Despite the long and serious effort to codify it as an athletic discipline, complete with approved moves, scoring, and judging criteria, pole dancing has had trouble escaping the association with striptease and sex work. On the other hand, some practitioners object to the erasure of sex work from the sport. - Slate (Yahoo!)
There are still nearly 450,000 active shows that have published recent episodes, according to Podcast Industry Insights. But the top 25 podcasts reach nearly half of U.S. weekly listeners, according to Edison Research. The top talents have tours, merchandise and multiyear deals in the nine figures. Big advertisers want in. - The Wall Street Journal
Scott London, a chief deputy constable in the rural DFW exurb of Granbury, secured subpoenas, filed public records requests, received names of students who’d checked out certain books and wrote draft criminal complaints against three school librarians for books London considered obscene — such as Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. - NBC News
In a development that might raise the hackles of those who criticized the now decade-old rule change that broadened eligibility for the prize, six are Americans. Tommy Orange, nominated for his novel “Wandering Stars,” is the first Native American writer to be named to the longlist. - Washington Post
"Editorial staff at Nine Entertainment, which owns The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age (Melbourne), The Australian Financial Review, the Brisbane Times and WAtoday, stopped working at 11am on Friday, hours before the opening ceremony of the 33rd Olympic Games." - Al Jazeera
Try it the next time you get a weird feeling about a photo. Just be sure not to focus on the wrong things. To help, we’ve created this (slightly exaggerated) sample image to highlight some common signs of image manipulation. - Washington Post
"Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, has reached a settlement in its religious discrimination case with former art history professor Erika López Prater." The terms of the agreement are confidential. - Artnet
Musicians, actors and writers who oppose the war are being hounded into exile or driven underground — while artists remaining in Russia are compelled by the government to echo a new nationalist zeal in their work. - Washington Post
Van Cleef & Arpels has sponsored a months-long festival called Dance Reflections in London, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, New York, and, this year, Kyoto. And it supports residencies, revivals, new productions and touring through a network of partnerships with theaters, festivals and dance companies in 16 countries so far. - The New York Times
The broadcaster will replace the 2025 edition of the biennial event, which has a history of discovering major opera stars, with a gala concert featuring previous winners and competitors. The stated reason is that the usual venue, St. David's Hall, is under repairs, though there are other venues in Cardiff. - BBC
Centaur Properties, owner of the McKittrick Hotel, where the immersive production has been playing since 2010, has been in a legal contretemps with PDNYC (the entity producing Sleep No More) for months. The latest development has Centaur demanding back rent and seeking dismissal of a PDNYC lawsuit. - The Real Deal
As the orchestra prepares, with new music director Jeffrey Kahane on the podium, to begin its third and most ambitious season, a struggle has broken out among the Board of Directors, with members apparently trying to replace each other for reasons as yet unclear. - San Antonio Report
On October 14, 2022, Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland started the protest-fossil-fuel-subsidies-and-call-attention-to-climate-change-by-vandalizing-artworks phenomenon by throwing tomato soup at van Gogh's "Sunflowers" at London's National Gallery. The judge in their case told them to prepare themselves for prison when they are sentenced on September 27. - BBC
The four unions representing over 14,000 "cast members" at Disney's southern California resort properties ratified a three-year agreement which includes an immediate 20% increase in pay and a minimum starting wage of $24 an hour as well as, for the first time, longevity pay. - Deadline
"(He) was considered one of the most original and prolific musical voices in Europe and the most performed German composer of contemporary classical music. … He insisted that great art results from aesthetic liberty and intellectual rigor, not adherence to predetermined ideas about beauty." - The New York Times
