“All these percussion solos from that period of time were written for young, acrobatic people. So the question is, what does an aging body, but a more experienced body, have to offer? And it turns out I’m a better player than I was. I don’t waste any time.” - The New York Times
Adam Gopnik considers how "slant rhyme" (English teachers call it assonance) and rap's constant use of it have revivified verse, both sung and spoken — and how long a history slant rhyme really has in the true-rhyme-impoverished English Language. - The New Yorker
The country's leading filmmakers, including Oleh Sentsov, Valentyn Vasyanovych, Serhiy Myhalchuk and Olga Beshmelnitsyna, are in the trenches, often literally, documenting Russian atrocities and the impact of the Ukraine war on its citizens. - The Hollywood Reporter
Goodreads, BookTube, Bookstagram, and #LitTwit have been around for many years now. Do the denizens of BookTok talk about or choose what they're reading any differently? Here's a look at what has and hasn't been scrambled on the newer platform. - Book Riot
Research from the University of Canberra found that heavy news use dropped from 69% in April 2020 to 51% in January 2021, while those expressing high interest in the news fell from 64% in 2016 to 52% in 2021. - The Guardian
"Welcome to Octet, the Dave Malloy musical that acutely captures a life lived Too Online. Making its West Coast premiere ... through May 29, the production doubles as a support group for self-identified internet addicts, disclosing their demons in haunting eight-part harmonies." - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
The emergence of deconstructivism – an ungainly portmanteau of the mid-to-late twentieth-century philosophical movement, deconstruction, and 1920s Russian constructivism – suggested that the avant-garde's apparent demise may have been rather exaggerated. - Dezeen
"The first decade or so of the 2000s wasn't exactly a time of artistic evolution for the special, but the rapid increase in special-making created an audience aware of the form's traditional tricks, tropes, and trappings — primed to get the joke when comedians started having fun with the form." - Vulture
It may not inspire political campaign ads the way critical race theory does, but the debate over how to teach children to read — perhaps the foundational skill of all schooling — has been just as consuming for some parents, educators and policymakers. - The New York Times
"In a city that ... became used to wailing air-raid sirens and the thuds of artillery from the suburbs, the audience was instead treated to the frothy melodies of Rossini's The Barber of Seville." But they're limiting the audience to 300 people so they can evacuate quickly if necessary. - The Observer (UK)
"Interviews with more than a dozen museum professionals suggest that the Philadelphia History Museum ended up in (storage) far from the heart of the city because it was too diffuse, its vast collection too randomly accumulated, its many narratives unexplored, and its funding sparse and never assured." - MSN (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
"One word consistently used by virtually everyone when describing Langella's behavior" on set for Netflix's The Fall of the House of Usher "was 'toxic' as they recalled (wildly) inappropriate comments and behavior. ... People who worked with Langella on the Netflix series provided more detail about some of the incidents." - Deadline
"Susan Jaffe, who recently turned 60, has in mind such steps as opening up artistic processes to the public and soliciting views from balletgoers and other stakeholders on the delicate task of updating thorny works from the classical canon. It's an audience-first approach." - MSN (The Washington Post)
"Prosecutors accused Philbrick of committing 'one of the most significant frauds in the art market's history,' describing his operation in a sentencing memorandum as 'Ponzi-like.' ... He is alleged to have sold shares totaling more than 100 percent in artworks he didn't own, falsified contracts, forged signatures, and invented fictitious clients." - Artnet
"Teasing a fake Louis Vuitton x Beeple collaboration, the hacker first tweeted out a raffle entry and then a link where followers could claim one of 200 free NFTs Beeple was supposedly offering, ... possibly resulting in the loss of over $438,000 worth of cryptocurrencies and NFTs." - ARTnews
