So late that went live on Tuesday

But Who Tells Them What To Sing? (Longreads)

On film choruses. There is so much behind this curtain. An excerpt:

I wanted to find out who among this massive group would be the one to say “hey, let’s add a chorus and have it sung in Sanskrit” or something along those lines. The answer turns out to be: Pretty much any of them can and sometimes do. What film choruses offer us is a perfect synecdoche for the collective, frenzied, and deeply mercenary magic that creates movies in the first place. It’s as likely that a director had the screenwriter invent specific lyrics early in post-production as that a subcontractor, assistant composer, or orchestrator jotted down some words or went on a Wikipedia deep-dive eight weeks out from release in a desperate late-night quest for a non-copyrighted text to use with a cue that might please a bunch of suits half a world away.

Thinking like a conservative (Claremont Review of Books)

Treasury Auctions During the Pandemic: Stresses but Few Surprises (Dallas FED)