Art and shiny things…
Absolutely kickass episode delivered by Gatiss tonight – this is what happens when Moffat steps back and lets someone else have a go at it
It was fun, it was funny, it was the kind of loopy, rambunctious, light-hearted fun that Doctor Who used to be more frequently before they kept Moffat on too long and all his worst tendencies came out.
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The Washington Post has a great update on America’s tea consumption –
“The U.S. market for tea has more than quadrupled during the past twenty-plus years—from just under $2 billion in 1990 to just over $10 billion last year—according to the U.S. Tea Association. Demand for the herbal beverage has now been growing at a healthy clip for decades. By weight, Americans now drink almost 20 percent more of the herbal beverage than they did back in 2000, according to market research firm Euromonitor.” RT
The Scots are considering independence (and all I can think about is this).
“The people of Scotland are to be offered a historic opportunity to devise a federal future for their country before next year’s general election, it emerged on Saturday night, as a shock new poll gave the campaign for independence a narrow lead for the first time.” RT
Guardians of the Galaxy has now exceeded Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger is global gross total. You keep sashayin’, Baby Groot. RT
Darren Franich at EW on a study of the effect of watching Michael bay movies – “Technically, the study doesn’t specifically state that watching a Michael Bay movie is the equivalent of stuffing your mouth with M&Ms™ and then filling your overstuffed mouth with Coca-Cola™ while driving a 2013 Chevrolet™ Venture™ with Mark Wahlberg in the backseat screaming “I’M AN INVENTOR!!!” while he shotguns a Bud Light™ and plays Xbox™. But the study also doesn’t not say that.” RT
Fiona McCrae, publisher of Graywolf Press, had some great things to say about publishing in the age of the Internet. “There are dozens of obstacles to any given book succeeding. If a book succeeds it always does so against the odds. The odds in one generation might relate to the fact that people would rather be watching television than reading your book. The odds in the next generation might be that they’d rather be on their computer than reading your book. Once it was that people would rather be riding a bicycle than reading your book. It doesn’t do any good to be talking, as an author or publisher, about the obstacles. There are better uses of energy, I think. Yes, we can all feel helpless and wary in this industry sometimes, but it’s better, as a publisher, to look at the ways in which e-books and Twitter and so on can help us reach new readers, rather than treating social media as an enemy to literature.” RT
Cali of Inside the Book Reader takes stunning images of books – beautiful colors and construction.
I’m starting to back away
from the world slowly,
in order to become pure ear.
Air. A mule deer. Maybe
Karen O. We are who we’ve been
waiting for. What’s taking place
now is free of time—tents
quavering like moon jellies
in the L.A. sky.
Heart’s mind says to itself
I am free to move about.
And also, I am afraid.
We cannot have any unmixed
emotions, says Yeats.
-Diane Raptosh, White Whale Review
I started my first Jo Nesbø, who is probably the greatest Nordic crime fiction writer alive now that Mankkell is no longer writing and Stieg Larsson is dead. Thus far it is very broody and suffused with a tone of depression that matches what the main character Harry Hole is experiencing, but the prose is slowly drawing me in, particularly this gem.
“A young woman in the front row stood up unbidden, but without offering a smile. She was very attractive. Attractive without trying, thought Harry. Thin, almost wispy hair hung lifelessly down both sides of her face, which was finely chiseled and pale and wore the same serious, weary features Harry had seen on other stunning women who had become so used to being observed that they had stopped liking or disliking it. Katrine Bratt was dressed in a blue suit that underlined her feminity, but the thick black tights below the hem of her skirt and her practical winter boots invalidated any possible suspicions that she was playing it. She let her eyes run over the gathering, as if she had risen to see them and not vice versa.”
–The Snowman, Jo Nesbø
Bring on the chills.
The rain came crisp and cold and clear and held them at the table longer than they intended.
We are fools whether we dance or not so we might as well dance – Japanese proverb
Coffee and Irony 