According to the New York Times, some folks are trying to make the most of the carnage left behind by the Great Newspaper Massacre of ’08/’09 with “guerilla gardening” in abandoned paper bins, among other creative ideas. It’s kinda cool stuff, but kind of bittersweet, too.
After a brief period of silence, veteran AJC critics Cathy Fox and Pierre Ruhe have resurfaced to form a new blog called artscriticATL. So far, the duo has already covered a range of topics, including Matt Haffner’s exhibition at MOCA GA, the Museum of Design Atlanta, and several articles covering the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
And they’re not alone. For example, check out the goodies on this blog, Ink-Drained Kvetch, by former AJC sports writer Wendy Parker. It isn’t exactly a sports blog — since she writes sports coverage like a madwoman elsewhere on numerous other blogs. No, Ink-Drained Kvetch is actually devoted to the monumental task of “reinventing a journalism career in the digital age.” (See also her autobiographical post titled “Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the blog!”)
Of course, the A-Team wouldn’t be complete without Jerry Cullum, who’s been “writing rogue” for some time now, on not one, but two literature/visual arts blogs for several years. If you can make it through Cullum’s dense, meandering prose, the amount of knowledge there is disturbing ….
Who else is blogging out there, out of buyout pseudo-retirement?
Forget the Kindle vs. paper books debate — apparently the days of actually “writing” a “book” are slowly coming to an end. You know, craft, art, substance(s), the actual minutia that all go into making a book a piece of work — it’s all becoming as outdated as banks crash, attention spans diminish, and robots begin serving us dinner in capsule form (OK, that last one won’t happen ’til 2011). In this new cultural landscape, we will need leaders, like the Jonas Brothers, to rise up and, with a firm hand, guide us to new levels of social media interactivity. Fortunately David Pogue, New York Times columnist and author of many books that teach your grandmother how to check e-mail on her eMac, is here to save us via his forthcoming The World According To Twitter.
From the blog of Pogue (David Pogue, not the Pogues the band, because you know very well that I’d heap high praise on anything penned by Shane MacGowan):
It all started with a live demo of Twitter. During a talk, I was trying to demonstrate the real-time nature of Twitter. On stage, I typed: “Anyone got a pun that can fit in 140 characters?” Your responses started flowing within 10 seconds….
Wait, wait, dear Culture Surfer reader, don’t check out yet, it gets better (in the way that “better” means “worse”):
Next, I posted a picture of a squirrel in my yard, and asked for captions. You turned out to be the wittiest caption writers ever!
(Oh, sorry, I added that exclamation point up there. It just needed it, didn’t it?)
That was it. I knew my mission in life: to compile and edit a whole book of (Twitter) responses, written by my 200,000 followers.
(As you can see, that is not actually the real cover of David Pogue’s book that you wrote for him)
In today’s collapsing publishing landscape this book screams both timely and vital. I’ll be greatly looking forward to Pogue’s well-thought-out treatise on Friendster soon!
No, really, all snark aside, this sort of attempt at an of-the-minute cash-grab really irks me. While publishers, authors and other various incidental folk in the book business are actually working, diligently and full of heart, to discover what it’s going to take to turn the sinking ship of books around, Pogue’s trying to ramp up excitement for 200 pages of @SomeGuy tweeting “hey I really like dogs.”
And speaking of @someguy — if you, lucky you, end up being selected to be a part of Pogue’s scam project, you certainly get compensated, right?
Of course you do. Per Pogue himself, he’ll send you “a free copy of the book, inscribed to you personally.”
Oh, wow, lucky day!
NPR ran an extremely well-timed story on critics and the struggling print industry last week. At the beginning of the broadcast, director of the National Arts Journalism Program Doug McClennan defended the status of full-time professional critics:
The critic defines the territory, walks the perimeter of that territory and comes back and tells you, ‘OK … here’s the interesting stuff I found.’
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that in the United States there are now “as many people making their living as bloggers as there are lawyers,” i.e., there are more bloggers than firefighters.
As Dylan once quipped,“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” … Or do we?
Our local daily released the official list of staffers accepting buyouts today. Among them, a number of features reporters and, more notably, arts critics.
CL’s Scott Henry reports, saying,
The paper also appears to be clearing house of its arts critics: visual arts critic Cathy Fox, theater critic Wendell Brock and classical music critic Pierre Ruhe, as well as Sonia Murray, who writes about the hip-hop scene.
Find out the rest of the details on the buyout over on our Fresh Loaf blog.
1. 5 things to do: Friday (Looks like folks were scrambling to make new plans after last Friday’s Janelle Monae/Jaspects/Hollyweerd show at the Rialto was canceled.)
2. What’s the worst sequel title of all time? (The Fast and the Furious got Faster & Furiouser. Or did it get 2 Fast 2 Furious? Argh!!)
3. Jack Bauer: The Musical stages world premiere (April Fools! Seriously, though, that’s an awesome idea for a musical.)
4. The Televangelist: ‘Lost’ episode 11 (Last week was a head-scratcher. Miles: “Look, when Ben turned that wheel, time no longer exists as a straight line. Our experiences in the past and the future occurred before these experiences right now.” Say wha?)
5. This just in: Newspaper crisis solved! (The answer? Boobs!)
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
The staff over at the East Bay Express chronicles the struggles of our faltering industry with brainstorming via showtune.
What are the chances, do you think, of getting Scott Henry to sing back up for “Creative Loafing — Bankruptcy in B minor” at today’s staff meeting?
