Since U.S. schools began closing down roughly a year ago, the country’s children have been adapting, learning and getting creative with how they use technology. The realities of their day-to-day lives vary wildly, as have their relationships with screens. - Washington Post
"Only 2 percent of conversations ended at the time both parties desired, and only 30 percent of them finished when one of the pair wanted them to. In about half of the conversations, both people wanted to talk less, but their cutoff point was usually different. Participants in both studies reported, on average, that the desired length of their...
"I thought it was about time I spent a day actually paying attention. What is the art world talking about on Clubhouse? Does the app replicate the usual exclusionary hierarchies or replace them? Will I get to hang out with artists I haven’t seen since the pandemic started?" - The Art Newspaper
"We are living through a collective trauma, a once-in-a-lifetime historical moment, and taking "time off" is not a symptom of laziness. In fact, I see this time as a gift. I am thrilled to see folks develop other interests and skills that support their income. I am inspired to see artists explore other parts of their creative practice. I...
This is Ilmira Bagrautinova's way of objecting against the construction of a port in Batareinaya Bay, a popular beach about 100 km west of St Petersburg, Russia's second largest city. - BBC
"The standoff between Big Tech and the Australian government has resulted in 90 per cent of what Big Tech has agreed to pay media so far going to the country’s three largest media companies. That means the vast majority of that cash is destined for purposes other than sustaining actual journalism jobs, and tilts the playing field away from...
"We make changes to the books our children read all the time. In 1812, the Brothers Grimm changed the evil mothers in traditional fairy tales to wicked stepmothers, because they wanted to preserve the sanctity of motherhood. The Faraway Tree’s Dick and Fannie are Rick and Frannie in newer editions – a fact which seems to infuriate nostalgic readers...
Over the last year, American Shakespeare Center—a $4.3 million theatre company in Staunton, Va., known for producing the Bard’s work in repertory with a stripped-down style and a resident company of actors—became a contentious, mistrustful, even traumatic place for many who had called it home. - American Theatre
Here's how to be good at it: Plan ahead. "What’s really important when you’re listening is to be able to know who’s talking. One of the hardest things is when you have a group of, like, five men and they’re all 40, and they’re all having a beer together. How you make those voices sound different?" - Slate
Basically, the pandemic has changed the performing arts audience. "Fans have had access to virtual theater from all over the world. Some venues have expanded their audiences far beyond what’s possible in their physical spaces. Around 160,000 viewers watched a streamed performance of Carmen last year by the Berlin State Opera, whose auditorium seats 1,300. The shift has raised...
And The Crown's season four, which concerns Princess Diana's difficulties with the Royal Family, won Best Drama Series even as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's interview with Oprah became a trending topic on Twitter. (You will find the complete list of winners at this link.) - Variety
Sherald, who painted the portrait for a Ta-Nehisi Coates-edited edition of Vanity Fair, decided that she wanted to sell the painting where Taylor lived and was killed by police. Stephen Reily, the director of the city's Speed Museum: "The killing of Breonna Taylor and a year of protests have really changed the course of Louisville, and we’re struggling. ......
Viet Thanh Nguyen says it wasn't as easy as writing The Sympathizer, his 2016 Pulitzer-winning novel: "I would write in 50-page chunks – I wrote 50 pages before the Pulitzer. Then my life got really messy for a couple of years while I wrote the middle of the book. Towards the end, I finally figured out how to balance...
Or was the entire series - spoilers abound throughout this article, by the way - yet another Marvel tease? "It was intentionally meta and experimental, an 'in-between' work that, with its weekly rollout, operated as neither traditional TV nor a bingeable streaming series." - The Atlantic
