User numbers of an app called “Bookclubs,” designed to help organize clubs, grew 240% from 2020 to 2021. Since then, its user base has been roughly doubling annually, the company says. The app currently has just under one million users with accounts. - The Wall Street Journal
To campaign for an Oscar, as for the Presidency, you need a narrative—some compelling story, decided on by a combination of the nominee, campaign strategists, and the media, that gives voters a warm, happy, check-the-box feeling. - The New Yorker
Cartography has become one of the most successful technologies we have developed for understanding the world around us. At the same time, maps have become important cultural and artistic objects that we value greatly. - The Conversation
For instance, moderators at the Perth Festival Writers’ Weekend in Australia were sent a memo titled "Facilitator safety tips." Among those tips: discussing with panelists in advance what are off-limits topics and ending (or simply forgoing) audience Q&As if they risk becoming too inflammatory. - The Guardian
The fact of the matter is that the problem is not our students. It is us: faculty and administrators who are too afraid—of random people on social media, hard-core activists, irritable alumni, assorted “friends” of Harvard—to allow a culture of open debate and dialogue to flourish. - The Wall Street Journal
"Speaking to those who labored to get the film onscreen — including stars Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley and Ralph Fiennes, composer John Williams, agent Michael Ovitz and Martin Scorsese ... — what follows is the most complete telling of one of the most important movies not just of Spielberg’s career." - The Hollywood Reporter
I still believe in philosophy’s capacity to seek truth, but I’m conscious that I’ve tethered myself to an academic heritage plagued by formidable demons. - Aeon
"(Dmitri Markov's) subjects were always the most vulnerable in society: orphans, alcoholics, addicts, homeless people, the very old and dying, conscripts and children. It was a side of Russia absent from bombastic official narratives under Putin, but one that was instantly recognisable to most Russians." - The Guardian
By the end of the long weekend, the eclectic crowd had created a radical system for describing and discovering online content that still directly powers web search today, and which paved the way for how all content is labelled and discovered on the open web. - Aeon
"The theater’s board announced the decision Friday, citing 'external forces during and after the pandemic,' including higher production costs, the loss of corporate and personal sponsorships, a decline in sales and a slow return of audiences to live venues." - The News & Observer (Raleigh) (MSN)
Whether Disney adults are embarrassing or enchanting is largely a matter of opinion. What is missing from endless comment sections is the fact that they are a creation of the Walt Disney Company – a character constructed just as carefully as Elsa or Donald Duck. - New Statesman
The film, set to begin shooting in Baltimore (of course) later this year, is an adaptation of Waters's 2022 novel Liarmouth (subtitled "A Feel-Bad Romance"). Aubrey Plaza will star as a compulsive liar and scammer named Marsha Sprinkle. - The Guardian
Prosecutors say the 70-year-old was chatting, first on an dating app and then directly on WhatApp, with someone he believed to be a 15-year-old but was in fact an undercover officer. He was arrested last month at the coffee shop where he had arranged for them to meet. - BBC
She began her initial term in 2022, and it was set to expire at the end of this year. With her contract ending in 2026 (at the earliest), she will get to see through the SSO's four-year project performing Wagner's Ring cycle in concert. - Limelight (Australia)
"Multiple reports published since last summer have shed long-awaited light on the fiscal health of the country’s dance sector. What those numbers say isn’t simple to summarize. … (For instance,) even when the changes in dollar amounts appear positive, adjustments for inflation erase most gains (and deepen losses)." - Dance Magazine
