Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Link roundup

1.  Interview about the end of blog Regretsy:
There would be days when I would be on the couch with my laptop for 16 hours, just exhausted and in tears.
2.  Relatedly, bitter brand managers on Twitter:
Twitter had created a system that demanded the attention of intelligent people, individuals capable of assuming the entire false persona of a global brand without lapses, but there was no reward for that attention. Quark Cola were obliged to maintain a Twitter page, which meant an individual was obliged to maintain the page. As Samantha had hinted in his original interview, it was a responsibility, not an opportunity.
3.  NY Times:
Beginning in the 1930s the Texas-born filmmaker Melton Barker spent nearly four decades scurrying across America with a script and a camera, methodically making and remaking the same two-reel film.

... 
His life’s work — “The Kidnappers Foil,” a hokey short about a band of kids who outsmart two dozing criminals, then perform a series of song-and-dance routines — preyed upon the loving delusions of small-town mothers and fathers. Equipment in tow, Barker would roll into town, offering starry-eyed parents a chance to see their children, billed collectively as the Local Gang, ham it up on a big screen — for a fee.