Stories

Actress Barbara Barrie, Once One Of Hollywood’s Favorite Moms, Is Dead At 95

Though she was also active onstage, she was better known for screen work and amassed over 120 credits, including on TV series Barney Miller and Suddenly Susan (as Brooke Shields’s grandmother), and films such as One Potato, Two Potato (Best Actress at Cannes) and Breaking Away (Oscar nomination). - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

Former CEO Of Lucasfilm To Run 2028 L.A. Olympics Opening And Closing Ceremonies

“Hollywood veteran Kathleen Kennedy has been tapped to replace Peter Rice” — just appointed as Netflix’s chief content officer — “as head of ceremonies and content for LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games, … four separate events that will be viewed by an audience of billions across the globe.” - The Hollywood Reporter

Life Magazine Will Return To Print Just In Time For Thanksgiving

“Life magazine is making its long-awaited return to print on Nov. 23, exactly 90 years after its landmark 1936 debut, with a $45 quarterly publication that will forgo traditional print advertising as part of a broader push into digital content, video and live experiences.” - TheWrap (Yahoo!)

Pianist Stephen Kovacevich, 86

“(He was) known as much for his name changes – Bishop and Bishop-Kovacevich – as for his emotionally charged playing of Beethoven, his sparkling interpretation of Bartók and his elegant line in Schubert. A Kovacevich recital was invariably a meaty affair, filled with passion, wildness and temptation, somewhat like (his) personal life.” - The Telegraph (UK) (Yahoo!)

After A Hiatus, Williamstown Theatre Festival Regroups By Retrenching

After an interesting and very messy experiment with programming and organization in 2025 and going dark for summer 2026 (not to mention a tumultuous few years before that), the festival has given up its planned expansion into year-round activity, shrunk its full-time staff to three, and is planning a smaller 2027 event. - BroadwayWorld

Minnesota Opera Postpones This Weekend’s World Premiere Due To Tense Contract Negotiations With Orchestra

The company was to open its season this weekend with Kamala Shankaran’s The Many Deaths of Laila Starr. Orchestra musicians say it’s a lockout; management says it can’t risk what happened at San Francisco Opera, with opening night cancelled minutes before curtain time when the orchestra declared a strike. - The Minnesota Star Tribune (MSN)

Soprano Judith Blegen Has Died At 85

She was one of the Metropolitan Opera’s favorite light lyric sopranos in the 1970s and ‘80s, known especially for her Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier, Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, and Adina in L’elisir d’amore opposite Pavarotti as Nemorino. - OperaWire

How Scientists Rank The Scariest Horror Movies Of All Time

“Since 2020, the (Science of Scare Project) has evaluated horror movies’ physiological effects on viewers by monitoring their heart rate and heart rate variability … as they watch a curated selection of English-language horror films considered among the most frightening.” And the winner is … ? - HuffPost

The V&A’s Argument Against AI Slop

Why are humans so driven to make things? In our age of A.I. slop, the V. & A.’s devotion to physical objects is a tonic. And if two new buildings seem like overkill, think of all those data centers. - The New Yorker

One Of Italy’s Largest Daily Papers Expands Into The US, In English

La Stampa, a nationally- and regionally-focused outlet headquartered in Turin, is opening La Stampa USA as an online publication aimed at an Italian-American readership. The newsroom currently has five employees in New York and two in Washington DC and plans to hire contributors around the country. - Press Gazette (UK)

How To Defeat The Style Choices Your Algorithms Point You To

Rather than cycling through distinct eras sequentially as Laver predicted, social media feeds flatten time entirely. Decades of vintage subcultures and instant micro-aesthetics are collapsed into the same endless scroll, allowing a 1990s minimalist silhouette to coexist alongside a week-old “whimsymaxxing” viral trend. - The Conversation

How Politeness Has Shaped Our Language

Requests that were once directly stated as imperatives were now couched with indirectness as merely suggestions or questions: “Shut the window,” became “Could you please shut the window?” And, in addition to saying “thanks,” responding with an acknowledgment of that thanks, such as “you’re welcome,” became routine. - Time

The Perils Of Voice-Acting Steamy Romance Books

The 45-year-old actor blames his upbringing for mispronunciations, like calling a “library” a “liberry.” Fans seized on the gaffe. “I was like, you know what? Touché,” Palmini said. “Even though you said you want to burn the book now because I said ‘liberry,’ I get it. Truly. Noted. ‘Library’ it is.” - The Wall Street Journal (MSN)

An Architecture Critic Looks At The Yard, London’s New Theatre Built Out Of Scavenged And Repurposed Materials

Oliver Wainwright: “It is a tour de force of how to do a lot with a little. It reads like a collage of its context: a shed clad with corrugated fibre-cement sheeting, rising from graffiti-covered warehouse walls on one side and framed by a new brick gable end on the other.” - The Guardian

Plan For An Ambitious New Design Museum In The Bay Area

The Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity, the nonprofit established by the family of design and art pioneers Ray and Charles Eames, is set to file a master plan with the city of Novato that will transform the 85.5-acre site into a global design museum, attracting some 200,000 visitors a year. - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)

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