Performance and repetition rule: "Songs, settings, movements, dances and concepts are relentlessly rehashed, wringing a measure of soothing predictability from TikTok’s general anarchy. ... Users don’t have to be original to achieve prominence." - Los Angeles Times
As theatres reckon with racial diversity onstage, some of them are also hiring interpreters who speak Black American Sign Language, or hiring other interpreters who align culturally and racially with productions' speaking actors. - The New York Times
Maia Kobabe, author of Gender Queer: "I drew as much as I felt like I needed to tell the story that I was trying to tell and get the points across that I was trying to make. And I honestly think the book is a lot less explicit than it could be." - NPR
Apple has new AI narrators. They're not great. "Jackson sounds like a pretty standard—if maddening—customer service line voice. ... Madison, on the other hand, sounds a little like a female version of Aiden Gillen playing American on The Wire." - LitHub
"The space is alive with the sounds of thawing permafrost, cracking ice, grinding glacier. ... 'Sometimes, moving ice can sound like something that’s alive.'" - The Guardian (UK)
The head of production at Macmillan Audio started months ago. "Betting that the committee’s report would be substantial, accessible and 'very narrative-driven,' he hired nine experienced voice actors." - Washington Post
The claim: "Combining the same kind of vocal-erasing processors used by those bespoke karaoke creators and Apple’s prodigious lyrics database, Sing can instantly engineer a karaoke video out of any song in the Apple Music library, no matter how obscure." - Slate
"There are worse ways of groping through the opening murk of another miserable year. ... if you are going to take on a New Year Reading Project it is as well to get the rules straight." - Irish Times
What was the point of all that applause in the House? And what's often the point at plays, for that matter? "Which beaming retinue can clap harder for its standard-bearer? It’s an endeavor as empty as that of coercing people into cheering for a dull comedy." - Washington Post
In the run-up to the Oscars, and the film Tár, its lead actor Cate Blanchett, and Everything Everywhere All at Once's Ke Huy Quan have swept film critic awards in L.A., N.Y., and now at the National Film Critics Circle. - Variety
"Many experts feel they are in a race against time. A 2018 study published in the Climate Risk Management journal assessed 1,232 archival repositories in the United States and found that nearly 99 percent were 'likely to be affected by at least one climate risk factor."' - The New York Times
