Sean Patrick Cooper

Best of luck to Matter, a new longform publication trying to launch via Kickstarter

Sun, 27 May 2012 11:45:08 -0400

Best of luck to Matter, a new longform publication trying to launch via Kickstarter:

Add Matter to the list of new publications and websites focused on promoting and publishing longform journalism. The more attention on good writing, and funding good writing, the better the genre of longform journalism will be. But I’m curious to see how they’re going to incorporate the hundreds of Kickstarter backers into their editorial process:

“PLEDGE $25 OR MORE | 944 BACKERS

Join our editorial board. Seriously. We’re going to run a radical, first-of-a-kind experiment in collaborative commissioning using All Our Ideas so that you, the readers, can help make our reporting even more brilliant…

They’ll probably hit 1,000 or more at this contribution level, and that’s a lot of opinion to take into account when running a magazine.

Their format is similar to the Atavist in that they publish one story at a time, and that’s it. No advertisements, just content. The next evolution I see here is writers, perhaps in collaboration with an editor and/or photographer, funding their stories themselves. What would stop someone, really, from Kickstarting an Amazon single, to cover the reporting, writing, and promotion?

If the story is good enough, and the writer has a reputation, would people pay the writer directly?

Recent American History in 4 Parts

Tue, 15 May 2012 23:05:02 -0400

Recent American History in 4 Parts:

E. L. DOCTOROW hits all the highlights. I don’t think he missed a one:

PHASE ONE

If you’re a justice of the Supreme Court, ignore the first sacrament of a democracy and suspend the counting of ballots in a presidential election. Appoint the candidate of your choice as president.

If you’re the newly anointed president, react to a terrorist attack by invading a nonterrorist country. Despite the loss or disablement of untold numbers of lives, manage your war so that its results will be indeterminate.

Using the state of war as justification, order secret surveillance of American citizens, data mine their phone calls and e-mail, make business, medical and public library records available to government agencies, perform illegal warrantless searches of homes and offices.

Take to torturing terrorism suspects, here or abroad, in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment. Unilaterally abrogate the Convention Against Torture as well as the Geneva Conventions regarding the treatment of prisoners of war. Commit to indeterminate detention without trial those you decide are enemies. For good measure, trust that legislative supporters will eventually apply this policy as well to American citizens.

Suspend progressive taxation so that the wealthiest pay lessproportionately than the middle class. See to it that the wealth of the country accumulates to a small fraction of the population so that the gap between rich and poor widens exponentially.

Interesting take on texting, email as written speech

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 18:56:37 -0400

Interesting take on texting, email as written speech:

There is a virtual cult of concision – OMG, LOL and such – and little interest in the niceties of Strunk & White on capitalization or punctuation. …

Yet the brevity, improvisation and in-the-moment quality of e-mails and texts are those grand old defining qualities of spoken language. Keyboard technology, allowing us to produce and receive written communication with unprecedented speed, allows something hitherto unknown to humanity: written conversation. In this sense, they are not “writing” in the sense we are accustomed to. They are fingered speech.

$.25: How to Improve your Personality

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 16:50:00 -0400

$.25: How to Improve your Personality:

Having a sense of well-being means having that “healthy feeling,” and what a prized possession it is!

CONVERSATION | John Jeremiah Sullivan & Geoff Dyer

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 11:09:52 -0400

CONVERSATION | John Jeremiah Sullivan & Geoff Dyer :

Dyer: …Sometimes they’re physical road journeys like in your first piece, but more usually they’re some kind of epistemological journey from either relative ignorance or bafflement— curiosity—toward some kind of knowledge and/or understanding.

Sullivan: Absolutely. I mean, I pray that’s what they are because that’s their potential value. I rarely set out feeling that I have an opinion on the subject that’s interesting enough for the reader. I try not to get into opinion mongering. I hope that the quest, or as you’re saying the journey to understand the thing better, will itself be intense and pure enough to bring the reader along to a place of greater understanding. That’s the only way it’s going to happen. It’s about sensibility. It’s about tacking into your own ignorance and trying to eliminate it somehow.

Dyer and JJS talking about Dyer’s new book, tone, and the value of losing your ignorance on the page.

jcstearns: Seems to resonate in a new way at the end of this...

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 18:25:52 -0400

jcstearns:

Seems to resonate in a new way at the end of this long strange week.

Despite Everything

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 18:38:41 -0500

accidental observers

give doubtful figures

accompanied by the shameful

word “about”

-

and yet in these matters

accuracy is essential

we must not be wrong

even by a single one

-

we are despite everything

the guardians of our brothers

-

ignorance about those who have disappeared

undermines the realities of the world

-

it thrusts into the hell of appearances

the devilish net of dialectics

proclaiming there is no difference

between the substance and the specter

-

therefore we have to know

to count exactly

call by the first name

provide for a journey

-

in a bowl of clay

millet poppy seeds

a bone comb

arrowheads

and a ring of faithfulness

-

amulets

My week, Illustrated

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 08:07:02 -0500

My week, Illustrated:

William Eggleston (h/t Tycho)

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 08:03:33 -0500

William Eggleston (h/t Tycho)

"“We don’t really live in a country. We live on the Internet.” The “We” here requires a..."

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 23:24:06 -0500

“

“We don’t really live in a country. We live on the Internet.”

The “We” here requires a footnote…and ideally an acknowledgment that the internet is quickly becoming an echo chamber that denies or ignores the world undocumented or unconnected via URL addresses.

The internet is a resource, not a habitat.

”

- Alex Ljung (via cacioppo)

Rick Santorum's 'Google Bomb' problem has gone away - WSJ

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 23:20:05 -0500

Rick Santorum's 'Google Bomb' problem has gone away - WSJ:

shortformblog:

brooklynmutt:

I hope someone does something to rectify this.

No it hasn’t. It’s just another, similar Google problem — which the WSJ doesn’t correctly note. Search Engine Land has a different, more accurate and … uh, frothier take on the matter.

It will fun seeing how this plays out…

The Unmentioned

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:48:27 -0500

The Unmentioned:

Maybe I just run in different circles, but isn’t one of the more interesting parts of this anecdote disguised as Internet News the fact that roller derby friends are just part of the social milieu these days, as likely to be referenced as co-workers and spousal connections?

Also in here: invasion of privacy, internet entering its darkest hour, etc etc

Romney and the Prozac Nation

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:31:36 -0500

Romney and the Prozac Nation:

•Should Romney win the nomination despite himself, Obama’s campaign staff would do well to check out Lawrence Wright’s New Yorker article on Mormonism in 2002.

•This ambitious profile of an antire religion takes place right before Utah hosted the Olympics in 2002, and works today as a good primer for those (like me) who are mostly unaware of what this massive religious denomination is all about.

•Politicians will always have various groups tugging @ the ear, but this might be the most clinically unhappy clan w/ a potential direct line into the White House.

Perhaps because of the Mormons’ lower consumption of alcohol and tobacco, their life spans are as much as eleven years longer than the American average. (Only the largely vegetarian Seventh-Day Adventists live longer.) On the other hand, Utah reportedly leads the nation in the use of antidepressants; Prozac prescriptions, for instance, are about sixty per cent above the national average.

Pairing NYT on N+1/Believer & NYRB on Writers Generally

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 22:11:42 -0500

Pairing NYT on N+1/Believer & NYRB on Writers Generally:

Tim Park on the emergence and missteps of the creative writer as a professional

So then, a would-be anti-conventional public enjoys the notion of the rebel, or at least admirably independent, writer, but more and more to achieve success that same writer has to tune in to the logic of an industrial machine, which in turn encourages him to cultivate an anti-conventional image. This is an incitement to hypocrisy. Meantime the world opens up; books travel further and translate faster than they ever did in the past. A natural selection process favors those writers whose style and content cross borders easily. Success and celebrity breed imitators. Lots of them. Nobody can read everything. Nobody can read the hundredth part of everything. Nevertheless international prizes purport to tell us which is the best novel of the year, who the greatest writer.

2005 NYT’s profile on how The Believer and n+1 positioned themselves as a new style of lit mag.

“There has to be an element that reflects how we live and how we read,” Vida told me. “We don’t just run out and buy the new novel or start thinking about Darwinism just because George Bush happened to say something about it.” And so The Believer’s content is often as pointedly untimely as its approach is digressive. Some of its best articles dust off the reputations of half-forgotten writers and historical characters - Charles Portis, John Hawkes, Ignatius Donnelly - and the interviews, with the very, the semi-and the narrowly famous, range far beyond the usual plugging of the latest projects. “In October we have David Sedaris talking mostly about monkeys,” Vida said. “What makes it timely is its untimeliness.”

http://goo.gl/wceYM

It was a coincidence I read these in my Instapaper back to back today, but there was some nice tension b/w the two articles.

The Brief Histories & Modern Journey of a Vinyl Record

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:15:35 -0500

The Brief Histories & Modern Journey of a Vinyl Record:

See: A record being made in Brooklyn, from the recording studio to the store

An essay on music and people

Sat, 20 Aug 2011 20:10:00 -0400

An essay on music and people:

With so many options for control and power over our music, we run the risk of falling prey to a fantasy of what Baudrillard calls “potentialitites linked to usage.” Instead of employing our music and mp3 players as conduits to our “psychological” sanctuaries, we fascinate ourselves with the mechanics of music curating.

...Two parts bourgeois museum gathering and one part carnival.

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 21:25:23 -0400

...Two parts bourgeois museum gathering and one part carnival.:

“Attendants guided the line through a disorienting path of back doors and service hallways before corralling us into the bottom level of the Guggenheim’s famous rotunda. Here the scene became generally bizarre–funny to see, disorienting to be in–three parts rave, two parts bourgeois museum gathering and one part carnival.”

So what kind of music is this? It’s obviously music,...

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0400

So what kind of music is this? It’s obviously music, right?—it sounds like it at least—but I don’t think it can be identified by the normal labels we would have given it in the past. Or, more specifically, it can’t be identified by only what it sounds like. Its type or essence is as much about how its presented and made as it is by the singing proper. The broad category under which this falls would have to be something like Video Music, or Online Music (or something much more clever than that, lest people mistake it for a menu tab in a new release of iTunes).

What’s interesting is that it relates to a traditional music performance in multiple ways. There’s a performer here who felt compelled to share his creation with an audience. His goal or at least one of his goals isn’t to monetize his creative output—his desire is to just put out his stuff. That’s one. Another is that he’s using a relatively crude tool—his webcam—to make a more complex sound. Musicians have been doing this for centuries. Obvious examples abound. A kitchen spoon, a washboard, a casette recorder for field loops (hello The Books). And yet, it still doesn’t look or register in my mind as anything like traditional music.

So what is it?

Some General Instructions

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 22:17:50 -0400

Some General Instructions:

This is good:

Do not bake bread in an oven that is not made of stone
Or you risk having imperfect bread. Byron wrote,
“The greatest pleasure in life is drinking hock
And soda water the morning after, when one has
A hangover,” or words to that effect. It is a
Pleasure, for me, of the past. I do not drink so much
Any more. And when I do, I am not in sufficiently good
Shape to enjoy the hock and seltzer in the morning.
I am envious of this pleasure as I think of it. Do not
You be envious. In fact I cannot tell envy
From wish and desire and sharing imperfectly
What others have got and not got. But envy is a good word
To use, as hate is, and lust, because they make their point
In the worst and most direct way, so that as a
Result one is able to deal with them and go on one’s way.

more….

(via antonyhare) Very glad to have rediscovered Antony Hare,...

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 21:57:50 -0400

(via antonyhare)

Very glad to have rediscovered Antony Hare, after missing him in my Google Reader from an old blog he ran years ago.