The most important story I read recently was The Economist's
"Men Adrift", which is about the fact that nobody has much use for badly-educated males in advanced industrial societies these days. It seems of a piece with the
most frightening story I read recently, the New Yorker's account of how a Belgian teenager ran off to join ISIS. This one paragraph captures his chilling combination of cluelessness and determination.
On the music front Steve Albini is
interesting as ever on copyright and the foolishness of trying to restore the old certainties of the music business.
Then there's this
short Adam Gopnik item about the right and wrong way to appreciate Frank Sinatra.
David,
ReplyDeleteThanks for this. It has that 'I would have said exactly that, if I had the talent' thing.
more of this sort of thing .... please : )
ReplyDelete"Actually, piracy is people boarding a slip with violence and killing people and physically stealing material goods that are then no longer available to people who used to own them".
ReplyDeleteIn much the same way that bootlegging is also nothing to do with music, I suppose. Interesting article/speech/polemic/whatever.
Good stuff on Sinatra. But where does that leave folk like me who simply don't like the bloke? His singing, that is. His acting was generally okay. Even if, unsurprisingly, the films were a mixed bag.
ReplyDeleteMy Mam and Dad never like him either and they were of the generation that is supposed to like/love the crooners and big bands and suchlike. Oh well.