"Valuable items can be seized by Hamas … or sold by smugglers. There is little funding and equipment to adequately excavate or maintain historical sites. Sometimes they are damaged in Israeli offensives. Yet a clutch of dedicated archaeologists and activists … (is) working hard to preserve the area's ancient past." - The Observer (UK)
Cable TV has become too expensive for consumers and providers, Charter Communications said in an 11-page presentation to investors on Friday, adding that cord-cutters and rising fees are contributing to a “vicious video cycle.” - The New York Times
"The dancers on this unusual summer voyage" — English National Ballet was performing in the 1,000-seat theater aboard the Queen Mary 2 last month — "were accustomed to the laws of aerodynamics. But here in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, hydrodynamics were their newfound adversary." - MSN (The Washington Post)
We think we’re gonna end up with about 15,000 more tickets sold than in 2022. And student groups are coming back. That was a big, big blow for many theaters and OSF as well because when COVID happened, schools shut down field trips and all that. But we’re getting student groups back. - Oregon Public Broadcasting
Best known for her English rendition of Don Quixote (considered the definitive version) and of Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez (who called her "my voice in English"), she was among the first translators to insist that her name be on the book cover. - The New York Times
"The result is Graham100, a three-year celebration that starts this fall at the Soraya. The (timing) is deliberate. 'We couldn't fit it all into one season,' (artistic director Janet) Eilber says. 'The company and Martha Graham's influence is just so pervasive that we needed three seasons.'" - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
Since taking office, President da Silva "has reinstated the nation's ministry of culture, which had been extinguished under Bolsonaro, and reversed decrees that had reduced funding for projects eligible for the Rouanet Law, a tax incentive for private and corporate donors to fund cultural programming." - The Art Newspaper
"Set to a budget of 200 million rubles ($2.05m), The Witness has grossed less than 14 million rubles ($143,000) in its first two weeks, with viewers across the country reporting empty cinema halls." - The Observer (UK)
"The bust known as 'Portrait of a Lady' was acquired in 1966 by the Worcester Art Museum, … dates from A.D. 160 to 180 and is believed to be a life-sized portrayal of a daughter of Marcus Aurelius or another Roman emperor, Septimius Severus." - AP
"Simon & Schuster was the only one of the country's four largest trade publishers to show an improved profit margin in the first half of 2023 compared to last year. While industry sales were generally flat, companies cited higher costs as the major reason profit margins shrank." - Publishers Weekly
He's responsible for some of the most important projects of the 1990s growth of central Los Angeles as a cultural and civic center, including the Anderson building at LACMA, the renovation/expansion of L.A. Central Library, and the Colburn School. - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
Regular journalism plumped up with NGO filler and paid for with foundation dough too easily becomes either risibly partisan or a kind of kitsch churned out without regard for anything someone might want to read. - The Point
"Peter Gelb is telegraphing to composers that stylistic conformity within the boundaries of a populist musical means is the only possible route to success in New York, offering rewards in exchange for lack of risk. This mindset would be unthinkable in any other discipline." - Van
At the British Museum, flat funding from the Conservatives has meant a real-terms cut in revenue grant-in-aid of 37% between 2009-10, under Labour, and now, under the Tories. - The Guardian
Salinger’s public legacy, a gnarled mess of copyright enforcement designs, First Amendment controversies, and the persistent desire to be left alone by the press, is one of America’s most unique. - LitHub
