Stories

"It was embarrassing to want excitement, but never more than when looking at a Ruisdael did I realize how wholly I was a creature of the age of entertainment." - The Guardian (UK)

Holiday music can feel dark - and not only the mighty suspicious drink the guy gives the woman in "Baby, It's Cold Outside." - The Atlantic

The movie - C'è ancora domani, or There's Always Tomorrow - is the first film directed by comedian Paola Cortellesi, and it's about a surefire winner at the box office: Domestic abuse. - The New York Times

But that's just inaccurate, and misses the point. "There are plenty of people, elected and non-elected, who are far more deserving of our ire when it comes to the arts right now." - The Observer (UK)

"It includes bans on biometric systems that identify people using sensitive characteristics such as sexual orientation and race, and the indiscriminate scraping of faces from the internet," plus some copyright protections as well. - Wired

The poem pinned to the popular creative writing teacher's Twitter/X account since November is called "If I must die, let it be a tale." - LitHub

Actress Uhm Jung-hwa says there's a shift from the 1990s, when women characters were focused on finding husbands: "Now we can see many strong female characters boldly embracing life on their own terms." - BBC

Right, don't judge a book by its cover, but go ahead and judge the covers. - The New York Times

There are so many potential bottlenecks for the speed of something we rely on: "Each part of the network (such as switches, routers, modems, etc.) has its own limit on how much data it can handle." Can this change? - The Verge

Zephaniah, who refused an OBE, "was heavily influenced by Jamaican music and poetry, and he was often classified as a dub poet." - The Guardian (UK)

Then they made their own wiki. "Behind this seemingly amusing clash of nerds is a far more pressing issue: how to reconcile 20 years of Wikipedia’s core principles and values with the practical demands of present circumstances." - Slate

There is an expression often used to capture the power of the press: never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. Today the ink is barrelled inside algorithms we don’t own. - The Walrus

The question of the relation between one’s life and one’s taste has become a fraught one, and is still more troubled when the taste in question has a kind of public authority—as Sasha Frere-Jones came to have for readers of the New Yorker, the LA Times, and the Village Voice. - BookForum

“I often say that there are two languages: The words that I wrote, the words you can understand, and behind that, there’s a silent language.” And it’s in that “silent language,” he added, that the real meaning may lie. - The New York Times

Streaming giants in the region are increasingly placing their series bets on creators armed with a glittering list of prizes from the international festival circuit, and independent filmmakers and producers are making high-production-value shows with small-to-midrange budgets. The result? A veritable “prestige TV” wave on streamers. - The Hollywood Reporter