Stories

Do The Emmys Need A Nomination Ceiling For Certain Shows?

“The Emmys continue to saturate the zone with their favorite shows, clogging up the supporting performance categories (and sometimes even lead, or writing and directing) with the same titles in a single year, edging out exemplary performances.” - Vulture

The Relatively Quick De-Centering Of English-Language Literature

“The consolidation of the English-language publishing industry in the 1980s and 90s gave its most successful writers a worldwide reach and a critical impact that no authors from other countries could aspire to.” But that very success might have changed things. - The Guardian (UK)

The Comedian Who Grew Up A Hasidic Lubavitch Jew And Now Plays One On TV, For Laughs

Robby Hoffman "recently received her first acting Emmy nomination — for the role of Randi” on Hacks. It was relatively quick success, after she ditched accounting for acting (yes, really). - The New York Times

The Woman Who Perfected Flower Painting Was Once More Famous Than Vermeer

“Over the course of her nearly 70-year career, Ruysch shunned radical innovation and experimentation, and opted for the subtlest of variations on a theme. No grand gestures or avant-garde maneuvers. Just refinement, focus, and perfection. Flowers and fruit.” - The Atlantic

A Paris Show Traces Gaza’s Cultural History

“The exhibition, Saved Treasures of Gaza, at Paris’s Institut du Monde Arabe brings what curators called a sense of ‘urgency’ to explain the rich history of a place that has been a crossroads of cultures since Neolithic times.” - The Guardian (UK)

Jimmy Fallon Has Knuckled Under To Kiss The Conservative Ring On His Late-Knight Show

"Fallon is a professional. If he has any reservations about interviewing Gutfeld, … made headlines by joking that conservatives should proudly reclaim the word ‘Nazi' like Black people have reclaimed the N-word … they’re not apparent.” - Vulture

Jane Morgan, Torch Singer Who Charmed Paris, New York, And Los Angeles, Has Died At 101

Morgan “arrived in Paris in 1948, having dropped out of Juilliard after the French nightclub impresario Bernard Hilda offered her a chance to sing at his venue on the Champs Élysées.” When she returned to the States, it was with a French-inflected flair. - The New York Times

Standup Comedy In English Is Developing An Entire Circuit In Mainland Europe

“(This is) in part because European cities are teeming with foreigners who use English as a lingua franca and want to connect through laughter. After the COVID-19 pandemic, many people who had been stuck at home watching Netflix comedy specials and YouTube clips suddenly craved a live experience.” - The New York Times

If Cinema Is Dying, There’s Still Plenty To Say

Its infirmity has a number of culprits: superhero box office dominance, short-form videos eroding attention spans, streaming services hollowing out theatrical exhibition. - The Walrus

Preserving The Gullah Songs And Spirituals Of South Carolina’s Sea Islands

A group of singers, mostly in their 70s and 80s, on St. Helena Island in the South Carolina Lowcountry has been preserving the praise songs and ring shouts developed by their ancestors over the centuries — and scholars have been taking note. - AP

Public Media’s Slow Motion Crisis

For dozens of stations that depend heavily on federal dollars, a slow-motion crisis is now unfolding; many are already downsizing and cutting programming, and some report that if new sources of funding do not materialize they could go dark for good. - The New Yorker

How Hollywood Is Pivoting To Conservative Audiences

The red-state audience that Hollywood is chasing isn’t a monolith, and there’s an experimental energy in the crop of shows catering to this newly prized demographic. - The New Yorker

Archaeologists In Peru Uncover 3,000-Year-Old 3-D Polychrome Mural

“Spanning 13-by-5 feet, the polychrome mural, … with a three-dimensional design, indicating a sophistication and artistry that is without precedent for pre-Inca cultures in the region, … was discovered at Huaca Yolanda, a site 500 miles north of the capital, Lima.” - Artnet

The Individualist Trap: Hard To Believe In The Future

If you have a world in which everyone is encouraged to be a total individualist, they tend to get trapped in that mindset. It’s wonderful when things are going well, because you, your own desires and thoughts are the centre of the world. But the moment things go wrong, you retreat into yourself. - The Guardian

Inhabiting The Machine: Make Peace Or Fight?

Machines no longer assist our lives from the outside; they increasingly define the conditions under which we think, work, and relate. And here Skidelsky joins a growing chorus of artists, poets, and writers in asking the big questions we once debated and wrote about—questions of meaning, purpose, and the conditions of human freedom. - LA Review of Books

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