There's a hit podcast, three primetime TV specials, three documentary series, and the livestream of the trial. (Scripted dramas are coming, no doubt.) Says one local reporter, "It's a point of critical mass for a storyteller. You'll live your whole life and never get another one like this." - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
The distinction between hard and soft products helps explain the controversy about changes Netflix is making to its streaming service—along with many other changes in the internet-enabled service economy. - The Atlantic
Jesse Green: "Their harm is political, epochal, even as the songs they sing, encouraging empathy that may not otherwise be earned, invite us to give them a pass. ... (The danger isn't) that we risk forgiving (them). It's that we risk enjoying too much what we can't forgive." - The New York Times
Following a legal victory for the actor — prosecutors had to downgrade the involuntary manslaughter charge because the enhanced charge they sought was not yet law when the shooting occurred — observers believe that Baldwin will reject any plea deal or bench trial (i.e., judge but no jury). - The Hollywood Reporter
"Gallimard, ... the French publishers of Roald Dahl, have ruled out any changes to the late British author's translated books after it emerged that ... the UK publisher Puffin hired sensitivity readers to remove language deemed inappropriate." - The Guardian
"In the ancient Turkish city of Antakya" — known in the early years of Christianity as Antioch — "the domes and walls of the 1st-century Antioch Orthodox Church, known as Antakya Church, and the 7th-century Habib-i-Nejjar Mosque have almost completely collapsed." - Euronews
"In January, the State Department and the Yemeni Embassy approached the National Museum of Asian Art with an unusual query: Would the Smithsonian museum be able to house 77 cultural objects that the United States had retrieved during smuggling attempts?" - MSN (The Washington Post)
"Scott, who has reviewed more than 2,200 films for the Times over the last 23 years, will shift to The New York Times Book Review, where he will 'write critical essays, notebooks and reviews that grapple with literature, ideas and intellectual life.'" - The Hollywood Reporter
"For many of the more than 250 unionized employees, the agreement ratified on Feb. 16 between their union, Local 2110 of the U.A.W., and the publisher was a victory: It included a raise and some guaranteed overtime for the employees at the lower end of the wage scale." - The New York Times
In “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” for instance, the Oompa-Loompas are no longer “small men” but rather “small people,” according to The Telegraph, while the word “fat” has also been removed from every book. - Toronto Star
For 25 years I’ve begun my introductory psychology course by showing how our best artificial intelligence still can’t duplicate ordinary common sense. This year I was terrified that that part of the lecture would be obsolete because the examples I gave would be aced by GPT. I needn’t have worried. - Harvard Gazette
The red chalk drawing is thought to date from 1512, shortly before Michelangelo painted that final section of one of the world’s most famous works of art, which he had started in 1508. - The Observer
“Sometimes my work is considered as activism,” he adds. “It is not. There are people who do that. My work is just trying to engage my identity.” - BachTrack
I’ve known writers who used to submit, literally, the manuscript of a work. It might loiter for six months in some publisher’s office before being returned. Under the conditions of print, a dozen failures a year were difficult to accumulate. Today, if you work at it, you can fail a dozen times before lunch. - The Atlantic
Music is a sphere where young performers and composers tend to look to their teachers and bosses as mentors. This can give rise to all sorts of power abuses, especially in the cut-throat entertainment world where everybody is hustling for the next job. - The Guardian
