Aline Kominsky-Crumb, ‘Ranuchy’ And Feminist Underground Comics Artist, Has Died At 74
Kominsky-Crumb "was known for work that was not only autobiographical but often bracingly sexual — focusing on her insecurities — and explicit." - Los...
Can The Academy Forgive Will Smith, At Least As An Actor?
Doesn't seem super likely. But: "If there’s a Best Actor race worth trying to sneak into, it’s this one, and Smith has been careful...
What It’s Like To Play Princess Di And Then Come Out As Nonbinary
Emma Corrin: "It’s hard to be discovering something in yourself at the same time you’re navigating an industry that demands a lot of you."...
Found: A Recording Of 18-Year-Old Stephen Sondheim’s College Musical
It's called Phinney's Rainbow, and Sondheim was a sophomore in college when he wrote and mounted it in 1948. "It's the stuff of legend...
Playwright Lynn Nottage Has Been Running A Theatrical Marathon All Year
The writer of Sweat and the most-produced play of this year, Clyde's, had three productions in New York this year. She says, "The mindfulness...
How Two Norwegian Students Accidentally Created TikTok’s Favorite Sounds
Twenty years ago, high school students Thomas S. Nilsen and Steffen Ojala Soderholm created "nightcore." But it didn't take off until TikTok kicked into...
New Theory: Children Made Stone-Age Owl-Like Carvings
"Archaeologists have previously suggested that they were symbols of goddesses that were placed on deceased people as a burial offering. It is debated whether...
The True Cost Of A Twitter Implosion
"There are whole nations whose political discourse occurs mainly on Twitter. The amount of reputational and social wealth that stands to be lost if Twitter collapses...
Ukraine Detains Eight People Over Banksy Theft
According to Kyiv's governor, "'The image is in good condition and in the hands of the authorities.' Other works in the area thought also...
How A Sync Made A 1985 Song A Hit In 2022
Instead, it took a lot of planning and some carefully waged campaigns. "While syncs have previously boosted older singles, they’ve never generated this level...
On Writing Memoir-ish Fiction And Reader Complaints About Not Enough Sex
Elif Batuman "expects from any book, her own included, nothing less than a real-time experiment in how we should think and live." - Paris...
Why Isn’t Season 5 Of ‘The Crown’ Damaging Charles?
Well, let's be honest: He just (finally) became king. Britain is not having the popular series' narrative anymore. (Also ... he's played by Dominic...
Mourning Los Espookys
Maybe HBO wasn't quite ready for a show that is creators couldn't even describe. "Imagine 'Scooby-Doo' as written by Jorge Luis Borges and directed by Pedro Almodóvar and...
The Rise Of Celebrity Broadway Producers
The presence of famous folks in the credits for Broadway productions isn’t exactly new, but it does seem to be proliferating. - The Stage
How Cover Songs Work On The Brain
The cover plays an important role in our contemporary understanding of music, so it is worth thinking about what exactly a cover is. - Psyche
It’s Getting Much Harder To Define What A City Is
The question of where to draw the line between what is and what is not a city—not to mention where one ends and another...
Canada’s National Broadcaster Rebrands
It’s a CBC mandate to find creators they haven’t spoken with before and to encourage those stories to be told through a variety of...
This Year Was A Huge Breakthrough For Artificial Intelligence
This year, we’ve seen a flurry of AI products that seem to do precisely what the Oxford researchers considered nearly impossible: mimic creativity. Language-learning...
Are Our Brains Quantum Computers?
Even though we have a good understanding of where consciousness originates — essentially via neurons sending signals to each other — scientists still aren't...
South Asian Novels Have Been On An Awards Streak Lately. Will That Help South...
This year's Booker Prize was won by a Sri Lankan, and the International Booker went to an Indian novel. And there's always Salman Rushdie. ...
Have America’s Cities Entered A “Doom Loop”?
Scholars are increasingly voicing concern that the shift to working from home, spurred by the Covid pandemic, will bring the three-decade renaissance of major...
Frederick Swann, Master Of The Mammoth Pipe Organ, Is Dead At 91
He was famous for his posts at the Riverside Church and the Crystal Cathedral, but he was most admired among colleagues for quickly figuring...
New “Democracy’s Library” Aims To Bring Research To The Masses
Democratic governments, at all levels, spend billions of dollars publishing reports, manuals, books, videos so that all can read and learn. That is the...
South Asian-Americans Are Trying To Reclaim The Swastika
The equilateral cross with arms bent at right angles has been a symbol of good fortune for Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains for millennia, and...
The Unstoppable Tania Leon
León says she never planned to become a composer, much less one who earned a Pulitzer Prize. - NPR
