"Unlike the schlockier disaster porn that precedes it, the technical disaster movie depicts a real or realistic catastrophe that is in principle avoidable. Their carnage and destruction are never existential horrors or acts of God; they are the consequences of human complacency, stupidity or resignation." - The Point
Mail mattered then, as it had from the beginnings of the republic through the 1970s, more or less, when the falling price of long-distance phone calls and the fax machine devastated written correspondence. - New Criterion
Critics hated it, audiences flocked to it, and some social media commenters and media columnists argues that it was immoral even to have written and made the show. Did they have a point, or did they miss the point? - BBC
I started bristling at the commonplace phrase: “my dancers.” And I find it increasingly problematic, especially in light of our woefully overdue national reckoning with systemic racism and the most recent stripping of women’s agency over their own bodies. - Dance Magazine
"At one point in time, New York was home to more than 50 Yiddish theatres. … Today, reflecting both the relative decline and the cultural persistence of this unique heritage, there are two remaining Yiddish theatres in the city, New Yiddish Rep and National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene." - American Theatre
What then makes a great patron? Bags of cash, obviously, but what else? The best patrons — the ones you can count on to cough up the green year after year — have guilty consciences. Or, at least, an image they need to burnish with good works. - The Critic
"Awards ceremonies are back, baby. For the first time since 2019, your favorite writers got to dress up and attend a fancy party or two this year. From the Pulitzer to the Booker, the Nebula to the Edgar, here are the winners of the biggest book prizes of 2022." - Literary Hub
No matter that she founded the city of Odesa. She was a Russian empress, one who conquered large parts of modern Ukraine — and this year Ukrainians have had enough of the Russian Empire. - ARTnews
Among the intellectual property copyrighted in 1927 and available for you to have your way with as of Sunday are the last Sherlock Holmes stories, the films The Jazz Singer and Metropolis, the final volume of Proust's In Search of Lost Time, and Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. - Smithsonian Magazine
"At the top levels, where base salary is over $100,000, it takes years of training and experience and an intense audition process to get a job. Here, the difference in the two positions is more about function than skill." - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Stone heads of Eros, Dionysus, Herakles, and others were uncovered, as well as a full statue of an unidentified hero of Azanoi, of which there are many. The statue measures at over two meters, or just over six-and-a-half feet, and is missing a few chunks from its pedestal and foot." - ARTnews
"His prolific career spanned more than six decades, with over 100 completed buildings erected. ... The bold, helical Art Tower Mito in Japan, the Sidra tree-inspired Qatar National Convention Center in Doha and the Palau Saint Jordi, created for the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, are among his best-known works." - CNN
GPT may be not so much a revolutionary leap forward as another step down a long, well-trodden path. Insofar as it is used for cultural production and commentary, it will streamline already well-established tendencies toward imitation, repetition, and pastiche. - Commonweal
