"There are so many men – actual, documented men – this film could have been based on but, instead, it puts a woman in the role but gives her all the attributes of those men. That feels anti-woman." - Chicago Sun-Times
Once it learns a specific voice, VALL-E can synthesize audio of that person saying anything—and do it in a way that attempts to preserve the speaker's emotional tone. - Ars Technica
While the main Glyndebourne Festival receives no public money and is unaffected, its touring and education activities were supported by Arts Council England, which just reduced its grant by half. So the festival has had to cancel next autumn's tour to Liverpool, Canterbury, Norwich and Milton Keynes. - The Guardian
Many of the now-well-known cave drawings of animals include dots, short lines, and crosses; archaeologists suspected that they had some meaning but couldn't work out what. The new hypothesis is that the marks are records of the age and behavior of the animals that were drawn. - Smithsonian Magazine
"Author of dozens of books, Simic was ranked by many as among the greatest and most original poets of his time, one who didn’t write in English until well into his 20s. His bleak, but comic perspective was shaped in part by his years growing up in wartime Yugoslavia." - AP
"Jacksonville's Douglas Anderson School of the Arts has canceled performances of a play involving censorship and the first lesbian kiss in American theater, triggering a storm of social media debate." The county school administration described Indecent as "inappropriate for student cast members and student audiences." - The Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville)
Vandals in the crowd seriously damaged several paintings and sculptures and destroyed a couple of pieces entirely — this on top of the damage they caused to the landmark Oscar Niemeyer buildings themselves. - Artnet
"The Louvre in Paris, the world's most well-attended museum, will now limit the number of daily visitors to 30,000 'in order to facilitate a comfortable visit and ensure optimal working conditions for museum staff.' … Prior to the pandemic, the Louvre could welcome up to 45,000 visitors each day." - ARTnews
Following a three-month hiatus from conducting due to a neurological condition, Barenboim announced that he'll retire as general music director of the Berlin State Opera, whose stature he's credited with reviving following decades of Communist-era stagnation. - The Guardian
If you really dive into this thing, you’ll begin to learn how musicians hear, how they think, how they remember, how they forget, how they emulate, how they worship, how they fortify and defy their own tastes, how they communicate with one another, and, ultimately, how they experience the world. - Washington Post
For the nation’s viewers, I think, this juvenile practice communicates something unserious: Which beaming retinue can clap harder for its standard-bearer? - Washington Post
“We suffer from an overabundance of history not as a method of or analysis, but as anachronistic data points for the articulation of competing politics.” - The New York Times
The Globes have long had a reputation for booziness and irreverence. Will the revived ceremony still be seen as a less-staid alternative to the Academy Awards? Or will the Hollywood Foreign Press take the show more seriously? - The New York Times
Drawing on a rich tradition of comics that depict counterfactual and dystopian futures, this graphic novel breathes horrifying visual life into a world in which there was no peaceful transition of power in 2021. - The Conversation
We honor many protesters, past and present, who broke the law to advance a good cause. Suffragettes targeted great art in their struggle to obtain votes for women, and, unlike today’s eco-activists, deliberately slashed paintings. Today, however, we regard them as heroic feminist pioneers. - Project Syndicate
