What was the point of all that applause in the House? And what's often the point at plays, for that matter? "Which beaming retinue can clap harder for its standard-bearer? It’s an endeavor as empty as that of coercing people into cheering for a dull comedy." - Washington Post
In the run-up to the Oscars, and the film Tár, its lead actor Cate Blanchett, and Everything Everywhere All at Once's Ke Huy Quan have swept film critic awards in L.A., N.Y., and now at the National Film Critics Circle. - Variety
"Many experts feel they are in a race against time. A 2018 study published in the Climate Risk Management journal assessed 1,232 archival repositories in the United States and found that nearly 99 percent were 'likely to be affected by at least one climate risk factor."' - The New York Times
The novelist and screenwriter (My Beautiful Laundrette) fell in Rome the day after Christmas. He wrote in a series of tweets that he can't move his arms or legs after the fall and a surgery on his spine. - The Guardian (UK)
"Pianos do kind of take on the character of 100 years of playing, you know?” says Tim Vincent-Smith, co-founder of Pianodrome - a project that saves old pianos from ending up in landfill. - BBC
Ghostwriters channel someone else’s voice and construct with it a book that has shape and texture, narrative arc and memorable characters, all without leaving fingerprints. Doing it well requires a tremendous amount of technical skill and an ego that is, at a minimum, flexible. - The New York Times
Half a dozen of the main works are deliberately in dialogue with literary classics and ephemera, from sources as diverse as Mark Twain’s satirical monologues, James Joyce’s erotic letters, the Epic of Gilgamesh and “Antigone.” - The New York Times
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Continued experiments and observations only served to confirm that at scales both large and small, we appeared to live in an empty world. - Nautilus
Paris, Texas was founded in the 1840s, and quickly became a hub for business and culture in Northeast Texas. Unfortunately, in 1916, a massive fire destroyed much of the downtown, forcing the town's residents to rebuild. - KERA
In 2018, the school hired Alicia Graf Mack to head up its dance division, making her the youngest person, and the first woman of color, to lead the dance department in the institution’s 70-year history. Now in her fifth year, Mack’s tweaks, additions, and overhauls are beginning to spring to life. - Jezebel
"(Michael Langlois's) approach, which combines the close linguistic and paleographical analysis of ancient writings with advanced scientific tools … can sometimes make long-gone inscriptions come back to life. Or it can bury them for good — as in his exposé involving (forged Dead Sea Scroll fragments)." - Smithsonian Magazine
The editor represents many things, and different things to every writer. It's a financial relationship. It's an approval relationship. It's a technical relationship. It can be a close one or it can not. Some writers don't want to be social with their editors. Others need to talk to them constantly. - NPR
"Strangely enough, while the number of ham operators is declining globally, it's growing in the United States, as is Morse code, by all accounts. … Equipment sellers have noticed this trend, too." - Smithsonian Magazine
They bicker all the time, about every comma, period, and semicolon. Actually, don’t even get them started on semicolons. Gottlieb refers to a “civil war” that took place over the punctuation mark’s usage. The flintiness about every little thing is part of their shtick. - The Atlantic
Among the surprises: nearly a fifth of the 100 most-performed works were written after 1918, and topping the entire list is Ravel's La Valse. Not so surprising: Mozart is the most-performed composer of concert works and operas, and Arvo Pärt is still the most popular living composer. - Bachtrack
