In the past small sci-fi booksellers in out-of-the-way places barely eked out a living from selling books. Precisely because they didn’t make a lot of money, however, the independent’s signaled their worthy devotion to the revered authors. Today, Amazon sells more Le Guin books than any independent ever did. But Bezos doesn’t revere Le Guin, he treats her books as a commodity. That may distress Le Guin but for readers, book capitalism is a wonder, books and books and books available on our devices within seconds, more books than we could ever read; a veritable fountain, no a firehose, no an Amazon of books.

—Why Does Ursula K. Le Guin Hate Amazon?

The Doof Warrior is the 21st century Boba Fett - he looks awesome, he gets involved with the story just enough, and that’s all we need. It’s the desire to focus on Boba Fett, to give him a backstory and a tragic history, that watered him down. The mysterious figure steps out of the shadows and… he’s some kid whose dad was the template for a clone army. Huh. The iconic bounty hunter was suddenly brought down to earth, reduced completely.

In disguise.

To approach a city, or even a city neighborhood, as if it were a larger architectural problem, capable of being given order by converting it into a disciplined work of art, is to make the mistake of attempting to substitute art for life. The results of such profound confusion between art and life are neither art nor life. They are taxidermy.

—

Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities

via: “What is wrong with “How to Make an Attractive City”

David J is playing in someone’s living room next month. I have five and a half weeks to find these people, befriend them and gain an invite.

West Philadelphia, Spring 2015 by Kaela Parkhouse.

brand-upon-the-brain:

_ Heathers _ (Michael Lehmann, 1988)

…in today’s New York, selling out is an economic necessity. Because of that, refusing to do so has become an even more romantic idea. We can’t live in the nineties, so we simulate them, with Polaroid cameras, vinyl records, or a notion to move to Detroit.

—

Chloë Sevigny at Forty - The New Yorker

You know you are a millennial if your nostalgia for the 90s includes Polaroid, vinyl and Detroit.