Bland Bloodsuckers

I’m no maestra of the avant-garde, and consequently, my interest here is in offering neither definitions nor death knells. To mourn the loss of the avant-garde — or to seek the shock of transgressive aesthetics in increasingly arcane crannies — is an evergreen endeavor. As Roland Barthes wrote, “être d’avant-garde, c’est savoir ce qui est…

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‘Barbie’ Was Born Out Of The Anxiety Of Modern Filmmaking | Defector

Movie studios favoring familiarity and profitability over artistry is nothing new or particularly innovative. At the moment, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) are on strike against Hollywood’s profit-driven and margin-squeezing madness, throwing the craven greed of the executive class into even sharper…

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Deadspin Resignations Threaten New Owner’s Turnaround – WSJ

data-module-name=”article.app/lib/module/wsj/breadcrumbs” The sports website Deadspin lost all of its editorial staff this week in an exodus that complicates its new owner’s effort to turn around the former Gawker Media properties acquired a little over six months ago. The new parent company, G/O Media Inc., which comprises about a dozen sites including Gizmodo and the Onion,…

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