Stories

The Initial Teaching Alphabet was a radical, little-known educational experiment trialled in British schools (and in other English-speaking countries) during the 1960s and 70s. Billed as a way to help children learn to read faster by making spelling more phonetically intuitive, it radically rewrote the rules of literacy for tens of thousands of children. - The Guardian

What these paintings represent about the CIA’s relationship to the art world, though, is more complicated. On these walls, the intersection between US art and politics is especially busy. - Hyperallergic

Hollywood, it appears, is stuck on repeat, sucked with an ever-more deafening gurgle into a death cycle of creative bankruptcy desperately presented as comfort food. - The Guardian

The gallery’s reserves have dropped sharply – from £22.6m in 2022–23 to £10.9m at the end of 2024. Government support is also in decline: the grant-in-aid the Tate received in 2023–24 was £50.8m, down from £54.2m the previous year. - Apollo

Since his 1990 series “The Civil War” drew record viewership to PBS and crossed over into pop culture, Burns has proven time and again that there’s a robust market for interrogating history with the clear eyes of a journalist and the heart of a patriot. - The Wall Street Journal

Fans are actually pretty dialed in, but to international touring companies. "The country has struggled to build world-class companies and hold on to the top talent it trains. The National Ballet of Japan wants to change that.” - Financial Times

“I’d been working pretty hard for almost 60 years, and I did not want to be one of those people who dropped dead on the set.” - The Guardian (UK)

Are you happy to watch Cormac McCarthy’s characters speak both English and Spanish, since they live on the border, or do you seek out translation? What about the Igbo in Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie’s books? Keep reading, maybe figure it out in context, or use Google Translate? - LitHub

Food writers were losing revenue at a terrible clip - but also, were the summaries any good? - Nieman Lab

They “issued Stravinsky a warning, claiming there was a law against tampering with the national anthem. (They were misreading the statute.) Grudgingly, Stravinsky pulled it from the bill.” - Open Culture

They’re not fans. One: “'I’ve narrated really raunchy sex scenes – AI doesn’t know what an orgasm sounds like,’ she says. ‘Birth scenes as well – I’d love to know how they plan on getting around that.’” - The Guardian (UK)

“What’s clear, in any case, is that big corporations undoubtedly threaten journalistic independence.”- Salon

Maxwell took over the José Limón Dance Company after he died, but no one expected her to keep it going - much less for almost four decades. - The New York Times

“The Trump administration says it’s close to working out a sale to a group of ‘non-Chinese' investors, including Oracle, with current majority owner ByteDance maintaining a minority stake.” - The Verge

It’s all a win for families (and sometimes adults as well): “Reading aloud engages kids in the story rather than their getting tangled up in the mechanics of reading. As a result, they can have deep discussions, build on current reading levels, and later have conversations with peers.” - Slate