ArtsJournal2
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...
How Pointe Shoes Became Such A Big Business
Dancers at City Ballet go through about 7,000 pairs of pointe shoes every year. - Business Insider
That Time An Advertising Copywriter Wanted To Write The Great American Novel, But Ended...
At Montgomery Ward, Robert L. May’s “boss tapped him to write the children’s story and suggested it have an animal protagonist because Ferdinand the Bull,...
The Movie Version Of Maria Callas Isn’t Quite Accurate, But That’s Normal
“While we can’t claim to know what was going through Callas’ mind as she neared the end, we can nevertheless examine how much the...
What Do We Want From Writers We Admire?
And why is it so exhausting to find out that, for instance, Cormac McCarthy was a total creep? - LitHub
When Male Euro Directors Try To Go English-Language
Sometimes it works (Wim Wenders, possibly Pedro Almodóvar), and sometimes … hm, you get “European art films in American drag.” - The New York...
Can Literary Prizes Survive Sponsor Protests?
Well: “Writers are not content for their talents and their hard work to be used to generate positive publicity for companies who are engaged...
The Unwritten Rule That Shapes Oscar Campaigns
“When a movie has two primary characters, how do campaigns decide who goes in lead and who goes supporting?” - Vulture
Apparently, There’s A Cultural Backlash To American Machismo
And that’s “noodle boys” - young, white, floppy-haired, and un-pumped. “There is clearly an appetite for male stars who don’t look as if they...
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...
Does Netflix’s Move Into Holiday Rom-Coms Make Cents?
Hot Frosty is far from the end of Christmas programming. "It doesn't matter that the audience has seen some version of that story 1,000...
The Guardian’s Favorite Classical Music Recordings Of 2024
Aside from Yunchan Lim and Vilde Frang, a notable (if challenging) development is that “the age of the all-star studio-made opera recording is very...
In Glasgow, A New Way To Support Small Music Venues
A £1 charge on tickets to the largest music venue is the way, the town council believes. - BBC
Jerome Kohn, Who Guarded The Legacy Of Hannah Arendt, Has Died At 93
Kohn “devoted his career to decoding, defending and disseminating the work of Hannah Arendt,” ensuring her work was in the public eye even as...
Musicians Forced To Cancel Concert After Air Canada Won’t Take Cello On Board
British musicians Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason bought a ticket for Sheku’s cello, but Air Canada said no way. That forced the siblings, who were...
If You’re Good At Reading, Your Brain May Be Different
But it’s not just a larger temporal lobe that correlates to reading - it’s also the auditory cortex. “Isn’t reading mainly a visual skill?...
The Performance Art Of Sign Language Poetry
Sign language poetry, which is similar to but not the same as American Sign Language, is "a well-established artistic form within Deaf culture that...
How A Classic Lily Tomlin Film Finally Found Its Way Back To The Public
“Tomlin is proudest of the live Broadway production, but grateful that the 1991 film has been restored. ‘You’re never satisfied,’ she said. ‘That’s...
Rick Steves Still Loves Getting Out Into A World That He, Yes, Still Loves
“Culture shock is a constructive thing. It’s the growing pains of a broadening perspective. ... I want to go home a little bit different,...
The Golden Globes Nominations Are Out
And Emila Pérez is in. Of course, “the Globes have been in turmoil since 2021,” and last year’s ceremony was a rushed stinkbomb of...
What It’s Like To Give Up On A Book
For a writer, that is. For a reader, it’s much easier. But when you’ve written 600 pages and you have a book contract? Yikes....
Lesbian Pulp Fiction Thrived In The Queerphobic Fifties And Sixties
“The phenomenon of the lesbian pulp paperback — and it was a phenomenon, both culturally and financially — … was both problematic and pioneering,...
What Ancient Greek Music Sounded Like
“Between 750 BC and 400 BC, the Ancient Greeks composed songs meant to be accompanied by the lyre, reed-pipes, and various percussion instruments.” Now...
Why Can’t We Just Enjoy Nice Book Reviews?
“Some of the critics’ critics miss the old days because they conflate harshness with honesty. This logic assumes that most nice reviews are written...
Charges Dropped Against Most Of The 2023 Protesters At Canada’s Giller Prize
“The protesters interrupted the literary award ceremony in November 2023 carrying signs that read ‘Scotiabank Funds Genocide,' referring to the then-title sponsor's investment in...