rereader2

To be fair to the contestants, they can pretty much only pick from a list of approved songs that they're given, so they aren't the ones that called these anything-but-arena-anthem-songs arena anthems. I believe the CAN ask for other songs, but then if their requests aren't approved they've lost the time they've spent working on a song they can't perform. And lets face it, most arena anthem songs are what huge arena audiences want to shout along with and aren't exactly good vocal showcases, so why go there? Frankly, the "categories" this year seemed to be mostly "here's a bunch of songs the AI producers were able to get permission for without having to pay a lot for that permission."

I remember that from last year--Anna Wintour said he was one of the only men there that nailed the dress code.

Benedict and Sophie are going to be among the hosts of the annual Met Gala on May 4. (That's the Costume Institute Fundraiser, for those who (like me!) weren't sure.) The full list of hosts is on Fashionista.com.

I don't like the board jumping because it makes it a lot less fun for me to play along, but I rather like Alex J otherwise. And I admire the restraint to not blurt out the first thing on his mind immediately--a lot of being smart is making sure you aren't doing something really stupid. (As for his demeanor and posture...it wouldn't surprise me if he weren't a little bit on the Aspberger's spectrum.)

IIRC, Apple takes 30% of every song sold. If an artist is signed with a label, the label is getting a big chunk of the rest, too--because of all those same costs. If they're going to be professional musicians, that's what they have to look forward to.

They definitely used to, and I'm pretty sure they still do. Obviously AI takes a cut, which they wouldn't do if the singers were selling music themselves--but if they were able to earn significant money selling their own songs on iTunes, they wouldn't be trying out for AI.

Ah! AFTRA, not SAG. (Interesting article altogether, thanks for the link!)

I'm pretty sure that, by law, reality show contestants have to join SAG and they get scale. Granted, that's not much, but it is compensation. They also get free vocal coaching and music arranging, and they used to get a "costume" budget and a stylist to help them choose their outfits. (I'm not sure whether that last is still a thing.)

I thought of omicron right away (Omicron Ceti was a planetary system in the original Star Trek. Who says scifi isn't educational?) but couldn't come up with epsilon or upsilon, although once I saw the answers I did remember epsilon.

The credit for the (Oscar- and Grammy-winning) song "Moon River" goes to the composer, Henry Mancini (you heard me!) and the lyricist Johnny Mercer. Without them, no singer would have been able to interpret it. It's a great song, and I've been humming it all day, but Harry was right--the arrangement was a bit piano-bar-ish. And speaking of which--it seemed to me that Harry was super-frustrated last night at not being able to get into a nice, long, try-it-this-way, try-it-that-way discussion with both Joey and Clark, the way he's probably used to doing in jazz jam-sessions. I think that also is the reason for his "musician" comment--those two are the only two that could be considered to be near his musical wheelhouse, and he probably figured that Joey was going home since Rayvon seems impossible to out-tweet.

It seems clear that Qaasim's mother has not made the connection between "people engaged enough to comment on the internet" and "potential future customers" (or at least buzz-generators).

There's an interview clip up at BBC Sport of Benedict talking about meeting Eric Cantona (? An actor and former "footballer," if my googling is right) and John McEnroe at last year's Laureus Awards, where he's all awe-struck at meeting his sports heroes. And he's currently in Shanghai for "promotional activities for the 2015 UK-China Year of Cultural Exchange," and there are a bunch of articles and interviews: Womenofchina CRI news Daily Mail During a press conference there, he talked about impending fatherhood, and filmed an ad for MG cars (video here).

I don't know about asexual in the technical sense, but I did take it as Sherlock saying he wasn't interested in relationships other than his work. Well, he says that outright.

It finally came to me--Jax's singing "accent" is that she's trying to pronounce everything like Carol Channing!

There's an interview with Mark Gatiss at The Big Issue; there's a little bit about Sherlock in it, but it's mostly about his other projects. (Also, it has some writing issues--"specialism"? DId the interviewer not know the word "specialty"?)

‘Sherlock’ Star Explains Why Being Out And Proud Is Great For His Career.

Here's hoping he finally wins one! (It's his third nom for Sherlock, after all.)

Watching the episodes themselves (as opposed to reading people talking about episodes, or reading fan fiction), I've never seen Sherlock portrayed as anything other than not being interested in sex at all for whatever reason, unless you count him faking a romantic interest in Janine. Even with Irene, the closest he got was deducing faster (which he clearly got a kick out of--but that's not sexual)--and calmly taking her pulse (which argues against any actual arousal).

It is more than slightly weird.

Steven Moffat Says Sherlock isn't Gay. (You'd think he'd know!) I think it's very respectful of him not to invalidate fanfiction that says otherwise--as he recently said flat out, "I refuse to mock it--because I'm a man who writes Sherlock Holmes fan fiction for a living!"--but surely he has the right to say what his own work is about.

Sherlock star Louise Brealey talks touring, feminism and reading love letters with Benedict Cumberbatch

Shakespeare's Richard III was evil, for sure. History's? Not so clear. (Certainly he did not make it a policy to kill off his enemies families down to the farthest possible relation, as his successor (Henry VII) did--but the winner gets to write the history books.) Benedict had some interesting thoughts about the service and his part in it.

Martin gets political:

Wonderful!

More from Letters Live: The Telegraph has a video of Benedict reading a letter from the young Alan Turing to Christopher Morcom's mother after Christopher's death.