The Internet was supposed to liberate artists and replace the traditional businesses that had been disrupted by digital distribution. Musician David Lowery (Camper Van Beethoven, Cracker) says the math still isn’t working:
I was like all of you. I believed in the promise of the Internet to liberate, empower and even enrich artists. I still do but I’m less sure of it than I once was. I come here because I want to start a dialogue. I feel that what we artists were promised has not really panned out. Yes in many ways we have more freedom. Artistically this is certainly true. But the music business never transformed into the vibrant marketplace where small stakeholders could compete with multinational conglomerates on an even playing field.
In the last few years it’s become apparent the music business, which was once dominated by six large and powerful music conglomerates, MTV, Clear Channel and a handful of other companies, is now dominated by a smaller set of larger even more powerful tech conglomerates. And their hold on the business seems to be getting stronger.
“Meet The New Boss, Worse Than The Old Boss?” — David Lowery, The Trichordist
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One of the greatest athletes of all time faded into the background while his wife and daughters became reality TV stars:
“Fathers suffer a curse, and Bruce Jenner knows this curse better than most: The day you become a father, you stop being who you were. In the eyes of your children, your life began when theirs did.
“The strange thing about Jenner, now that he’s sixty-two years old: It’s not just his glorious past that has disappeared. It’s as though all of him, every previous incarnation of him, has been flooded out of view: by the fame of his adopted family — his third wife, the former-and-sometimes-still Kris Kardashian, her son, Rob, and her collection of daughters, Kourtney, Kim, Khloé, Kendall, and Kylie, the last two also Jenner’s — by the glib demands of reality-TV story lines, by dubious plastic surgery and eyebrows plucked to oblivion. Even in his own home, that familiar Spanish castle with the fountain splashing out front, you have to look hard to find those few traces of his existence. (‘My mom’s house,’ Kim calls it.) All of the photographs are of the children; all of the memorabilia and props are the product of their successes, not his. There is no red singlet in a frame; his gold medal is nowhere to be found. For the most part, Bruce Jenner, Olympian, has been banished to the garage.”
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Published: May 20, 2012
Length: 13 minutes (3,339 words)
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Longreads Pick
The Internet was supposed to liberate artists and replace the traditional businesses that had been disrupted by digital distribution. Musician David Lowery (Camper Van Beethoven, Cracker) says the math still isn’t working:
“I was like all of you. I believed in the promise of the Internet to liberate, empower and even enrich artists. I still do but I’m less sure of it than I once was. I come here because I want to start a dialogue. I feel that what we artists were promised has not really panned out. Yes in many ways we have more freedom. Artistically this is certainly true. But the music business never transformed into the vibrant marketplace where small stakeholders could compete with multinational conglomerates on an even playing field.
“In the last few years it’s become apparent the music business, which was once dominated by six large and powerful music conglomerates, MTV, Clear Channel and a handful of other companies, is now dominated by a smaller set of larger even more powerful tech conglomerates. And their hold on the business seems to be getting stronger.”
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Published: Apr 15, 2012
Length: 44 minutes (11,071 words)
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An examination of one family’s experience with a child who has gender dysphoria:
As a teacher, Stephen knew how cruel kids could be. He imagined his child walking into the social battlefield that is school, insisting she was a boy when under her clothing, she wasn’t.
What about bathrooms? P.E.? The prom? How would all that go?
Despite his resistance, Stephen promised his wife that he would pay closer attention to Kathryn’s behavior and really listen for her ‘I am a boy’ anthem.
It didn’t take long.
‘We were in the car; I was driving,’ Stephen told me.
Kathryn was in the back and grabbed a book off the seat.
‘Daddy, I’m going to read you a story, okay?’ Kathryn said, opening a random book and pretending to read. ‘It’s about a little boy who was born. But he was born like a girl.’
Stephen nearly slammed the brakes, then listened as the story unfolded about how unhappy the little boy was.
‘Okay. I’m listening, Jean,’ he said after he got home.
“Transgender at Five.” — Petula Dvorak, Washington Post
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An examination of one family’s experience with a child who has gender dysphoria:
“As a teacher, Stephen knew how cruel kids could be. He imagined his child walking into the social battlefield that is school, insisting she was a boy when under her clothing, she wasn’t.
What about bathrooms? P.E.? The prom? How would all that go?
Despite his resistance, Stephen promised his wife that he would pay closer attention to Kathryn’s behavior and really listen for her ‘I am a boy’ anthem.
It didn’t take long.
‘We were in the car; I was driving,’ Stephen told me.
Kathryn was in the back and grabbed a book off the seat.
‘Daddy, I’m going to read you a story, okay?’ Kathryn said, opening a random book and pretending to read. ‘It’s about a little boy who was born. But he was born like a girl.’
Stephen nearly slammed the brakes, then listened as the story unfolded about how unhappy the little boy was.
‘Okay. I’m listening, Jean,’ he said after he got home.”
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Published: May 19, 2012
Length: 12 minutes (3,236 words)
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Ethan Imboden is founder of Jimmyjane, a Bay Area company that is aiming to bring design standards and mainstream acceptance to a product that has long been hidden away from the public:
Within Sharper Image, that neck massager became known jokingly as ‘the Sex and the City vibrator,’ but in 2007, Imboden approached the company with the Form 6. Literally the sixth in a series of vibrator sketches — Imboden believes in minimalist names — the Form 6 has a curved, organic shape that is suggestive without being representational. It is wrapped completely in soft, platinum silicone, making it completely water-resistant, and charges on a wall-powered base station through a narrow stainless steel band, a novel cordless recharging system that Imboden patented. For these features, the Form 6 earned an International Design Excellence Award, the first time a sex toy had earned such a distinction. It comes in hot pink, deep plum or slate—non-primary, poppy colors that he believes convey sophistication. It is packaged in a hard plastic case inside a bright white box — ‘literally and figuratively bringing these products out of the shadows,’ Imboden said. And it has a 3-year warranty (this may not seem remarkable, but is for a sex toy).
“Can a Better Vibrator Inspire an Age of Great American Sex?” — Andy Isaacson, The Atlantic
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Ethan Imboden is founder of Jimmyjane, a Bay Area company that is aiming to bring design standards and mainstream acceptance to a product that has long been hidden away from the public:
“Within Sharper Image, that neck massager became known jokingly as ‘the Sex and the City vibrator,’ but in 2007, Imboden approached the company with the Form 6. Literally the sixth in a series of vibrator sketches — Imboden believes in minimalist names — the Form 6 has a curved, organic shape that is suggestive without being representational. It is wrapped completely in soft, platinum silicone, making it completely water-resistant, and charges on a wall-powered base station through a narrow stainless steel band, a novel cordless recharging system that Imboden patented. For these features, the Form 6 earned an International Design Excellence Award, the first time a sex toy had earned such a distinction. It comes in hot pink, deep plum or slate–non-primary, poppy colors that he believes convey sophistication. It is packaged in a hard plastic case inside a bright white box — ‘literally and figuratively bringing these products out of the shadows,’ Imboden said. And it has a 3-year warranty (this may not seem remarkable, but is for a sex toy).”
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Published: May 14, 2012
Length: 24 minutes (6,130 words)
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Inside the groundbreaking investigation by Columbia professor James Liebman, on the case of Carlos DeLuna, who was executed in 1989 for a crime he didn’t commit:
At the trial, DeLuna’s defence team told the jury that Carlos Hernandez, not DeLuna, was the murderer. But the prosecutors ridiculed that suggestion. They told the jury that police had looked for a ‘Carlos Hernandez’ after his name had been passed to them by DeLuna’s lawyers, without success. They had concluded that Hernandez was a fabrication, a ‘phantom’ who simply did not exist. The chief prosecutor said in summing up that Hernandez was a ‘figment of DeLuna’s imagination.’
Four years after DeLuna was executed, Liebman decided to look into the DeLuna case as part of a project he was undertaking into the fallibility of the death penalty. He asked a private investigator to spend one day – just one day – looking for signs of the elusive Carlos Hernandez.
“The Wrong Carlos: How Texas Sent an Innocent Man to His Death.” — Ed Pilkington, The Guardian
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Inside the groundbreaking investigation by Columbia professor James Liebman, on the case of Carlos DeLuna, who was executed in 1989 for a crime he didn’t commit:
“At the trial, DeLuna’s defence team told the jury that Carlos Hernandez, not DeLuna, was the murderer. But the prosecutors ridiculed that suggestion. They told the jury that police had looked for a ‘Carlos Hernandez’ after his name had been passed to them by DeLuna’s lawyers, without success. They had concluded that Hernandez was a fabrication, a ‘phantom’ who simply did not exist. The chief prosecutor said in summing up that Hernandez was a ‘figment of DeLuna’s imagination.’
“Four years after DeLuna was executed, Liebman decided to look into the DeLuna case as part of a project he was undertaking into the fallibility of the death penalty. He asked a private investigator to spend one day – just one day – looking for signs of the elusive Carlos Hernandez.”
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Published: May 14, 2012
Length: 7 minutes (1,832 words)
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From Clay Christensen’s forthcoming book How Will You Measure Your Life?, an examination of how businesses and individuals fail to understand the challenges posed by smaller competitors with less to lose:
Case studies such as this one helped me resolve a paradox that has appeared repeatedly in my attempts to help established companies that are confronted by disruptive entrants—as was the case with Blockbuster. Once their executives understood the peril that the disruptive attackers posed, I would say, ‘Okay. Now the problem is that your sales force is not going to be able to sell these disruptive products. They need to be sold to different customers, for different purposes. You need to create a different sales force.’ Inevitably they would respond, ‘Clay, you have no idea how much it costs to create a new sales force. We need to leverage our existing sales team.’
The language of the disruptive attackers was completely different: ‘It’s time to create the sales force.’ Hence, the paradox: Why is it that the big, established companies that have so much capital find these initiatives to be so costly? And why do the small entrants with much less capital find them to be straightforward?
“Excerpt: The Trap of Marginal Thinking.” — Clayton M. Christensen, Harvard Business School
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