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The Limits Of Extreme Comedy

Well, probably not, says an expert. “Becker found that audiences tended to react to those situations along party lines: If they already believed what they were being told, they were likely to find the comedy credible. If they don’t hold the same beliefs, the opposite effect can be seen.” – CBC

Pandemic Entertainment When You Don’t Have A Bubble

It can be creepy to feel extra alone when pods are enjoying concerts, drive-in movies, and more. But: “As we slowly adapt to living with the pandemic, many of us are realizing that the connection we miss to art and entertainment is as powerful as it is to our social relationships. It’s art, after all, be it a concert, a theater, a museum or even a theme park, that helps us make sense of or simply survive the moment we’re living in.” – Los Angeles Times

The Worst Book Endings Ever

At least, according to readers. (Yes, yes, everyone hated the end of Gone Girl.) Think of Atonement, for example: “‘I’ve never been more mad at an ending to a book, and will never read another word Ian McEwan writes as a result,’ wrote Brenda M. ‘Why would I ever trust a writer who has so much contempt for his readers?'” – Washington Post

Milkman Author Anna Burns Wins Massive Literary Prize

Burns, who won the Booker Prize for Milkman in 2018, has won the International Dublin Literary Award. She’s the first Northern Irish writer to win the prize (and was the first to win the Booker as well). She thanked the Belfast Library and said, “There seemed to be a black market in library tickets when I was growing up. … I managed to go into the building with about three to five cards and come out with about nine to 15 books.” – BBC

Baltimore Museum Of Art Chair Defends Sale Of Warhol, Marden And Still

Clair Zamoiski Segal asserts that “there is nothing short-sighted nor nefarious about deaccessioning. It is a regular practice, undertaken by every art museum in the United States. Assertions otherwise are simply a means of inflaming controversy and serve only to maintain the status quo of museums as repositories of riches serving the elite alone.” – ARTnews

It’s Probably Not Possible To Live A Contemplative Life Any More

The contemplative life hits us as a kind of sudden derangement, ripping us out of the fabric of life, driving us into libraries, bookstores, and campus events in desperate efforts to meet fellow travelers. But when we get there, we find that our eccentricity, roughness, and lack of training in academic gentility make such relationships impossible. Letters go unanswered, invitations withheld, applications rejected. – Chronicle of Higher Education

How a 25-Year-Old From Nowhere Became Podcasting’s Go-To Guy

Within a couple years of starting his newsletter, this random guy was able to quit his day job and become, for lack of a better word, a full-time expert, his pod-related opinions and observations quoted in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. His newsletter Hot Pod now has between 20,000 and 25,000 subscribers (a combination of paid and free) and earns six figures, he says — a substantial figure for what amounts to a trade journal written almost like a personal zine, mixing the latest pod news with commentary and asides. – Medium

The Case Against Pierre Boulez

When conductors manage to continue performing into their eighties, their colleagues tend to soften their views, even of maestros who were once feared and despised. A shock of white hair and a newly tremulous tone of voice in rehearsals has helped many former tyrants come to be seen as benevolent fountains of wisdom. I can think of no other artist for whom this transformation was as complete, or improbable, as Pierre Boulez. When he was a young composer and polemicist in Paris in the 1940s and 1950s (he did not seriously take up conducting until later), he seemed intent on burning down the entire music world. – New York Review of Books