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Leonard Cohen’s Entire Catalogue Has Been Sold To Hipgnosis

The Hipgnosis Songs Fund long game continues. (As Pitchfork points out, "The firm has acquired several major publishing catalogs from legacy artists, including Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham, Jimmy Iovine, and Neil Young.")  - Variety

The Best Independent Music Platform Has Just Blown Up Its Independence

Bandcamp was the one streamer that every fan of music trusted to take care of its artists. When people started leaving Spotify over Joe Rogan, Bandcamp was recommendation for more ethical streaming. Now? Skepticism reigns. - Slate

Why Would A Fashion Giant Need To Steal Artists’ Ideas And Work?

An intellectual property lawyer explains: "The fundamental issue, I think, is that fashion companies are under pressure to produce large volumes of new and fashionable goods, so their designers often go for the quick fix." And artists can rarely afford to pursue legal action. - The Observer (UK)

In Oscar Contender Drive My Car, The Actors Meet And Transcend The Limits Of Language

The main character is "directing a multilingual production of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya with a cast composed of actors who speak English, Chinese, Tagalog, Japanese, and Korean Sign Language." The actors' - and the audience's - task is to trust the rhythm and emotional response. - The Atlantic

Elena Ferrante In Conversation With Elizabeth Strout

Ferrante: "I don’t like artists who imagine themselves shamans, and I would prefer that we definitively stop making the alphabet sacred, that we complete the secularisation of literature, that we stop feeling we’re just below the gods and directly inspired by them." - The Guardian (UK)

Hollywood Is So Obsessed With Terrible Entrepreneurs Right Now

Why? Series like Inventing Anna and The Dropout "create a shared universe in which scamming and entrepreneurship meet in a chaotic portrait of American decline." - The New York Times

The Art Palace Of Lviv Has Turned Into Headquarters For Aid Arriving From Western Europe

"Aid HQ -- a palatial faux Art Nouveau exhibition and cultural centre -- runs like clockwork. Basement: medicines. Ground floor: food and a stand where displaced people can register their needs. First floor concert hall: children's clothes and toys. Second floor: supplies for newborn babies." - France 24

How Blondell Cummings Transformed Choreography

The legendary performer "called her style of dance 'moving pictures,' which drew from her love of theater, postmodern dance, performance art, television and video art and which she often recorded herself." - Yahoo News (Los Angeles Times)

Brandon Sanderson Is Making *How* Much Money On Kickstarter?

In the most jaw-dropping Kickstarter ever, the fantasy author has taken in (at the time of posting) $24 million for a year of special publishing perks for his fans. Some writers seem annoyed. But this is a one-time kind of thing, right? Right? - Slate

The Brownstone In Brooklyn Where Sitting Bull’s Grandson Advised Rodgers And Hammerstein On Annie Get Your Gun

A real NY story: "The theater director Muriel Miguel grew up there, and lives there still. When she was a child, in the 1930s and ’40s, Native dancers and actors from all around the country would stop by the house while working in New York." - The New York Times

The Historical Inaccuracies Of Netflix’s New Hot Viking Show

For one thing, "Valhalla definitely takes place in a universe where Game of Thrones exists." - Slate

Sackler Family Makes New Concessions In Settlement Talks

For museums in the U.S., a big new agreement is that institutions can remove the Sackler name with no penalty. - Artnet

How A Long Despair Led To Karen Joy Fowler’s New Book

After the 2016 election, Fowler couldn't see the point in writing her book about John Wilkes Booth and Lincoln. "I knew pockets of the country clung to the Lost Cause , but I thought they weren’t hugely populated." - The Guardian (UK)

Westerns Have Been Dealing With ‘Male Intimacy’ For A Very Long Time

Dear Sam Elliott: As a fan of Westerns, maybe you should check out Zachariah, which "shot back at the genre's fatalistic masculinity by celebrating peace, pacifism and, most remarkably, intimate male friendship." - BBC

Cultural Institutions Wrestle With Whether To Ban Russian Artists

As the war in Ukraine enters its second week, cultural institutions worldwide are grappling with the question of whether to boycott Russian artists, in debates reminiscent of those around South Africa during the apartheid era. - The New York Times

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