Sure, men have dominated comedy for a long time. But pregnant women aren’t about to let that stop them. And actually, says one comic, “When I got pregnant with my second child, things had definitely changed. … The managers and agents were all like: ‘Cha-Ching! Cha-Ching! Where’s the book deal? Where’s the special?'” – The New York Times
Blog
The Art At Coachella Is ‘So Sick!’
The music festival actually commissions several massive artworks to go with each year. At first, it was connected closely with Burning Man; now, 20 years in, things are slightly more international. “‘It’s a great canvas: It’s green, lush, and the sky,’ says Poetic Kinetics leader Patrick Shearn of creating his kinetic artworks for the wide-open Indio setting. ‘Anything that breaks the skyline is something they’re looking for — and spectacle.'” – Los Angeles Times
Should Notre Dame Get A Modern Spire?
Architects weigh in. Here’s one opinion: “Surely, this is an opportunity to recreate a once-hidden – and now destroyed – timber structure with a modern, fireproof, lightweight replacement. The ideal outcome would be a respectful combination of the dominant old with the best of the new.” – The Guardian (UK)
The Drug Wars From Different Angles In Latin America’s Complex Narco Novelas
Unlike English-language stories created for the U.S. market, narco novelas offer “a compelling complexity in the face of the simplistic story lines that emerge out of Hollywood. Narco novelas generally dispense with the black and white in order to look at the world in shades of gray.” – Los Angeles Times
The Iconic Helvetica Font Just Got A Makeover
This Presidential Museum Got Scammed
The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum was all set to open a show on the Rosetta Stone, with accompanying Egyptian and Mesopotamian artifacts, when they invited University of Iowa art historians to prepare a presentation on the items. A grad student noticed that all was not right: About 90 of the 125 objects are “either definite or very likely fakes. … They obviously got taken and defrauded.” The Hoover Museum canceled the show. – KCRG (Iowa)
A Political Observation
The façade of the UN’s Secretariat Building is a mirage. – Jan Herman
The UK’s Biggest Contribution To World Theatre
Is … the circus? – The Stage (UK)
As Gen-Z And Millennials Drive Up Poetry Sales, London Now Has A Young People’s Poet Laureate
Theresa Lola, 24 years old and a former finance major who preferred poetry, is actually the city’s third youth poet laureate. She says, “Poetry was instrumental for me, to find my voice and to find my confidence, and hopefully it can do that for other young people too.” – The Guardian (UK)
When Your Career Becomes A Hashtag, What Happens Next?
In 2016, John Cho “became the unwitting beneficiary of #StarringJohnCho, a social movement that imagined Cho standing in for, say, Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible and Daniel Craig in Spectre as part of a wider calling for diversity in entertainment, and an Asian-American leading man.” And now, things are definitely starring John Cho. – The New York Times