License to kill also serves as a license to transfrom language

When I first heard the title of the latest Bond film, I, like many people, wondered what the hell it really meant. Happy to see Matthew Shaer over at VQR break down the other ways in which 007 plays with our nifty little language:

As Daniel Craig told the BBC earlier this year, there’s something poetic about the idea of a quantum of solace. (The dictionary definition of “quantum”: “The smallest amount of a physical quantity that can exist independently, especially a discrete quantity of electromagnetic radiation.”) When [relationships] go wrong,” Craig explained, “when there’s nothing left, when the spark has gone, when the fire’s gone out, there’s no quantum of solace.”

FBI kept tabs on Mailer

I'm reminded of a movie character who once left a nervous voicemail to her Lit major ex-boyfriend and said, "Oh, and I read War and Peace, which was good! [beat] Like that was a surprise...."

So now we discover that J. Edgar Hoover once wrote to a subordinate, "Let me have a memo on Norman Mailer." No kidding. "Like that was a surprise." I think we all expected that the FBI would have something on Mailer. Personally, I think Gore Vidal could provide more provocative gossip, but presumably we'll have to wait a while for that one, if the person-of-interest being kind of passed-away is a prerequisite.

Anyway, onward to the block quote!

In 1969, at Hoover's direction, an agent prepared a five-page, single-spaced review of Mailer's book "Miami and the Siege of Chicago," about the 1968 political conventions. The review carefully itemized all six references made to the FBI.

"It is written in his usual obscene and bitter style," the agent wrote. "Book contains reference to . . . uncomplimentary statements of the type that might be expected from Mailer regarding the FBI and the Director."

(via Paper Cuts)

Another magazine goes digital

And it's a biggie. I.e., The New Yorker.

So not to toot my own horn. But I wrote a little piece in May 2007 in order to graduate from my neighborhood journalism program, and the kicker went thus:

Unless major titles convert their websites into digital communities, then the mainstream magazine industry will trend down, and the niche, independent digital magazine communities will continue to trend up. As time marches on, those two species of magazine websites---digital billboards for the print publication versus digital magazine communities---will become increasingly distinct. And users will grow ever more savvy at recognizing which is which.

[Debbie] Day recently browsed NewYorker.com and learned that the magazine is trying to sell the complete archive on a hard drive that costs $199, rather than make that archive available online. Moreover, there’s no opportunity for readers to comment on stories, much less interact with each other. Day called the site “very, very elegant.” But it clearly lacked the affordances of front-edge magazine websites.

“I’m not trying to put down whatever their efforts are, but I don’t think they’ve mastered the medium,” Day said. “They’re still really dabbling.”