ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

Today's Stories

The Egyptian Government Just Rented Out The Pyramids To MrBeast

MrBeast says on the podcast that he worked with the Egyptian government to get access to the historic site. “I’ve never been inside of it,” he says. “I want to just find secrets and go through all the rooms and the tombs and that kind of stuff.” - Fast Company

Fired Members Of Dallas Black Dance Theatre Reunite For A Final Performance

The National Labor Relations Board ruled in their favor and they're getting compensation, but the ten dancers are declining to return to DBDT. So they got together for one last performance — a program of new pieces collectively titled Emergence —before figuring out where their careers will take them next. - KERA (Dallas)

How Judith Jamison Shaped The Alvin Ailey Dance Company

Under Jamison’s direction, the Ailey dancers grew more and more godlike in technique without losing earthly looseness and soul. - The New Yorker

The Year That Was In NY Theatre

Broadway returned to boom times, and several commercially produced shows did gangbusters business in smaller theatres, but Off Broadway’s nonprofit companies continued to struggle. Yet a lot of what made the city artistically exciting this year required that all parts of the ecosystem flourish. - The New Yorker

How Music Shapes Our Future Perceptions

“Sound directs our passage through time. It shapes our orientation to the future moment and also to the moment when the future stops.” - The Wall Street Journal

Ballet Genius/Putin Superfan/Notorious Train Wreck Sergei Polunin Says He’s Leaving Russia

The Ukrainian-born dancer, who has three tattoos of Putin (despite the Russian military's near-obliteration of his hometown, Kherson), now says "My time in Russia ran out a long time ago … I've fulfilled my mission here." Last week he posted a message calling for peace negotiations and promptly lost his job. - CBS News

Rousseau’s Philosophical Diagnosis Of What Ails Us (Still Relevant Today)

Rousseau was, in effect, the diagnostician of despair who captured the affliction of alienation in all of its dimensions. The source of our affliction was the very thing we thought made us better: civilization. - The American Scholar

How Did A Publishing Startup Land 25 Books On The Bestseller List In A Year?

So far this year, Bloom has landed 23 books and two series on the New York Times best-seller list. Last year, it surpassed $100 million in gross sales, and its 2024 sales are up 58 percent. - The New York Times

Nearly 15,000 Media Jobs In The US Were Eliminated In 2024

"While the 14,909 jobs lost by mid-December this year offered an improvement on the 21,417 jobs cut in 2023, it would be unwise to consider this year a 'comeback' by any stretch. Combined, the number of jobs lost between 2023-24 more than quadrupled the amount lost between 2021-22." - TheWrap (MSN)

Charlotte Symphony Is Making Big Investments In Immersive Performances

“It is going to be a space you can choose where to be and how to listen,” Fisk said. “We want people to lose themselves in this music and to be swallowed up by the experience of being part of nature.” - Charlotte Observer (MSN)

Why Some Non-Christian Composers Are Attracted To Christmas Material: David Lang

"Every Christmas, I ask myself this question, because accidentally I — a Jewish composer — have also written something of a Christmas classic: the little match girl passion. Cynics may think that these artists make Christmas music because they’re chasing the market. I believe there is something deeper at work." - The New York Times

Movie Producers Sue National Parks System Over Permits In Parks

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Wyoming federal court, Alexander Rienzie and Connor Burkesmith challenge the constitutionality of federal permit and fee requirements on First Amendment grounds. They accuse National Park Services of censoring speech by requiring advance permission to film commercial content. - The Hollywood Reporter

Can A Musical Be A Better Way Of Focusing Politics On An Issue?

Like the drama series about the Post Office scandal aired a year ago, “Mr Bates vs The Post Office,” dramatizations of the news can often draw more attention to an event. They can also build public pressure for injustices to be addressed. 

The Top 10 Bookselling Stories Of 2024

"We saw booksellers, publishers, and others in the industry step up to aid stores that sustained extensive hurricane damage, call for greater rights and representation for people with diverse identities, and more." - Publishers Weekly

What Nonprofit Theater Leaders Told The NEA

"(A) series of listening sessions, held this past summer, helped the (NEA theater) team to learn more about evolving challenges, successful strategies, and potential pathways to future sustainability of the field. Those conversations have now been distilled and analyzed in a new report." - National Endowment for the Arts

Will This Be The First Broadway Musical Whose Title Role Is A Dead Body?

"Dead Outlaw, a rambunctious musical that tells the hard-to-believe-it’s-true story of a bandit’s corpse that became a spectacle in early-20th-century America, will open on Broadway next spring. The show … will be the first developed by Audible to make it to Broadway." - The New York Times

Is The World’s Largest Fully-Functioning Musical Instrument In Jeopardy?

The organ in the old Wanamaker's department store, right across from City Hall, is a Philadelphia icon. Yet the store, currently a Macy's, is shrinking just like other department stores; the building is in receivership as upper-floor office space remains vacant post-COVID; and Macy's lease expires in 2027. - The Conversation

Use Our Copyrighted Material To Train AI? Oh Hell No, Huge Coalition Tells UK Government

"Writers, publishers, musicians, photographers, movie producers and newspapers have rejected the Labour government’s plan to create a copyright exemption to help artificial intelligence companies train their algorithms." - The Guardian

This Upstart Publisher Got 25 Books On The Bestseller List In A Single Year

Three years ago, the only author on Bloom Books' list was E.L. James (the Fifty Shades of Grey series). Now it publishes over 40 authors, many previously self-published, will have well over $150 million in gross sales this year, and has nearly one-quarter of the lucrative romance market. - The New York Times

SF-MOMA Fires One Of Its Top Curators

"Eungie Joo, who served as head curator of contemporary art at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for seven years, was fired after what the museum described as a violation of its workplace conduct policy. … No further details were given." - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)

By Topic

Rousseau’s Philosophical Diagnosis Of What Ails Us (Still Relevant Today)

Rousseau was, in effect, the diagnostician of despair who captured the affliction of alienation in all of its dimensions. The source of our affliction was the very thing we thought made us better: civilization. - The American Scholar

How America Redefined Old Age

Contemporary America segregates debility and death, and it’s costing us, body and soul, writes Duke University historian James Chappel. - The American Scholar

We Live In Extreme Data — How To Make Sense Of It?

Where you are, what you’re looking at, and what you like is being tracked more or less constantly—either you’re doing it to yourself voluntarily, by taking a video with your phone and posting it online, say, or a corporate entity is doing it for you. - The New Yorker

Everything We Do These Days Is Measured And Informed By Data. Does This Really Help?

We talk a lot these days about Big Data, those heaping stores of digitized information that, fueling search and recommendation engines, social media feeds, and, now, artificial intelligence models, govern so much of our lives today. But we don’t give much notice to what might be called little data... - Hedgehog Review

That Emptiness In Which You Can’t Feel Anything

If you feel empty in this way, you might find that bad news doesn’t make you feel upset, that good news doesn’t make you feel happy. Some part of you knows you should feel something when important things happen, but you don’t. - Psyche

The Algorithms That Have Taken Over Our Culture

Part of the fixation on cultural algorithms is a product of the insecure position in which cultural gatekeepers find themselves. - The Atlantic

The Egyptian Government Just Rented Out The Pyramids To MrBeast

MrBeast says on the podcast that he worked with the Egyptian government to get access to the historic site. “I’ve never been inside of it,” he says. “I want to just find secrets and go through all the rooms and the tombs and that kind of stuff.” - Fast Company

Use Our Copyrighted Material To Train AI? Oh Hell No, Huge Coalition Tells UK Government

"Writers, publishers, musicians, photographers, movie producers and newspapers have rejected the Labour government’s plan to create a copyright exemption to help artificial intelligence companies train their algorithms." - The Guardian

France’s Culture Pass For 18-Year-Olds Has Serious Problems, Says Government’s Top Auditor

"The Cour des Comptes has found several faults with France’s Culture Pass, which gives 18-year-olds €300 to spend on just about any cultural activity or product they wish over two years. The scheme has seen 'its spending soar, does not meet its social objectives and needs governance reform.'" - The Bookseller (UK)

Artists Ponder UK’s Proposed ‘Right to Personality’ Plan For Copyright

Decades-old copyright legislation varies by region but is generally too outdated to be reliably applied to the new challenges presented by generative A.I. This has left both A.I. developers and artists in a state of uncertainty. - Artnet

UK Proposes Letting AI Companies Train On Copyrighted Work

Under the proposals, tech companies will be allowed to freely use copyrighted material to train artificial intelligence models unless creative professionals and companies opt out of the process. - The Guardian

Are Some Parts Of England Really “Cultural Deserts”? Governmental Review Will Investigate Regional Inequality

Margaret Hodge, who was minister of culture under previous Labour PM Gordon Brown, will lead the review of Arts Council England, the government funding body. The focus will be on underserved regions, this after culture minister Lisa Nandy described some areas of England as "cultural deserts." - The Guardian

How Music Shapes Our Future Perceptions

“Sound directs our passage through time. It shapes our orientation to the future moment and also to the moment when the future stops.” - The Wall Street Journal

Charlotte Symphony Is Making Big Investments In Immersive Performances

“It is going to be a space you can choose where to be and how to listen,” Fisk said. “We want people to lose themselves in this music and to be swallowed up by the experience of being part of nature.” - Charlotte Observer (MSN)

Why Some Non-Christian Composers Are Attracted To Christmas Material: David Lang

"Every Christmas, I ask myself this question, because accidentally I — a Jewish composer — have also written something of a Christmas classic: the little match girl passion. Cynics may think that these artists make Christmas music because they’re chasing the market. I believe there is something deeper at work." - The New York...

Is The World’s Largest Fully-Functioning Musical Instrument In Jeopardy?

The organ in the old Wanamaker's department store, right across from City Hall, is a Philadelphia icon. Yet the store, currently a Macy's, is shrinking just like other department stores; the building is in receivership as upper-floor office space remains vacant post-COVID; and Macy's lease expires in 2027. - The Conversation

The New Music Counterculture – It’s Anti-Algo, Anti-Perfection

These creators are opting not to play in the traditional music business lane (largely because they would struggle to get the rights cleared). So, instead they are operating in the music business’ ‘grey market’ – not quite a black market but not the formal market either. - Music Industry Blog

Kent Nagano Named Next Artistic Director Of Spain’s National Orchestra And Choir

The 73-year-old California native, currently finishing his term as general music director of the Hamburg State Opera, will succeed David Afkham as chief conductor and artistic director of the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España in September of 2026. - La Vanguardia (Barcelona) (via Google Translate)

SF-MOMA Fires One Of Its Top Curators

"Eungie Joo, who served as head curator of contemporary art at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for seven years, was fired after what the museum described as a violation of its workplace conduct policy. … No further details were given." - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)

Facing Funding Stress, Sydney’s Museum Of Contemporary Art Scraps Its Free Admission

Free general admission was introduced in 2000 under the directorship of Elizabeth Ann MacGregor with the aid of a Telstra sponsorship. But stagnant government funding has forced the museum’s hand, with the introduction of a $20 entry fee from 31 January. - The Guardian

On The Front Lines Of Art Therapy

“We work a lot with trauma and survivors who maybe are struggling to find the words to be able to describe what they’ve endured. Art is an incredibly effective way to channel some of the angst that they’ve experienced.” - Hyperallergic

Staying Involved: Leonard Lauder’s Art Philanthropy Philosophy

“What museums are known for is not their architecture or their shows but ultimately their collections." But building great collections takes time, patience and determination. Together with Emily Braun, an art history professor at Hunter College who has been Lauder’s curator for 37 years, they know where all the great Cubist works are. -...

How A Long-Ago TV Host Explained Art And The Avant Garde

Its host, Lorser Feitelson, would become the interlocutor between the avant-garde and the country’s first generation of television viewers. He was personable, pedigreed and principled. Now, 60 years since its final episode, Feitelson’s show feels prophetic of a fact of visual life today. - The New York Times

How Could MIT Buy And Build Land Art By Maya Lin And Not Tell Anyone About It?

The series of 11 grass-covered mounds, titled The Sound We Travel At, is a physical representation of Doppler waves. It's right in busy Kendall Square; people regularly walk past and even sit on it. MIT spent $1.3 million on it. Yet almost no one realized that it's there. - The Boston Globe

How Did A Publishing Startup Land 25 Books On The Bestseller List In A Year?

So far this year, Bloom has landed 23 books and two series on the New York Times best-seller list. Last year, it surpassed $100 million in gross sales, and its 2024 sales are up 58 percent. - The New York Times

The Top 10 Bookselling Stories Of 2024

"We saw booksellers, publishers, and others in the industry step up to aid stores that sustained extensive hurricane damage, call for greater rights and representation for people with diverse identities, and more." - Publishers Weekly

This Upstart Publisher Got 25 Books On The Bestseller List In A Single Year

Three years ago, the only author on Bloom Books' list was E.L. James (the Fifty Shades of Grey series). Now it publishes over 40 authors, many previously self-published, will have well over $150 million in gross sales this year, and has nearly one-quarter of the lucrative romance market. - The New York Times

Remember, “A Christmas Carol” Is Not Dickens’s Only Christmas Story

It's not even Dickens's only Christmas ghost story. And some of them are much weirder and more unsettling than the famous one. - Literary Hub

How The Politics Of Smell In Prose Broke The Internet

I wanted to share with my academic network, so I posted a photo of myself holding a physical copy of my PhD thesis on X. The post amassed 120 million views and sparked a lot of anger in response to its title: Olfactory Ethics: The Politics of Smell in Modern and Contemporary Prose. - The Conversation

What Did The 20th Century Novel Accomplish? Anything?

The genre’s masterworks urge us to set a slower pace, savoring what each novelist puts on the table and realizing, as we push back our chairs, how much more substantial the meal was than what we thought we wanted. - The Baffler

Nearly 15,000 Media Jobs In The US Were Eliminated In 2024

"While the 14,909 jobs lost by mid-December this year offered an improvement on the 21,417 jobs cut in 2023, it would be unwise to consider this year a 'comeback' by any stretch. Combined, the number of jobs lost between 2023-24 more than quadrupled the amount lost between 2021-22." - TheWrap (MSN)

Movie Producers Sue National Parks System Over Permits In Parks

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Wyoming federal court, Alexander Rienzie and Connor Burkesmith challenge the constitutionality of federal permit and fee requirements on First Amendment grounds. They accuse National Park Services of censoring speech by requiring advance permission to film commercial content. - The Hollywood Reporter

Canadian Movie And TV Production Sinks

Volume was down 18.5% to C$9.58B ($6.68B) in the 12 months between April 1, 2023 and March 31, 2024, according to the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA)’s ‘Profile 2024’ report. In 2019/2020, the figure was C$9.38B. - Deadline

Producers Of “The Jerry Springer Show” Look Back On What They Wrought

Says one, "Please tell me the difference between the fight I saw on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills last night and The Jerry Springer Show. Money. That’s the only difference." - The Guardian

This Year, Distributors And Streamers Won’t Go Near Documentaries On Sensitive Subjects

Even when they're getting excellent reviews and prizes, docs like No Other Land (about the West Bank), Union (about labor organizing at an Amazon warehouse), The Bibi Files (the corruption case against Netanyahu), and The Last Republican (former Congressman Adam Kinzinger) are getting cold shoulders from the business types. - The New York Times

Disney’s Excellent Year At The Box Office ($2 Billion)

Disney had three of the top five films in Inside Out 2 ($652.9M), the highest grossing R-rated movie of all-time Deadpool & Wolverine ($636.7M) and Moana 2 ($342M). - Deadline

Fired Members Of Dallas Black Dance Theatre Reunite For A Final Performance

The National Labor Relations Board ruled in their favor and they're getting compensation, but the ten dancers are declining to return to DBDT. So they got together for one last performance — a program of new pieces collectively titled Emergence —before figuring out where their careers will take them next. - KERA (Dallas)

How Judith Jamison Shaped The Alvin Ailey Dance Company

Under Jamison’s direction, the Ailey dancers grew more and more godlike in technique without losing earthly looseness and soul. - The New Yorker

This Completely Legal Musical Is Totally Not About Raygun The Olympic Breakdancer

Two weeks ago, comedian Steph Broadbridge cancelled Raygun: The Musical just before its Sydney premiere after notorious-Olympic-breaker-and-viral-sensation Dr. Rachael Gunn's lawyers sent a cease-and-desist notice. Then the producer got a demand for $10,000 for Gunn's legal fees, and Broadbridge had another idea. - The Sydney Morning Herald (MSN)

Cincinnati Ballet Chooses Longtime Principal As Artistic Director

"Cervilio Miguel Amador has served as interim artistic director since Jodie Gates’s abrupt departure in September 2023 – just 14 months after she took the job." - The Cincinnati Enquirer (Yahoo!)

The Mathematics Behind The Rockettes’ High-Precision Dance Routines

"During the dance company’s roughly 200 shows over eight weeks, a dancer can do up to 650 kicks in a single day. ... While this signature kick is a festive feat of physics in its own right, the math on stage also makes the magic." - Popular Science

Dallas Black Dance Theatre Officially Loses Funding From City

The decision by the city council — to redistribute the $248,000 previously allocated for DBDT to other organizations — comes just a few days after DBDT settled, by paying $560,000, a complaint brought to the National Labor Relations Board by the dancers DBDT fired last summer." - Dallas Observer

The Year That Was In NY Theatre

Broadway returned to boom times, and several commercially produced shows did gangbusters business in smaller theatres, but Off Broadway’s nonprofit companies continued to struggle. Yet a lot of what made the city artistically exciting this year required that all parts of the ecosystem flourish. - The New Yorker

Can A Musical Be A Better Way Of Focusing Politics On An Issue?

Like the drama series about the Post Office scandal aired a year ago, “Mr Bates vs The Post Office,” dramatizations of the news can often draw more attention to an event. They can also build public pressure for injustices to be addressed. 

What Nonprofit Theater Leaders Told The NEA

"(A) series of listening sessions, held this past summer, helped the (NEA theater) team to learn more about evolving challenges, successful strategies, and potential pathways to future sustainability of the field. Those conversations have now been distilled and analyzed in a new report." - National Endowment for the Arts

Will This Be The First Broadway Musical Whose Title Role Is A Dead Body?

"Dead Outlaw, a rambunctious musical that tells the hard-to-believe-it’s-true story of a bandit’s corpse that became a spectacle in early-20th-century America, will open on Broadway next spring. The show … will be the first developed by Audible to make it to Broadway." - The New York Times

This Completely Legal Musical Is Totally Not About Raygun The Olympic Breakdancer

Two weeks ago, comedian Steph Broadbridge cancelled Raygun: The Musical just before its Sydney premiere after notorious-Olympic-breaker-and-viral-sensation Dr. Rachael Gunn's lawyers sent a cease-and-desist notice. Then the producer got a demand for $10,000 for Gunn's legal fees, and Broadbridge had another idea. - The Sydney Morning Herald (MSN)

Ensemble At One Of Chicago’s Leading Black Theatres Walks Out, Demands Board Chair’s Removal

"The ensemble of the 25-year-old Congo Square Theatre Company … has told the Tribune it has 'unanimously decided to not participate in any production, artistic curating and programming for the upcoming 2025 season until the current board president has been removed from the board.'" - Chicago Tribune

Ballet Genius/Putin Superfan/Notorious Train Wreck Sergei Polunin Says He’s Leaving Russia

The Ukrainian-born dancer, who has three tattoos of Putin (despite the Russian military's near-obliteration of his hometown, Kherson), now says "My time in Russia ran out a long time ago … I've fulfilled my mission here." Last week he posted a message calling for peace negotiations and promptly lost his job. - CBS News

Jennifer Homans Remembers Arlene Croce

She had always insisted that what she was reviewing was not a dance itself but an “afterimage” imprinted in her mind, something personal and partial to throw “out there” into the cultural conversation, whatever that might be. Which is why, even when I disagree with Croce intensely, I often find myself in conversation with...

Did Shakespeare Commit Suicide? A Scholar Makes The Case

Larry Lockridge, professor emeritus at NYU: "I’ll air my conviction that death by suicide is more probable than the notion that Edward de Vere, Francis Bacon, William Stanley, Christopher Marlowe or Queen Elizabeth wrote those plays — still only plausible, yet unsettling and maybe instructive to ponder." - The Hedgehog Review

Marisa Paredes, Almodóvar Diva And Grande Dame Of Spanish Cinema, Has Died At 78

While she appeared in 75 movies by directors ranging from Francisco Trueba to Guillermo del Toro, she's best known outside the Spanish-speaking world for her performances in Almodóvar's Dark Habits, High Heels, The Flower of My Secret, All About My Mother, and The Skin I Live In. - Variety

What Baryshnikov Has Done With His Fame

It is not absurd to imagine another world in which he might have followed that fame toward full-time Hollywood stardom, or guest appearances on “Dancing With the Stars,” or serving as a spokesman for some topical pain-relief brand. And yet he has always been stubbornly devoted to art-making itself. - The New York Times

Dance Critic Arlene Croce, 90

Croce was loved for her wit — but not by those she skewered. Her criticism could be wicked, even merciless. She once described the feet of the ballerina Carla Fracci as “flapping along the floor like a loose mudguard.” The choreography of Gerald Arpino, she wrote, was a “love letter from an illiterate all in capitals.” -...

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Associate Director of Individual Giving

The Associate Director of Individual Giving is a key member of The Wallis Development Department, responsible for securing and growing $500,000+ in donations of $50 to $24,999 from individual donors.

Associate or Full Professor of Acting

University of California San Diego Position overview Position title: Associate or...

Artistic Director, Nashville Children’s Theatre

Nashville Children’s Theatre (NCT), the oldest professional children’s theatre in the U.S., seeks a visionary and collaborative leader as its next Artistic Director.

Executive Office Liaison Supporting ED/CEO & Board

The Wallis is seeking a dynamic Executive Office Liaison who coordinates and administers all activities and communication related to the Board of Directors and supports the day-to-day administrative needs of the Executive Director & CEO.

Executive Director, Dance On Camera

Dance on Camera is looking for an Executive Director who believes in the power of movement on film, is highly organized, and is excited by the prospect of building on a 50+year legacy

Stratford Festival seeks their next Artistic Director

“Stratford is by every measure – budget, employment, attendance, production – the largest repertory theater in North America, and likely the largest nonprofit theater, period.”

Ensemble At One Of Chicago’s Leading Black Theatres Walks Out, Demands Board Chair’s Removal

"The ensemble of the 25-year-old Congo Square Theatre Company … has told the Tribune it has 'unanimously decided to not participate in any production, artistic curating and programming for the upcoming 2025 season until the current board president has been removed from the board.'" - Chicago Tribune

How Could MIT Buy And Build Land Art By Maya Lin And Not Tell Anyone About It?

The series of 11 grass-covered mounds, titled The Sound We Travel At, is a physical representation of Doppler waves. It's right in busy Kendall Square; people regularly walk past and even sit on it. MIT spent $1.3 million on it. Yet almost no one realized that it's there. - The Boston Globe

The Great Documentarian Of Indonesia’s Massacres Makes A Tilda Swinton Musical (Wait, What?)

Joshua Oppenheimer, who convinced participants of the 1965-66 mass executions to re-enact them for his Oscar-nominated films The Act of Killing (2012) and The Look of Silence (2014), has just released The End, a musical (!) set in a rich family's bunker after an environmental apocalypse. - The Washington Post (MSN)

Where In The World Is Van Gogh’s Missing Final Masterpiece?

"Portrait of Dr. Gachet," painted just weeks before van Gogh's suicide in 1890, had a clear chain of ownership, including years on display at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt and the Met in New York. In 1998 the painting was sold privately; almost nobody has seen it since. - The New York Times

National Theatre Wales Shuts Down After Losing All Government Funding

"The company says it has 'ceased to exist' following the loss of all its Arts Council Wales funding in 2023. … The company will now evolve into TEAM (Theatre, Engagement, Music, Arts), focusing on the grassroots work it has always done within the community and education." - BBC

I Worked For Ozy Right Through Its Collapse. Here’s What I Saw From The Inside.

"The story I saw coming to a grim conclusion in that courtroom was about more than a failed media company. … Carlos Watson may have built Ozy with big dreams and 'diversity' in mind, but as those ideas became corrupted by the superseding desire for capitalistic success, it all came crashing down." - Slate...

What It’s Like To See Your Sexual Assault Be Made Into An Episode Of “Law & Order: SVU”

"Being violated and brought close to death is (a) psychological abyss, but living with the belief that actors and producers have exploited your rape for money, and that more than 5 million viewers, including some of your own friends, watch it for entertainment … will bring you dangerously close to becoming the Joker." -...

A Game Company Now Must Pay For Manipulating Players To Buy Shiny In-Game Items

Fortnite “customers could ultimately receive $245 million for what the agency called Epic’s use of ‘dark patterns’ to trick millions of players into unwanted purchases. Another $275 million will settle accusations that the studio violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.” - The New York Times

A Town In Oregon Begs Residents To Stop Putting Googly Eyes On Public Sculptures

In Bend, Oregon, “there have been previous reports of sculptures being decorated with Christmas garb in the past, but the googly eyes are a newer development” - one city officials are begging people to stop. - Oregon Public Broadcasting (KLCC)

Editor Who Published Hacked Sony Emails 10 Years Ago Now Confesses His Regret

Andrew Wallenstein, then-co-editor-in-chief of Variety: "I’m not going to say if I had to do it all over again I would do it differently because I understand why I did what I did then. But looking back on the hack, I wish I’d taken a different tack. Let me explain why." - Variety

Analyzing The Design Of The Met Museum’s Planned Contemporary Art Wing

Justin Davidson: "A new museum wing here can’t just be an exercise in logistics. It’s also a presence in Central Park and a half-billion-dollar embodiment of the museum’s encyclopedic mission. … (Frida Escobedo's design) looks laudably simple because it provides an elegant solution to a tangle of trade-offs and constraints." - Curbed (MSN)

Why Did Alice Munro Reject Her Daughter’s Account Of Sexual Abuse? Apparently, For The Sake Of Her Art.

"In the months since the revelations, I revisited Munro’s stories, spoke with members of her family and tracked down a number of her unpublished letters. Munro’s appalling failures as a mother seem to have been an imaginative incitement, instrumental to her artistic project." - The New York Times Magazine
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