Research from Oracle indicates that 90% of consumers are more likely to recall a product or brand associated with a humorous treatment, and 72% would choose a brand that uses humor over their competition. - Fast Company
Ophélie Gaillard's 1737 Francesco Goffriller cello and antique bows were taken at knifepoint in 2018; the thief later returned them, smashing a car window nearby and leaving them inside. This week, a thief broke into her home — while she was there — and made off with the cello and bows. - The Strad
Lily Janiak writes that she was reminded — very gladly — of just how many things go right to pull off a farce like this one so successfully. - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
The series, titled The Takeover, covers the overhaul of the Houston Independent School District by state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles. The lead reporter's long-term partner is a Houston ISD teacher, and HPM management decided just before release that this was too big a conflict of interest. - Texas Monthly
Considered by many the greatest British actress of her formidable generation, she won widespread admiration for such stage and screen performances as The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Hedda Gabler and became genuinely beloved for her work in the Harry Potter films and Downton Abbey. - The Washington Post (MSN)
Merely Players Presents was founded in Doraville, a DeKalb County suburb whose population is 45% Hispanic, in 2018. This year, for the first time, the company did dual productions of a play, Nilo Cruz's Anna in the Tropics, in English and Spanish, reaching an audience that local theaters rarely connect with. - ArtsATL
The case against Baldwin, who accidentally shot the movie's cinematographer because the prop gun he was handling turned out to have live ammunition in it, was dismissed due to prosecutors' serious mishandling of evidence. Armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed had already been convicted; could she now be freed? - The Hollywood Reporter
Abraham Bredius was director of the Mauritshuis in The Hague 1889-1919, and he bequeathed 25 Rembrandts and other Old Master paintings to the museum on condition that they be displayed. Only five are on public view, so Bredius's heirs say the Mauritshuis is violating the bequest's terms. - The New York Times
He and his wife started in 1965 with one Tiffany ceramic vase, purchased for $55 (roughly $548 today). By 1971, they opened Macklowe Gallery in Manhattan, ultimately becoming leading sellers for Tiffany glass, Mucha lithographs, and French cameo glass. (That vase, by the way, is now worth $25,000.) - The New York Times
Plaintiffs Clevie and Steely are seeking remuneration for a series of songs that not only sample “Fish Market,” but that interpolate or copy its rhythmic pattern and any of the derivative works that came after “Fish Market.” - Pitchfork
According to Claire Nicholson, chair of the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain and a retired lecturer at Cambridge University, “Bloomsbury dressing is creative and individual.” - The Wall Street Journal
At least one performing arts center has been destroyed, cultural and heritage sites are being looted, and the 2,000-year-old ruins at Naga as well as the National Museum in Khartoum have been left unprotected. - Deutsche Welle
Sotheby’s had been riding a rollicking art market wave in recent years, bringing in at least $7 billion in sales annually and setting record-level prices. Now, amid signs cash is running low, it is pushing off payments to its art shippers and conservators by as much as six months. - The Wall Street Journal
In some ways, the event had the trappings of a normal short film festival. There were awards and prizes, as well as appetizers, poke boxes and wine. But in other telling respects, it was a clear product of Silicon Valley’s incursion into Hollywood’s territory. - Los Angeles Times
Annilese Miskimmon, English National Opera's artistic director and a native of Northern Ireland, sees enough similarities between the original story (a young 17th-century woman forced into a convent after bearing an out-of-wedlock child) and Ireland's now-notorious Magdalene laundries that the resetting makes perfect sense. - The Guardian
