I had to share this article by New York theater critic David Cote because it really is an indictment of digital-age jitteriness screwing up culture and literacy instead of broadening same as was promised. It’s not really surprising that a contemporary theater audience doesn’t know that a play is not typically an interactive experience, and yet it is still a little surprising. Cote’s ...
If I hadn’t given up regular TV watching about 20 years ago, I’d probably still be channel-surfing into oblivion. You’ve been there, right? Whatever you’re watching can’t possibly be as good or important as whatever you’re missing. With hundreds of available channels, this is just mathematically reasonable in a very frustrating way. Maybe, but it’s also an example of how ...
I draw your attention to this wonderfully unsentimental yet passionate defense of books by Toby Mundy. The publisher at Atlantic Books, Mundy offers his personal views on the devaluation of the medium for the thought-provoking site Medium.com. Specifically, of course, he draws our attention to Amazon and its Wal-Mart-like ability to muscle publishers (and by extension authors) into lowering prices toward ...
It’s a longstanding cliché we parents repeat that our kids can have more fun with a box than with the toy that comes in the box. It’s still true, and we still don’t trust our own wisdom in this regard because presenting a kid with an empty box for his birthday or some other occasion is a risky bet that ...
More than a decade ago, a book editor managing her own imprint at one of the big publishing houses gave me some insight into her world that I’ll never forget. “I have to publish about five diet books,” she told me, “in order to invest in one new novelist.” It’s important to understand that this is not a comment on ...
