America’s Fastest (And Slowest) Talkers, Ranked By State

“To arrive at those state-by-state breakdowns, the analytics firm Marchex used what it calls Call DNA technology—software that analyzes call recordings to determine things like rate of speech, density of speech, hold times, and silences—on a set of calls recorded between 2013 and 2015. (These are the recordings that result when a pleasant robo-voice informs you that “this call may be recorded.” Marchex’s analysis includes more than 4 million such calls.)”

Raleigh, NC Gets A Ten-Year Plan For The Arts

“After engaging more than 4,000 citizens for input over the course of 10 months, the 34-member arts plan steering committee announced in January that a draft of the plan is ready, with eight overarching goals, both short- and long-term, and 63 strategies designed to help achieve these goals.” (The plan was approved by the City Council that day.)

Pina Bausch’s Old Company Has A New Director

Adolphe Binder, currently artistic director of the dance company at the Gothenburg Opera in Sweden, “will be the fourth person to run the Tanztheater Wuppertal since Bausch’s sudden death in 2009. “Unlike Dominique Mercy and Robert Sturm, who ran the company just after Ms. Bausch’s death, and Lutz Förster, who succeeded them in 2013, Ms. Binder has no direct relationship with Wuppertal.”

Filmmaker Jacques Rivette Dead At 87

“[He was] was the pre-eminent theoretician of the French ‘New Wave’ and the film-maker who, with Jean-Luc Godard, came closest in his own work to realising the movement’s aims and aspirations.” Yet he ultimately came to believe that there is no such thing as an “auteur” – “that ‘A film by Jacques Rivette’, for example, was a contradiction in terms.”

Renée Fleming: Next Season Will See ‘My Last Mainstream Opera Appearances’

“I don’t want anyone saying that I sang such-and-such a thing better five years ago. So I’ve decided that Rosenkavalier at Covent Garden and the Met next season will be my last mainstream opera appearances. It’s not retirement – I might be tempted by something newly written, but I’m not going to cling on. There’s plenty else I want to do.”

Nielsen Faces Sharp Criticisms Over The Way It Measures TV Viewership

“Nielsen, the 93-year-old company that has long operated an effective monopoly over television ratings in the United States, is facing blistering criticism from TV and advertising executives who see it as a relic of television’s rabbit-ears past as the digital revolution transforms how people consume entertainment. New competition — notably the $768 million merger this week of the media measurement companies comScore and Rentrak — is forcing Nielsen to evolve.”