In the summer of 2023, I read that YouTube had demonetized a podcast called “Fresh & Fit,” meaning that the show could no longer earn ad revenue. While YouTube didn’t point to…
Category: Arts + Culture
By not lip-syncing Amy Winehouse’s songs, actress Marisa Abela confronts impossible expectations in ‘Back to Black’
Like Amy Winehouse, “Back to Black,” the new biopic about the late British singer, has been no stranger to controversy. In the case of the film, opinion has been fiercely split about…
Rap ‘beef’ as public spectacle is a dangerous game that artists rarely win
The shooting of a security guard near the Toronto home of Drake is the latest chapter in the ongoing beef between the Canadian rapper and Pulitizer Prize-winning rival Kendrick Lamar. Rap battles…
I interviewed moms with 5 or more kids − here’s what I learned about the women who are quietly going against the grain
Commentators link America’s declining birth rate to a number of factors: a lack of support for mothers in the workplace, expensive child care, delayed marriage and a rising cost of living. But…
What America’s first board game can teach us about the aspirations of a young nation
Board games are booming: In 2023 alone, the industry topped US$16.8 billion and is projected to reach $40.1 billion by 2032. Classics like “Scrabble” are being refreshed and transformed, while newer inventions…
Palestinian writers have long explored the horrors of amputation
Words fail as 2,000-pound bombs shred lives and limbs. The sheer number of children killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza is devastating – at least 13,000 children in the first six months…
‘Hidden mother’ photos don’t erase moms − rather, they reveal the labor and love that support the child
Collectors relish so-called “hidden mother photographs” as historical oddities. These 19th-century images contain very young children held still by half-obscured adults who crouch behind chairs or lurk at the margins of pictures,…
I analyzed 3,356 signs to see how language use is changing in three Latino neighborhoods in Philly
Signs written in Spanish are becoming less common along North Philadelphia’s Golden Block, or El Bloque de Oro – which runs along North Fifth Street from Lehigh Avenue to Allegheny Avenue and…
Revolutionary work of art has spawned two centuries of joy, goodwill and propaganda
In early 1824, 30 members of Vienna’s music community sent a letter to Ludwig van Beethoven petitioning the great composer to reconsider his plans to premiere his latest work in Berlin and…
Gen Zers and millennials are still big fans of books – even if they don’t call themselves ‘readers’
CC BY-ND. Identifying with an activity is different from actually doing it. For example, 49% of Americans play video games, but only 10% identify as gamers. According to a recent survey we…