plingyplang

SOPA: A Bad Solution to a Very Real Problem

But even as we celebrate the declining congressional support for these bills, we shouldn’t forget that this isn’t simply a fight about the future of free speech; it’s also a battle about whether the financial interests of the new media will triumph over those of the old media. And, if they do, it’s not clear that the public interest will always be served. As the protest song that sprang up this week put it, “Our web means more than lawyers, lobbies, and lies, so speak up before the Internet dies.” There are lawyers and lobbies on both sides of the debate, however, and neither side is devoted to the promotion of creativity for its own sake.

Recommended.

01/21/12

flavorpill:

Great works of literature-inspired nail art

(via housingworksbookstore)

01/19/12

“

Taking trains and trams in Berlin, I noticed: people reading. Books, I mean, not pocket-size devices that bleep as if censorious, on which even Shakespeare scans like a spreadsheet. Americans buy more than half of all e-books sold internationally — unless Europeans fly regularly to the United States for the sole purpose of downloading reading material from an American I.P. address. […] I began asking the multilingual, multiethnic artists around me why that was. It was 2 a.m., at Soho House, a private club I’d crashed in the former Hitlerjugend headquarters. One installationist said, “Americans like e-books because they’re easier to buy.” A performance artist said, “They’re also easier not to read.” True enough: their presence doesn’t remind you of what you’re missing; they don’t take up space on shelves.

Joshua Cohen, My Berlin Airlift - NYTimes.com (via housingworksbookstore)

(via housingworksbookstore)

01/16/12

Nice.

housingworksbookstore:

Daaaaaang. What a cool project. What book would y’all like to see on the sidewalk?

millionsmillions:

Wow!

tmills:

This is the biggest picture I’ve drawn in the past three years. It was for a banned book week in 2010. I like working big but it’s so much more expensive (except when it’s sidewalk chalk).

01/14/12

Three line poems from the NYPD police blotter.

laphamsquarterly:

Why didn’t we think of this? WHY?

michellelegro:

“At 4 a.m. on an Upper East Side subway platform, a stare-down between two men was being held. One blinked, and Joseph Owens, 32, attacked.”

Félix Fenéon, meet @neofeneon: Three line poems from the NYPD police blotter.

01/13/12