Academic critics read closely this year's Booker Prize finalists: Each novel has emotional temperature and structural ambition: domestic quietudes stretched into myth, migration histories turned intimate, masculinity stripped to bone, love sagas operating as cultural x-rays. A list that prizes atmosphere over spectacle. - The Conversation
The Internet didn’t destroy monoculture. It exposed the fact that monoculture was always a bottleneck, popped the cork, and let the contents fizz out. - ARTnews
In her lawsuit, which was filed in Pennsylvania state court, the former director, Sasha Suda, contends that she was fired “without a valid basis” after negotiations over the terms of her departure with the museum’s board of trustees had reached an impasse. - The New York Times
We learn from stories. Our ancestors were raised on myths about their ancestors, tales about their saviours, emperors and lawgivers, and, eventually, novels about any number of times and places, most of them named. - Equator
"For the past year and a half, I’ve been trying to figure out the easiest way to uncover new music. Not new releases, not new songs like the ones I already like, but music that’s new to me, by artists I haven’t encountered before." - The New York Times
We live in an age of unprecedented connectivity, and yet this very connectedness has led to something paradoxical: uniformity. In our quest to standardise, streamline, and compare ourselves globally, we risk erasing the very differences that make human creativity, and particularly music, so rich. - The Strad
Mackerras had a major impact on British musical life, whether as Music Director of English National Opera and Welsh National Opera, working with major symphony orchestras, or conducting smaller groups such as the English Chamber Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. - Gramophone
Leaving the Kennedy Center is a possible scenario after a collapse in box office revenue and “shattered” donor confidence in the wake of Trump’s takeover, said Francesca Zambello. - The Guardian
“It’s important to us that younger generations know what the work stood for and don’t get some false impression from these decontextualized samplings — and we don’t want it to be associated with what the Department of Homeland Security is doing.” - Washington Post (MSN)
And it benefits literally everyone, advocates say, including the audience. “If everyone feels like this is a safe set and they can do their best work, the work will just be better.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
The plan: Rena Bransten Gallery will turn into a pop-up. "I have uncertainty about whether the model that we all grew up in, going to galleries, is viable,” the gallery director says. “I need to really look around and see what people are doing.” - San Francisco Chronicle
“Parker leveraged his extensive experience in woodworking and guitar repair, along with his maverick streak, to build groundbreaking guitars that went on to be displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.” - The New York Times
Zhou accused Renner of sending unwanted sexual images, and of threatening “to call immigrationICE” to intimidate her. The actor denies the accusations. - Los Angeles Times (AOL)
Vince Gilligan of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, on his new series Pluribus: "The concept of the others being in sync telepathically led to us hiring our first-time choreographer, ever. Technically, I think he's billed as a movement coordinator or a movement designer.” - Collider
