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The Painter Of Bicycles

An interview with Brooklyn artist Talia Lambert. "So your painting studio is a loft, and there are bikes in that loft, and so finding the flow might involve kind of just really vibing on a bike that’s in there?" - Slate

The Sailor Who’s Now Got His Fingers On The Pulse Of The UK Art World

Mark Taylor: "It can be pretty heavy stuff out at sea, so I paint every day to stay level." - The Observer (UK)

Can A New Law Pry Open The Black Boxes Of Social Media Algorithms?

"A bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced a new version of the Platform Accountability and Transparency Act, which could force social media platforms to hand over valuable data about their inner workings to researchers and the public." - Fast Company

Caribbean Literature Is Having A Real Moment

"Kingston-based publisher Tanya Batson-Savage, founder of Blue Banyan Books, likens the region's literary support system to a three-legged stool with international media and festivals, book prizes in the UK, and the rising influence of social media in the book world providing crucial support." - NPR

The New Subway Art Of Los Angeles

"Viewing these underground art museums will cost you $1.75 (a subway ticket). The works on the subway platforms, in the station concourses and by the street-level entrances are large-scale and with strong points of view." - Los Angeles Times

A Hamlet, In New York, For The George Floyd Era

Director Kenny Leon: "Can I set this play in 2020, in Atlanta, Georgia, honoring everything that Shakespeare has on the page, only using his words, only substituting original songs that are more contemporary but nothing else?" - The Atlantic

The Hottest Venture Capital Money Burning Entertainment Weirdness Of The 2010s Is Back

But MoviePass is different this time. The old company was thrilling if you liked going to a film a day - and it also collapsed in public, exciting, terrible ways. "The new MoviePass is more boring, which might be good." - Slate

A Rare French Earthquake Has Damaged Homes And Churches

"The quake, believed to have been between magnitude 5.2 and 5.8 was felt from Rennes in the north-west to Bordeaux in the south-west. Homes, schools and churches were damaged, with hundreds of buildings declared uninhabitable." - BBC

In The US, Orchestras Are Gradually Diversifying Their Ranks

But the progress with Black musicians is incremental at best. Why is this so difficult? Titus Underwood, the principal oboist at the Nashville Symphony, says, "We must reflect American culture. And American culture is nothing without Black musicians being at the center." - The New York Times

Remembering Revered, And Also Beloved, Composer Kaija Saariaho

Composers rarely get to be as loved as they are honored. But Saariaho's "music has informed aspects of European, American and Asian music, and she is being well and properly eulogized. ... The adjective most commonly used to describe her music (and her) is luminous." - Los Angeles Times

Reading A Wrinkle In Time And Dealing With Real-World Loss Of A Parent

"I'm in Camazotz, I think as I drive to see my Dad. I identify most strongly with the book's Meg Murry, the ornery teen who not only shares my name and the anguished isolation I felt as an adolescent, but also my emotional reactivity and stubbornness." - Salon

A Story Ballet For A Hoped-For New Audience

Audience numbers are down at American Ballet Theater. So: Like Water for Chocolate. "For people who might not be familiar with the great abstract works of Balanchine or the classics, ... they might see a poster and think, ‘Well maybe I’ll go and see that.’" - The New York Times

On Strike From TV, But Staying Busy In Theatre

Tori Sampson is "one of the many, many writers who love the theater but who make a lot of their living in TV." She was in rehearsals for her Off-Broadway show This Land Was Made when the WGA strike began. - Variety

Carol Higgins Clark, Actress And Writer, 66

Clark was "a writer of popular suspense novels who infused the corpses-and-clues genre with doses of dark humor, while also teaming up with her mother, famed mystery author Mary Higgins Clark." - Washington Post

Center Theatre’s Shocking Taper Announcement Reflects Wider Woes

Post COVID-19 shutdowns, theatres everywhere are "fighting to keep doors open despite dwindling ticket sales, increased production costs and hesitant, recession-wary donors. The result: drastic cuts to programming, layoffs, candid pleas to subscribers." And this disaster in L.A. - Los Angeles Times

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