“Comedy is the salt of civilization, its critical voice.”
~ Guy Davenport, “That Faire Field of Enna” (courtesy of Anecdotal Evidence)...[read more]
Salman Rushdie on the possibilities film has opened up for writers of fiction:
As a writer, one of the things we all learned from the movies was a kind of compression that didn't exist before people were used to watching films. For instance, if you wanted to write a flashback in a novel, you once had to really contextualize it a lot, to set it up. Now, readers know exactly what you're doing. Close-ups too. Writers can use filmic devices that we've all accepted so much that we don't even see them as devices any more.To read the rest of the Globe & Mail interview from which the above quotation is drawn
Streaming Has Gotten So Crowded In The UK, But Netflix Reigns Supreme, For Now
Despite the threat of Disney+, BritBox, Apple TV, and so (very) much more, Netflix is killing it in Britain. And Netflix’s “2020 film slate is positively mouthwatering.” – The Guardian (UK)
The Revenge Of The Pretty Good Non-Action, Not Part Of A Franchise Movie
Why is Knives Out selling out movie theaters more than a month after it was released? Basically, the cause is that it’s “a pretty good movie that’s exceeding people’s expectations because their expectations for the movies are so damn low.” Ouch. – BuzzFeed
”I’ve squeezed my middle age dry...”
Tove Jansson, writing in 1997 about writer’s block:
What did I tell those kids who wrote and asked how one becomes an author? It was something like write about what you’ve lived, about what you know …But I’ve done that. I’ve squeezed my middle age dry, and when I got seriously old, I did what I could with that, too, but then I tried to write about really young people, and that didn’t work out so well. And the kids wrote again and asked, And what do we do now, and I said write about your fears, and they did it, at once, and wanted feedback as soon as possible.And what do I fear above all? To be a sore loser, to be second best. But this is not something one writes about.
Elsewhere in the piece, she parenthetically ponders, “I wonder how it is for other people.” To which I would respond, “For other writers, exactly the same.”
The 20 Best Works of Nonfiction of the Decade
LitHub – “So, as is our hallowed duty as a literary and culture website—though with full awareness of the potentially fruitless and endlessly contestable nature of the task—in the coming weeks, we’ll be taking a look at the best and most important (these being not always the same) books of the decade that was. We will do this, of course, by means of a variety of lists. We began with thebest debut novels, the best short story collections, the best poetry collections, the best memoirs of the decade, and the best essay collections of the decade. But our sixth list was a little harder—we were looking at what we (perhaps foolishly) deemed “general” nonfiction: all the nonfiction excepting memoirs and essays (these being covered in their own lists) published in English between 2010 and 2019…The following books were finally chosen after much debate (and multiple meetings) by the Literary Hub staff. Tears were spilled, feelings were hurt, books were re-read. And as you’ll shortly see, we had a hard time choosing just ten—so we’ve also included a list of dissenting opinions, and an even longer list of also-rans…”NEWS YOU CAN USE: Exercise may reduce risk for cancer by as much as 25 percent
ADVERSARY TECHNOLOGY: Don’t Buy Ring Or Other Home Surveillance Devices For Anyone, Ever
I am fascinated with the sound of movies, from the soundtracks to the foleyeffects and even temp music. Making Waves is a documentary about this integral aspect of cinema.
Kelly Fraser, Singer Who Gained Fame For An Inuit-Language Cover Of A Rihanna Song, Has Died At 26
Fraser “wrote or translated songs into Inuktitut, an Inuit language, [and] a key aim was to ‘use pop music as a platform to strengthen her language,'” her producer said. “She also wanted to make the music as accessible to as many people as possible, he said, so she mixed English and Inuktitut in her recordings and blended traditional Inuit sounds and themes with contemporary pop.” –Seattle Times (AP)
The bike shed effect is deeply counterintuitive and explanations are typically illustrated by the example story of a managerial committee meeting. In the example, a group of senior managers only take minutes to approve the controversial construction of a nuclear power plant, but spend hours on a draining discussion about the company’s new bike shed. Indeed, they engage in a nit-picking debate over different colour options for painting the shed. Anthracite grey or duck egg blue? And how about a bright shade of atomic tangerine to highlight the entrance gate? It is possible that the managers’ lengthy debate reflected well-meaning concern for company aesthetics. However, its ultimate usefulness was questionable
Producing A Movie Is An Arduous Slog. It Just Is
“Writing is lonely; directing and acting, if you’re overlapping them, is challenging but fun. But producing is just pushing a rock up a hill. And sometimes it rolls over you on the way back down.” – Los Angeles Times
I Knew These Things I Bought Would Transform My Life! (A List)
“Every morning, I wake up before dawn to take a walk with my dog around the countryside, before I return to my home (still before dawn) to bake a loaf of bread and write for four hours in my notebook.” – The New Yorker
