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Friday, July 16, 2021

The Movies Are Back. But What Are Movies Now?, by A.O. Scott, New York Times

Have you seen “F9”? How about “A Quiet Place Part II”? “Black Widow”? “Zola”?

What I’m asking is whether you’ve gone back to a movie theater yet. In the past month or so, as pandemic restrictions have eased and multiplexes and art houses have edged toward full capacity, a handful of releases have done well enough at the box office to feed hopes of a return to pre-Covid normalcy. Vin Diesel, the “Fast and Furious” patriarch, declared that “cinema is back!” and who wants beef with Vin Diesel?

How A Small French Newspaper Began The Tour De France, by Adin Dobkin, Literary Hub

Henri Desgrange watched the celebrations pass by on rue du Faubourg Montmartre. Crowds renewed themselves along the blister of a road through Paris’s ninth arrondissement, on the Seine’s right bank. The editor stood, stiff. His soldier’s posture had not yet left him. When he’d held his unit’s colors, his face set for the army photographer, it had taken effort to stay as rigid as his soldiers, three decades younger than Desgrange. Anyone who knew him would say he thought nothing of the gap in their ages.

‘I’ve Outlasted Them All’: The Spectacular Life Of The World’s Most Powerful Crossword Editor, by J Oliver Conroy, The Guardian

Every day thousands of people vie to outsmart one man: Will Shortz, the New York Times’s crossword editor of almost three decades.

Crossword fanatics – or “cruciverbalists”, in the parlance – must get their fix, and they prefer to get it from a man whose puzzle is considered the gold standard. Depending on a puzzler’s skill and temperament, and on the day of the week (Monday puzzles are easiest, Saturdays hardest), that puzzler may race to the finish, surging with triumphant dopamine, or shatter a coffee mug against a wall.

Thirteen Ways Of Looking At Censorship, by Suzanne Nossel, New York Times

“You Can’t Say That,” a collection of interviews conducted by the children’s literature expert Leonard S. Marcus, offers an antidote to the censors, elevating the voices of 13 authors whose books for kids have been challenged. Marcus probes not just what made these works controversial, but also the life paths that led the writers to pursue their subjects, and how they reacted to campaigns to muzzle their work — all of which are sure to interest their young fans, as well as students of free speech.

Where Loneliness Comes From, by Katy Waldman, New Yorker

Paging through Radtke’s book, I was again pulled in by the deserted streets and darkened rooms, and by the anonymous, sifting crowds. Ambience can go where words cannot. One can sink deep into the images of “Seek You” without realizing that one is looking at anything at all.

Behind The Numbers, by Philip Kitcher, The Hudson Review

That morning,
I was scrutinizing the statistics,
on my iPad, tracking trends,