Marianna Brilla and Lisa Paglin spent years in Italy studying old vocal treatises and historical recordings to find the roots of bel canto technique. Now they run the New Voice Studio, where they combat the opera world’s obsession with power and volume, teaching instead “spontaneity, beauty, and freedom.” - El País (Spain) (in English)
“This is who the Fifth Circuit is harassing: a mom of four with a Diet Coke in her hand, doing this while her kids are at school. This fight is everyone’s—it belongs to every individual American.” - Publishers Weekly
Before Lebanon’s long civil war, authors from all over the Arab world published in liberal Beirut the books they couldn’t release in their own countries. Now, decades of conflict in Lebanon have led to both government censorship and self-censorship, while bookstores and readers cope with prolonged political and financial crises. - New Lines Magazine
Some estimate that the city’s subterranean history could stretch back 1 million years, with early human settlement from the Lantian Man and walled settlements already visible during the Yangshao period 7,000 years ago. - Artnet
They have brothers and fathers in the war; they have family members cut off from them in the occupied Donbas. At one rehearsal, an actress apologized for being late; she had just heard that a friend from drama school had been killed at the front. - The New York Times
Over more than a decade with Lines, Cissoko has become such a part of King's creative process that it's now almost impossible to know the dancer from the dance, as the poet Yeats put it. - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
“Libraries are enduring book bans, mental health crises, drug overdoses, and more” — including accusations of peddling pedophilie porn — “as we try to provide resources and assistance far beyond our means, both fiscally and emotionally.” Yet, writes Katie Walsh, moments like this one with a young teen reader make up for it all. - Slate (Yahoo!)
Trump’s March executive order directing the Interior Department to eliminate information that reflects a “corrosive ideology” that disparages historic Americans. National Park Service officials are broadly interpreting that directive to apply to information on racism, sexism, slavery, gay rights or persecution of Indigenous people. - Washington Post
In the review, she famously wrote in praise of the chain’s chicken Alfredo as “warm and comforting on a cold day.” “As I ate, I noticed the vases and planters with permanent flower displays on the ledges,” she wrote. “There are several dining areas with arched doorways. And there is a fireplace that adds warmth to the decor.” -...
The subject has grown rarer as the art world has gotten more commercial, but there are still people who immerse themselves in projects that take years and sometimes decades to complete, assuming they have any end date at all. - The New York Times
“I thought the (wider) world was so interesting (when I was young), and outside was where I could breathe. I think the world I was coming from was not one in which I could survive. As a queer, white Arab (in Belgium), everything about me was problematic for my environment.” - The Guardian
Call the genre the AI-and-I essay. Between April and July, the New Yorker published more than a dozen such pieces: essays about generative AI and the dangers it poses to literacy, education, and human cognition. Each had a searching, plaintive web headline. - n+1
The Trump administration’s settlement proposal to UCLA — which includes a nearly $1.2-billion fine over allegations of antisemitism and civil rights violations — seeks to drastically overhaul campus practices on hiring, admissions, sports, scholarships, discrimination and gender identity. - Los Angeles Times
“When I started the Institute, the major studios dominated the game, which I was a part of,. I wanted to focus on the word ‘independence’ and those sidelined by the majors — supporting those sidelined by the dominant voices. To give them a voice. - Los Angeles Times
“A spokesperson said the number eligible for voluntary redundancy was 420 of its (835) permanent employees, as part of a programme running until October 5, following which compulsory redundancies will begin.” - The Stage
