Literature professors have often had significant difficulty acknowledging their expertise and corresponding difficulty in justifying their status to skeptics, for broadly two reasons. - Public Books
There were no press releases sent en masse with statements thanking the HFPA and saluting co-stars and filmmakers. Also absent were the emotional reaction calls between journalists and nominees, still recovering from their shock at the big news. - Variety
If biology can innately limit the mind of a cat, could we humans, also creatures of nature, be subject to a similar destiny? Could nature predispose us to innately hold certain notions and ignore others? Worse yet, could biology conceal from us who we are? - Psyche
In-person gatherings return, NFTs (or the people involved) go nuts, $20 billion-with-a-b worth of art donated in South Korea, major new museums in Paris and Hong Kong, a big departure in L.A. and a big mistake in Indianapolis, and, occasionally, justice is starting to be served. - ARTnews
"More than anything, the artistic questions facing classical music today go well beyond the simple dualism of keeping or tossing the canon; they revolve most of all around access and the hurdles facing marginalized musicians." - Boston Review
As Guillermo del Toro's Nightmare Alley hits screens, Brooks Barnes takes the occasion to write about the corn dogs he dipped and unlimited snow cones he ate at age nine and the Snake Lady, merry-go-round man, and World's Smallest Woman who had his back. - The New York Times
Alexander came to the organization with a specific mandate, she said, of “sharpening the focus—doing all the work, every penny, through a social justice lens.” - ARTnews
COVID arrived at a bad time for Sarasota's Westcoast Black Theater Troupe: it had just opened a new venue in February 2020. Luckily, "one of the only major Black companies in a smaller American city … seems to be in a good place these days." - The New York Times
Joseph Horowitz teaches us to stop hearing “Porgy and Bess” narrowly, as a Black opera, or as some sideline oddity called a folk opera. It is what opera should be in this country, with our history, period. - The New York Times
Rachel Kapelke-Dale: "In the end, Ballerinas turned out to be about the violence that emerges from the rage of being trapped in someone else's dream; the fury that emerges once you realize what produced that dream in the first place." - Literary Hub
A self-described “cockeyed optimist,” Tom Lutz admitted he underestimated the volume of work required to launch the publication — not to mention the costs of doing so, both financial and psychological. - Los Angeles Times
Pedro Almodóvar's Parallel Mothers starts out with a very Almodóvar situation, two single women about to give birth, but the movie’s really about the ongoing fallout from the many extrajudicial murders committed by Franco's regime, a topic most Spaniards have spent decades avoiding. - The New York Times Magazine
He'd made some comedy-horror mashups and one arthouse hit when he set to work on the Tolkien adaptations, so he wasn't someone you'd think of giving nine-figure budgets to. The bet paid off, of course: the films took in $3 billion. Here's how they came together. - Variety
While the specifics differ (as do outcomes, somewhat), the common thread seems to be that these towns built gathering places — community centers or gardens, cafes, public squares with seating and playgrounds. And they've made a real difference. - Fast Company
