Today’s AJ Highlights

Good morning: We are a culture of storytellers. It’s how we build culture, make sense of, and share it. Playwright James Graham believes we are in the middle of a storytelling crisis. “It’s his contention that, since the 2008 financial crisis, the West has struggled to tell a coherent story about itself. We’re all living in our own realities; everything is fractured through the digital world. The people storming the Capitol on January 6th, for instance, were ‘people in a different story, in a different reality’.” More here in The New Yorker

Here are more highlights from today’s haul:

1. Tim Burton: Going On The Internet Makes Me Depressed “If I look at the internet, I found that I got quite depressed,” the 66-year-old said. “It scared me because I started to go down a dark hole. So I try to avoid it, because it doesn’t make me feel good.” – BBC
2. How The Book Publishing Industry Deals With American Election Season “Because publishers can’t rely on surprise bestsellers like Hillbilly Elegy, they find themselves playing a game of 4-D chess every fourth fall: How can they schedule their busiest season in an attention vacuum? And more confoundingly, what should they publish in the face of an uncertain outcome?” – Esquire
3. How DIY Has Transformed The Music Industry “One of the most significant shifts has been the rise of DIY artists. These independent musicians take on roles traditionally held by record labels and managers, such as producing, recording, promoting and distributing their music.” – The Conversation
4. Adapting Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove” For The Stage “Writer-producer/adapter Armando Iannucci (Veep), director Sean Foley, and actor Steve Coogan (playing all of Peter Sellers’s roles) are brave and perhaps foolhardy, but they find that the comedy about nuclear war is now more timely than when they first decided to adapt it.” – The Guardian
5. The African-American Woman Who Turned J.P. Morgan’s Collection Into The Morgan Library “In 1905, Morgan’s bibliophilic nephew recommended a co-worker in the library at Princeton: Belle da Costa Greene. … She would remain at the helm of Morgan’s library for nearly the rest of her life, and after Morgan’s death in 1913, she led the effort to make his vast private collection accessible to all.” – Smithsonian Magazine

As usual, skip down to see all of today’s stories, organized by topic. See you tomorrow.

Doug