How A Grammy (Even One That Beats Justin Bieber) Only Sort Of Helps Esperanza Spaulding’s Jazz Career

“Everything I do is pretty much the same as it was; we tour like we used to. But the venues are bigger. There’s more access to publicity, so the promoters know there’s a better chance of selling more tickets. The good thing has been that because we can play bigger venues, I can bring a bigger band.” But Spaulding still can’t get her songs on the radio.

Don’t Blame Twitter; It’s Consumer Culture That Harms Criticism

Ron Charles: “We live in a consumer culture. Many feature writers are pressured to produce copy that their readers can ‘use’ — that is, use to buy things. Combine that with a thirst for clicks and views, and you’ve got the potential for abuse. (A freelancer for a women’s magazine told me recently that she’s been instructed to rave about the books she’s assigned, no matter what she really thinks. That’s not book criticism; it’s publicity. And it’s hardly ‘nice’ to the people who really matter: our readers.)”

Florence Waren, 95, Jewish Dancer Who Outwitted The Nazis While Dancing For Them In Paris

“Waren was a Jew in disguise, performing in a Nazi-held city where Jews lived under constant threat. She was a lawbreaker, hiding other Jews in her apartment, risking her own deportation to a concentration camp. And she was a smuggler, helping to supply guns to the French Resistance. ‘I think she was very scared,’ her son, Mark Waren, said in a telephone interview. ‘But I don’t think it was something she thought much about. It was simply what one did.'”