Author Archives: Propagandum

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

Life of Pi: orange, blue, white and burning tigers

Posted on 30 January 2013

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 →

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Life of Pi – a film review in six or seven facts

Posted on 17 January 2013

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 →

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Have you tried the new reduced whiches and thats diet?

Posted on 8 January 2013

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 →

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Leonardo da Vinci: Philosopher and scientist? #2, People in landscapes

Posted on 20 December 2012

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 →

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Leonardo da Vinci: Philosopher and scientist? #1

Posted on 15 November 2012

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 →

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Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist (exhibition review) #2

Posted on 2 October 2012

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 →

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Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist (exhibition review) #1

Posted on 17 September 2012

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 →

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