A belated Valentine garland of linkspam for my dr rdrs
This suburban house feels an odd place to find a modern-day literary superstar. It is my considered opinion that literary superstars were and are more likely to be found in suburban &/or provincial houses rather than trendy Hoxton (or equivalent) pads (do people say pad any more?). As opposed to wannabes and poseurs. Will, however, cop to personally never having really got into Tyler's novels, which is slightly odd, because I am sure they would feature on those 'If you like X you'll like Y' recommendations, where X is a writer I do like. But have read a few, and have not been either motivated to go out and devour the backlist, or wait with bated breath for the latest in her oeuvre.
Students used to take drugs to get high. Now they take them to get higher grades. Cannot help wondering if the effect is pretty much equivalent to taking psychotropic drugs to expand creativity - i.e. the ultimate outcome is not impressive. There are a number of indications in the article that these 'smart drugs' may improve some things, like concentration and recall, but I like the comment by one history student: ' I need to write a convincing argument and not just spill out facts'. Quite apart from the downright dystopic suggestion that these drugs help people buckle down and even get keen on boring routine repetitive tasks.
Has anyone reporting this and going WOEZ ever spoken to an archivist? the archive world has been conscious of this issue for several decades now. Digital conservation: we must act now. It must be a good 30 years since in my professional capacity I was handed a computer tape of somebody's research data with a singular lack of documentation or information. Also, hello, reel-to-reel audiotapes, videos from the dawn of video cameras, and might I mention nitrate film stock? We are used to the obsolescent.
I quit my job to set up a post-apocalyptic commune, clearly failing to think it through or, you know, read up on the history of communes and what worked and what didn't. Still, he got a book out of it (along with a spell in a psychiatric ward): reviews here and here.
This could be unbearably poncey: David Best: the man who builds art - and burns it but there does seem to be something there that transcends that kneejerk response.
Have we not been here before: Phone fiction spells the end of the professional novelist: impending death of novel as we know it much exaggerated, yet again.
And, on the endless recurrence of moral panics with particular reference to young women, see the horror expressed by older family members about the ruination that is bicycling, in 1908 play currently being revived at the Jermyn Street Theatre, The Last of the De Mullins. This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/2230487.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
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