[contextly_auto_sidebar id="FGMaW10z0XI8nVQN7MfT1Ac9PxVEGJCS"] BOY, this is weird. The online bookseller, in an attempt to tackle its critics, has been quoting George Orwell WAY out of context. A New York Times story gets at the whole messy business. In 1936 Orwell told a British paper: “The Penguin Books are splendid value for sixpence, so splendid that if the other publishers had any … [Read more...]
Archives for August 2014
“Is Spotify Killing Music?”
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="AJwkTxpSjSsEeL7n5JFPH23s6m8blcVb"] TWO descendants of Woody Guthrie and John Steinbeck make a good illustration of what's happened to the lives of musicians lately. A new story -- co-written by yours truly -- up on TakePart looks at how musicians are being proletarianized, and I don't just mean the lyrics. The story -- written with Kathleen Sharp -- weaves between … [Read more...]
Waging War on Middlebrow
A PROFOUND story appeared in the New York Times a few days ago and seems to have gotten far less discussion that it deserved. I mean film critic A.O. Scott's "The Squeeze on the Middlebrow." This is one of the best pieces I've seen connecting income inequality and the whole 1 percent business to culture and the middle class's role in it. Scott begins by speaking about Thomas Piketty's Capital … [Read more...]
Creativity and “Powers of Two”
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="h6kHO9RuWKQjpO1pgA06PU80n7f3lQ1n"] JOSHUA Wolf Shenk's new book, Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs, is the subject of my latest story. Shenk looks at more than 100 partnerships -- some overt, some hidden -- to try to distill the process of creation and derive patterns. He works especially with figures in literature and the arts -- … [Read more...]
What Can the Music Business Learn from TV?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="ovgvpF5mVNWQ4VA6t0cWS8RxeXKTS2uP"] THE contrast is hard to miss: the great surge in television -- especially on cable -- as the music industry collapses. Culture writer Ted Gioia has written a short provocative post trying to make sense of the mismatch. He's also asking how music can replicate some of the success of HBO, Showtime and the others. Generally, Ted is … [Read more...]
Bill Frisell and John Pizzarelli
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="YzGwojzyP7xLvlItRYvhB3hE0xZLcPub"] Want to see two masters of the jazz guitar play a laid-back duo version of "Days of Wine and Roses"? We sure do. The performance, along with an inteview, just went up on the Fretboard Journal. Here it is. Enjoy! … [Read more...]
The Downside of Freelance Nation
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Xdew9ZyDPnPc00sNxT9gh2myS9uRknrk"] WITH all the hype around the go-it-alone/ "free-agent" lifestyle and the new economy, it's refreshing to see a sober, well-balance piece about making a living as a freelancer. Though it's not specifically about the creative class, Tiffany Hsu's story on freelancers and the "gray economy" in California is crucial to understanding … [Read more...]
Phil and Dave Alvin Play the Blues
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="UKi5w9mxgcYp60mSYYXB3aLbyiq9oNKk"] YOUR humble blogger just caught the former Blasters playing a short set from their new Big Bill Broonzy (pictured, right) record, at the Federal Bar in North Hollywood. This exceeded my expectations -- Phil (who almost died a few years ago) was in good voice, not just on the blues numbers, but on a Jimmie Rodgers song (complete … [Read more...]
Silicon Valley’s New Robber Barons
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="EgEeltgVhbdrJtpZgu1Pc9OkKclq7k1w"] THERE'S a very fine new piece in the August Harper's in which Rebecca Solnit draws a straight line between the 19th century robber barons and Silicon Valley's cyber-utopians. The common denominator, she writes, is Stanford University. The relationship between the early kings of the railroads -- who were given free reign across much … [Read more...]