Stories

You might also know her as Ishtar. In either case, she was a hero before that upstart Gilgamesh came on the scene. - The Guardian (UK)

Can the actors' unions negotiate protections against things that have already happened? "It’s not a question of technology. ... It’s a question of who has the power in the relationship." - The New York Times

How to defeat Zuckerberg? Well, money talks. - Wired

"The protests centered on vogue as resistance. The dance style, born out of the ballroom scene in Harlem in the 1980s as a source of joy and expression, became a response to a stabbing feared to be an attack on queerness and Blackness." - Los Angeles Times

Netrebko, fired by the opera house for her support of Vladimir Putin, "accuses the Met of discriminating against her because she is Russian; of issuing 'defamatory' statements about her in the press; and of breaching contracts." - The New York Times

Traffic was blocked and 1,700 desks set up by the Arc de Triomphe, for "a public dictée. Anyone who's studied French knows the importance of the ritual. A teacher reads out a passage, usually from French literature, and students have to write it out" - battling the complications of French. - NPR

In those quiet, terrifying times, lo these long three years ago, Chabon did what any nerd might do: He built a replica of the science fiction and fantasy section of his long-gone childhood bookstore. - LitHub

"Hollywood’s sudden hostility to hostility is even playing out in cinemas now. One of the few traits shared by both Barbie and Oppenheimer is the refusal to provide their tortured title characters with a serious antagonist." - The Guardian (UK)

It's an existential crisis: How, exactly, does a splashy, global celebration of movies survive without movie stars? - Washington Post

"No clear economic reason for art criticism that is not glorified public relations to exist, so it barely does. While art is an extreme case in this regard, it’s also a leading indicator: as defender and judge of quality, the critic is an endangered species in many industries these days." - The Point

In a genre that has always valued volume as much as it loves liberation, the elders still compete over the story’s beats, much as they once battled over musical ones. It is a very hip-hop thing: a history written by the loudest. And loudness is one Herc contribution that no one disputes. - The Wall Street Journal

Netflix habitually pays more for its productions up front, but because it did away with the syndication model and keeps its viewership data to itself, it has also limited the upside for writers. - The Atlantic

Several locks confirmed as far more likely to be from the composer's head demonstrate his death was probably the result of a hepatitis B infection, exacerbated by his drinking and numerous risk factors for liver disease. - Science Alert

With a $2.7 million major investment from the City of Melbourne and a further $1.25 million from the Victorian Government, Now or Never is expected to attract over 200,000 people. Its ambitions are to not only cement itself in Melbourne’s highly saturated festival calendar, but to also become an international festival destination. - ArtsHub

"If Asinius Pollio was the one who 'first by founding a library made works of genius the property of the public', it was Augustus and his successors who instilled an ideology of the public ownership of knowledge. And it didn't matter if the masses couldn't read any of it." - Aeon