Stories

Firefighters Rescue Rare Books From A Library On The Cliff Edge After Landslide

“Firefighters drilled through the wall of a building behind the structure and entering for minutes at a time, strapped the bookcases together and hauled them backwards to reach the books.” - The Guardian (UK)

The Kentucky Optical Shop Owner Who Was Also One Of The Twentieth Century’s Best, Strangest Photographers

“Often dark (literally and figuratively), surreal, sometimes playful and at other times sinister, his pictures stunned and sometimes perplexed viewers with their wild, poetic strangeness.” - Undermain Arts

After Internal Consideration And Exterior Pressure, San Francisco Ballet Pulls Out Of Kennedy Center Performances

A company representative wrote, “SF Ballet looks forward to performing for Washington, D.C. audiences in the future.” - San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo)

Larry Reed, California’s Master Of Shadow Puppetry, Is Dead At 81

He was among the first Americans to study Balinese shadow theater and then perform it back home, which he did for his entire career. He expanded his practice to include collaborating in stagings of Shakespeare and Octavio Solis as well as producing his own elaborate myth- or history-based extravaganzas. - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)

Ode To A Great Editor

During my own editing stint, I came to understand writers as prisoners of their own minds, pressed up against the bars of the words they have already committed to the page. Writers suffer from a cognitive impairment that limits their ability to see flaws in their prose. - The Atlantic

“Moral Self-Defense” And The Uses of Public Shaming

“There are plenty of self-serving, self-aggrandizing, morally objectionable reasons for why people participate in public shaming. Nevertheless, the concept of moral self-defence reminds us that our self-respect, our social identities, and our status in our communities are vital.” - Psyche

California Attorney General Warns Paramount Buy Of Warner “Not A Done Deal” Yet

Rob Bonta’s cold water on the Paramount-WBD fireworks comes a week after the CA Department of Justice opened a probe into any deal to take over WB — be it Netflix or Ellison’s team. - Deadline

Non-Professional Actors At The Heart Of Movies

The prominence of movies featuring nonprofessionals is no surprise: directors may make movies what they are, but actors are what viewers see, and these movies, with their casting of nonprofessionals, offer flavors of performance that differ drastically from what can be achieved with a uniformly skilled cast of professionals. - The New Yorker

Sorry, “Guerilla Teaching” Isn’t Allowed In Smithsonian Galleries

He was at the Portrait Gallery as an educator but also as co-founder of Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian, a group that last year spent thousands of hours documenting every corner of the Smithsonian, to track any changes made as Trump administration officials assert control over the content of the museums. - Washington Post

Jonathan Groff Is Practicing Sonnets To Prepare To Play Rosalind In “As You Like It”

“(I wanted to) just start slow, with some Shakespeare that wasn’t the play,” said the Tony-winning actor, who’ll be starring in an all-male staging at the RSC this fall, “just to get my mouth around the language, the rhythm, and then sort of break out into exploring the role in the play.” - Deadline

Pompeii Gets a Digital Makeover: Now With Less Ash

Forget the petrified citizens – new 3D renderings show Pompeii as the thriving metropolis it was before Vesuvius crashed the party. Because apparently we needed CGI to remind us that ancient Romans actually lived there. — Aeon

Woman Sues Meta, YouTube Over Social Media Use

Wearing a pink dress and cardigan, Kaley told the jury that she started watching YouTube videos at age 6 and made an Instagram account at age 9. She and her attorneys said she uploaded more than 200 YouTube videos before she turned 10—and had created 15 Instagram accounts before she turned 15. - Wall Street Journal

Congressional Republicans Propose National Book Banning

House Resolution 7661 transforms grassroots library battles into national policy, giving censors sweeping powers to purge school and public collections. Democracy's reading rooms become political battlegrounds as cultural wars scale up. — Literary Hub

The Choreographer Behind The Ecstatic Shakers Dances In “The Testament Of Ann Lee”

“The night before we started filming, I was sleeping and, literally, the ghost of Ann Lee was over my bed with angels around and she said: ‘Go forth!’ Celia Rowlson-Hall laughs at herself for revealing this. “Was that my imagination allowing myself to go forth? Maybe, probably.” - The Guardian

Where Has The Sex Gone? Our Literature Is Getting Cleaner

Literary writers have other demands to satisfy. In general, readers come to their books seeking not an escape from reality but perspective on it. Romance novels can provide this, just as literary novels can have happy endings, but they’re still beholden to the fantasy that’s part of the genre. - The Atlantic

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