In retrospect, it seems clear that “Inside Out” was when Pixar’s Silicon Valley brain trust began to peel off from the universe and float into the metaverse, borne aloft by a kind of totalizing cleverness. It was the moment when the studio’s narrative and emotional complexities became convolutions. - The New Yorker
Hiplet, of course. (That's pronounced "hip-lay.") "The dance style — a captivating fusion of hip hop and ballet, with some jazz and modern thrown in — has roots in the 1990s, got its name in 2005 and was trademarked in 2009." Here's a guide for the perplexed. - Observer
The whole point about academic freedom: the freedom to exercise academic expertise in order to discriminate between good and bad ideas, valid and invalid arguments, sound and hare-brained methods. This is what academics do when we curate syllabuses, make appointments, allocate graduate places and funding, peer-review papers and books, and invite speakers. - London Review
"Gradually over the last decade, Reddit went from merely-embarrassing-but-occasionally-amusing, to actively harmful, to — mainly by accident — essential. … The internet's best resources are almost universally volunteer-run and donation-based, like Wikipedia and The Internet Archive. Every time a great resource is accidentally created by a for-profit company, it is eventually destroyed." - Defector
A precious domain of imaginative and intellectual freedom is menaced by crude authoritarian politics. Exposure to the wrong words is corrupting our children, who aren’t even learning how to decipher the right ones. - The New York Times
"Starting in the late 1950s, Harnick and Jerry Bock spent a dozen years at the summit of Broadway songwriting teams. They collaborated on five shows that drew Tony nominations for best musical: Fiorello!, She Loves Me, Fiddler on the Roof, The Apple Tree and The Rothschilds." - MSN (The Washington Post)
"Scenic designer David Korins, … , who worked on Beetlejuice and Hamilton, put it this way: 'I've done some complicated and ambitious work on Broadway, and this is 100 times more complicated.'" - New York Magazine
"The Brooklyn Museum wanted to do an exhibition with a Netflix celebrity, so the institution isn't going to say anything too plainly about the flaws in Gadsby's arguments. … Gadsby, meanwhile, admits that they participated, even though they hate the show's subject, because 'I thought it would raise my profile.'" - Artnet
A poll of 79 film critics, with the results assembled and curated by J. Hoberman and Julian Epp. (There's also a separate reader poll.) And these are definitely not all "great"; there are a few that are downright despicable, but there's no question that they were significant. - The New Republic
Everyone's criteria will be different. (One critic declined to participate in TNR's poll by saying "Every film I care about is political.") And yet, writes J. Hoberman, "There is a consensual idea of what constitutes political cinema, if not a universal buy-in." - The New Republic
"That provided a lifeline, but, it was pretty widely said, also a risk: What if the billionaires tired of the money they were losing, and abandoned the field? As things are turning out, the risk seems a somewhat different one." - Second Rough Draft
"On Thursday, it announced a new partnership with the left-leaning magazine The Nation, and that its next print issue would arrive in August. … Readers can expect the publication to look much the same. It will continue to publish quarterly, and the staff … will remain the same." - MSN (The Washington Post)
"The acquisition of the one-time media powerhouse by its three creditors — made up of Fortress, Soros Fund Management and Monroe Capital — is set to take place after Vice said in a legal filing Thursday that it received no other satisfactory bids as it explored a sale for the company." - CNN
Put simply, it has become extremely difficult for theatres to find enough competent craftspeople, even to recruit untrained laborers who can hammer sets, paint flats, or sew costumes for professional regional theatres—least of all folks experienced in the sub-specialty of theatre work. - American Theatre
For Dolby, the audio company that developed Atmos, and Apple Music — which has invested heavily in it — the technology could lead to the most dramatic shift in audio in 65 years. - The New York Times
