On top of leading Black viewership among cable networks with 173,000 Black viewers on average in February — ahead of CNN’s 105,000 Black viewers and Fox News Channel’s 24,000 total viewers on average — MSNBC is also the home of the 10 highest-rated cable news programs among Black Americans. - The Wrap
His career reached across more than half a century, largely inextricable from jazz’s complex evolution during that span. His sound was brighter on soprano, an instrument on which he left an incalculable influence; he could be inquisitive, teasing or elusive, but always with a pinpoint intonation and clarity of attack. - The New York Times
Hannah Arendt argues that while objectivity, as the view from nowhere, might be both an impossible and undesirable aim, there has been ever since Homer an achievable norm for the making of claims in public debate over matters of fact that can be established. - Hedgehog Review
For the many independent artists who say that work they have posted online — in hopes of attracting paying gigs, or at least an audience — has been stolen by powerful companies, seeking redress has led to an uphill battle. - The New York Times
On February 24, the first anniversary of Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, the Ukrainian postal service released a new stamp featuring a Banksy mural and the shorthand “FCK PTN!” in Cyrillic. - Hyperallergic
"Acting is not so much a job for Dafoe as a way of being, a practice so essential he can't go without it. ... 'He wants very much to be needed,' says (director Elizabeth) LeCompte. 'And if he's needed, he'll give everything. He has to work.'" - T — The New York Times Style Magazine
Did it start out as a few modest tweaks but got out of hand? In any case, there’s a loss in these changes—in vivacity, vigor, concreteness. As any good writer can tell you, we all know what a screechy voice sounds like, but an annoying one could be anything.
"Encyclopedias are not like rose bushes, for which pruning is everything. They are usually the opposite, more like Japanese knotweed, spreading wildly and germinating freely, invasive and persistent in all countries where a foothold is possible." - Literary Hub
If we take away music’s “shop window”, it recedes yet further out of view. There is not even the possibility that someone might walk past, see a display of shiny saxophones or attractive mahogany-hued violins and have their curiosity piqued. - The Critic
Classical instruments have been sampled for hip-hop for decades, but in recent years such hip-hop stars as Mos Def, will.i.am, Pharrell Williams, and Kendrick Lamar have had their songs arranged for orchestra and performed with such major ensembles as the Seattle, Atlanta, and Houston Symphonies. - Andscape
Everything the music industry had learned in the twentieth century pointed to vinyl’s demise in the twenty-first. And it’s true that physical formats are now a tiny proportion of the overall market: 10 percent to streaming’s 84. But while streaming drove CD sales into the ground, it precipitated vinyl’s resurgence. - The Critic
"The show didn't just annoy Swedish viewers, though — it wholly divided them. Three Dads has become a sensation during a winter of political turbulence, where there's been an emerging sense that the culture wars are only getting started." - Slate
Although the link between J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy epic and Italy's far-right is not new, it's a phenomenon that has re-surfaced with new vigor since politician Giorgia Meloni was elected as the country's prime minister. - CBC
"In-flight licensing (is) unique in the licensing business in that it raises questions among everyday consumers — like how titles are chosen, why a given film might be censored, or why a show canceled and removed from, say, HBO Max might still be flying around the world." - Vulture
Mali and Burkina Faso are blessed by active art scenes and scores of museums — and afflicted with militias causing murder and misery, and often targeting those museums for looting. Now the International Council of Museums and the Aliph Foundation are training museum staffers to defend their collections. - The Art Newspaper
