About Propagandum
I’ve been working in book publishing for over 30 years – an industry now in rapid transition. So I’m interested in foundational principles for media, writing and language – what lessons can we learn for how we can and should communicate? How can we make sense of media/technology? Can we transfer some skills from the old to the new?
I hope to share (every week-ish) some things I think are wonderful, rich and important. I write longish posts because our complex and fascinating world cannot be reduced to soundbites.
Please let me know what you think – contact me at david@propagandum.com
The tiger in Life of Pi eats a whole film. In other words, our wish to believe in stories is so strong we gobble them up whether they’re true or not. Those who think of themselves as hard-headed realists probably prefer … Continue reading →
Posted in Film criticism, Media analysis
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Tagged Aravind Adiga, Avatar, Cats, CGI, Film criticism, Film review, Life of Pi, Realism, Richard Dawkins, The Tyger, White Tiger, William Blake
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What does this film mean? Does it, as its hero Pi Patel says at the beginning, ‘make [us] believe in God’? This post contains (as they say) spoilers, so if you don’t want to know what happens, please don’t read … Continue reading →
Posted in Film criticism, Media analysis
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Tagged Ang Lee, CGI, computer animation, Eating, Kabbala, Krishna, Life of Pi, Metaphors, Richard Dawkins, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Tyger, Tzimtzum, William Blake, Yann Martel
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You don’t have to be a professional writer to benefit from making your writing sound more natural. The words which or that are often stodgy and unnecessary. Following Strunk and White’s helpful suggestion – under their banner ‘Omit needless words’ – … Continue reading →
What does ‘philosophy’ mean when we look at paintings? Perhaps it’s a way of making sense of our place in the world – I’m thinking about places and worlds as painters might, specifically as landscapes. I’ve assumed painters see (literally) … Continue reading →
Posted in Art criticism, Media analysis, Writing
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Tagged Art and philosophy, Art criticism, Art theory, Gainsborough, Jackson Pollock, John Berger, Leonardo da Vinci, Modern art, Philosophy of science, Richard Dawkins, Virgin of the Rocks
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Benvenuto Cellini was a virtuoso Renaissance goldsmith, sculptor and wildly indiscreet autobiographer. Yet he soberly recorded King François I of France as saying ‘there had never been born another man in the world who knew as much as Leonardo, not so … Continue reading →
Posted in Art criticism, Business, Media analysis, Medicine
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Tagged Anatomy, Dante, Duchamp, Gestalt, Hayward Gallery, Information design, Large Glass, Leonardo app, Leonardo da Vinci, Metaphor, Philosophy of science, Theory of science, Writing
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This excellent exhibition (in the Queen’s Gallery, London) has some fascinatingly different stories to tell of Leonardo’s extraordinary anatomical sketches. We can have our interpretations on the surface or we can dig for them, depending on whether we like our versions … Continue reading →
Posted in Art criticism, Business, Media analysis, Medicine, Publishing
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Tagged Anatomy, Apps, Information design, iPad, Leonardo da Vinci, Publishing, Queen's Gallery, Royal Collection, Theory of medicine
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This is an unusual start to any review, but the gallery’s beautifully panelled and French-polished rosewood doors and postmodern urinal dividers in the spotless toilets were so unusual in their generosity to the possibility of civilized public behaviour that I … Continue reading →
Posted in Art criticism, Media analysis, Medicine, Publishing
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Tagged Art, Communication, Creativity, Diamond Jubilee, Information design, Leonardo da Vinci, Philosophy of science, Theory of medicine, Vesalius
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