imaginary

It goes without saying that Santa Claus has never exactly been interpreted as an alluring character, but that’s all changed with the casting of David Harbour in this week’s R-rated actioner Violent Night. The Stranger Things veteran may have shed his dad bod to get shredded for the fourth and fifth seasons of the Netflix phenomenon, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t still giving off “daddy” vibes. A lot of folks have found themselves feeling unknown feelings over being attracted to jolly old Saint Nick in his festive duds,…

”Tech vs Media“ podcast: Max Child identifies Siri as ”over-promising and under-delivering“ the capabilities of voice control Volley Co-Founder Max Child sees a vast future for voice control in the tech world, but says the industry “went wrong” by coupling voice control with “imaginary humans,” like Siri and Alexa. “We went wrong a little bit as an industry coupling voice control very tightly with imaginary humans and little cylinders that sit on your desk,” Child said on TheWrap’s “Tech…

Noughts & Crosses author Malorie Blackman has become the first children’s and YA writer to be awarded the PEN Pinter prize.The prize is given by English PEN annually to a writer of “outstanding literary merit” who is based in the UK, Ireland or the Commonwealth. The recipient must also, in the words of Harold Pinter’s Nobel prize, cast an “unflinching, unswerving” gaze on the world and show a “fierce intellectual determination … to define the real truth of our lives and our societies”.Blackman was chosen by judges…

Stuck, like all musicians, in the tedium of recent lockdowns, pianist Joe Webb found relief in the cheerful music and uncomplicated teenage movies of the 1950s and 60s. As a kind of memento, before moving on, he recorded these 10 numbers with his quintet, arranging them as the soundtrack to an imaginary 60s pool party film. Mel Tormé, LaVern Baker, Erroll Garner, even Cannonball Adderley – I’m no expert in the genre, and I’m certainly not complaining, but that seems a bit on the classy side to me.Anyway, it’s a musician’s…