"Sondheim is particularly remembered among connoisseurs of word puzzles for his role in introducing Americans to British-style cryptic crosswords. ... The crosswords that he created for New York Magazine in 1968 and 1969 were instrumental in popularizing the cryptic genre on this side of the Atlantic." - Slate
"Netflix’s Christmas rom-coms are not meant to be judged on a spectrum of 'good' to 'bad.' They are only to be understood on a spectrum from 'surreal approximation of human behavior' to 'perverting the physical rules of our known universe.”’ - Vulture
Before her death at 61, she had become one of Spain's most ambitious, and certainly most progressive and feminist, novelists. Spain's prime minister wrote, "We lost one of the most important writers of our time." - The New York Times
Gigantic surprise, right? On the other hand, a study found that in Britain, "Freelancers have also been networking and organising and built up a sense of solidarity as they felt the government and the public were not necessarily valuing what they do." - BBC
In terms of payment, it's a huge mess - thanks to the failure to win residuals from reruns in the 1960s, plus streamers' legendary anti-union stances: "A growing number of producers are not hiring union musicians in order to avoid any kind of future payments." - Variety
Maybe, but without kids onstage: "We would usually have four teams of 10 children under 12, and four teams of four teenagers rotating through the season, and ... we would be opening the cast up to too much risk." - Irish Times
At least, according to our collective emoji use. The "face with tears of joy" accounted for five percent of all emojis sent online last year. (A red heart was also right up there, but watch out, kissy face is moving up.) - The Verge
A church founder says hearing Coltrane turned him into "born-again believer in that anointed sound that leaped down from the tone of heaven out of the very mind of God, stepped from the very wall of creation.” - The New York Times
Boris Johnson wanted a span crossing a 300-m trench filled with munitions, but his bridge game is off after "a government feasibility study by a team of 'world-renowned technical advisers' that bears do, after all, shit in the woods." - The Guardian (UK)
“I’m an old dog in the game,” Campion says, smiling. “I’m careful about the bones I care to chew on. I want something with a deep enough scope, something that will hold up.” - Los Angeles Times
The videos featuring students – many of them uniformed athletes at Venice High School – dancing at the school with the staircase as their backdrop, as well as parody and reaction videos, have racked up millions of views in recent weeks. - Patch
The 23-year-old has returned to dance from injury and uses his wheelchair and crutches to perform. He said it should be easier for others like him to enter the profession in future. - BBC
The populist turn has put into question whether a comparatively very small group of authors—no matter how diverse—should really hog the scholarly limelight, especially when their productions constitute such an unrepresentative sample of all the imaginative or fictional texts. - BookForum
The ramifications of what happened at the Art Institute will play out for years. Depending who’s talking, it’s about diversity, gratitude or merely the future of museums. - MSN (Chicago Tribune)
