Lazy broadcasters' book club
by Ouimet
Allan is reading Knowlton Nash's Trivia Pursuit, which is out of print but available through Amazon resellers for $0.01.A good deal for you, although I don't think Knowlton will be seeing any royalties from that sale.
Paul is reading signs in the TBC, midway into a week-long series of a sign-a-day blog postings. Where does he find these things?
Joe is reading children's books, loving every minute of it, and slowly going insane.
Tod is looking for beef recipes that will clean his liver.
Me, I'm reading the latest issue of Monocle, Tyler Brûlé's new venture and my new favourite magazine. No, you can't read it online. Yes, it's $12.50. Yes, it's pretentious. Yes, it's fantastic.
Joe is reading Canadian Television Today by Bart Beaty and Rebecca Sullivan, a book I never heard of, either. But it sounds pretty good. When Joe returns it to the library you can read it, too.
While Canadian TV commentators want a greater number of highbrow or middlebrow TV shows, which somehow suits their own self-images, those shows are really not very popular, and because of changes in CRTC rules, broadcasters have stopped making them. The cultural elite clamours for TV shows that nobody watches and nobody wants to make. (I wager they don’t watch them, either.) Yet, the authors state, there is very little discussion of the American TV shows shot in Canada, almost all of which are lowbrow.No comments at Joe's, so you can comment here. I'd like to know what you're reading, especially if it's good.
The Canadian TV the elites want nobody else does. The elites never talk about the Canadian-made TV we do have. (I wonder, though: It’s OK for intellectuals to watch Battlestar Galactica, right? But never Stargate Atlantis.)
7 Comments:
I somewhat bashed the book on my blog not thinking that the author might post a rebuttal (see comments).
8:20 AM, August 01, 2007
9:59 AM, August 01, 2007
Not easy reading -- essential reading.
Who's afraid of the truth?
1:05 PM, August 01, 2007
What is this, TVOntario book club?
Nobody reads, thats why we have TVOntario and other TV chat shows about books.
Oprah followers don't read, we just buy the books for status display on the coffee table.
1:08 PM, August 01, 2007
1:13 PM, August 01, 2007
I tend not to read much fiction, though I'm well aware that there's often more truth revealed in storytelling than in a news report.
I have more than one book on the go.
The Media Handbook was part of my school curriculum 25 years ago when it came out. I'm researching what my rights are about taking pictures in public because I've been nearly assaulted on Yonge street, and told that I need written permission to photograph children running through the water fountains at Dundas Square. Even the police have beeped their horn to alert other officers that I'm taking pictures (on the street where I live!)
Most of my favorite writers are dead - Capote, Kerouac, Bukowski.
Of the living, I savour the words of Hitchens, Chris Hedges, and Louis Menand and Raymi The Minx.
I'll buy a book before a loaf of bread, so obesity of the mind is a more likely threat to my health, and when I die there's a good chance I'll be found clutching a copy of the New York Times Review of Books.
In Answered Prayers, Capote wrote that wealthy people will spend an exorbitant amount of money for a white plate that supports the perfect green pea.
But for me, a poem by Leonard Cohen will go a lot further.
7:10 AM, August 02, 2007
Last link (before Google Books caves to pressure and drops the title):
America Deceived (Book)
3:52 PM, August 13, 2007
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~O
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