Tag: Things to Read

Various and Sundry

Recommended Reading: The Long Tail Wags

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Vox’s resident media prognosticator, Todd VanDerWerff, picked up on something in the CW’s recent renewal announcement: renewing low-rated Crazy Ex-Girlfriend may represent a new way of evaluating –and valuing– TV shows in today’s media landscape. All three of my longtime readers will recall how I am avidly interested in the future of TV. For those of us non-full-time filmmakers, knowing all the viable paths to sustainably scratching our creative itch is of intense interest and constant…

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Writing

Recommended Reading: Arms and the Bard

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

This piece from by Robert McCrum in The Guardian about some Shakespearean research this past weekend is a welcome read. Not only does it detail intriguing additional evidence that the plays of William Shakespeare were written by (dramatic pause) William Shakespeare, but it shows how ardent and assiduous the scholars of Washington DC’s own Folger Shakespeare Library are. It is fair to say that I first came to know Shakespeare through many, many performances at the…

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Various and Sundry

Security Theater and the Future of the TSA

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I suppose I should have posted this with Thanksgiving and the start of the holiday travel season, but hey, delays are to be expected with the TSA, right?Dylan Mathews over at Vox argues that the eliminating the TSA may, in fact, save lives. And if that’s too dry, you can always check out Adam Conover of “Adam Ruins Everything” as he debunks the security theater of the TSA. Man, I’m glad I don’t have to travel…

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Various and Sundry

Recommended Reading: Apple’s Growing Pains

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I’m always interested in the evolution of organizations, both how they change as they grow and how they respond to changes in the wider world. So when it involves Apple, arguably one of the most influential companies on the planet, I was definitely interested. Matthew Yglesias’ article in Vox notes a fundamental approach to Apple’s structure I was not aware of: that their structure is more akin to startups that group people functionally by expertise…

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Various and Sundry

Cable Defeats Cord Cutters?!?

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

On my Twitter feed, I frequently use the hashtag “#futureTV,” because I’m borderline obsessed with how TV is transforming, both in terms of how it’s getting made and how it’s being viewed (or “consumed” if you want to be extra biz-speaky). So this past holiday weekend, while our Netflix connection seemed to strain under the weight people travelling to Stars Hollow, I re-read Todd VanDerWerff’s piece in Vox about how Netflix –and cord cutting in…

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Acting

Gene Wilder, RIP

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I meant to post this earlier, but life keeps on getting in the way. Or maybe it’s bills to pay, and I’m not as clever as Max Bialystock at how to pay them. As has been reported in the Washington Post, AP, Variety, and elsewhere, Jerome Silberman aka Gene Wilder passed away last month, on Sunday, August 29th. He was 83. 2016 has proven to be lethal to the cultural icons many of my generation…

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Writing

Space Opera Tropes

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Speculative fiction writer Charles Stross has written a blog post about space opera clichés which has been brought to my attention by one of the denizens of MOSF. I haven’t read too much of Charles Stross, though I like his imaginative and subtly disturbing short story, “Rogue Farm.” It sounds like he enjoys being a bit harder with his sci-fi and space opera than some, which comes through in this list. For that reason, I…

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Various and Sundry

2016’s Summer Blockbuster Wasteland

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Now that Labor Day has past, we’re officially out of Summer, those who are wont to assess how the film industry did during its summer blockbuster season don’t need to wait to write what many were already musing about in early August: this year has been terrible. Vox’s Todd VanDerWerff details this in the site’s Winners/Losers style in a method that’s very focused on the facts of what did well and what didn’t (many articles…

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Various and Sundry

Automation and American Growth: Robert Gordon Edition

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I’ve been reading and commenting a decent amount about automation this year, enough to make it seem inevitable. A popular topic with journalists and feature writers has been the impending automation of transportation which I noted back in May. Just recently, Vox ran another article about self-driving trucks and pending unemployment. As the topic appears to be developing into a “future trend trope,” I was very intrigued to learn about the work of Robert Gordon, which Vox also…

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Producing

World of Filmcraft -er- Film Distribution

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

An article by K. M. McFarland in Wired about Warcraft the other week got me thinking about how the global marketplace for films has been changing. Simply put, Warcraft has done dismally in the U.S. box office. Just $46 million as of last Friday. Against its $160 million production budget, that’s awful — all the more so when you realize that $160 million doesn’t account for “prints and advertising,” an ever-growing expense that can often…

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