Skyhorse Publishing acquired the books by Woody Allen, Blake Bailey, Norman Mailer and others that were dropped when controversy hit. Says Skyhorse chief Lyons, "All you hear is the takedown of the author and no analysis of the book itself.' Critics accuse him of "a libertarianism of convenience." - The Guardian
The board governing the McMinn County school district in southeastern Tennessee deemed the Pulitzer-winning book inappropriate for eighth-graders because of a drawing of a nude dead woman and some "rough, objectionable language." - CNN
Damn you, COVID-19! yet the good news is that 2020-21 season's shortfall, $6.3 million, is down by almost half from the previous season. And donations were up by 23%. Not too bad for an orchestra that played only 13 live-with-audience concerts. - The Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
She started working at the foundation in 1972 and continued until this year, and the prestigious competition and awards she administered helped launch many impressive careers. - The New York Times
Arthur Brooks: Engaging with art after worrying over the minutiae of your routine is like looking at the horizon after you’ve spent too long staring intently at a particular object: Your perception of the outside world expands. - The Atlantic
McLuhan's doctrine was attractive to the Boomers because it explained that everything the older generation knew, or thought they knew, was an illusion. Everything the Boomer tribe intuitively felt, on the other hand, was real. - Quillette
Recently, some scientists taught an artificial intelligence software, called Delphi (after the ancient Greek religious sanctuary), to make moral pronouncements. Type any action into it, even a state of being, like “being adopted,” and Delphi will judge it (“It’s okay”). Delphi is a “commonsense moral model.” - Nautilus
Between April and the end of the 2021, the VAB says, Nielsen did not count “one and a half billion impressions” in 20 top events. The group believes the true total of advertising dollars lost during the period could be more than $350 million. - Variety
“If you don’t have role models, it’s much harder to see yourself as a conductor – and there were male musicians who wouldn’t see themselves as conductors either.” - Irish Times
The Academy Museum, like the Newseum before it, does an imperfect job of balancing two basic identities and purposes, one essentially self-promotional, the other more civic-minded. It is both a shrine and pantheon, and a space for exhibitions and education. - Washington Post
Back in 2003, journalist Mark Harris had been going to write a book about the film and its process; now, as Shortbus is being reissued, he's revisited his notebooks. "This is going to be complicated. BOUNDARIES." - New York Magazine
Despite the chorus of mainstream voices that had written off Los Angeles as essentially devoid of noteworthy cultural activity, the 1970s gave rise to one of the city’s most important art-historical developments of the latter half of the 20th century: a flourishing network of alternative spaces. - Hyperallergic
"Despite being seemingly worlds apart, comedy and porn have always been linked in some form or another. From the goofy humor of X-rated spoofs to … edgy comics who live to shock the prude out of us, both styles of entertainment require a certain level of fearlessness." - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
Calling out fellow songwriters for not writing their own material is bad form for musicians, particularly so given that the definition of songwriting has become ever more fluid over time, and depends greatly on the genre of music. - The Conversation
Turkey and the Wolf, from the much-heralded New Orleans sandwich shop, was due to drop next month; New York Times columnist Melissa Clark's Dinner in One was to appear in March. But the copies were on a ship that lost 60 of its containers overboard. - Grub Street
