"For more than 40 years, his Catalan connections, his communist leanings and his celebrity made him a suspect in the eyes of the French police and intelligence services. His request for naturalization was denied. He was the target of xenophobia and identity politics." - The New York Times
New research suggests that it’s not just negative emotions that contribute to the appeal of conspiracy theories. People can also find conspiracy theories entertaining – and the more entertaining people find them, it seems, the more likely they are to believe in them. - Psyche
Artists from Richard Pryor to Moms Mabley to Ma Rainey "took big risks to affirm LGBTQ people and be honest about their own sexuality. … Chappelle is doing something they never did — making a career of going after a group even more reviled than Black people." - CNN
Five years after he retired from A Prairie Home Companion, four years after accusations led public radio and publishers to drop him, Keillor is self-publishing and doing speaking gigs before forgiving audiences. He has no regrets, but his account of things is, well, sanitized. - MSN (The Washington Post)
Writes the Columbia University linguist and New York Times columnist of Terence Blanchard's Fire Shut Up in My Bones and William Grant Still's Highway 1, U.S.A., "the tradition being appropriated here is based on a philosophy of composition and audience reception hardly inevitable." - The New York Times
The announcement comes seven months after high-profile editor Joshua Wolf Shenk was forced to resign after an indecent exposure incident on Zoom and multiple accusations of inappropriate behavior. The final issue will be February/March 2022. - AP
"Africa saw an increase in offenses related to digs, up from 44 incidents in 2019 to 153 in 2020. The starkest increase occurred in Asia and the South Pacific, from 42 to 1,563. In total, more than 35,000 items were reported stolen across the world." - ARTnews
Yat-Sen Chang was convicted on twelve counts of sexual assault on female students in London between 2009 and 2016. Born and trained in Cuba, Chang, 49, danced with ENB from 1993 to 2011 and was, until his trial, ballet master at the theater in Kiel, Germany. - The Guardian
"How are theater fans feeling about this new normal? Has the pandemic changed what they're seeing, and how they're seeing it? We spoke to theater enthusiasts to find out." - The New York Times
Art at its Shakespearean finest isn’t a repository for wisdom but an interrogation of what we think we know. It’s one of the rare opportunities in our polarized world to contemplate how we live and might live as a community. - Los Angeles Times
The streamer, in reporting its third quarter financials, noted that it will switch to reporting on hours viewed for its shows and movies rather than the number of households or accounts that choose to watch them. - Deadline
The layout of the Metaverse website, similar in format to NFT-specific platforms such as OpenSea and Nifty Gateway, is designed to display the NFTs so that viewers can easily see the transaction history of any piece. - ARTnews
True, we’re hearing a lot about Covid-19 and QAnon-related conspiracies. But just because they are more visible does not mean that belief in them has gone up. - Persuasion
