Taylor Orci on the rise and fall of radium: Numerous are the ads of this time for wares like “radium silk lingerie” and decks of cards with the word “radium” emblazoned on them. In one ad, a pastoral landscape dotted with grazing cows near a pristine stream are bathed in the warm glow of a…
Our second accents are not betrayals. They are not performances. They aren’t passports of convenience, they aren’t tricks, and they certainly aren’t punchlines. Rega Jha at Buzzfeed India here.
Does digital reproduction drive down the cost of all cultural content to zero? Are artists doomed to penury in the 21st century? Steven Johnson in the New York Times Magazine suggests not: Writers, performers, directors and even musicians report their economic fortunes to be similar to those of their counterparts 15 years ago, and in…
Is specific discrimination against the Irish a false memory? University professor says yes, teenage historian says no.
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Are creatives replacing artists? Does it matter? Bill Deresiewicz says: When works of art become commodities and nothing else, when every endeavor becomes “creative” and everybody “a creative,” then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal pickles, artisanal poems:…
Style wisdom from Fran Lebowitz: I wish that real estate were cheaper and clothes were more expensive. More here.
Is the world being taken over by bigoted algorithms? Pasquale cites a 2013 study, “Discrimination in Online Ad Delivery,” in which Harvard professor Latanya Sweeney found that black-identified names (including her own) frequently generated Google ads like “Lakisha Simmons, Arrested?” while white-identified names did not. More on Frank Pasquale’s ‘Black Box Society’ here.
Time for the annual celebration of the value of the UK’s creative industries. “From Art to Architecture, Film to Fashion, British talent leads the world” “The UK’s Creative Industries, which includes the film, television and music industries, are now worth £76.9 billion per year to the UK economy.” Strange to mention the creative activities with…
In removing its total ban on blood donation from gay men, the USA leaves the company of Germany and Greece, and joins the company of Argentina and Australia in allowing donations only from men who have not had sex for over a year. Will it one day be so liberal as to remove the ban…