For academics, the uncooked contents of the notebooks represent some of the liveliest writing in biology. “A lot of Darwin’s prose feels quite Victorian. But these are different: an early form of stream of consciousness; like Leopold Bloom on steroids.” - The New Yorker
Attention is finite, the record of how we spend it public, and it is easy enough to check if somebody who tweets every day about Ukraine has ever tweeted about Yemen. Many people are inclined to give somebody they trust a pass. - Hedgehog Review
The spectacle has been curiously entertaining. Publishing executives have had to initiate federal employees into a dialect of “backlists,” “advance copies,” and “BookTok influencers.” Onlookers have been treated to piquant performances. - The New Yorker
But ads are coming back because streamers have more info about our consumption habits than the cable companies or networks ever did, so the ads are more valuable than ever. Plus, there’s no skipping ads via DVR when you’re streaming on Hulu et al. - The Bulwark
“The mood music seemed that ‘leisure’ activities had to be jettisoned due to the already felt increased cost of fuel/food, and there was a palpable anxiety about how much more expensive life may yet become and for how long the cost-of-living pressures would be felt.” - The Guardian
"Before West hit the big-screen, she was prosecuted for staging not one, but two scandalous plays. In this episode of Decoder Ring, we look at how West honed her persona when she was under the bright lights of Broadway and the flashbulbs of the tabloids — and briefly behind bars." - Slate
For the last few years, I have felt the inescapable disappearance of music from my friends’ lives. Even people with whom I have longstanding relationships that were born from a shared love of music have simply let it go, or let it fade deep into the background. - The Guardian
" Movies like Soylent Green abandon such messiness in favor of predictive certainty as they set out to shock people into action. ... And as predictions fail to materialize, shock and concern risk turning to cynicism and doubt." - Slate
In the ’80s and ’90s the arts were ascendant here, and Seattle was well regarded nationally as an up and coming arts town. Then poof, much of that energy melted away. Why? - Post Alley
"Journalists at NPR and Minnesota Public Radio say they are seeing the payoff from a heightened focus on tracking the diversity of their sources, with reporters more keenly aware of the need to expand their pools of interviewees." - Current
During the worst days of lockdown, some artists who couldn’t afford rent squatted in empty theaters to save money. Others left the art world entirely, unable to justify creating artworks that no longer had an audience. - Artnet
Edinburgh Fringe comedians from Japan, India, Mexico, the Netherlands, Argentina, and Denmark talk to a reporter about establishing connections with a foreign audience, differing styles and subjects of comedy in different countries, and carrying jokes conceived in one language into another. - The Guardian
“The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.” - MediaPost
"Rushdie helped change how ... Europe and North America saw desis. He defied stereotypes and resisted all assumptions. He became, through no choice of his own, a hero for free expression and courage in the face of oppression. That role opened up possibilities" for other desis in the West. - The New Republic
The feature on the San Francisco mansion of Roger and Sloan Lindemann Barnett includes an image of an interior courtyard with empty pedestals. Those pedestals aren't actually empty: they hold Khmer statuary that the Cambodian government says was looted in the 1990s. Here's how they identified it. - The Washington Post
