Mostly, I Write

Ho finito di leggere da poco l’ultimo libro di John McPhee, classe 1931, il giornalista del New Yorker che ha creato buona parte della struttura e dello stile della Creative nonfiction. Il libro si intitola “Draft No. 4” ed è la raccolta di otto articoli sull’arte di scrivere articoli (e libri) di non-fiction già pubblicati dal New Yorker negli anni passati. È in inglese, lo consiglio vivamente a chi vuole deprimersi (se fa il giornalista) e a chi vuole vedere come funziona la macchina nella testa di John McPhee, che peraltro insegna giornalismo da una vita a Princeton e quindi ha influenzato una buona percentuale dei giornalisti “buoni” negli Stati Uniti Un assaggio dal capitolo-articolo sulla struttura: Money quote: “The picnic-table crisis came along toward the end of my second year as a New Yorker staff writer (a euphemistic term that means unsalaried freelance close to the magazine). In some twenty months, I had submitted half a dozen pieces, short and long, and the editor, William Shawn, had bought them all. You would think that by then I would have developed some confidence in writing a new story, but I hadn’t, and never would. To lack confidence at the outset seems rational to me. It doesn’t matter that something you’ve done before worked out well. Your last piece is never going to write your next one for you.” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/01/14/structure

A New York si andrà a lezione di igiene mentale. Che, se ci pensate, è una cosa molto bella ma anche assai triste Money quote: “That's why the introduction of mental health literacy in New York schools this coming fall is such a big deal, Verga said. For as long as anyone can remember, schools have taught children about physical health — food and nutrition, accidents and disease, mood-altering substances — but conspicuously absent has been the role mental health plays in a person's overall well-being. "I think my students can identify when they're feeling stress or anxiety or something else, but I don't think they understand how to cope with it," he said. "They don't know that, just like you might need to rest if you're sick with the flu, you might need to take care of yourself if you're not feeling right mentally."” https://www.timesunion.com/local/article/After-long-battle-mental-health-will-be-part-of-12531279.php

La storia bella e un po' triste di Alphasmart, la piccola azienda fondata da ex gente di Apple che aveva capito (quasi) tutto e creato la tastiera perfetta per la scuola Money quote: "Unlike today’s education technology startups that rush to obtain venture capital at the first inkling of an idea, AlphaSmart was largely bootstrapped. (The company’s original name was Intelligent Peripheral Devices.) The team tried, but failed, to obtain an SBA loan. They pooled all their savings, kept their day jobs, and recruited Ketan Kothari’s brother, Manish, to head up marketing efforts, working out of Ketan’s spare bedroom – one of ed-tech’s few “garage” origin stories. After several points when the company almost folded due to financial and production issues, AlphaSmart started shipping in the fall of 1993. It couldn’t build a lot of inventory simply because it had little capital. However the devices were in high demand, and within six months, AlphaSmart found itself cash-flow positive (again, unlike today’s education technology startups, even if they’ve raised venture capital)." http://hackeducation.com/2015/07/25/alphasmart

Io questo Ciccio Rigoli non ho idea di chi sia ma dice cose sacrosante. Money quote: “Non ci sistemeremo, fatevene una ragione, non per ribellione ma perché è impossibile fare quello che avete fatto voi negli ultimi anni del Novecento. Purtroppo o per fortuna, non è dato saperlo.” https://medium.com/@cicciorigoli/come-hanno-fottuto-i-trenta-quarantenni-51c295050a6c Ad abundantiam, anche il Sole 24 Ore http://www.alleyoop.ilsole24ore.com/2018/02/07/la-generazione-dei-30-40-e-sotto-scacco-un-costo-economico-per-litalia/

L’ultimo film di Clint Eastwood pare che non sia granché. Money quote: “I’m here to report what seems like a serious inaccuracy in the advertising of The 15:17 to Paris. According to the film’s poster, it was directed by Clint Eastwood, but I’m pretty sure the drama I watched was made by Tommy Wiseau—the eccentric artist behind the “so bad it’s good,” cult-classic movie The Room. How else to explain the halting dialogue, the way entire scenes have absolutely no bearing on the larger plot, and the ensemble of actors who have never been in a motion picture before? Watching The 15:17 to Paris summoned the kind of strange, unsettled feeling that only a true master like Wiseau can usually conjure” https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/552773/

“Black Panther”, la recensione. Andiamo tutti a Wakanda, per sempre - la mia recensione per Fumettologica http://www.fumettologica.it/2018/02/black-panther-recensione-film-marvel/

Con la fotonica nascerà il computer intelligente - Il mio articolo per La Stampa http://www.lastampa.it/2018/02/09/tecnologia/news/con-la-fotonica-nascer-il-computer-intelligente-ooPkZ7iaquoG45mVuhmRML/pagina.html

Mi è capitato di visitare un po' di volte il Tempio dei Mormoni a Salt Lake City e chiacchierare con qualche esponente della Chiesa americana. La religione è poco conosciuta da noi e quel poco che sappiamo è abbastanza parziale. In realtà, ci sono molte cose alquanto singolari che si potrebbero imparare. Tipo il divieto assoluto di bere caffè, Coca Cola e té. Questo ha creato una specie di proibizionismo con i soliti che invece creano un mercato nero sotterraneo per l'agognata bibita ambrata... Money quote: "At the time, all vending machines on BYU’s campus were controlled by Vending Services, who forbade caffeinated soda. “They would keep getting wind of this thing, and they could never find it,” Kearney says, chuckling. “Every time somebody from Vending Services would show up, Lee Walker would say, ‘I don’t know anything about that,’ and the next thing you’d know, we’d have to go and move it to some other place in the building.” It was a kind of open secret, he says. “Anybody from my time period would recall the ‘black market’ soda-pop machine that the theater department kept going.” (Karl Pope, a retired professor who taught in the department, remembers the machine, though he says it was not a secret—and that its fizzy spoils included Dr Pepper and caffeinated root beer.)" https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/caffeine-coke-mormons-vending-machine-brigham-young

Forse l'ultimo dei tre evasi da Alcatratz nel 1962 potrebbe essersi fatto vivo, qualche anno fa. Una storia da film della quale sappiamo ancora relativamente poco. Money quote: "O’Keefe, the U.S. Marshal, said the agency doesn’t have any other leads to follow up on. But he said the case is still open and will stay open “as long as the possibility exists that any of the three are alive.” In his letter, the man claiming to be Anglin says Morris died in 2008 and his brother Clarence passed away in 2011. “John” says he’s living in southern California, which, if it’s true, would mean the cops have done a pretty crappy job of finding him." https://omgfacts.com/one-of-the-convicts-who-escaped-alcatraz-in-1962-may-have-surfaced-a2e573882828

Intervista a Laura Donnini, l'amministratrice delegata della neonata HarperCollins Italia Money quote: "«Siamo piccoli, molto affamati, molto energetici, molto appassionati, e cerchiamo di fare il vero lavoro degli editori, prendendoci cura degli autori». Laura Donnini mi accoglie così nel suo ufficio di amministratrice delegata di HarperCollins Italia, cinturone stretto in vita, stivali e collana di pietre, incarna bene lo spirito della casa editrice che vuole costruire. Nella stanza, organizzata e chiara, è appeso un ritaglio di giornale, il suo trofeo più grande: c’è stampata sopra la foto dello scrittore americano Wilbur Smith e la notizia che dopo 35 anni con Longanesi sarebbe passato a HarperCollins Italia, con otto nuovi romanzi. Per Smith non è stata una questione economica, dice Donnini: «a partire dalla stessa offerta ha scelto la freschezza di un approccio più su misura, ed è in questo che noi facciamo la differenza». È forse sempre per questo che il memoir di Smith, Leopard Rock. L’avventura della mia vita, uscirà in anteprima mondiale proprio in Italia, il 10 maggio: «un regalo che ha voluto fare ai lettori italiani», spiegano da HarperCollins." http://www.ilpost.it/2018/02/09/harper-collins-laura-donnini/

Il New Yorker non è particolarmente noto per le fotografie. Anzi, il settimanale newyorkese ha storicamente sempre evitato di cadere nel gorgo dei rotocalchi. Però, quando li fa, i suoi servizi fotografici sono molto belli. Come questo sulla nuova via della Seta tra Cina ed Europa Money quote: "For the past three months, Ma Wei, twenty-five, has been working in a noodle shop in Lanzhou New Area. The restaurant makes three hundred bowls of hand-pulled noodles every day, mostly for laborers at a nearby construction site." https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/08/a-new-silk-road

Ve lo ricordate lo scambio tra Diane Keaton e Woody Allen? "Ma davvero ti piace Wagner?". "Certo, anche se ogni volta che lo sento mi viene voglia di invadere la Polonia!" (Per i precisini era "Misterioso Omicidio a Manhatthan" del 1993). Ecco, invece l'uomo era un rivoluzionario: come scrive il mio amico Roberto, "il Wagner era di sinistra, altro che invasione della Polonia!" Money quote: "Addressing some 3,000 people, Wagner argued for a form of constitutional monarchy in which the king was an equal with his subjects; as part of the new dispensation, what he called “the demonic concept of money” would be abolished. The speech roused his listeners to wild enthusiasm, especially passages concerning the “sycophantic” courtiers by whom the king, he said, was surrounded: this was particularly gratifying, of course, coming from the Orchestral Conductor Royal and it went round the city like wildfire. The excitement of the event seems to have gone to Wagner’s head. Never popular in court circles, he was now acquiring serious enemies; that night at the theater he was due to conduct Rienzi, of all things, with its spectacular scenes of popular turbulence. He was warned that there might well be a demonstration against him; instead, he was greeted with a roar of approval." http://lithub.com/how-wagner-tried-to-revolutionize-art-and-end-capitalism/

C'è questo problema delle molestie sessuali che, intanto che è finalmente venuto fuori, ha degli effetti secondari piuttosto destabilizzanti. Ad esempio: nella Silicon Valley c'è chi si chiede come gestire l'idea di colleghi di lavoro che escono insieme o si fidanzano. Si scopre che la "office romance" è in declino, ma alcuni passaggi sono veramente agghiaccianti. Money quote: "And some employers have even resorted to so-called "love contracts," documents in which both members of a relationship confirm that they weren't coerced into dating and that they agree to behave professionally while at work." http://bit.ly/2EbaWnc

Sindrome da connessione infantile tra i bambini Usa: il 40% tra gli 0 e 8 anni ha un tablet - il mio articolo per Macity https://www.macitynet.it/connessi-negli-usa-40-gli-0-8-anni-un-tablet/

“Altered Carbon”, uno spettacolo visivo che manca di profondità - la mia recensione per Fumettologica http://www.fumettologica.it/2018/02/altered-carbon-recensione-netflix/

Vivere il sogno. Vendere il sogno Money quote: "The plane’s opulence — its seats embroidered with what the reality-TV star claimed was the Trump family crest — and its billionaire pedigree recalled a venerable tradition of elite mobility, whereby warrior-aristocrats would commission costly ships not just for splendid seafaring and maritime conflict but for exchange among themselves, as gifts befitting their shared station. These practices endured for millenniums, from Pharaonic barges and Chinese imperial dragon boats to medieval Viking galleys (as, in the 10th century, when King Harald Fairhair of Norway presented to King Aethelstan of the West Saxons and the Mercians a purple-sailed vessel with a bow of gold) and British royal yachts, which Queen Victoria lent liberally to friends like the Empress of Austria." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/magazine/selling-airborne-opulence-to-the-upper-upper-upper-class.html

Hanno hackerato anche i vibratori. Cosa di per sé piuttosto singolare, soprattutto perché viene da chiedersi: ma che bisogno c'era di connettere in rete i dildos? Va bene la Internet delle cose, ma insomma... Money quote: "Security researchers have found that a popular internet-connected sex toy is riddled with vulnerabilities and flaws, which put users at a huge privacy risk." http://www.zdnet.com/article/this-smart-vibrator-can-be-easily-hacked-and-remotely-controlled-by-anyone/

Se vi capita di fare un giro a Capannori, in Toscana, vicino alla costa, c'è un bell'albero da vedere, di quelli vecchi vecchi: circa 600 anni. Money quote: "The old oak inspired another story, too, this one more familiar to children around the world. Carlo Collodi once sat beneath its behemoth branches while penning several chapters of The Adventures of Pinocchio. It inspired the scenes where the famous puppet meets the Cat and the Fox and where he is later rescued by the Blue Fairy. As such, one of the tree’s other names is Quercia di Pinocchio (Pinocchio’s Oak). The tree towers within an area that celebrates its Pinocchio connections with other sites related to the story." https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/oak-of-the-witches

Il regista di ‘Ex Machina’ ha finito il suo nuovo film, si chiama 'Annihilation' e la protagonista è Nathalie Portman. Esce negli Usa, in Cina e basta. Nel resto del mondo va su Netflix. Suona come una piccola rivoluzione, anzi una crisi vera e propria, che segnala un ulteriore cambiamento di passo nella strategia di Paramount e degli altri grandi di Hollywood? Money quote: “Annihilation is being released in American theaters on February 23, but with much less promotional fanfare than Arrival got (February is hardly a prime time to release a film for Oscars contention). Outside of the U.S., Canada, and China, the movie isn’t getting a theatrical rollout at all— its international release will be handled by Netflix, to whom Paramount sold the rights in December. This arrangement is practically unheard of for a major studio, since it openly acknowledges that Paramount doesn’t think the film will make money. The move has also prompted a disappointed reaction from Garland, who said he made Annihilation to be seen on the big screen; it’s the kind of decision that could drive acclaimed filmmakers away from working with the studio in the future. So what’s the rationale behind Paramount’s decision?” https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/551810/

Franco Brambilla: illustrare la fantascienza - la mia intervista per Fumettologica http://www.fumettologica.it/2018/02/franco-brambilla-intervista-urania/