Viet Thanh Nguyen: “When poets write, the only thing that it costs a poet is their life. ... But when you make a TV show or a film, it costs tens of millions of dollars, and then everybody cares.” - Los Angeles Review of Books
“Many of its nearly 50 grant programs have been paused or ended. … About two thirds of the staff has been laid off and, last month, most members of the scholarly council that must review a majority of grants were abruptly fired by the White House.” - The New York Times
It’s a very clear, and useful, switch. “The union said on its website that it hoped to make clearer for its domestic and global audiences what its show entailed. The show has reached a much wider audience since Netflix began streaming it in 2024.” - The New York Times
“Making the case for Sinners as Oscar-worthy isn’t hard. For one thing, it had a massive audience — at $297 million domestic, it’s the fifth-highest-grossing movie of the year — and pretty much everybody who saw it loved it.” But, vampires. - Vulture
Gibson was “interested in chronicling their cancer experience in a way that was beautiful and artistic. They were writing, podcasting and even performing when their health allowed, yet they were having trouble being creative.” - The New York Times
In Britain, she was told she’d never succeed because of her race. So she started theatre companies in Jamaica, and also in London. “In her focus on all-Black casts and re-workings of classics, … Ms. Brewster’s motivation was always artistic, she said.” - The New York Times
Disgusting. “What you have here is 50,000 tracks a day that are competing with human musicians. You have a new, hyperscalable competitor and, moreover, this competitor that was built by exploitation.” - The Guardian (UK)
There are the married couples who make sure to grab tear-away underwear, the person who has a collection of playbills, and so, so many more folks looking for pieces of Broadway history. - The New York Times
Some four-fifths of the city’s roofs are covered in the lightweight, malleable, low-maintenance metal. Many of them now need replacing — to prevent leaks in more intense rainstorms and because high summer temperatures turn the rooms below them into ovens. Parisian artisans are finding ways to address these problems. - Smithsonian Magazine
"When we listen to audiobooks produced in the West, they have a Wakandan accent," said Eghosa Imasuen, executive director of Narrative Landscape Press in Lagos, Nigeria. "Nobody talks like that on the continent." - Publishers Weekly
Bamako, a city of 3 million, is being squeezed by an Al-Qaeda-affiliated militia which has blocked fuel imports and made travel beyond the capital dangerous. Yet Bamakoans recently raised their spirits with a three-day festival celebrating puppetry, which has deep roots in Mali. - AP
“As a creative, I have really enjoyed creating her,” she says. “It’s been just like a writer creating characters. You fall in love with your characters when you’re writing them. It’s a wonderful process. It wasn’t like I just made her in a second, and that was it. You know, it took a long time.” - Variety
