Jared Shurin's Blog, page 17

Sweet Savage Love, Romance and Realism

I've been reading a lot of vintage romance novels.

Incidentally, you get a lot of very special looks on the Underground when you're reading a well-worn copy of Sweet Savage Love. Especially, I suspect, as a thirty-something dude.  

My romance reading is pretty new, it only started around three years now. What began as curiosity blossomed into, slightly unexpectedly, a genuine passion for the books. That's a metaphor for you. They're a lot of fun, they're culturally interesting, and - I don't...

The End of the World As We Know It

Starry Night by Christophe Leterrier

I'm fascinated by instances where the creators of video games, RPGs, or comics change their worlds. The joy of fantasy is that everything is completely malleable. The history, the politics, the very physics of the universe - all can be changed at the creators' whim.

But what happens to the readers and players who are committed to that world? How do they deal with the upheaval?

Comics are, perhaps, the least interesting of the three, as they're now built...

What if Apple bought publishing?

If you're going to be a dinosaur, be a chocolate one! (via Reddit)

Apple announced a $1b 'war chest' for original content (Wall Street Journal). This is still much, much less than its rivals - Netflix spends an estimated $6b each year, and Amazon Video $4.5b. Let's face it. That's a lot of money, but the world's richest company may be critically far behind. They can't follow in their rivals' footsteps with any hopes of catching up.

So, here's a lateral way of approaching it. What if they ju...

Stark Reviews: A Fistful of Fingers (1995)

Stark says:

���What are you digging for?���

���Fuck knows!���

"Don���t you call me a Fuck Nose!��� *Punch*

Somewhere in London, at the very back of a filing cabinet in my agent's office, there's novel that ��� if I can help it ��� will never see the light of day. Thinking about it makes me squirm with embarrassment. It's my debut and it's a mess; a big, insane mash-up of influences that were swimming around my nineteen-year old head and which scatter-gunned mercilessly onto the page.

But f...

Amazon is a Slytherpuff and Other Revelations

Kerzys Konfektion 1968 Fall/Winter Line

The brand that lived

The managing director of the Licensing Industry Merchandising Association nails it in a guest piece for Campaign: 

Harry Potter is more than the films, more than the books. It is a genuine lifestyle brand.... Along the way its brand DNA has grown to encompass imagination in all its infinite possibilities, outdoing conventional fashion brands at their own game.

I've argued in the past that Batman, Superman, Spider-man are all t-s...

50 Books on Imagining and Re-Imagining Cities

Moil houses from China Mi��ville's Un Lun Dun

I've been thinking about cities - and how we imagine and definite and interpret them - since the panel at Nine Worlds was announced. The panel itself, chaired by architect Amy Butt, and featuring Verity Holloway and Al Robertson, was brilliant and free-ranging.

One thing we didn't do is lapse into 'here are some books about cities that I recommend'. I'm grateful we skipped that because a) that's boring on a panel and b) that makes cracking blog...

Tolkien, Potter, and Pulps

Photograph by Stefan Hoenerloh

#MordorisforEveryone

Adam Roberts on the global success of Tolkien:

One reason Tolkien���s imaginary realm has proved so successful is precisely its structural non-specificity. What I mean is: Tolkien treats material that has deep roots in, and deep appeal to, various cultural traditions; but he does so in a way���as fictionalised worldbuilding rather than denominated myth���that drains away much of the poisonous nationalist, racist and belligerent associatio...

Breaking Badass: Only a villain this terrifying could be called 'Chicken'

 

OK, cue the ritual spoiler warning: If you haven���t seen AMC���s Breaking Bad ��� and especially Seasons 3 and 4 ��� you might want to skip this one.

A few months back, I argued that Al Swearengen, saloonkeeper and unofficial mayor of HBO���s Deadwood, was television���s Best Villain Ever. I stand by that assessment, but if there is a runner up, it is surely Gustavo ���The Chicken Man��� Fring from Breaking Bad. (Not coincidentally, these two shows join HBO���s The Wire in forming the Hol...

Mouseburster

Tomorrowland 2055 was to be an updated version of Tomorrowland..... One of the main attractions that was to be added was Alien Encounter. Initially Disney owned the right to the alien from the movie Alien and planned to use that as the alien, but some Imagineers thought that it would be too scary. There was debate over it and the Imagineers got George Lucas to convince Michael Eisner that it was too scary for Disney.

- Chris Ware, Disney Unbuilt: A Pocket Guide to the Disney Imagineering Gra...

Could independent bookshops be the new conspicuous consumption?

Elizabeth Currid-Halkett's new book looks at the changing consumption habits of the wealthy in the West (especially America):

Over the past 100 years, improvements in technology and globalization have made consumer goods increasingly accessible to the average American. Currid-Halkett says this led to the ���democratization of conspicuous consumption,��� which has made consumer products a less appealing way for the wealthy to show their class. Rather, acts of conspicuous consumption are now...