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Tag: david carr

Published May 30, 2012

Midweek Miscellany

Survival Training — Colson Whitehead, author of Zone One, on watching horror flicks and b-movies, in science fiction edition of The New Yorker:

It was survival training. “A Clockwork Orange,” which I saw several times on HBO before I was ten, taught me more about not opening my door to strangers than a hundred school-assembly lectures. I never talked much in educational settings, so it is unlikely that I asked my mother, “What are they doing to that woman?” during my introduction to Stanley Kubrick, but, had I inquired, I’m sure she would have said, “It’s a comment on society, son.”

See also: Laura Miller on the first fictional space aliens, William Gibson on science fiction and Tomorrow, and cover illustration by Daniel Clowes (pictured above).

And on a related note: Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman talks science fiction at Wired.com:

I read Foundation back when I was in high school, when I was a teenager, and thought about the psychohistorians, who save galactic civilization through their understanding of the laws of society, and said “I want to be one of those guys.” And economics was as close as I could get. Those are pretty unique novels — they really are structured nothing like even the great bulk of science fiction, because they are about how social science can be used to save humanity.

Terrifying French children’s books.

And finally… An interesting interview with The New York Times media columnist David Carr (and star of the documentary Page One) at Talking Points Memo:

The tools of production are at hand for everyone. I used to hire a lot of young people when I was the editor of Washington City Paper, and you used to have them show you the clips and see where else you worked. Show me what you’ve made with your own bare little hands. That, I think, is super important. People say, “You should’ve been here for the good old days.” I think that’s crazy. Yeah, it’s a little harder, but you have so many more tools at your disposal to story-tell. It’s cool to be in a business where you still learn. You don’t have to be able to code yourself, but you have to know what coding is. You should be able to work in Final Cut Pro. WordPress should be second-nature. I think, in generational terms, being able to produce and consume content at the same time.

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Published June 15, 2011

Midweek Miscellany

An interview with the talented Allison Colpoys, book designer at Penguin Books Australia, at The Design Files.

Particular Beasts — A brief interview with art director John Gall about teaching book design:

Each book is its own particular beast that has to be designed from the ground up. Every designer has their own way of looking at the problem and coming up with a solution. It can’t help but be personal on some level.

A Twist, Flourish or Quirk — Louise Fili and Steven Heller, authors of Scripts: Elegant Lettering from Design’s Golden Age, on script typefaces at Design Observer:

During the letterpress era [script typefaces] were in such great demand that many people “invented” them, and many others copied them. In some commercial printing shops, composing cases filled with scripts were stacked floor to ceiling to the exclusion of other type. Printers routinely amassed multiple styles of the heavy metal type fonts, each possessing a distinct twist, flourish or quirk, used to inject the hint of personality or dash of character to quotidian printed pieces… Scripts signaled propriety, suggested authority yet also exuded status and a bourgeois aesthetic. The wealthy classes couldn’t get enough fashionable scripts in their diet.

The Pilot Fish and The Whale — David Carr, media columnist at the New York Times, talks about the documentary Page One: Inside The New York Times with screenwriter Aaron Sorkin  for Interview Magazine:

I think one of the things that Page One does an amazing job of demonstrating is the importance of editors. You can see our editor, Bruce Headlam, shaping, arguing, pushing back. Of course, that’s what you don’t have a lot of in the blogosphere. There is nobody pushing people to support what they’re saying, nobody arguing against the assumptions that are brought to the table…

Slow Journalism — An interview with cartoonist and journalist Joe Sacco (Footnotes in Gaza) for the A.V. Club:

[I]t’s one of the slowest art forms or media there is. You know, there’s fast food and there’s the slow food movement; I guess this is slow journalism. It just forces you into it. It’s difficult for me because I love being in the field, so to speak. I love that day-to-day thrill of being in places, and the great privilege of meeting people and going into their homes and seeing what their lives are like. I love that. But when you compare how much time is spent reporting to how much time is spent at a desk just writing and drawing, the reporting is a fraction. That’s just the way it is.

And finally…

Sing Out — Dorian Lynskey, author of 33 Revolutions per Minute, recommends five books about protest songs. The cover of 33 Revolutions per Minute was designed by Jacob Covey.

http://www.bookdepository.com/Footnotes-Gaza-Joe-Sacco/9780805092776/?a_aid=optimist
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Published February 16, 2011

Midweek Miscellany

Risky Business — Cartoonist Adrian Tomine talks about his new book Scenes From An Impending Marriage, which originally started life as a mini-comic for his wedding guests, with More Intelligent Life:

I probably first started thinking about publishing it when a copy appeared on eBay. I assumed that since it was only given to close friends and family, that would never happen, but I was wrong. And like I said, since I was slowly adding pages to the book, I eventually found myself with 50 or 60 pages worth of material, and I just proposed the idea to my publisher. If he had declined, I would’ve happily filed it away…

AND Adrian and his wife Sarah Brennan talk about the new book with NPR’s All Things Considered.

(For the record, Scenes From An Impending Marriage is distributed in Canada by my employer Raincoast Books).

Sunny-Side — Jonathan Lethem talks to Carolyn Kellogg at The LA Times about decamping from Brooklyn to Southern California. There is more of their conversation at Times’ Jacket Copy blog:

I’ve only probably reviewed seven or eight novels. It’s really problematic. I’m gregarious with writers; I like novelists. I don’t want my sympathies to cause me to write a review that’s in any kind of bad faith, nor do I want to destroy some pleasant, even if it’s slight, collegial feeling. I try to review the dead guy — Bolaño — or the biography of the dead guy, because I like being in the conversation. Sometimes I look at what Updike did at the New Yorker. I don’t know if many people have the temperament, let alone the incredible set of skills he brought to that, the versatility, the endless curiosity, to identify with so many different kinds of novelists who were not doing what he does.

The Price of Zero — David Carr on media companies and unpaid contributors for The New York Times:

For those of us who make a living typing, it’s all very scary, of course. It’s less about the diminution of authority and expertise, although there is that, and more about the growing perception that content is a commodity, and one that can be had for the price of zero… For the media, this is a Tom Sawyer moment. “Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?” he says to his friends, and sure enough, they are soon lined up for the privilege of doing his chores. That’s a bit like how social networks get built. (Just imagine if Tom had also schooled them in the networking opportunities of the user-generated endeavor: “You’re not just painting a fence. You’re building an audience around your personal brand.”)

And finally…

In the Age of Screens — A serialized essay about contemporary book discovery and reading by Chad W. Post, publisher of Open Letter Books, editor of  the Three Percent blog:

[W]e’ve stripped away all the institutions that supported the ways in which most outsiders found their literature, leaving texts to float untethered in the ether, there to be found… There is no serendipity… And yet, for the long-term benefit of society, we need people to have—and be exposed to— ideas from the out-of-­nowhere.

The complete essay is available as a PDF.

we’ve
stripped
away
all
the
institutions
that
supported
the
ways
in
which
most
outsiders
found
their
literature,
leaving
texts
to
float
untethered
in
the
ether,
there
to
be
found
.
.
.
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