Bookstores Are Awesome. Should They Charge Admission?

Why not monetize the intangibles? The Strand, and stores like it, could charge an admission fee. Something token, like a dollar. For a buck, you’re granted access to everything the store has to offer. You can browse to your heart’s delight. There’s no pressure to make a purchase. And, if you do buy something, perhaps the item costs close to what it would cost online, because all of those dollars would have allowed the store to lower its prices. – The New Yorker

UK Arts Organizations Are Struggling With Diversity

“For some time now, diverse staff working in larger publicly funded arts organisations, and in particular those producing work that is aimed at the mainstream, have debated how to help their organisations see that their value is not as ‘the representative of disabled audiences’ or ‘the font of expertise on all trans issues’. It cannot rest on individuals to bring others into the light of inclusion.” – Arts Professional

The 2010’s Have Changed The Ways We Perceive The World

“Most of the basic experiences on our phones didn’t even exist 10 years ago. In 2010, Instagram launched and the messaging app WhatsApp came to both Android and iOS; in 2011, Snapchat opened for business and Spotify came to the US; in 2013, the workplace chat system Slack launched. When Pew first began collecting data on the subject in 2011, 35% of US adults owned smartphones; in 2019, 81% do. Here at the decade’s end, there are 1 billion global Instagram users.” – Buzzfeed

There Is No Such Thing As The Brooklyn Accent

For all the lore that exists around “Brooklynese” (not to mention the insistence of the Brooklyn borough president), a pair of linguistics researchers found that there was no evidence for the existence of an accent particular to Brooklyn (as opposed to New York City as a whole) and that roughly three-quarters of respondents, native New Yorkers and out-of-towners alike, could not distinguish between borough accents. – Gothamist