"What is consistently missing in the national conversation about book banning: the voices of those children and teenagers who see their experiences in print and finally realize they aren’t alone." - The New York Times
This is the future of ChatGPT. "Watson should be bragging in its stilted voice, not fading into irrelevance. But its trajectory is happening all over again; part of what doomed the technology is now poised to chip away at the potential of popular AI products today." - The Atlantic
"Generally, there is something subversive and inspiring about the people Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara chooses to immortalize (RuPaul! David Bowie!), which raises the question, what 'big dreams' did Prince Charles have as the lifelong successor to his mother’s empire and the £1 billion Duchy of Cornwall?" - LitHub
Arreguín "fused the tools of classical oil painting with Mexican folk traditions, compressing fine art and ancient craft into stretched canvases that often stood taller than he did. ... For 60 years he painted with few pauses, channeling explosive energy into methodically composed canvases." - Hyperallergic
Jenna Segal is intent on buying art by women from Peggy Guggenheim's 1943 Exhibition of 31 Women. That show contained "names that would later be etched into history," including Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, and Meret Oppenheim. - The New York Times
The Asian American bookstore was never just abou the books - the owners' vision was to create a place "that used books and reading and knowledge to create unity, and to be able to bring people more and more into the movement to change the world." - NPR
The Jerry Springer show had many iconic sounds, but one of its best-known "was added in post-production: the 1,000 hertz censor bleep, which became more prevalent as the behavior on the show grew more profane." - Fast Company
"The concept was inspired by the banyan trees that guard the entrance to many villages in Guangdong, where many early Chinese immigrants to Los Angeles originated. Except these trees will not be living. Instead, they will be fabricated in a petrified state." - Los Angeles Times
Asghar's When We Were Sisters "follows three orphaned Muslim-American siblings left to raise one another in the aftermath of their parents' death. The prize jury wrote that Asghar 'weaves narrative threads as exacting and spare as luminous poems.'" - NPR
But the years melted away in a very special Sweeney Todd and Hamilton mashup on Friday: "The entire cast of the current Sondheim revival joined Lin-Manuel Miranda and the cast of Broadway's Hamilton to perform a special mash-up of songs from the two shows' scores." - Playbill
Her foundation helped many a theatre in New York and beyond. "There were rules: Productions had to be run by accredited nonprofit theaters; a full script, along with a 500-word statement, had to be submitted; and musicals need not apply." - The New York Times
"When someone says we ought to separate the art from the artist, they’re saying: 'Remove the stain.' Let the work be unstained. But that’s not how stains work. We watch the glass fall to the floor; we don’t get to decide whether the wine will spread." - The Guardian (UK)
"If we all know that the largest children’s publisher in the country, the one with the most access to schools, is capitulating behind closed doors and asking authors to change their works ... there’s no way you as a marginalized author can find an audience." - The New York Times
As we await Monday's prize announcements, here's a look back at Jennifer Egan, Colson Whitehead, Louise Erdrich, Colson Whitehead (again), Cormac McCarthy, Elizabeth Strout, Marilynne Robinson, and many more. - LitHub
Maybe this isn't great timing - for the streamers, anyway. For instance: "On Friday, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav announced that the company’s streaming division, including HBO Max (soon known as Max), made $50 million in profits during the first quarter of 2023." - HuffPost
