"There's something in the water,” said Nish Kumar. ... "I've had a few conversations with other comics and there's a sense that something doesn't quite feel right." And while the shift seems more noticeable since the pandemic, COVID lockdowns don't seem to be the sole explanation. - The Guardian
"Summer in the City", running mid-May to mid-August (and including six Mostly Mozart programs), is the first festival under chief artistic officer Shanta Thake, appointed with the mission of expanding beyond classical music and dance to spoken poetry, hip-hop, and other genres seen as less exclusive. - The New York Times
The report from New Mexico's Occupational Health & Safety Bureau found that the crew "demonstrated plain indifference to employee safety" and "willfully violated" established safety protocols for handling firearms on a film set, thus Leading to the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. - CNN
He first gained fame in the Broadway and film versions of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. That show won him his first Tony; his second was for Tru, his one-hander about Truman Capote. His major late-career success was as the venerable advertising guru in Mad Men. - Variety
Behind the bright lights and pulsing music, some dancers say they were sexually assaulted, harassed and manipulated by the company’s powerful founder and famous teachers and choreographers, according to a joint investigation by The Associated Press and the Toronto Star. - Seattle Times (AP)
The account tracks the ways that writers strive to express the same thing differently, with examples taken mostly from newspapers and magazines around the world. - The New Yorker
Set among the nation-state pavilions that have stood in the Giardini for decades, it is a powerful statement in the face of the ongoing invasion by the Russian army. - Artnet
"The midsize publishing community has greatly contracted and, as I think about the businesses that still make up this community, I am struck by the fact that they all share two important attributes." - Publishers Weekly
John McWhorter: "They miss that their book bans are just as tinny, just as local to petty concerns of our moment and just as, well, unjust. And by revving up its own cancel culture, the anti-woke right is providing the woke left with bulletin-board material." - The New York Times
The economic and enforcement arguments against cash may stack up nicely, but a payment isn’t just an economic or administrative act; it is a social one that depends on the two parties’ common acceptance of a currency and the mode of delivering it. - The Guardian
The story spread by publicists: she was born in Tasmania and moved to India as a young girl. In fact, she was born in Bombay and raised in Calcutta; her father was English and her mother (who later traveled with her, passed off as a maid) was half-Sri Lankan-half-Maori. - BBC
“To be the nation’s ballet company, to be one of the leading arts organisations in the country, we have to not only do a complete arc of work that encapsulates dance in general – and not just classical ballet – but we also have a responsibility to set the bar." - The Age (Melbourne)
