How Esther Perel Turns Couples Therapy Sessions Into Podcasts

“Perel, a famed Belgian cross-cultural psychologist and educator who has written numerous books and given countless talks on the subject of relationships and sexuality, conducts these sessions based on a structural conceit: couples who apply and get accepted are given only one session. There’s a functional purpose to the one-and-done format. The scarcity raises the stakes for the people going into them, incentivizing a need to get as much on the table as soon as they can. The result, when documented, is a concentrated capsule of human drama.” – Vulture

Five Years After Charlie Hebdo Shootings, France Plans Center For Satirical Cartoons

“In an announcement made on Tuesday, the French culture minister Franck Riester said the project was ‘conceived and wanted’ by Georges Wolinski — one of five caricaturists killed in the 2015 attacks, in which 12 people lost their lives. Its aim is to create ‘a place for meetings’ to enable the creation and promotion of satirical cartoons and support their creators, the statement says.” – The Art Newspaper

Pastor Tells Musicians They Are “Thieves” If They Take Money For Playing In Church

Rev. Dr. David Antwi, Head Pastor and founder of UK-based church Kharis Ministries, made the controversial statement during a service. “You are a thief if you play church instruments and collect money. You are a thief,” he says. Rev. Antwi argues that the instrumentalists should perform for the work of God and not for financial gain. – ClassicFM

Nope – Reading Won’t Make You Better! (But That’s Not Why To Do It)

These studies miss a bigger point by implying that reading fiction is, at its best, a tidy cause-and-effect process. Enter intellectually weak and benighted, exit emotionally toned and trim, as if a novel were the psychological equivalent of kettlebells or a Peloton bike. Fiction’s strength, though, is that it delivers not order and clear direction, but mess and evocations of our unsteady state of being. – Washington Post

Peaked: Record 532 Scripted TV Shows This Season. Too Many?

There were 532 scripted drama and comedy series in 2019 on broadcast, cable and streaming platforms, a 7 percent increase over 2018, John Landgraf told a TV critics meeting Thursday. When FX started its tracking in 2009 there were about 200 shows, with streaming services responsible for the lion’s share of the subsequent growth. – Washington Post

Four Nonwhite Ballet Professionals Talk About How They’re Addressing The Ethnic Stereotypes In Classic Story Ballets

“[Lyndsey Winship] talked to dancers and choreographers [Shobana Jeyasingh, Céline Gittens, and Final Bow for Yellowface co-founders Phil Chan and Georgina Pazcoguin] about ballet’s slow pace of change, which problematic ballets should be thrown out and which ones could be creatively reimagined.” – The Guardian

Smithsonian American Art Museum Provides Long-Distance Learning To Schools On U.S. Military Bases All Over The Globe

“The museum’s educators provide lessons in art and art history as well as English language arts, social studies and even science and math. … The list of past subject areas includes surrealism, the Harlem Renaissance, the art of persuasion, the Civil War and Italian mathematician Fibonacci.” – The Washington Post