Atwood says, "I just want to know how you are going to get around the giant blue penises." McGregor's only response (other than laughter) is "It's not a literal interpretation but a leap of faith." - Financial Times
Spend on Australian features reached a record A$786M ($508M) during the period, an increase of 59% on the previous year, even though the overall number of productions declined. - Deadline
Michael Heizer's "City" isn't the only massive art installation out in the boondocks that took decades and millions of dollars to build. For 30 years, Kiefer has been working on "La Ribaute," a compound built in and around an abandoned silk mill. - Smithsonian Magazine
Involving communities in the way artefacts are used and displayed is a longstanding issue for African museums, even for objects that were never taken abroad. - The Conversation
"In the years following its release, Hollywood started producing a string of (movies) which, like Baby Jane, provided veteran actresses including Barbara Stanwyck, Tallulah Bankhead, Shelley Winters and Debbie Reynolds with villainous, yet deliriously camp roles within horror that ensured their careers could keep on rolling." - BBC
Viewing the process as a zero-sum game pits different parts of the country against one another. This approach also glosses over the underlying politics of arts funding beyond the number crunching and broader questions of what it’s actually for. - The Conversation
Data indicate that interest in classical music itself is growing, but BBC Radio 3, the more populist Classic FM, and newish Scala Radio have lost worryingly large chunks of audience in the past year. But there are good reasons why — and some of those might be fixable. - MSN (The Telegraph)
Eileen Kramer started dancing professionally in 1939 and lived in India, Europe, and the US before returning to Australia at 99. She now lives in a care home and, due to balance issues, can only perform while seated, but her latest dance film was made this year. - The Sydney Morning Herald
There are more ancient surviving writings in hieroglyphics and cuneiform, but the inscription on this 3,700-year-old personal-care item is the oldest to use letters that represent sounds. What does it say? "May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard." - The Guardian
A marketing document from the Broadway Strategic Return Fund claims that the fund's value quadrupled from January 2016 through September 2021, a period that included the COVID shutdowns — this in an industry notorious for losing investors' money. And now the SEC has noticed this. - Broadway Journal
There have been other periods when stage monologues were big on New York stages. The difference this time is the audiobook and podcast boom; solo shows are easy to adapt, and companies such as Audible are actively producing such pieces to record them. - TheWrap
Stuart Murphy: "We looked at the money. We spoke to people the Arts Council hadn't bothered to speak to in Manchester, from across the opera world, and our staff — and it's just not doable. ... These are skills that can't just be learned in the three years we've been given." - BBC
"The soprano with wild curls of dark hair was … an icon in the Tropicalia and Brazilian popular music movements who enjoyed a nearly six-decade career." - AP
The Suzuki story turns out to be a fascinating study in the hybrid nature of human culture, tracing a remarkable cross-century triple play—European music to Japanese discipline, ending with a putout at a first base manned by mad American parental ambition. - The New Yorker
A minimum viable product for moderation without censorship is for a platform to do exactly the same thing they’re doing now - remove all the same posts, ban all the same accounts - but have an opt-in setting, “see banned posts”. - Astral Codex Ten
