Art Law, Guantánamo Diary, Passports In Pakistan, Crohn's Disease, Talking Books, Equestria Girls
Who Owns A Work Of Art: Creator Or Buyer?
Steve Schlackman | Art Law Journal | 28th January 2015
The buyer, obviously. But beyond the physical ownership, there are assigned rights and inherent rights. If you buy a painting, you don't automatically get the right to sell T-shirts with the painting emblazoned on them. If you re-sell the painting, and the artist disapproves, the artist can refuse to have the painting attributed to her; but you do gain the right to post photos of the painting on the Internet (2,270 words)
We’ll Keep Humiliating You
Christian Lorentzen | London Review Of Books | 29th January 2015
Review of Mohamedou Ould Slahi's Guantánamo Diary, excerpted here (http://www.slate.com/articles/briefing/foreigners/2013/05/mohamedou_ould_slahi_s_guantanamo_memoirs.html) . It is "no masterpiece", even allowing for the censors' deletions, but Slahi is "an intelligent and sensitive writer whose sense of irony somehow survived along with his sanity". He lives now in a hut at Guantánamo taking antidepressants and playing video games. "It’s a strange ending to a book that is otherwise a relentless catalogue of grotesque abuses" (2,720 words)
Passport Tales
Manan Ahmed | Chapati Mystery | 29th January 2015
How to renew a passport in Pakistan. It takes for ever, unless you pay a fixer, in which case it takes two hours. "When my number was called for my picture to be taken, I was asked to sign a paper that guaranteed I believed in the finality of the Prophet. I clutched the paper, and sat down with it. The man looked at me quizzically. If I did not sign, I was a man without a passport. What civil resistance is possible?" (1,520 words)
On Having Crohn’s Disease
Amy Feltman | The Toast | 30th January 2015
"It starts when you are eighteen and you can’t hold down a shot of vodka. You can’t chase the non-shot with cranberry juice. Your mother suggests heartburn, which sounds like something only fifty-year-old men have and seems to be a dig about how oversensitive you are. Your roommates are concerned. Your friends are jealous. You are not gaining the freshman fifteen. You are light as a feather, stiff as a board" (2,790 words)
The Language Of E-books
Paul McFedries | IEEE Spectrum | 28th January 2015
I wish this were longer. A brief guide to the neologisms needed for talking about e-books; or ebooks, or eBooks — "there is much hand-wringing in the industry over the correct spelling". You use an EPUB format to make an ePub book. Older Kindles want Mobipocket. Newer Kindles want KF8. If all this that sounds too confusing, seek out a formatter, or a converter, or an aggregator. Some will even handle your POD (620 words)
Friendship Is Complicated
Maria Bustillos | Longreads | 28th January 2015
My Little Pony takes a strange turn. The magic ponies go through a mirror and come out on the other side as fashion-obsessed high-school students with a show of their own called Equestria Girls. Why? Because business. Branded toys make much more money than the films and cartoons on which they are based. Hasbro owns the franchise for My Little Pony. Hasbro wants a high-school show. The ponies must provide (3,700 words)
Video of the day: Death Of The Firstborn Egyptians
What to expect: Scripture as cartoon. By Nina Paley (7')
Thought for the day
Advice is what we ask for when we know the answer but wish we didn't
Erica Jong