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Richard Dreyfuss Says The Academy’s New Diversity Rules For Oscar Movies Make Him Want To Throw Up

Dreyfuss: "No one should be telling me as an artist that I have to give in to the latest, most current idea of what morality is. What are we risking? Are we really risking hurting people’s feelings? You can’t legislate that. You have to let life be life." - The Guardian (UK)

Work Has Changed – Can The Office Novel Keep Up?

Sure. Here's a list of "a few unconventional work novels that remind us of the way things once were, offer alternatives to the way we approach our jobs and, perhaps, spur us onward to new horizons." - LitHub

Netflix Is Making Even More Of A Bet With South Korean TV

Thanks to the massivehit series The Glory and, of course, Squid Game, Netflix's Ted Sarandos has invested a lot of money into developing Korean shows that, he says, "are now at the heart of the global cultural zeitgeist.” - The New York Times

The Rise Of A New Sort Of Mediocre Film

The genre of movie doesn't matter - the point is, this kind of movie is never going to sell at movie theatres. But it can grab you and keep you when it plays on streaming. - BBC

Why Are Conservatives So Intent On Banning A Book That Fights Childhood Sexual Abuse?

"What is consistently missing in the national conversation about book banning: the voices of those children and teenagers who see their experiences in print and finally realize they aren’t alone." - The New York Times

Do You Remember IBM’s Watson?

This is the future of ChatGPT. "Watson should be bragging in its stilted voice, not fading into irrelevance. But its trajectory is happening all over again; part of what doomed the technology is now poised to chip away at the potential of popular AI products today." - The Atlantic

A Truly Unforgivable Book For Kids

"Generally, there is something subversive and inspiring about the people Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara chooses to immortalize (RuPaul! David Bowie!), which raises the question, what 'big dreams' did Prince Charles have as the lifelong successor to his mother’s empire and the £1 billion Duchy of Cornwall?" - LitHub

Painter Alfredo Arreguin Has Died At 88

Arreguín "fused the tools of classical oil painting with Mexican folk traditions, compressing fine art and ancient craft into stretched canvases that often stood taller than he did. ... For 60 years he painted with few pauses, channeling explosive energy into methodically composed canvases." - Hyperallergic

The Broadway Producer Who Says She Wants To Sharpie Women Into Art History

Jenna Segal is intent on buying art by women from Peggy Guggenheim's 1943 Exhibition of 31 Women. That show contained "names that would later be etched into history," including Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, and Meret Oppenheim. - The New York Times

Berkeley’s Famed Eastwind Books Closes Up Shop

The Asian American bookstore was never just abou the books - the owners' vision was to create a place "that used books and reading and knowledge to create unity, and to be able to bring people more and more into the movement to change the world." - NPR

How The Bleep Changed Everything

The Jerry Springer show had many iconic sounds, but one of its best-known "was added in post-production: the 1,000 hertz censor bleep, which became more prevalent as the behavior on the show grew more profane." - Fast Company

Los Angeles Chooses A Design Team For Its Memorial To The 1871 Massacre Of Chinese Men

"The concept was inspired by the banyan trees that guard the entrance to many villages in Guangdong, where many early Chinese immigrants to Los Angeles originated. Except these trees will not be living. Instead, they will be fabricated in a petrified state." - Los Angeles Times

Fatimah Asghar Wins The First Carol Shields Prize

Asghar's When We Were Sisters "follows three orphaned Muslim-American siblings left to raise one another in the aftermath of their parents' death. The prize jury wrote that Asghar 'weaves narrative threads as exacting and spare as luminous poems.'" - NPR

It’s Been A While Since A Ham4Ham Crossover Happened Live

But the years melted away in a very special Sweeney Todd and Hamilton mashup on Friday: "The entire cast of the current Sondheim revival joined Lin-Manuel Miranda and the cast of Broadway's Hamilton to perform a special mash-up of songs from the two shows' scores." - Playbill

Laura Pels, Devoted And Determined Patron Of Nonprofit Theatre, Has Died At 92

Her foundation helped many a theatre in New York and beyond. "There were rules: Productions had to be run by accredited nonprofit theaters; a full script, along with a 500-word statement, had to be submitted; and musicals need not apply." - The New York Times

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