The department store chain has definitively decided to close its historic Philadelphia location, making the future of the world's largest fully-functioning musical instrument uncertain. But the store's Grand Court, including the organ, has protected landmark status. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
"(The move) follows years of campaigning by politicians, musicians and the theatre industry to stop professional 'resellers' hoovering up tickets at the expense of fans and selling them on for huge mark-ups in alliance with platforms such as Viagogo and StubHub, which take a cut of the profits." - The Guardian
"(She was) a beauty queen, singer and wholesome pitchwoman for Florida orange juice whose crusade against gay rights in the 1970s transformed her into one of the most polarizing figures in American public life." - The Washington Post (MSN)
BookTok, Science Fiction & Fantasy, and the indomitable Richard Osman led Fiction, with the category accounting for the year’s top five titles, 16 of the top 20 and 32 of the top 50. - The Bookseller
Artifacts found at the tombs included bronze coins with the image of Alexander the Great dating to the Time of Ptolemy I (367-283), children’s toys made of clay, cartonnage and funerary masks that covered mummies, winged scarabs, beads and funerary amulets. - APNews
I’ve been waiting years for the emergence of a bold timber architecture with designs that take advantage of the material’s expressive personality, its strength and malleability, its ability to support immense burdens or be worked in fine filigree, to form great blocks and stiff walls or else to bend like reeds. - New York Magazine (MSN)
"Mexicans began observing that Emilia Pérez was a film about Mexico where just one main actor was Mexican, made by a French director who speaks no Spanish, shot in France, scripted with unnatural-sounding dialogue, and heavy with stereotypes. Comments online were by turns amused and annoyed, but also baffled." - The Guardian
The very precise way he used his hand helped communicate to players across the arena of an orchestra exactly where they were in the bar and exactly what he wanted. He had also a fantastic ear and the ability to hear things with great precision, which also affects enormously the way people play. - The Guardian
It's not just that the baby of the family was the most reluctant to be a performer and the first to deliberately abandon the Marx Brothers act. "Zeppo was a ruthless gambler with deficiencies as a husband and father. Okay, he was a stinker, but a really interesting one." - The Arts Fuse (Boston)
Figures from every corner of politics have used the hall for events and rallies, amplifying the legend “that this is where the idea of American liberty is born.” Frederick Douglass argued here before packed houses of abolitionists in 1849 and 1858. That same year, Jefferson Davis, future leader of the Confederacy, gave a speech.” - Smithsonian
The practice of public philosophy is thriving today in a surprising number of forms. Different approaches give rise to meta-level questions about the nature of philosophy in general and the nature of public philosophy in particular. - 3 Quarks Daily
"Some changes over the years have been dramaturgical, and some political, but all have been motivated by the belief that Show Boat is worth reviving not just for some good tunes, but because it has always, and may always, have something important to say." - The New York Times
In the audio-visual world, they have a name for the phenomenon depicted above – where rival platforms repeatedly increase their prices, inspiring their competitors to do the same. They call it streamflation. - Music Business Worldwide
