Forty years ago​, Peter Brooks produced a pathbreaking study, Reading for the Plot, which was part of the so-called narrative turn in literary criticism. Narratology, as it became known, spread swiftly to other disciplines: law, psychology, philosophy, religion, anthropology and so on. - London Review of Books
The defection of Gustavo Dudamel from L.A. to conduct the New York Philharmonic reflects more than a switch in energy and show business muscle; the Venezuela-born conductor, many feel, also embodies inclusion at an inspirational level. - Deadline
A couple found scripts and call sheets in their attic and gave them to an auctioneer - but health issues related to original Chewbacca actor Peter Mayhew's height, his widow said, had made it impossible for him to get the attic cleared when they moved. - BBC
Most people think it's great to have a library, grocery, school, and restaurants/pubs nearby, right? Well. "Recent attempts to ... make cities more walkable have led to waves of weird conspiracy theories about an encroaching police state." - Vice
"If words like 'nuanced,' 'subtle,' 'circumspect' or 'introspective' garner leading men Oscar attention (how else do we explain Colin Farrell’s nod?), female protagonists are often lauded for falling apart." - The New York Times
 The search results are full of ads. You can’t come up with the right string of words to get more useful results. The reviews, both on the retailer’s site and on third-party websites you’ve mostly never heard of, seem fake. - The Atlantic
"1. It is a truth universally acknowledged that democratic governments who produce National Cultural Policies sound decidedly naff. Sorry, but there's no escaping it. If they aim for the high ground, they come across as pretentious. If they focus on deliverables, they seem venal." - ArtsHub (Australia)
While this Ministry of Culture and Heritage announcement is money already in the kitty for the sector’s from the COVID recovery fund rather than newly allotted spending, it’s unsurprisingly been well received - the creative community has been abuzz in a way unseen in a long time. - The Big Idea
Microsoft is incorporating ChatGPT into Bing, and Google's at work on its own AI bot, called Bard, for its search engine. Organizations are very dependent on search engines to bring their sites traffic. If that traffic disappears, the Web's entire ecosystem changes — and nobody knows how. - Nieman Lab
Following last year's outcry over an even-larger-than-usual mismatch between the supply of and the demand for arts funding, the government has given Creative New Zealand a one-time boost of NZ$22 million (US$13.87 million) — on top of the agency's regular grant budget, most recently NZ$17 million. - The Big Idea (New Zealand)
No, it's not a matter of left-wing bias — on the part of the software (which is not alive and cannot think) or of the programmers. There may have been bias involved (that isn't clear), but if there was, that bias isn't political, writes Reed Albergotti. - Semafor
Frazer has expressed little or no interest in the UK’s creative industries publicly. One of her few interventions came in 2021 when, as Financial Secretary to the Treasury, she heralded the success of UK’s high-end tax breaks. - Deadline
Mark Harris: "The fact that these have even become urgent questions has to do, in large part, with the collision of Gen Z's approach to sexuality, which is very flexible, and its approach to culture, which is not." - T — The New York Times Style Magazine
