Svetlana Alexiévich published Voices from Chernobyl in 1997, 11 years after the catastrophe. Now, a new HBO miniseries is bringing the story to life for a new generation – “but for Alexiévich and the former citizens of the USSR who were living in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia at that time, it is still life.” – El País (Spain)
Blog
Why Is The U.S. So Far Behind Europe On Digital Privacy?
The U.S. permits shocking abuses of privacy online. Why? Well … “Congress’s earliest attempts to regulate computing in the 1980s and 1990s were embarrassing.” – The New York Times
Tchaikovsky And His Clever Auditory Illusions [AUDIO]
“Deep into the symphony, Symphony No. 6, there is a paradoxical passage that, when played, no one will be able to hear. This is because Tchaikovsky scored it to contain a musical illusion. We uncover the mystery of why he put it there.” – Slate
Dear iTunes, Thanks For Saving The Music Industry From Itself
In 2001, the music industry “faced an existential threat” because its “vanquishing of Napster turned out to be a pyrrhic victory: the genie had escaped from the bottle. Dozens of filesharing systems had come into being.” iTunes (even though it’s now bloated and terrible and leaving) “was a revelation,” and made paying for music online a norm. – The Guardian (UK)
After Protests And Outcry, Children’s Theatre Withdraws Lawsuit Against Sexual Abuse Survivor
Laura Stearns, the survivor, says it’s a bit too late. “They should never have made the motion to begin with. … It was an insensitive choice and it’s grown bigger.” – Minneapolis Star-Tribune
The Only Good TV Shows Now Understand Restraint, Not Endless Streaming Expansion
Just take a look at Shrill or Fleabag versus, oh, Game of Thrones, or Chernobyl. “Over time, length came to be correlated with quality, and with TV auteurs who declined to have their genius constrained by such arbitrary forces as ‘formats’ or ‘editors.'” Now the backlash has begun. – The Atlantic
Casual French Is Sprinkled With English Words, But Young French Workers Say They Need More
One young woman who is at “the university of Mickey Mouse” – that is, working in communications for Disneyland Paris – says that fluency in idiomatic English is a must-have for business. If you aren’t fluent, she says, you’re ashamed – and “it makes you feel excluded.” And the laws that help French resist anglicization may be part of the problem. – Le Monde (France)
Tharp Times Three
Twyla Tharp revivals bring to mind how we understood her 40 years ago. – Deborah Jowitt
After Ava DuVernay’s Netflix Series On The Central Park Five, The Prosecutor Is Dropped By Publisher
Linda Fairstein published 24 books after retiring as a prosecutor, but the new Netflix series When They See Us shows her “determined to see the boys convicted, regardless of inconsistencies and evidence that suggested their innocence.” That may be dramatized – and she has threatened a lawsuit – but the fallout has been swift. – The New York Times
Dr. John, Back in the Day and Blindfolded
The dazzling, dense, glorious career of the New Orleans musician. – Howard Mandel