeped in religion or killing a deer or having a vision Coming of Age at Sweet 16
Anyone with a Blogger account and an interesting angle has the capacity to generate content and cultivate a sizeable following. As a result of this trend in developing personal digital brands through blogs and social media sites, there has been a shift in the types of new authors that publishing companies are seeking. No longer is the sole requisite for garnering a book deal simply a unique idea; individuals must bring their own leverageable audience to the table, whether through a social media fanbase on Twitter of Facebook, or through followers of a content site like a personal blog. This has had the effect of both widening and narrowing the types of individuals able to successfully attract publishing agencies.... Books will always be great branding tools, positioning an expert with potential to be a household name, but the rules have changed and a new marketing paradigm is taking precedent; social media experts with high volume platforms are fueling book deals How Successful New Authors Are Branding Themselves Through MEdia Dragons and Social Media
Cirque du Soleil’s Zarkana, which recently opened at Radio City Music Hall June 29, offered a “blogger” performance on July 20. The creative team is looking for “trend-setting bloggers who like theater, entertainment and/or New York cultural events” to attend a special performance of the new acrobatic spectacle A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
Mass murder and the Internet
You can ignore jihad, but you cannot avoid the consequences of ignoring jihad. That was the first reaction of American anti-Islam blogger Pamela Geller to news of the terror attacks in Norway. When it turned out the mass murderer was an anti-Islamic terrorist, whose 1,500-page online manifesto was replete with material from anti-Islam writers such as her, she shrugged: “He’s a bloody murderer. Period. He is responsible for his actions. He and only he. There was no ‘ideology’ here.”
Bruce Bawer, the Oslo-based American author of a jeremiad about the Muslim takeover of Europe, was more thoughtful. Noting that Mr. Breivik, in his manifesto, quotes approvingly and at length from my work, mentioning my name 22 times, Mr. Bawer reflects, with decent dismay: It is chilling to think that blog entries that I composed in my home in west Oslo over the last couple of years were being read and copied out by this future mass murderer in his home in west Oslo.
• Online, you can easily find the thousand other people who share your perverted views ; [Yale's 'World Fellows' program a melting pot of elites. A Tunisian cyberdissident and a Russian blogger may not appear to have much in common, but they were brought together at Yale University in a program drawing elites from around the globe ; The agony of originality. Four thousand years ago, an Egyptian writer lamented his stale prose: “Would I had phrases that are not known.” If he was late to the party, what about us Heart Like a Wheel -The agony of originality; Nothing takes the heart out of a man more than the expectation of failure. - Robin Hobb, Assassin's Apprentice Blogger discovers whole fake Apple Stores in China ]
• · Blogger who chronicles every outfit becomes internet sensation - Poppy Dinsey sports everything from designer dresses to bikinis and pyjamas and now has so many clothes that her bedroom looks ‘more like a warehouse’ What I wore today ; Style Wax Poetic is a Los Angeles based blog written by Kristen Cohahan, which covers the latest in trends, fashion and music. According to her site, Style Wax Poetic was inspired to exist from the romanticized notion of fashion being a true art form of expression Style Wax Poetic
• · · Is it possible for a play to be so well known that there's no longer anything new to do with it or say about it? Yeah, sure. The plague of publishing these days is to mistake ubiquity for significance Knotted: How the Necktie Changed the World ; Big rejection numbers in publishing are not important. Big numbers in general are not important. No, the number to worry about is one. One. That's how many sentences you have to impress an agent or editor. Step aside, Dale Peck. When it comes to sheer brutishness, no book critic compares to John Wilson Croker, who wrote the review that killed John Keats. I've found out why people laugh. They laugh 'cause it hurts... 'cause it's only thing that'll make it stop hurting
• · · · The patent war. Nathan Myhrvold is a polymath with a knack for making money. Is his latest venture a shakedown of Silicon Valley?.. When Patents Attack; The politics of yuck. Sewage on a hot day is simply gross. Disgust, however, is actually quite complex. In fact, it’s dangerous... The politics of yuck
• · · · · "What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person." — John Green (Paper Towns) ;. We spend billions to live longer, yet give little thought to how to live longer, better. Here comes the silver tsunami.. Aging and innovation
• · · · · · The fields were fruitful, and starving men moved on the roads. — John Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath) Umberto Eco is fascinated by fallibility. His vast personal library includes the works of the errant Ptolemy, not the accurate Galileo Open Book: This is Not the End of the Book ; Teachers in Central Bucks schools could face strict new rules about what they can, and cannot, post online. The proposed policy comes after one teacher made national headlines for posting very controversial comments about her students. District looks at social media policy in wake of blogging teacher scandal