Barnes & Noble is experiencing a revival. It opened 60 new stores last year and plans to do the same this year. It is reportedly soliciting banks to handle an IPO. - The Atlantic
The Trump-appointed head of a federal arts commission is proposing to replace them with a more ornate style favored by President Donald Trump. Those more decorative columns, a style known as Corinthian, are considered the most luxurious in classical architecture and appear on buildings such as the U.S. Capitol and the Supreme Court. - Washington Post
“These days the air has a keen edge. A desperate edge. What forms can the imagination take when power seems nonsensical and cruelty deliberate? These questions haunt—and should haunt—our fiction.” - Electric Lit
The school's founder and artistic director says the grant “represents a chance to further what he calls his lifetime mission to inspire a return to a classical style of art that last reigned supreme in an era before the Civil War.” - The New York Times
Jane Austen card decks (themed by book), collaborations with London publishers, old imprints reabsorbed or renamed, and audio - some indie publishers are finding ways to stay alive and even, ina few cases, grow. - Publishers Weekly
“We’re left to wonder why a noted Price advocate, one of the world’s greatest orchestras, and a respected composer thought it was a good idea, or even remotely acceptable, to suppress Florence Price’s own melodies, harmonies, rhythms, and forms and substitute Dörner’s own for them.” - John Michael Cooper
A donor “gave $150,000 to the library in honor of her late husband, ... who had been a math professor,” with one catch: the library had to take his library of 1,000 mathematics books. - Oregon ArtsWatch
“The fact that stills photographers often find themselves shooting very famous subjects at what might be sensitive, stressful moments on set is only one reason that the job requires a discreet, diplomatic presence.” - New Yorker
Bardem “started his time at the poduium by saying ‘No to war and free Palestine,’ which earned a big round of applause from the audience at the show.” - Variety
“I grew up feeling perpetually ‘in-between:’ half-white, half-black; half-British, half-Caribbean, and on the faultline between what sometimes felt like two worlds at war. One night in 2008 my dad took me to see Pentangle play.” - The Guardian (UK)
Habermas "theorized that democracy emerged and could continue to exist in a healthy form only if there was a space that was outside the control of the state, where deliberation and the exchange of ideas could freely occur.” - The New York Times
“In 2023, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed was up for best documentary feature, which — unlike some major categories at the Oscars — is typically stacked with impactful heavy-hitters.” - Salon
“The stuff you see on TV is just sort of the tip of the iceberg of what goes on in a lot of these restaurants. And generally, the more vaunted the restaurant, the worse the abuse is going to be.” - NPR
That includes supporting actor, adapted screenplay, director, and the big one, best movie. Ryan Coogler won for best original screenplay, and Michael B. Jordan won for best actor, for Sinners. - The Guardian (UK)
For Kate Hawley, designer for Frankenstein, "her first directive from the filmmaker was color, color, color. ‘It was all part of rebelling against the sea of black’ in a typical Victorian-era story, she said.” - Seattle Times
“Security at the ceremony has always been formidable. But this year, in the weeks leading up to Sunday’s event, federal authorities issued a memo warning of a possible retaliatory threat against the West Coast — particularly California — tied to escalating U.S.-Israel-Iran tensions.” - The Hollywood Reporter
After missteps, Warner Bros’ new “strategy was a roaring success that evoked the studio’s prior glories and served as a reminder that if you let smart directors make great movies, even in a streaming world, audiences will go out to the theater to see them.” - Washington Post (Archive Today)
I’ve come to call it “hype aversion”: an avoidance of the pop-culture products that seemingly everyone insists I would like. It’s not that I’m somehow above it all or too cool (I don’t consider myself cool at all). Some people are early adopters; others are late adopters. I’m simply a weirdly resistant one. - The Atlantic
Rather than sticking our heads in the sand—and hoping that belief, alone, will be the source of motivation we need to succeed—what if we focused on doing what it takes to play the game for as long as possible? - 3 Quarks Daily
Even if a new mug – or a clone – is identical to the original in every visible way, the fact that it is not the same alters the directionality of love: the fact that it is not the same has an impact on what we are affectively able to do. - Psyche
Identity, even when mobilized as a force for visibility and justice, can shield art from critique—transforming dissent into offense and rendering criticism suspect. Questioning the work risks being seen as questioning the identity. - LA Review of Books
"What I find moving in these discussions is the intense yearning for a world that is more alive than secular scientists might think it is, a kind of seeking for a god that one suspects these scientists do not, at the same time, believe to exist." - The American Scholar
“The stuff you see on TV is just sort of the tip of the iceberg of what goes on in a lot of these restaurants. And generally, the more vaunted the restaurant, the worse the abuse is going to be.” - NPR
“Security at the ceremony has always been formidable. But this year, in the weeks leading up to Sunday’s event, federal authorities issued a memo warning of a possible retaliatory threat against the West Coast — particularly California — tied to escalating U.S.-Israel-Iran tensions.” - The Hollywood Reporter
He leaves behind an institution that is drastically changed, and in many ways diminished, from a year ago, when Mr. Trump installed himself as chairman and filled the board with loyalists as he moved to put his imprint on the center, including what appeared on its stages. - The New York Times
“We’re left to wonder why a noted Price advocate, one of the world’s greatest orchestras, and a respected composer thought it was a good idea, or even remotely acceptable, to suppress Florence Price’s own melodies, harmonies, rhythms, and forms and substitute Dörner’s own for them.” - John Michael Cooper
“I grew up feeling perpetually ‘in-between:’ half-white, half-black; half-British, half-Caribbean, and on the faultline between what sometimes felt like two worlds at war. One night in 2008 my dad took me to see Pentangle play.” - The Guardian (UK)
“The maestro’s fall is the bare-knuckled endgame of a years-long power struggle over the soul of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, an ensemble renowned for its musical excellence, but which has struggled to keep pace with the times.” - Boston Globe
The venue, named after popular a public radio music show, has been in turmoil for a year, since a new management team led by CEO Joe Callahan took over from founder Hal Real. What’s now called World Stage still faces a pile of unpaid rent, tax and utility bills. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
The Trump-appointed head of a federal arts commission is proposing to replace them with a more ornate style favored by President Donald Trump. Those more decorative columns, a style known as Corinthian, are considered the most luxurious in classical architecture and appear on buildings such as the U.S. Capitol and the Supreme Court. - Washington...
The school's founder and artistic director says the grant “represents a chance to further what he calls his lifetime mission to inspire a return to a classical style of art that last reigned supreme in an era before the Civil War.” - The New York Times
“The fact that stills photographers often find themselves shooting very famous subjects at what might be sensitive, stressful moments on set is only one reason that the job requires a discreet, diplomatic presence.” - New Yorker
“In 2023, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed was up for best documentary feature, which — unlike some major categories at the Oscars — is typically stacked with impactful heavy-hitters.” - Salon
For Kate Hawley, designer for Frankenstein, "her first directive from the filmmaker was color, color, color. ‘It was all part of rebelling against the sea of black’ in a typical Victorian-era story, she said.” - Seattle Times
Following the news that Smiljan Radić has won this year's delayed Pritzker Architecture Prize, we round up eight projects from the Chilean architect's experimental career. - Dezeen
Barnes & Noble is experiencing a revival. It opened 60 new stores last year and plans to do the same this year. It is reportedly soliciting banks to handle an IPO. - The Atlantic
“These days the air has a keen edge. A desperate edge. What forms can the imagination take when power seems nonsensical and cruelty deliberate? These questions haunt—and should haunt—our fiction.” - Electric Lit
Jane Austen card decks (themed by book), collaborations with London publishers, old imprints reabsorbed or renamed, and audio - some indie publishers are finding ways to stay alive and even, ina few cases, grow. - Publishers Weekly
A donor “gave $150,000 to the library in honor of her late husband, ... who had been a math professor,” with one catch: the library had to take his library of 1,000 mathematics books. - Oregon ArtsWatch
“Like all big chains, when you shop there, more of your money leaves the community than when you shop at something locally owned. … anything that takes market share from Amazon is positive.” - The Atlantic
It’s not just because of the intensity of the competitors, though that counts for a lot. Stefan Fatsis recounts a contested play at last year’s North American championship and the confusion arising from — let’s call it a breakdown of lexical authority. - Unabridged
Bardem “started his time at the poduium by saying ‘No to war and free Palestine,’ which earned a big round of applause from the audience at the show.” - Variety
That includes supporting actor, adapted screenplay, director, and the big one, best movie. Ryan Coogler won for best original screenplay, and Michael B. Jordan won for best actor, for Sinners. - The Guardian (UK)
“An anti-monopoly mobile billboard, meant to caution against the impending merger between Paramount and Warner Bros., will circle Sunday night’s Oscars ceremony. The billboard’s message is plain: ‘Call Your Agent. Speak Out. The Deal Is Not Done.’” - The Wrap
A recent report "forecasts more adoption of AI throughout the industry. But it also points to ways that the technology could lead to different kinds of work and open up new possibilities.” - The Conversation
The company’s end wasn’t planned, but it became necessary when its artistic director and co-founder, Tina Finkelman Berkett, decided to step back from her role, citing fundraising fatigue and a desire for change. - Los Angeles Times
For two decades, NCI has offered four young choreographers the chance to spend three weeks creating works on professional dancers. In a Q&A, artistic director Molly Lynch talks about the initiative and why it is ending. - L.A. Dance Chronicle
“Though Christianity’s relationship with dance remains tangled, the full-bodied nature of Shaker devotion, revolutionary in the 18th century, is now an ideal for some Christians — and some dance artists.” - The New York Times
“Among the largest 150companies, … in all leadership categories except music directors/principal conductors, women comprised between 59% and 85% of artistic and administrative roles.” - Dance Data Project
“When the tanks entered Ukraine, Ratmansky gathered his artistic team and left for New York, severing ties with the Bolshoi and with Russia.” - New York Review of Books
“This is the frustration of working in the fine arts. The people who care about ballet, for example, care deeply. And most of those who don’t care think of ballet through stereotypes or quick hits of dancers on TikTok.” - The New York Times
A new venture in Los Angeles brings the Shakespeare Center and local veterans together for a year-long learning and writing experience. They perform today, and the program is billed as “written by the Ensemble of Veterans In Art & US Vets in collaboration with William Shakespeare.” - LAist
“If you’ve got strong creative instincts, the ability to authentically portray emotion, and are capable of staying true to a character’s voice throughout a scene, there’s a job listing calling for your experience.The catch: ... You’d be using your talents to train an AI model.” - The Verge
“Putting bands and musicians at the center of theatrical storytelling can give it a special immediacy and urgency, not least by reconnecting a form that can have a tendency to be stultified and overly formalized to its original music-making impulses.” - American Theatre
Lyricist Richard Maltby Jr. and composer David Shire met as Yale freshmen and have collaborated ever since, creating the musicals Baby and Big and the revues Starting Here, Starting Now and Closer Than Ever. Their new show, About Time, grew out of a performance they gave at their 65th Yale reunion. - TheaterMania
Higher Ground, their production company, is one of the main backers of this spring’s 16-week run of David Auburn’s Tony- and Pulitzer-winning play Proof, starring Don Cheadle and Ayo Edibiri (in their Broadway debuts) and directed by Thomas Kail, who staged Hamilton. - Variety
The annual Theatre in the UK report from the Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre says that, despite soaring attendance, many theatres in Britain are expecting to post operating deficits — because, as costs have risen, ticket prices have not been raised so as not to drive away audiences. - The Stage
Habermas "theorized that democracy emerged and could continue to exist in a healthy form only if there was a space that was outside the control of the state, where deliberation and the exchange of ideas could freely occur.” - The New York Times
She won an Olivier in 1979 and a Tony in 1981 for the title role in Piaf; alongside film and television roles — including a starmaking performance as Marie Curie in a BBC miniseries — she had a long career as an admired classical stage actor, in particular with the Royal Shakespeare Co. -...
“The British street artist’s identity has been debated, and closely guarded, for decades. A quest to solve the riddle took Reuters from a bombed-out Ukrainian village to London and downtown Manhattan — and uncovered much more than a name.” - Reuters
The now-disgraced entertainer is facing a number of lawsuits (one of which began trial this week) in California by women who allege that Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted them. - The New York Times
“(He) achieved international renown with the 1970 publication of A World for Julius, ... portraying the life of Lima's elite through the eyes of a sensitive and lucid child. The book continues to be studied in universities around the world and marked a before and after in Peruvian literature.” - Euronews
“His working approach was that a literary agent should be a creative and business partner for writers — a relatively novel idea at the time that he launched the agency, in 1973. Writers House now has over 20 agents and 50 employees and represents hundreds of authors,” many of them very prominent indeed. -...
March 19–21: Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival returns to DiMenna Center for Classical Music to celebrate the rich diversity of Ukraine's peoples, places, and musical practices
The school's founder and artistic director says the grant “represents a chance to further what he calls his lifetime mission to inspire a return to a classical style of art that last reigned supreme in an era before the Civil War.” - The New York Times
“The maestro’s fall is the bare-knuckled endgame of a years-long power struggle over the soul of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, an ensemble renowned for its musical excellence, but which has struggled to keep pace with the times.” - Boston Globe
“The British street artist’s identity has been debated, and closely guarded, for decades. A quest to solve the riddle took Reuters from a bombed-out Ukrainian village to London and downtown Manhattan — and uncovered much more than a name.” - Reuters
Though The New York Times has described him as “a rock star among architects,” he’s not as famous as previous “starchitect” winners such as Frank Gehry, I.M. Pei, and Zaha Hadid. In fact, Radić says that this award “will probably mean being far more exposed than I would like.” - NPR
“All these Palestinians told us that they thought the BBC would never run our film, and we really had to try and persuade them to talk to us because they didn’t and don’t trust the BBC.” The journalists were shocked to learn that the sources were correct. - Reveal
DOGE employees used ChatGPT to make their choices. “The prompt was simple: ‘Does the following relate at all to D.E.I.? Respond factually in less than 120 characters. Begin with ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’’ The results were sweeping, and sometimes bizarre.” - The New York Times
“‘For McAllen, mariachi is like the Friday Night Lights of high school,’ said Anthony Medrano, a prominent San Antonio mariachi musician. ‘There’s pride in it.’” - The New York Times
Many - most, even - of France's booksellers pulled out of . Then the organizers got Amazon to “mutually agree” to end its sponsorship. Who thought this was a good idea in the first place? - The Guardian (UK)
“The core problem has been ticket revenues, which were weakening even before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered its theater with a devastating financial impact. Box-office receipts last year were down $20 million from a decade earlier.” - The New York Times
