Posts by Craig Ranapia
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Muse: Shelf Life: The Dying Elephant in…, in reply to recordari,
I would like ‘antiphrastical recriminations’ to become part of my common parlance, if only I could work out what it means.
Pish. That’s not as high a barrier as you might think.
Elsewhere: Richard Flanagan has a good (but depressing) piece in The Age..
Meanwhile, in the NZHerald least said about Brian Rudman’s rather odd “I’ve got my e-reader, fuck you” column soonest mended. I knew the respect for Te Herald couldn't last, but really -- you couldn't try and sketch out the bigger picture?
-
Field Theory: An important message for…, in reply to Kumara Republic,
It seems even Paul Holmes has his standards regarding Mr Lhaws.
WTF is wrong with the world - a Holmes column that doesn't lead to a psychic power-chunder? The End of Days is nigh...
-
Hard News: Gaying Out, in reply to Russell Brown,
Aw... :)
-
Holy frigg, The New Zealand Herald publishes something I can commend to your attention without a health warning. Whitcoulls the latest victim of private equity boom and crash. Very well done, Liam Dann.
-
Up Front: Say When, in reply to Sacha,
what do you reckon that could be?
I don't know if speculation would be particularly useful, but as a pure hypothetical let's say that Victoria was planning to close its classics department. Now, if I was the Head of Classics at Auckland, I may have all kinds of salient and perfectly reasonable arguments why that's no great tragedy but there's no way I could honestly say I was a disinterested by-stander. That's a genuine (but easily managed) conflict of interest.
And while it's not a direct analogy, I've found it hard to find any bookseller or publisher who'll say anything disobliging about Whitcoulls on the record -- not because those criticisms don't exist, but because they're actually decent people who don't want to be seen kicking a competitor in the slats when its on the floor, and hundreds of jobs are on the line.
-
Up Front: Say When, in reply to Russell Brown,
So he wasn’t entirely wrong.
I'll take your word for that, because you're in a better position to know. But there's also all kinds of reasons why many academics are pretty gun-shy about doing interviews they think (fairly or not) is going to end up being edited down to a meaningless sound bite and framed as some gelatin-infused cat-fight. Not how Media7 rolls, I know; but I'm a little more sympathetic to those who might not want to talk about something as contentious as department closures -- especially if there's a potential conflict of interest.
-
Up Front: Say When, in reply to Steve Parks,
All the women in academia who were approached were unwilling to put their heads above the ivory parapet.
Could Trotter try not being a man-tronising douche-bag? I'm sure those invertebrate blue-stockings really welcomed Trotter restraining the urge to burn his pappy pants, but could we do the women concerned the courtesy of not assuming they declined the invitation out of rank cowardice? I'm well past the point of finding Trotter's sneering condescension towards the wimmin-folk who doesn't behave as he sees fit tiresome and obnoxious.
-
Muse: TV Review: Good Gods Almighty!, in reply to Steve Parks,
Quite. And the outrage continues after the release of the latest Thor trailer.
WARNING: The following contains intense comic-geekery that may cause nausea, hair loss and spontaneous abortion
Odin fuck. Suck my hammer, bitches, because Heimdall is black in 'Thor: The Mighty Avenger' #6. (Written by New Zealand's own Rodger Langridge, FWIW.) So there - canonical authority!
Also, if you really want to fan-wank it the Asgardians aren't any kinds of "gods" but super-powered beings who exist in another dimension that is peculiarly congruent with Norse mythology and cosmology. (Though I guess it's fair to throw in the standard caveat that continuity is basically non-existent in long-running Marvel/DC titles where everyone and everything is retconned, rebooted and generally thrown down the crapper with gay abandon.) So is it any more ridiculous that Heimdall is black than Thor having a thick Aussie accent when his father is obvious Welsh? :)
-
Muse: Shelf Life: The Dying Elephant in…, in reply to James Butler,
Orson Scott Card is an author whose works I have enjoyed, but whose thoughts on many things I wish I didn’t know.
That’s also why I trying to break my addiction to literary biographies – I should be higher-minded about it, but it was rather uncomfortable reading the Library of America edition of Raymond Carver’s stories in tandem with Carol Sklenicka’s often horrific biography. (Steven King's judicious and generous review in the New York Times is well worth a look.) Is the physical and psychological abuse of his first wife, and scarifying neglect of his children, acceptable collateral damage for some of the finest stories I’ve ever read?
-
Muse: Shelf Life: The Dying Elephant in…, in reply to giovanni tiso,
but if it's something that becomes expected of authors, that they are extremely personable self-promoters, that troubles me a little bit. It's a very different skillset from being a good writer - not saying that one can't be both, but I'd like us to be able to look out for those who are just bloody good writers.
Of course - but I'd note, for example, Anne Tyler is one of America's most respected and successful literary novelists and you could count her book tours/personal appearances on one hand, and her interviews on a closed fist. (That's not strictly accurate -- she's done a handful of interviews via e-mail, but not many.) Georgette Heyer's literary career spanned fifty years -- she did one press interview very early, found it a disagreeable experience and never did another. That didn't stop her from being enormously successful over half a century.
Last ←Newer Page 1 … 343 344 345 346 347 … 1235 Older→ First