How’s your NCAA bracket doing? Busted? Well, maybe you should’ve picked your teams based on which ones turn the highest profit. The Atlantic analyzed the financial data and, voilà, their bracket correctly predicted nine of the teams in the Sweet Sixteen.
Go Cardinals?
Hear the Bells
“The findings revealed that across the board, nearly 80 percent of those surveyed who worked in publishing self-identified as white. In Marketing and Publicity, 77 percent were white. These are people who make decisions on how to position books to the press and to consumers, and if and where to send authors on tour — critical considerations in the successful launching of any publication. For writers of color, the lack of diversity in book publicity departments can feel like a death knell.” On the lack of representation in book publishing and publicity campaigns.
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Advice from a Man-Bear
Gary Socquet over at The Nervous Breakdown has published an online advice column, answered by a part-man, part-bear. (via)
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After the Wall
“[Christa] Wolf was a committed dissident in the GDR (East Germany) and a forceful voice resisting Western triumphalism after reunification. It would seem like some sort of explanation was owed to the public. Yet how does one give an account of oneself when the link to the past, to the psychological and cultural backdrop of such fateful decisions, is not even subjectively available?” On City of Angels: Or, the Overcoat of Dr. Freud.
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Lee’s Co-Conspirator
Recently there’s been a lot of talk about the famously reclusive Harper Lee, and with good reason – her long-awaited second book, Go Set A Watchman, was released last week, and isn’t quite what readers expected. Over at The Atlantic, Ari N. Schulman takes a slightly different approach to Lee and her work by focusing instead on Maurice Cain, Lee’s longtime agent, friend, and “co-conspirator.”
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Take Your Vitamins
Did Gollum have a vitamin D deficiency? In the Medical Journal of Australia, Joseph A. Hopkinson and Nicholas S. Hopkinson posit that the Lord of the Rings saga could’ve been prevented had the inhabitants of Middle Earth just gotten a little more sunlight. “Systematic textual analysis of The Hobbit supports our initial hypothesis that the triumph of good over evil may be assisted to some extent by the poor diet and lack of sunlight experienced by the evil characters.”
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Pixar Concept Art Released
Pixar got the 2013 film buzz started early by sending out four images of concept art to ComingSoon.net prior to New Year’s Day. The artwork provides teaser images of films in the pipeline through 2016.
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