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The Gang That Targeted The United States’ Small Museums

They stole Yogi Berra’s World Series rings. “‘These kinds of artifacts tell people the story of who we are, and they connect us to the past in a way that really nothing else can,’ said executive director of the Berra museum. ‘And now they’re gone.’” - The New York Times

The Many Reasons Not To Date A Reader

There are the bleedover emotions. There’s the tendency at a party to hide in a corner with an e-reader app open, looking like readers are scrolling Insta. And then … there’s the budget. - Book Riot

An Independent News Site Was Critical Of Facebook, And Then Its Links Were Blocked

After an outcry, Facebook apologized for blocking links to the independent Kansas Reflector - then expanded the crackdown to other news sites. A spokesperson blamed “a mistaken security issue” and then “wouldn’t elaborate on how the mistake happened and said there would be no further explanation." - Kansas Reflector

Japanese American Women Made Art During Internment – And They’re Finally Getting Recognition

"During these dark times, many people turned to art, and the Topaz Art School was born, where hundreds took classes in still-life and architectural drawing within the internment camp at Tanforan. The teachers were interned, too." - The New York Times

As Illinoise Opens On Broadway, Choreographer Justin Peck Plans To Conquer Hollywood As Well

"Peck, who has created almost 40 works for NYCB and other ballet companies around the world, is ambitious to bring modern dance to bigger, more diverse audiences on both stage and screen,” and the speedy opening of Illinoise on Broadway is just part of that. - The Daily Beast

Why Are We So Obsessed With Beloved TV Shows Sticking Their Landings?

There is no “final score” for a series. "The modern fixation on endings is partly a creation of the TV business itself. For most of television history, the planned ending of anything was a rarity. Shows aired until the money guys decided otherwise.” - The New York Times

Writers Must Be Able To Perform Magic

Myriam J.A. Chancy: "When history is a nightmare, all one can do is circumvent it, write another version, a fiction. This is what literature is for: rewriting, revising." - LitHub

Margaret Tynes, Who Soared In Verdi And Strauss, Has Died At 104

Tynes, as a Black woman, found little work in the United States, but "with her incendiary, full-throated voice, in roles like Aida and Salomé, sang at opera houses in Vienna, Prague and Budapest, earning high praise on the continent." - The New York Times

Cloud Atlas, At Twenty, Is A Tattoo-Worthy Novel

The complexity and melancholy of Cloud Atlas have inspired "cosplay, reader art, fan fiction and scholarship … in great quantity. It is a response that one might expect to a bestselling fantasy series, a video game, or the unveiling of a Taylor Swift album; rarely a literary novel." - The Guardian (UK)

It’s Not Easy, But It’s Possible, To Be Both Critic And Creator

Linda Holmes is not just any critic, but host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour and an alum of the revered sarcastic review site Television Without Pity. Holmes is also a novelist. How does she deal with reviews of her work, and, more broadly, how does a critic deal with criticism? - Slate

The Marlborough Gallery Is Closing After Nearly 80 Years

“Perhaps the real story here is how Marlborough managed to last nearly eight decades when so many galleries have only a decade in the sun. This confirms its business model of selling apparently timeless artists was pretty effective.” - The Guardian (UK)

How Richard Serra’s Work Will Outlive Humanity

“1300 B.C.E. Copper and tin smelters around the eastern Mediterranean encounter a shortage of materials and begin experimenting with some other ores, eventually producing implements out of iron." - The New York Times

Percival Everett Wants To Hear The Jeers

The author of Erasure, adapted as American Fiction and nominated for several Oscars, and the new James, says a bad review "might be fun? That’s gonna be kind of crazy, to be upset about a bad review. Like, what else can you expect in the world?” - The Guardian (UK)

If No One Will Read Your Academic Work, Perhaps You Need To Hire A Student Symphonic Band

Her climate change studies were getting a professor down. So she turned to the University of South Florida's school of music. "Composition professor Paul Reller worked with students to map pitch, rhythm and duration to the data. It came alive ... in ways it simply does not on a spreadsheet." - NPR

The Big Business Of Two-Actor Musicals

"Musicals with such small casts are potentially big business, in part because it can be easier to recoup their streamlined production costs compared with a traditional stage extravaganza, with savings on actors’ salaries, costumes, sets, makeup and more." - Los Angeles Times

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