The feverish interiority of a young woman abroad is captured with offbeat wit and disarming candour in the first novel from the translator of Butter Without meaning any disrespect to the now defunct noughties R&B trio Mis-Teeq, one would be hard pressed to think of many novels that open with an epigraph from their oeuvre. “You know you wanna sing with us (baby). That’s why you know you should be s...
The feverish interiority of a young woman abroad is captured with offbeat wit and disarming candour in the first novel from the translator of Butter Without meaning any disrespect to the now defunct noughties R&B trio Mis-Teeq, one would be hard pressed to think of many novels that open with an epigraph from their oeuvre. “You know you wanna sing with us (baby). That’s why you know you should be scared of us (baby),” from their 2003 single Scandalous, greets readers of Polly Barton’s debut novel, What Am I, a Deer? It hints at several of the book’s central preoccupations – romance, the disquieting force of desire, and the devotional catharsis of belting out a pop song. Barton has written two nonfiction books – Fifty Sounds, and Porn: An Oral History – but she is a writer readers are likely to have encountered by accident. Primarily a translator of Japanese fiction, her work includes bringing Asako Yuzuki’s bestseller Butter into English. Continue reading...
Semiconductors power modern technology, from AI to everyday devices. Now, global tensions and rising demand are forcing the chip supply chain to adapt. (Source: Bloomberg)
Semiconductors power modern technology, from AI to everyday devices. Now, global tensions and rising demand are forcing the chip supply chain to adapt. (Source: Bloomberg)
Watchable, uncritical doc tells the story of the massive rise, slight fall, then further massive rise of the veteran rockers Sounding a power chord of defiance against the milksop trends of pop is this good-natured documentary about metal superheroes Iron Maiden. The origin of the band name isn’t explained, incidentally, perhaps for the fun of letting people get freaked out by looking it up for th...
Watchable, uncritical doc tells the story of the massive rise, slight fall, then further massive rise of the veteran rockers Sounding a power chord of defiance against the milksop trends of pop is this good-natured documentary about metal superheroes Iron Maiden. The origin of the band name isn’t explained, incidentally, perhaps for the fun of letting people get freaked out by looking it up for themselves. It’s cheerful and watchable, if a relentlessly on-brand fan promo, corporately policed and controlled, using vintage archive photos and video rather than closeup talking-head footage of the band now. It is uninterested in anything critical, with fervent, humorous testimonies from Maiden superfans from all walks of life, including Javier Bardem, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich and Kiss’s Gene Simmons. Continue reading...
Suppose you had invested in a basket of the biggest cryptocurrencies five years ago, in early May 2021. You would have bought Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) near $56,000, Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) near $3,400, XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) about $1.60, Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) at $45, and Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) near $0.40. Those were the coins with the most buzz and the most liquidity, and, in some cases, the strongest fund...
Suppose you had invested in a basket of the biggest cryptocurrencies five years ago, in early May 2021. You would have bought Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) near $56,000, Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) near $3,400, XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) about $1.60, Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) at $45, and Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) near $0.40. Those were the coins with the most buzz and the most liquidity, and, in some cases, the strongest fundamental arguments, and optimism about their future was widely prevalent, and somewhat reasonable. Fast-forward five years. Buying the stock market via an S&P 500 index fund returned about 85% in that period, outperforming all of those cryptocurrencies except for Solana. With results like those, it's no wonder investors are losing patience with crypto as an asset class -- and I'm one of them. Image source: Getty Images. Continue reading