The author says, “You’re living with [your characters] for months, sometimes years. And you’re locked up in a little room all day with them. That’s why 50 years is enough. I was ready to come out into the world. Now, she owns and runs a bookstore. – NPR

Seriously: Movies have “proved to be a tool of dictators, an instrument of propaganda and the weapon of ruthless, unaccountable corporate interests.” – The New York Times

“The scale of this quiet coup is staggering. … In practical terms, Roku controls the television home screen.” – Salon

The number one movie in Dad Cinema is, of course, a Kevin Costner classic. But there are many others, including classic Mel Brooks fare. – The New York Times

“I am just about to drive to East Germany to get a set [of passive Bandpass Filters] that used to belong to Deutsche Reichsbahn, the GDR train service. These filters often sound wonderful, and I have quite the collection now.” – The Verge

The New York Historical’s new wing features a show that’s “historically broad, thematically loose, unabashedly polemical, made up of equal then and now.” – The New York Times

But “his publicist, Erica Bolton, announced that his life and work would be celebrated in a series of memorial services to be held in places he has lived around the world, including London and Yorkshire.” – The Guardian (UK)

Also, can one simply voice one Minion? No: French animator Pierre Coffin has co-written and co-directed most of the movies with the small mumbling crew, and he also “voices every last one of the yellow creatures himself.” – Variety

Hayley Kiyoko was “resolute that a film version should hit on ‘all the classic tropes’ that she had watched in straight coming-of-age stories and also reflect her own experiences as a closeted teenager.” The film world was slow, so she simply wrote a book. – The New York Times

Ouf. “For the sake of our own editorial integrity, the Granta Trust board has now taken the decision that we will no longer engage in external publishing partnerships. We … wish our former partner, the Commonwealth Foundation, all the best in its work.” – The Guardian (UK)

“Asta Norregaard was a sought-after portrait painter among the rich and famous in Norway at the turn of the 20th century, but when she exhibited her work in the country’s capital, critics were quick to dismiss her pictures as decorative and frivolous.” – The New York Times

“Particularly curious is Irene Choi, who isn’t on the ballot for her performance as med student Joy Kwon, even though her character was essentially on a parallel track to Iverson as med student James Ogilvie.” What gives? – Vulture

“O’Connor was 56 when she died and still making music – she had almost completed a new album. To be a middle-aged woman in the music industry is a rarity, but dance isn’t so different.” – The Guardian (UK)

“What children know of ghosts, and at what age they know it, is murky territory. … And if you show even a very young child a picture of a ghost, in my experience they can often tell you that it is, indeed, a ghost.” – The New York Times

“Companies often claim to use only content that is freely available online, but the datasets reveal the quantity of downloadable music that developers can access even though it is not supposed to be free.” – The Atlantic

“The art director of Obsession disclosed her paycheck for about three weeks of work: $6,741.36, after taxes.” The movie has now made $300 million on a budget of $750,000. – The New York Times

“The first film I was able to get into after that meeting was an anniversary screening of The Shining (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1980). I’d seen the film before, but this time I realized that it was about an alcoholic who tries to dry out.” – Paris Review

“Queenie is not polished, nor noble or aspirational. She makes bad choices repeatedly, has terrible sex, and sends regrettable messages. She is self-sabotaging and self-involved. Readers either adore her or cannot stand her.” – The Guardian (UK)

The week’s most encouraging data is people rebuilding discovery of culture by hand. Bookstores are booming even as literacy declines (Lit Hub), summer box office has surged (Deadline), and the Book of the Month Club is somehow cool again (Publishers Weekly).

Against that, the machinery of choosing is consolidating fast. Penske Media swallowed what was left of Vox to become the world’s largest digital publisher (TheWrap), Fox spent $22 billion on Roku (Hollywood Reporter), and the Paramount–Warner Bros. merger approval drags on (MSN). Consolidation everywhere.

In Washington, a federal court ordered the Kennedy Center to produce a plan just to stay open (The New York Times). Then the Center board created an endowment named for Trump (CBS News). A House committee moved to axe the Education Department’s only arts grant program (Hyperallergic).

All this week’s stories below, organized by topic.

Corie Benton, President-Elect of the American String Teachers Association, shares the critical role of diverse voices in music training.

A supertall skyscraper, no less, topping out at 360 meters/1180 feet. The great Barcelona architect did a speculative design of a hotel complex in 1908 for a pair of Manhattan businessmen. AI artist Thierry Lechanteur has used Gaudi’s surviving drawings to create renderings of the project. – Dezeen

“The way we consume such content, by swiping idly on a glass screen, stands in stark contrast with the content of the content, the skillful manipulation of resolutely tangible material. It’s ironic, and a bit dystopian, this disjuncture, but I’m entranced by the videos anyway.” – The New Yorker

“When we recognized that people want to go out, that they want to be treated with good service in a good theater with good product, when we recognized that and gave them that, they just came back in hordes more than any other generation.” – Deadline