“The strictly disenchanted world, where nothing exists but physical processes describable without metaphor, and even consciousness is just a material problem waiting to be solved, can be a desiccated place. It keeps heart and mind on inadequate rations.” - The Guardian (UK)
“When the mood and choreography strike, Kansas City Ballet Artistic Director Devon Carney invites a few folks to perform on stage as supernumeraries. That’s a fancy term for extras—usually peasants—who mill around and have deeply animated conversations with their supernumerary neighbors.” - KC Studio
For Spencer Richardson, who finds, repairs, and sells tape players, “his customers include older baby boomers and Gen X‑ers nostalgic for the players of their childhood, but most have been millennials like himself, drawn to something tactile and analog.” - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)
One British producer in a year in which exactly one British actor was nominated in the two major acting awards: “The Baftas fall between two stools: it’s both a British awards show and an Oscars bellwether. It makes sense to do both, but it’s a real dilemma.” - The Guardian (UK)
Is it all about popularity? What about when a network drops every episode at once? Does a series need to have characters who might grip an audience, or a dense plot? The NYT editor in charge of recapping has Thoughts. - The New York Times
“Browsing Letterboxd, you find an eclectic range of tastes, tones and approaches to movie-watching, a buffet of high and low, mainstream and esoterica. … If Rotten Tomatoes has become a tool of Hollywood’s homogenizing marketing machinery, Letterboxd is something else: a cinephilic hive buzzing with authentic enthusiasm and heterogeneous tastes.” - The New York Times Magazine
This Super Bowl was “the first with A.I. taking center stage—a revealing gametime moment for the tech as it confronts investor anxiety, broader fatigue, and fears of impending economic crisis. ...The real twist is that consumers seem to loathe this marketing ploy.” - Slate
“We are supposed to read triptychs from left to right: Adam and Eve → sexy fruit playground of jubilant behavior → decay and hell. ... But the middle panel, where the temptation is happening, is so fun and funny.” - Paris Review
Surely it’s a coincidence that as a movie named about the current First Lady opens in the UK, people start watching a movie about Michelle Obama (“a rise in views of more than 13,000%”). - The Guardian (UK)
"Encouraging audience enthusiasm while upholding basic theater etiquette has become a tricky balance, but attracting fans itching to sing along is also a badge of popularity. … Where people draw the line on what’s “too crazy” may be the animating question of our time.” - The Washington Post (Yahoo!)
This livestream has a rich list of links to stories about the nominees as well as live updates from the red carpet and, eventually, the ceremony itself. - Los Angeles Times
“There’s so much political resonance with the text — we’ve heard so many amazing, divergent responses in terms of how the piece speaks to today’s slippery political reality — but we didn’t want to play into that too much.” - Culturebot
“At Palo Alto Players, the initiative is part of a broader effort to lower barriers to getting to the theater — one (Managing Director Elizabeth) Santana credits with putting the company in ‘a state of growth,’ a rarity in a Bay Area theater scene reeling from closed companies and abridged lineups.” - San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)
“For almost a quarter-century Freeview has enabled viewers to access (digital terrestrial) television from the nation’s biggest broadcasters … for no charge. Despite it still being the UK’s largest TV platform, … those same broadcasters are now calling for the service to be switched off in as little as eight years’ time.” - The Guardian
“Free First Thursday, which waives the general admission fee for all Bay Area residents from 4-8 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month, has been temporarily halted starting in February. … No return date has been set, but SFMOMA plans to announce a new program series in the summer.” - San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)
