Uncategorized

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The Album That Was Born This Way

Ben Sisario, on how Lady Gaga’s newest album was helped by a masterful promotional effort:

“We wanted to approach this like we were opening a blockbuster film,” said Steve Berman, vice chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M. “It became: ‘We’ll put a flag in that date well in advance. We won’t move. And what we’ll do for the next six months is pour gas on that fire every day, really branding the date.’ ”

Like any good movie campaign the selling of “Born This Way” began nearly a year in advance and continued as a well-timed drumbeat of promotional appearances, retail tie-ins and media deals that rose to a climax as the release date approached.

The Mail

I love the U.S. Postal Service, so I was sad to read this meticulously researched piece by Devin Leonard about how the whole thing is about to collapse:

Since 2007 the USPS has been unable to cover its annual budget, 80 percent of which goes to salaries and benefits. In contrast, 43 percent of FedEx’s (FDX) budget and 61 percent of United Parcel Service’s (UPS) pay go to employee-related expenses. Perhaps it’s not surprising that the postal service’s two primary rivals are more nimble. According to SJ Consulting Group, the USPS has more than a 15 percent share of the American express and ground-shipping market. FedEx has 32 percent, UPS 53 percent.

The USPS has stayed afloat by borrowing $12 billion from the U.S. Treasury. This year it will reach its statutory debt limit. After that, insolvency looms.

‘The Tree of Life’ Has No Clothes

[Note: The following links contain spoilers for a film that I do not think can really be spoiled. Nonetheless, you’ve been warned.]

Here’s Richard Schickel, calling out film critics for giving Terence Malick’s Tree of Life a pass (via Kris Tapley):

[Malick] is, of course, famously reclusive and a famously slow worker. Over the course of 38 years he has made only five movies (an average of one every seven and a half years). The supposition among critics and audiences is that anyone proceeding at so ponderous a pace must be struggling to articulate truths that are at the least sublime and at most close to unspeakable. Aside from his first movie, the bleak and darkly witty “Badlands” (about a serial killer on the run with his dopily romantic girlfriend), that has not been the case. All of his subsequent efforts have been pretty, narratively empty and emotionally unengaging. You can admire his effort to find new methods of screen story telling, but it has proved impossible to involve yourself with his films at any level.

To put it bluntly, I think Schickel kind of completely misses the point of the film. Tree of Life is deeply flawed but taken on its own terms, it accomplishes far more than Schickel gives it credit for. For more even-handed (but still critical) takes on the subject, check out The Guardian or the LA Times.

Putting the Period Outside of the Quotation Marks

It is not proper practice in American grammar to put the period outside of quotation marks, but that is the way the Brits do it. Should we change? Ben Yagoda says yes, we should (via Gruber):

If it seems hard or even impossible to defend the American way on the merits, that’s probably because it emerged from aesthetic, not logical, considerations. According to Rosemary Feal, executive director of the MLA, it was instituted in the early days of the Republic in order “to improve the appearance of the text. A comma or period that follows a closing quotation mark appears to hang off by itself and creates a gap in the line (since the space over the mark combines with the following word space).” I don’t doubt Feal, but the appearance argument doesn’t carry much heft today; more to the point is that we are simply accustomed to the style.

True Fans

Amber Karnes, writing about how her tweets helped to shame Urban Outfitters, after they ripped off the work of an independent artist:

A big corporation ripping off small businesses and independent artists is wrong. And in a time when it’s hard to find or keep a job, that’s an easy cause for people to get behind. I think another big reason this spread so quickly was because it was a genuine sentiment (stick it to the man, support this little guy) and that’s something that plenty of people believe in. When I worked at a big corporation, they were always asking how to “make something go viral” – but the truth is that nobody wants to retweet some lame press release that talks about what a great company you are, or asks people to buy your latest product. But something with meaning, something with a story behind it, something that people can identify with – now that’s an idea that spreads.

Karnes also points to this fascinating article, which I can’t believe I hadn’t already read, about how you only need 1,000 true fans to make a living:

A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can’t wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.

According to this piece, if you have 1,000 fans, each willing to pay you $100 per year to do what you do, then you are pulling in $100,000 per year. Time for me to convert you “casual fans” into “True Fans,” I suppose…

Who’s Afraid of Fox News?

Shortly after New York magazine published their profile of Fox News head Roger Ailes, Rolling Stone unleashed their own 10,000-word behemoth on the world, covering the same topic but with a different tone and focus. Ailes is portrayed as cunning, vicious, and incredibly powerful. But Slate’s Jack Shafer doesn’t see it that way:

There are few facts in Dickinson’s well-reported pile that I’d take issue with—Ailes has worked hard to establish his credentials as a malicious man, absent of scruples. But I draw the line at “fearing” Ailes or being daunted by his Fox News “power,” the two searing take-home messages in Dickinson’s piece. Ailes can’t be a very fearsome or powerful media monster if he failed to prevent the election of a freshman senator—a black, liberal freshman senator with an, um, exotic name—to the White House!

The Rise of the Jokeless Comedy

Adam Sternbergh, on how Judd Apatow and Todd Phillips have inaugurated the reign of the jokeless comedy (via Heather):

[T]hese movies are often enjoyable. If you were to list your favorite comedies of the last five years, I bet at least three of either Apatow’s or Phillips’s films would make the list. Yet can you recall a single famous gag from any of these movies? What was the absolute most hilarious joke in “The Hangover”? (My informal straw poll suggests that it was Galifianakis’s mispronouncing “retard.”) Tellingly, the most quotable sequence from any Apatow movie is the “You know how I know you’re gay?” exchange between Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” which was improvised on the sidelines, then stuck into the film, and which, trust me, does not benefit from being reproduced for posterity in print. Surely there must be at least one indelible gag, line, or scene from just one of these films? If there is, I can’t identify it, and don’t call me Shirley.