Self-publishing in print has always had its advantages for writers: greater artistic freedom, direct engagement with audiences, the ability to speak directly to a community of readers without meddling editors, an affordable way to see their ideas come to fruition. Digital cookbooks are no different, and there are often huge advantages to producing a cookbook on a smaller scale, especially since DIYing a digital book has never been easier with plug-and-play graphic design software.
Independent recipe creators do face many of the same challenges as publishing houses in convincing readers to pay for digital downloads (plus a handful more hurdles unique to self-publishing). But for some, self-publishing digital cookbooks can be a significant source of income, at least enough to offset the costs of running a website and stocking a pantry.
Contemporary art is currently dominated by painting and sculpture, by traditional materials and old ways of making. Companies outside of the art world, meanwhile, are using digital technology to remake timeless masterpieces as evanescent gimcracks, as projected tourist attractions and animations. But few artists are doing what Rousseau and his peers did: accepting the realities imposed by new technologies — in their case, photography — and breaking the old ways apart to create something new. An artist with the spirit of Rousseau might appreciate the potential of this new medium and want to make art for the metaverse and the wider public.
Not all deaths are created equal. In February 2020, the world began to panic about the novel coronavirus, which killed 2714 people that month. This made the news. In the same month, around 800,000 people died from the effects of air pollution. That didn’t. Novelty counts for a lot. At the start of the pandemic, it was considered unseemly to make comparisons like these. But comparing the value of human lives is one thing the machine of modern civilisation does relentlessly, almost invariably to prioritise and absolve the rich – when, for example, the global supply of Covid vaccines is apportioned primarily to the highest-income countries, or when the cost of natural disasters in Bangladesh is measured against the impact of sea-level rise on Miami Beach real estate, or when Joe Biden’s onetime economic adviser Lawrence Summers proposed that Africa, as a whole, was ‘vastly underpolluted’, and suggested that ‘the economic logic behind dumping a whole load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable.’
Is it better to interpret art or to make it? Which is the more constructive act, which the more potentially destructive? Although “White on White” can suffer from too much control at times, Savaş’ restrained style is a statement in itself, minimalist on the surface but more textured than what first meets the eye. Through it, the author questions the validity of the self, whether fully clothed or supposedly exposed.
Yes, too much of “All About Me!” is self-congratulatory — if Brooks isn’t praising himself, he quotes others praising him — and, yes, recounting plots and casts for his films comes off as superficial. His memoir works best, which is more often than not, as a look back in laughter from a man who isn’t through trying to make us gasp for breath.
The dance begins again – the
seasons turn and Earth strips off
her veil. Summer will have her
wealth, florals and gold, to weave