{vibrant make-over}

On a subway train not long ago, I had the familiar, unsettling experience of standing behind a fellow-passenger and watching everything that she was doing on her phone. It was a crowded car, rush hour, with the dim but unwarm lighting of the oldest New York City trains.

WHILE routine often carries a negative connotation, the film Perfect Days (Wim Wenders, 2023) invites viewers to find beauty in the mundane. It follows Hirayama, a Tokyo-based toilet cleaner who finds contentment in life’s simple pleasures and the daily rituals that lend his days structure and tranquility.

In 2022, Penguin Random House wanted to buy Simon & Schuster. The two publishing houses made up 37 percent and 11 percent of the market share, according to the filing, and combined they would have condensed the Big Five publishing houses into the Big Four.