Today’s Stories
How To Make Audiobook Narrators More Diverse?
Most novels feature characters with an assortment of different backgrounds, and this can require narrators to voice characters with identities very different from their own. – Slate
Why There Are So Few Skyscrapers In Europe
Of the 218 skyscrapers constructed on the continent to date, 66% of them are located in just five cities – London, Paris, Frankfurt, Moscow and Istanbul. – B1M
Champs Elysee To Be Converted To Long Park As Paris Turns Away From Cars
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo hopes to bring the road back to its people by removing its outer lanes, widening pedestrian areas, planting more trees and greenery, and creating dedicated bicycle lanes. – B1M
How Disney Mishandled The Star Wars Franchise
George Lucas’s original vision famously inspired an era of big-budget blockbuster movies whose creators, just as famously, eventually ran out of new ideas and came to rely on sequels and spin-offs. – The Atlantic
Behind The Controversy Over Canada’s First Prime Minister
Why does a motivated minority want to erase the honors paid to his memory? John A. Macdonald stands accused by his detractors less of things he did than of things he failed to do. – The Atlantic
Bombed Beloved Bookstore In Gaza Gets Flooded With Donations To Rebuild
The shop, founded 21 years ago, was a much-loved part of the local community and contained tens of thousands of books in various languages covering everything from philosophy and art history to fiction and children’s books. – The Guardian
Misogynist Artwork In China Draws Furor (In A Way It Didn’t Eight Years Ago)
The artist proceeded to rank the women “from the prettiest to the ugliest,” stringing together around 5,000 grainy clips into a nearly eight-hour-long video with numbers at the bottom of each image to indicate the woman’s ranking. – The New York Times
Gabriel Van Aalst talks about the role of an Artistic Catalyst
The President & CEO of the New Jersey Symphony talks about the orchestra’s new “Artistic Catalyst” role and the importance of serving community. – Aaron Dworkin
Why UK Music Festivals Are Dying
The problem for festivals is that preparation and planning – let alone building a site – stretches over months and often costs millions, and the current question marks hanging over festivals are making such work impossible. – The Guardian
Screens And Speakers And What we Learned During COVID
Screen nausea and social media compulsions are no joke, but the current self-loathing about the long year of screen time is misplaced. It was not lost time. – Wired
Rich Guy Goes To Hollywood, Improbably Makes It Big As Movie Mogul
At a time of entertainment industry upheaval, David Ellison has transformed Skydance into the rarest of Hollywood businesses — a thriving, built-from-scratch, all-audiences, independent studio. – The New York Times
Thousands Of UK Music Fans Stuck With Tickets To Postponed Gigs As Country Locks Down Again
The latest four-week delay to fully unlocking Covid restrictions has pushed an additional 5,000 gigs into doubt. – BBC
An Ode To Procrastination
When I’m procrastinating, stalling, temporizing, I am defined at the metabolic level by the thing that I am not doing. – The Atlantic
Andrew Lloyd Weber Retreats — His West End Theatres Will Observe COVID Rules
“If it were just me, I would happily risk arrest and fines to make a stand and lead the live music and theatre industry back to the full capacities we so desperately need.” – BBC
What Culture Do Nations Own and What Belongs To The World?
The idea that “each people makes its contribution to the culture of the world,” codified in the Hague Convention of 1954, has proved particularly compelling for international legal regimes. – The American Scholar
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TPAC seeks Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer
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Finance Director, MCC Theater
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Claiming Your Personal Version Of English
Should the quality of my English matter? Last month a big English literature prize went to a novel that was written in dialect, something rural and very primitive. And what about all that authentic literature “from the streets”? N+1
Do We Really Need Public Statues?
We want to mark important events and people. But which ones? And who should decide? And are we creating an unreconcileable hierarchy of what’s important (and what’s not). – Aisle Say
Diverse Inclusive Companies Have This In Common
We found that one particular culture style differentiated the diverse and inclusive organizations from those that were not: a learning-oriented culture. – Harvard Business Review
According To Science: Characteristics That Make Us Attractive
Attraction is an instinct. While it’s versatile to some extend, key aspects of perceived attractiveness seem to be inherent to our species. – Medium
Juilliard Students Revolt against Tuition Increase
When the institution’s leaders announced this spring that undergraduate tuition for the 2021-22 academic year would rise to $51,230 from $49,260, many students worried about having to pay more and started calling for a tuition freeze. – InsideHigherEd
Is Culture Really Mappable?
Does culture really behave like space? If not, how are cultural relationships distorted when we convert them into spatial ones? – Cultural Analytics
A New Dance Company To Mine The Experience Of Older Dancers
“It can take a long time to work out what your voice is, particularly in ballet. After 100 Nutcrackers, 100 Cinderellas, to get to a point where you can make decisions yourself is incredibly empowering.” –Sydney Morning Herald
Hong Kong’s Bookshops Face Tough Choices As Censorship Rules Shift
A lack of clarity about why certain books are suddenly off limits has complicated decisions about which titles to stock. – The New York Times
Choreographers Test Monetizing Their Work With NFTs
One NFT has been minted for each of the three holograms. The creators will receive a majority percentage of the auction sale, along with a percentage of any secondary sales. – dot LA
How Movies Shape Our Sense Of Democracy
One thing that people can draw from a lot of movies now about democracy is it’s not easy. It’s not a sure thing. – NPR