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Using Virginia Woolf As A Survival Strategy

When, 95 years ago, Virginia Woolf wrote Orlando: A Biography, she didn't know that her satirical, clever, sweeping love letter to an aristocrat would become a lifeline for trans artists across the world. - MSN (Los Angeles Times)

Who Should Win The UK’s Big Turner Prize?

Four finalists contend, but "I don’t believe anyone cares who wins any more. The artists successfully derailed the system themselves in 2019." - The Observer (UK)

Trying To Defend ‘The Humanities’ Isn’t Working – Not At All

"An atmosphere of urgency and calls for immediate action are hostile to fields of study like literature and philosophy that require a contemplative mood, and the pretense of knowing what one doesn’t actually know is hostile to forms of inquiry that demand an open mind." - The New York Times

Oregon’s Sleepy Capital City Connects Its Musical Youth To Classical Stars

The program brings students from rival high schools together in a non-competitive environment to work and play with pros. Project Chamber Music's "secret sauce is how it fosters real interactions between students and professional musicians." - Oregon ArtsWatch

A Play In France Reflects Life, Which Then Intrudes On The Play

After a play about Black Frenchwomen's experiences premiered in the summer in southern France, a series of racist attacks followed - and one actress dropped out before the play transferred to Paris. - The New York Times

Today’s Most Bankable Actors All, Suddenly, Seem To Be Irish

"So, what’s the craic with this Irish invasion?" - Slate

Cookbooks Are On A Mission

Some of them are, anyway, trying to help their readers cook for the planet. - Wired

Hold On, Merriam Webster, Oxford Has Picked A Different Word Of The Year

And it's the slightly iffy-sounding, if not meaning, "rizz" (chaRIZZma, get it?). The word even beat out "situationship" and "Swiftie." Why? Because the Gen-Alphas have some rizz. - The New York Times

Sundays With Singer Andrea Bocelli

Except for church, around the corner from his place in Tuscany, it isn't that different from other days. "When you’re a singer, what night of the week it is doesn’t matter. ... I can’t tell you exactly what I do before I sleep. I’ll leave that to your imagination." - The Observer (UK)

Susan Sarandon Apologizes For Her Remarks About Jews

Sarandon, whose agents dropped her after her remarks at a Nov. 17 rally in support of a cease-fire in Gaza, wrote on Instagram that her phrasing "was a terrible mistake." - The New York Times

Saudi Arabia’s Architectural Mega-Projects Are For Whom, Or What, Exactly?

"It will take to the limit the proposition that art can change the world for the better." Er, indeed. - The Observer (UK)

How A Pulitzer Prize-Winning Playwright Teaches Theatre To Her Students

Lynn Nottage: "American Spectacle has always begun with a field trip to the Coney Island Circus Sideshow. ... We also go to vogue balls, courtroom trials, and megachurches. The event that the students especially love, which I never would have anticipated, is wrestling." - Paris Review

Do Poor And Lower-Middle Class Kids Deserve Access To The Humanities?

West Virginia says no. "For most students, their state’s main public university remains their best hope of breaching the walls of class difference. As the ax falls, that idealistic mission fades, and inequalities widen." - The Atlantic

Booker Winner Paul Lynch On His Dystopian Novel

Lynch has been incessantly (after the prize) "asked for his views on far right movements in Western Europe and about the recent riots in Dublin that were sparked by right wing agitators — an event that he found both shocking and depressingly predictable." - The New York Times

Bologna Decides To Repair Its 12-Century Leaning Tower

"The city’s mayor, Matteo Lepore, noted in a debate earlier this month that the Garisenda tower had leaned since it was built 'and has been a concern ever since.'" - The Guardian (UK)

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