From Sagrada Familia in Barcelona to the Vatican to Istanbul's Hagia Sophia, the challenge is that "worshippers, who often come because celebrated churches tend to have more services than regular parishes, need free access even as tourists often pay fees that are crucial to maintaining the sites." - AP
Last year, a team of academics from Columbia University and NYU published a paper with the eye-catching title “Work From Home and the Office Real Estate Apocalypse.” In it, they estimated that New York office buildings had lost 39 percent of their long-term value. Now, It's 44 percent. - Curbed
"To combat the excess of party tourism, new rules (began) this February — among them, a law that window brothels, bars and pubs in the red light district must close two hours earlier. Several months ago, the city also launched a 'Stay away' campaign to deter rowdy visitors." - Deutsche Welle
Every city changes. But the transformation of Nashville—which began a decade ago, and accelerated exponentially during the pandemic—has stunned the people who love the city most. - The New Yorker
"The poet Mary Oliver once described art as being like 'bread in the pockets of the hungry'. … (But) what does it mean when our pockets are empty of art? The result is a cultural climate in crisis, … (and) the squeezing out of affordable culture has profound knock-on effects." - The Guardian
In the spring of 1992, Barcelona was in the throws of Olympian joy and design fever. After 36 years of dictatorship, Barcelona’s nomination as host city for the Summer Olympics was a golden opportunity to reset and present a revamped, modern metropolis after decades of cultural, social and political neglect. - The Daily Beast
This week, Kankakee Public Library's TikTok features the former president "drinking out of a library-branded mug and leafing through a paperback. It’s the first in a series of TikToks that Obama has filmed with libraries across the country" in a pushback against book banning laws. - Washington Post
The actors weren't - and aren't - getting paid a ton. Glenn: Some of the other actors "were fucking famous as shit, like internationally famous, couldn’t go outside, but had to keep their second jobs because they couldn’t afford to not. We couldn’t afford cabs to set." - Vulture
No indeed: We're all essentially the background actors. "If a digital replica of you — without your bothersome need for money and the time to lead a life — can do the job, who needs you?" - The New York Times
Here's the issue with a lack of US regulation: "If the EU’s forthcoming AI Act isn’t matched with US rules for AI, it will be more difficult to ask tech giants to be in full compliance and change how the industry operates." - Wired
"Almost nobody is immune to the risk that A.I. could devalue their economic position, even though A.I. will also have widespread benefits." - The New York Times
It's our history. And right now, for a definition of "classic" that means before 2010 (!), "the availability of classic games is only slightly better than the availability of American silent films, or audio recorded before the Second World War." - CBC
"'I am sure that the feeling is unanimous among background actors that being scanned and having our likeness used in perpetuity for a one-time payment of approximately $200 is horrifying,' said Christopher Cosmo, a New York-based background actor." - HuffPost
"Stars including Elliot Page, Martin Short and Tatiana Maslany are among the 74 Canadian actors who signed a July 10 open letter calling for on- and off-screen colleagues in B.C. to vote down the deal they say uses them as 'a bargaining chip.'" - CBC
"The cultural nonprofit Mizhvukhamy is documenting these findings in Wall Evidence, an open archive created for future research (on) the Russian invasion." Some samples: "It was an order. Sorri." "I'll burn other people's villages with a smile." "Sorry for the mess, but it’s okay, Americans will help with cleanup." - Hyperallergic
