Performative reading has firmly implanted itself into the popular imagination, becoming a meme for a generation of people who, by all accounts, aren’t reading a whole lot of books. - The New Yorker
Those who love torturing customers and co-workers alike might have to listen to the science. The fact is, Ariana Grande and Andy Williams are out. "On the other hand, Brenda Lee’s 'Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’ emerged as the most productivity-friendly holiday track.” - Fast Company
“The ‘Goldberg Variations’ was Gehry’s favorite work. He loved its otherworldliness and its worldliness. He loved its invitation to dance and to dream. He loved its astonishing sense of design, complex yet flowing with the ocean’s grace, its depth and its inviting surface.” - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)
“What is the Kennedy Center now? For one thing, it’s getting a Trumpian revamp. He ordered new marble and the repainting of the exterior columns in austere white. Portraits of the first and second couples now hang in the center’s Hall of Nations.” - Washington Post (MSN)
“In a country with a reverential approach to its artistic heritage, the flamboyant Mr. Cogeval — ‘deceptively reserved and genuinely eccentric,’ according to Le Figaro newspaper — was a subversive figure. He was unconcerned, even pleased, by the criticism.” - The New York Times
We all know that a lot of folks get the new mayor of New York’s name wrong - sometimes deliberately. And then there’s a museum in Paris that had a famous theft this year. But Denzel Washington? Really? - NPR
“A dozen activists from a liberal Italian party held up Ukrainian and European flags in a quiet demonstration removed from the La Scala hubub that aimed ‘to draw attention to the defense of liberty and European democracy, threatened today by (President Vladimir) Putin’s Russia.’” - Seattle Times (AP)
Please, please, please, PLEASE do not screw this up, Netflix. We want HBO to be HBO, Warner Bros. to be Warner Bros. - and we need movie theatres. Cinemas. Big screens … maybe for your movies, Ted. - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: “They can take away the world you live in, but they can’t take away what’s happening in your mind, your imagination and your creativity. Holding on to that was how we survived.” - The Guardian (UK)
“Nearly a year into a second Trump presidency and 50 years after Arendt’s death, she is still routinely invoked as the key to understanding our moment. It’s been a strange afterlife for an idiosyncratic thinker who believed that politics was inherently contingent and unpredictable.” - The New York Times
“There is no escape in the Sphere. The walls are screens. The ceilings are screens. The floor, swooping underneath you at an impossible angle, is a screen, too.” - Slate
Such events being HBO’s Mad Men remaster that showed a little too much. “We always tried to camouflage ourselves as much as possible, but these days they tend to just say ‘we’ll erase it in post.’ Only this time, apparently they didn’t erase us.” - The Verge (Archive Today)
“Some artists are … making very young children a part of the choreographic process, or creating music designed to get them moving. They’re considering why these tiny dancers bring us such joy, and what lessons they might have for grown-ups.” - The New York Times
Ireland, Spain, Slovenia, and the Netherlands have all withdrawn from the 2026 competition. The Dutch broadcaster: "After weighing all perspectives, Avrotros concludes that, under the current circumstances, participation cannot be reconciled with the public values that are fundamental to our organisation.” - The Guardian (UK)
