A scholar says a youthful Hopper self-portrait at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts came from "a vast swindle by the late Rev. Arthayer R. Sanborn, whom she says stole hundreds of early Hopper works." - Boston Globe
"The space on the side of the plastic helmet has become, over the last 80 years, a canvas upon which the defining symbols of countless American communities have been established." - Slate
"'This is a love story that I think people wanted for 20 years,' said Stephanie Rosenberg, the director of Saw the Musical: The Unauthorized Parody of Saw." - NPR
"Waiting for her movie date to finish his post-film cigarette, Charline Tartar, a librarian, assessed Phoenix’s rendition as too moany. 'It’s too bad Napoleon looks like a loser,' said Tartar, 27." - The New York Times
One candy cane (aka a "Hoops"): "Not all ballet companies involve children in their productions, and New York City Ballet kind of prioritizes children. I think that’s cool. It makes you feel special, like sometimes it’s a confidence boost." - The New York Times
In Britain, it's definitely the latter: "At least 240 people in the UK have had rap music used against them as criminal evidence in court in the last three years." Wait, what? - Irish Times
It's been two years since Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed when the gun Alec Baldwin was using on set contained a live bullet, and Hollywood still can't agree that using replica guns is safer. - The New York Times
It's nearly impossible to write about instrumental albums and "the inarticulable narrative created by the changing relationship between sounds." - The Atlantic
Should cinematographers die for the sake of a camera shot? Seems not, yet very little has changed in years since some famous, and avoidable, deaths. - The Guardian (UK)
A new Dragon Age cookbook "admittedly derives from well-worn Europe-centered fantasy tropes — you have your fantasy England, your fantasy France, your fantasy Roman Empire, your underground dwarves" - and their cheese, ham, and giant spider legs. - The Verge
This was a civic decision: "In clustering all of its bookmakers in one place, South Korea hoped to better produce and distribute a major part of its culture." - The New York Times
Even before COVID-19, "Living rooms and streaming platforms beckoned, offering sweet relief from, not to get too Sartrean about it, the hell of other people" (and their trash, texting, and chatter). - Los Angeles Times
