"(Olivia) Hussey has spent the last 50 years not just telling the story of how the nude scene came to be shot, but defending it. … Are they imagining that, had the movie been made without the nude scene, they would have had better careers? Because … why?" - San Francisco Chronicle
That's certainly the worry professional audiobook readers have, and there's also the worry that someone's voice will be sampled without their consent. Yet, writes Laura Miller, "after listening to selections from more than 25 A.I.-narrated …, I'm convinced that the technology still has a long way to go." - Slate
"She is already eyeing possible significant changes, like negotiating a more flexible venue-sharing arrangement with the San Francisco Opera. ... That would allow the Ballet season to be spread across the year rather than crammed into four consecutive months, logistics hard on the dancers and, Rojo speculates, the audience." - San Francisco Chronicle
"Edison Research's quarterly analysis of the top genres shows Comedy continues to have the most listeners. The bigger surprise could be that despite the fall election season, the News genre lost ground. It slid back to third place (behind) the all-encompassing Society & Culture." - Inside Radio
"(The Brazilian capital's) proportions can render political action strangely inert. … It is an otherworldly landscape of red earth, open grass and enormous roadways ... best viewed from the air. So vast are its voids that the sheer scale of the space may have helped temper the energies of the crowds." - Bloomberg CityLab
"(Damages) go far beyond the shattered glass on the exteriors of the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court, all architectural icons. Modernist furniture was burned, portraits defaced, sculptures decapitated and ceramics smashed. Carpets were found soaked with water from the buildings' sprinkler systems, as well as with urine." - AP
"The Mesha Stele ... is a basalt stone slab that has provided historians and linguists with the largest source of the Moabite language to date. Researchers have only now been able to verify with a considerable degree of certainty that the stele contains explicit references to King David." - The Jerusalem Post
Leeds 2023 is the “unofficial” city of culture. The city’s official bid to be European capital of culture began about a decade ago but was dashed in 2017 when the European Commission told Leeds it could no longer be considered due to Brexit. - The Guardian
In a tweet, Christopher Rufo said the group will seek to a create a new core curriculum, “abolish ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ and replace it with ‘equality, merit, and colorblindness,’” hire faculty “with expertise in constitutionalism, free enterprise, civic virtue, family life, religious freedom, and American principles." - The New Republic
“It has become more and more clear to me that, to really take us on to the next chapter, I need to dedicate my entire time to the artistic direction of this organization,” Alex Poots said. - The New York Times
OSF has recently been trying to offset deficits from the pandemic’s impact, including reducing its number of shows each season, shortening its calendar for performances and diversifying the shows it offers. “OSF realizes it must invest in a strategy that will impact the long-term success of the organization.” - Oregon Public Broadcasting
Stephanie Ybarra joins Mellon following her tenure as Artistic Director of Baltimore Center Stage, where she broke ground as the country’s first Latina artistic director of a League of Resident Theaters (LORT) member theater. - Mellon Foundation
Washington State Dept. of Natural Resources: "Update: The Twitter wildfire is at 44 billion acres and 0% contained." NE Ohio Regional Sewer District: "now that sports betting is legal in ohio please remember we’ve been throwing your money down the drain for 50 years with much better returns" - The Guardian
In Berlin, the former-musical-prodigy-turned-artistic-director increasingly became a cultural politician. In keeping with his self-image, he found his equals at the federal (rather than the state) level. - Van
Brod sanitized and polished quite a bit when he published his friend's journals (which Kafka had wanted burned), and a new, uncensored translation reveals a lot: the author's visits to brothels, his bi-curiosity, his crying at movies, his strong opinions about theater, his thing for noses. - The New York Times
