Chaos just as Skydance was heading to the finish line: "Seagram liquor company heir Edgar Bronfman Jr. this week persuaded Paramount’s independent board members to consider his rival bid for the Redstone family’s investment firm, National Amusements Inc., and a minority stake in Paramount.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
One performer who was new to the 2024 Fringe: “Everyone is telling me you can’t understand the Fringe until you go to the Fringe. … I’m hoping to make the right decisions and I’m very excited, but I also feel like throwing up every day, which I guess is part of the process.” - The New York Times
Chappell Roan is the latest to call out her so-called fans. She recently posted, “It's weird how people think that you know a person just 'cause you see them online or you listen to the art they make. ... I'm allowed to say no to creepy behaviour.” - CBC
The sculpture of Priscilla Chan, wife to Mark Zuckerberg, is so obviously self-referential and AI-influenced that it’s hard to discuss critically. But “is this what most sculpture, or indeed most art, will look like in the future? Given the endless possibilities of AI, is this where we’re all headed?” - Washington Post
Jones was “a poet and author who with her husband, LeRoi Jones, ... made her household a hub for Beat writers and other artists — but who was often described as a footnote in the rise of her famous spouse as ‘the white wife’ he disavowed.” - The New York Times
Well, Second City doesn’t really do a ton of political comedy, per se. However, if someone shouted out Tim Walz: “We know he likes white-guy tacos. … Truly - yes. Present him as very cool uncle. So, yeah, I'd probably go straight to Minnesota.” - NPR
“Adam thought that solo shows should answer the question: What is our place in the world? I looked after the jokes, and he looked after that.” Then the show went to Broadway - and Adam Brace suddenly died. - The New York Times
Surely $36,000 will make Disney more careful. The fine came “in connection with the death of Juan ‘Spike' Osorio, a lighting technician who fell through a faulty catwalk on the Studio City set of a Marvel TV series.” - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)
In an email sent to several DC-area art exhibition spaces on Monday, August 19, column author and critic Mark Jenkins announced the series would shut down after the last iteration runs in this Sunday’s print edition. - Hyperallergic
While the international plays are overtly political, encompassing disability rights, antiracism and ecology, the homegrown works explored the more personal terrain of addiction, recovery and self-care. - The New York Times
These days, you get this sort of unabashedly instructional approach to pop music only from Republicans, whose musical choices at July’s Republican National Convention felt, across the board, unburdened by any metaphorical obligations. - Washington Post
Critics say it’s a textbook political maneuver by tech giants to avoid a fee under what could have been groundbreaking legislation. California lawmakers agreed to kill a bill requiring tech to support news outlets they profit from in exchange for Google’s financial commitment. - Fast Company
She was labeled a “sicko, pig, trash,” she writes in the memoir. "The sense of betrayal was overwhelming." One message was particularly alarming: “Continue with your LGBT agenda on our children cause we gunna put in the dirt very soon ... You can’t hide." - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
The Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra may look, from a distance, like a European orchestra, but its musicians play erhu, gaohu, huqin (all bowed strings), sheng, guan, di (woodwinds), conchs, ox-horns and percussion. The HKCO runs a competition for young conductors, who must know both Chinese and European classical genres cold. - Classical Music (UK)
In the 20th century, the word lost its hint of the macabre as its meaning became something quieter. “Weird” now means peculiar — perhaps passingly so, but against what one would expect. - The New York Times
