Heaven knows there's a ton of social media videos purporting to show that the answer is yes. What do animal-cognition scientists think? - The New York Times Magazine

"In 1666, Louis XIV established the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris, which, unlike peer institutions in Italy or Britain, paid members a salary and covered their lodgings and equipment. … At court, (Louis XV and XVI) were routinely presented with the latest inventions or discoveries, sometimes even watching live demonstrations." - Artnet

Tussling with history and mythology, the film "goes all in on the idea that we still desperately need the old dyad of genius and modernist progress, that great minds, great thoughts, great works of human creativity can still transform us spiritually and materially.” - Washington Post

“What we have at present is a rather stark hierarchy of heritage. Buildings and artefacts are granted high levels of safeguarding. Yet culturally important landscapes, trees and rivers are left relatively undefended. Why the lack of equivalence?” - The Observer (UK)

Globalisation didn’t begin in the 1990s, or even in the past millennia. Remembering this older shared history is a path to a different tale, which begins much, much earlier. The tale of globalisation is written across human history. So why do we keep getting the story so wrong? - Aeon

To account fully for the phenomenon of bullshit, we require a conception that envisions the bullshitted to expect that someone completely unlike him or her in essential social ways, perhaps even the bullshitter her/himself, will admit the objections the bullshitted would raise, if s/he were allowed effective access to socially recognized means of objection. - 3 Quarks Daily

Two activists from the group Just Stop Oil used orange chalk to scrawl "1.5 is dead" (referring, in degrees Celsius, to the rise in global temperature beyond which scientists believe climate damage can't be reversed) on the naturalist's grave marker on the floor of Westminster Abbey. - BBC

The question seems crucial as the dawn of the second Trump Administration approaches. - WBEZ (Chicago)

The museum, in Hilo (scene of three deadly tsunamis in the past 80 years), has laid off its staff and cut opening hours, but the director and volunteers are fighting to keep it open in the face of a post-pandemic drop in visitors and desperately needed building repairs. - Hawai'i Public Radio

Spanish language factchecker Laura Zommer says, “Far from censoring, fact-checkers add context. ...We never advocate for removing content. We want citizens to have better information to make their own decisions.” - Wired

“‘It’s staggering and heartbreaking — I don’t know any other way to put it,’ said Ken Bernstein, principal city planner at Los Angeles City Planning’s Office of Historic Resources. ‘This is widespread destruction of significant architecture and places that are cherished in our communities.’”- Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)

“The argument really felt like a national security case and a First Amendment case walk into a bar. There’s two totally different cases, and you could feel everybody toggling back and forth, depending on which of those they thought they were going to win in the moment.” - Slate

“Members of the chorus staff received an email containing screenshots of a WhatsApp conversation containing images that were 'pornographic in nature,’ according to Chorus spokesperson Sam Singer.” Leaders say that none of the chorus members were involved, or in the Kanbar Performing Arts Center, at the time. - San Francisco Chronicle

Kyleen King wants to protect the “sacred catharsis” that audiences feel when they listen to music - and one way to do that, she thinks, is to "preserve what music is for listeners and also care for the people who make that music so their work is sustainable.”  - Oregon ArtsWatch

And why not? "Composer Ellen Fishman t”The musicians play traditional quartet instruments - two violins, a viola and a cello - but Fishman wanted one more instrument” - the double-bass, so yoga students could feel it through the floor. - NPR

"All of this is sadly familiar, as both the 2021 and 2022 Grammy Awards — executive producer Ben Winston’s first shows at the helm — had a similar charitable focus due to the coronavirus pandemic.” - Variety

That’s mere months after his surprise departure from the NY Phil. The Houston Symphony board president: "No one wants to work in an environment where they feel like they either can’t be successful, or they’re not trusted or they’ve got somebody looking over their shoulder.” - Associated Press

“The effect is electrifying, both intense – Moore used to talk about himself ‘liquefying’ during performances.” - The Guardian (UK)

Ben Davis: "The main issue that will dominate, I believe, is cultural institutions trying, and probably failing, to process the confused splintering of the liberal ideological consensus. A faith in a certain type of cultural politics has fallen apart. What comes after, for the moment, is unclear." - Artnet

Since the Revolution, churches in France have been the property of the central government, and most of them which aren't Notre-Dame de Paris can't attract millions of euros in donations for renovations. Some local churches, facing declining attendance, are turning to unusual means to bring in money. - The New York Times

Unwelcome back, bad old days: “Several works by photographer Sally Mann displayed at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth were reportedly removed following Texas Republican officials’ calls for an investigation into her artworks.” - Hyperallergic

“Having lived through more than 50 years of civil war in her native country, and having witnessed the fallout of that conflict in the displacement of millions of people, and in endemic political corruption and environmental destruction, she has watched those tragic patterns being replayed." - The Observer (UK)

As one of the many, many artists who lost studios and archives said, "It’s terror and despair.” - The New York Times

"For decades, the interior of the Temple of Our Lady of the Assumption (in Santa María Huiramangaro in Michoacán state) stood stark white, with blue accents. But ... a new restoration has revealed a host of resplendent 16th-century religious paintings that once spanned the ceiling of the historic church." - Artnet

In the short story “The End of Books,” one character says, "I do not believe (and the progress of electricity and modern mechanism forbids me to believe) that Gutenberg’s invention can do otherwise than sooner or later fall into desuetude.” - Open Culture

“I am not entirely sure if said snobbishness is about books or readers, and that, right there, is the ugly little thought that made me ask: Are conversations about escapism actually about what people read, or how they read it?” - Reactor

Yeats used the lantern to light his way on a winding staircase in his castle’s tower. A century later, a multimedia artist “carried the fragile artefact from Provincetown, at the northern tip of Cape Cod, in a ‘Grow Greener’ shopping bag, protected by layers of bubble wrap.” - Irish Times

“This is not a new story. Ernest Hemingway would not have had the time to write were it not for the rich women he was involved with. Marcel Proust would never have written In Search of Lost Time without generational wealth.” - Irish Times

Nnedi Okorafor, with her Death of the Author coming out this week, was "worried about exposing so much of herself in the novel: her early, life-defining accident, her sometimes tense relationships with her parents and siblings, … even her experiences as a successful author.” - The New York Times

Especially when they’re Black. Why? Diversity syndrome, "a cultural condition where the ‘otherness’ of an author is elevated over the impact of their work, to the detriment of the author, their work, and their audiences.” - LitHub

Jonathan Haidt and Zach Rausch: "Our evidence comes mostly from research done by 14 (state) Attorneys General. … The briefs include hundreds of quotations from internal reports, memos, Slack conversations, and public statements in which executives and employees of TikTok ... discuss the harms that their company is causing to children." - After Babel

In Cape Cod, the founders of Transom audio training, the Public Radio Exchange (or PRX), and the Moth Radio Hour suddenly discovered that Boston’s GBH had sold their house out from under them. The community is not into it, but GBH (seemingly!) could not care less. - Nieman Lab

“As the film’s popularity grows in Brazil, more and more people are reckoning with the country’s brutal history, and seeing parallels with the far-right there today.” - Time Magazine

“The wildfires added anxiety to filmmakers, performers, crew members and others in the industry who have already been worried about Hollywood productions leaving Los Angeles.” - NPR

We won’t see the Academy’s official nominations until January 19 to give voters more time amid the fires in Los Angeles, but if it were up to The Observer’s critics, Nickel Boys, Anora, The Substance, and even Dev Patel’s Monkey Man would be top contenders. - The Observer (UK)

“The glitziest awards bodies have all overlooked Jean-Baptiste thus far—although, in a rare moment of unanimity, the New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the National Society of Film Critics all awarded top acting honors.” - Slate (MSN)

Several past studies and subsequent clinical experience have shown that dancing can help with the physical symptoms of the incurable neurological disorder. A new study indicates that dancing can also help alleviate the depression suffered by many Parkinson's patients. - The Washington Post (MSN)

Rowan Moore: “The last thing choreographers and dancers want, I’m told by people who know, are spaces that swoop and curve in imitation of human movement. They want right angles, straight lines, fixed points and level horizons against which to gauge their actions.” - The Observer (UK)

"It was practised and watched everywhere, including during religious rituals, on the theatrical stage and in private houses. It was the object of nuanced reflections on the part of Roman philosophers and poets. Careful study of their texts yields hints as to what they thought dance accomplished." - Aeon

The star dancer has resigned as artistic director of Columbia (SC) Classical Ballet, at whose school he first studied dance and which he helped recover from the city's 2015 floods. His decision came in the wake of an abrupt 50% cut in funding from the city of Columbia. - Free Times (Columbia, SC)

"This (550-seater) is the fourth Sadler’s Wells stage, after the original site, with its 1,500-capacity main stage and 180-seat Lilian Baylis studio, and the more populist Peacock theatre in London’s West End. It’ll mean a significant boost in the amount of dance on stage in London." - The Guardian

Just in the past year, two of the metro's major companies closed, as did the area's keystone performance space for dance. The dance scene is precarious and the current situation seems grim, but some see signs of hope. - The Minnesota Star Tribune

Jesse Green, who admits to being one of those New York critics doing the panning, has some ideas. - The New York Times

That deal is not metaphorical in Yannick Trapman-O'Brien's Undersigned, a show which he describes as a "psychological thriller for one." - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

The strike may have deep impacts for the entirety of the Off-Broadway ecosystem, as stagehands start to unionize across the nonprofit and smaller theatres. - The New York Times

How can theatres and individual artists position themselves as liaisons to the public to raise awareness about climate change, gun violence, mental health, and literacy? If people are worried about inflation and the economy, how can theatres be a force for economic good, seen not as an expense but as an asset? - American Theatre

"From December 23-29, Wicked pulled in $5,037,392, the largest weekly number ever recorded. The average paid admission was $290.61." The next highest, The Lion King, was over a million dollars behind, but $4.2 million in seven days isn't bad for a show that's been running for almost 28 years. - TheaterMania

With National Theatre Wales having folded last month, leaving the principality without a flagship English-language stage company, Sheen has decided to launch a new one, called Welsh National Theatre, with himself as artistic director and the first production planned for autumn 2026. - The Guardian

“‘Just as children need sunshine and parks and schools and libraries,’ Ms. McGrath said, ‘so they need the theater.’” - The New York Times

As the conductor turns 70, he says, “In Britain, I see how hard it is. The country has been used to making do with so little, and doing extraordinary things. But there is a tipping point, a crisis point, where you can’t go beyond. You simply cannot do more with less.” - The Observer...

Terry Gilliam: “While we were still faffing around, he had run all the way down the mountain, forded the river, run up the other side, into the camera truck, grabbed the right lens and here it was. We stuck it on the camera and got the shot.” - Variety

Stiller, who’s spent his entire life around Hollywood, says, "It’s kind of true that everybody will say yes and it doesn’t mean yes. It means no or let me think about it — more than ever, honestly. It’s a very tough environment now to get things made.” - The New York Times

Over the past few years, the British-born Harding has led dual, and often dueling, careers: conducting Mozart and Mahler symphonies one day, piloting commercial flights to Paris, Milan, Stockholm and Tunis the next. - The New York Times

He created 31 productions for the Vienna State Opera (some still in use) and 16 for the Met, attracting scorn from revisionists and admiration from traditionalists. "All the secrets of Wagner's Ring," he once said, "should be guessed by the audience or found by the audience." - AP