Interesting Links for 06-05-2012

[andrewducker]

• The writer who made millions by self-publishing online (and why she now has a deal with a publisher)
  (tags: AmandaHocking self-publishing writing publishing )
• John Cleese vs The Sun
  (tags: JohnCleese TheSun RupertMurdoch media funny )
• Some amazing celebrity photographs. Great style.
  (tags: celebrities photography )
• Cute kitty wants to play with

Comments

[khbrown]

The Beethoven was black article is interesting and persuasive, but I do wonder if this black/white dichotomising avoids whitewashing history but at the cost of eliminating mixed people from it. Maybe in the context of the 'one-drop rule' in the US that makes sense, since someone mixed would be classed as black, but weren't there also places and periods (e.g. New Orleans, with its pre-American Civil War Creole culture) that resisted this either/or?

[momentsmusicaux]

The Beethoven article is fascinating until it descends in this 'Oh and even his music was black!' which, having skim-read the score of the Waldstein by way of a sample, strikes as being bollocks and what's the word? Oh yeah -- black people, they're more rhythmical don't you know.

[andrewducker]

I hear they're also naturally sportier.

[nancylebov]

If I understand the comments to the Beethoven was black article correctly, the author is partly saying that white people have been making themselves feel good with bad arguments for why distinguished people are white, and he's determined that black people should get in on the fun.

This being said, I'm at least convinced that Beethoven was darker than the average German. I'm waiting for DNA analysis of all those hair samples.

It would be really cool if there were a tradition of syncopated music which went from Africa to Beethoven (maybe lullabies?), but I'm not counting on it.

[channelpenguin]

having just seen more than a few Danes this weekend with the same kind of broad, flat noses and prominent lips that you more normally asscociate with black guys/gals, I'd not *necessarily* give "deathmask" physiognomical(sp?) argument the time of day. Many Scots/Irish/Welsh men(women) are pretty dark skinned, and *anyone* can have Afro-esque hair (e.g. my dad, blue-eyed, brown haired Scot - I have halfway hair... very annoying...).

Not saying Beethoven might not have been black, could well have been, but there's nothing in any of the arguments that is all that convincing either way.

[channelpenguin]

the author is partly saying that white people have been making themselves feel good with bad arguments for why distinguished people are white, and he's determined that black people should get in on the fun.

Ahhh.... that makes much more sense and is actually kinda funny.