For thousands of years, global wealth – at least our best approximations of it – barely budged. But beginning around 150-200 years ago, everything changed. The world economy suddenly began to grow exponentially. Global life expectancy climbed from less than 30 years to more than 70 years. - BBC
It's really "the near-total inability of post-World War II America and Europe to produce more than a small number of classical works that any normal person would want to hear. That failure is slowly killing classical music." - Wall Street Journal
People in publishing are increasingly nervous of causing offence. I have been told that some books are being rejected not because the publishers don’t think the books have an audience, but because they don’t want to upset an online mob. - Prospect
In theory, artists can indicate that a file containing their work, whether it is digital art or a reproduction of a physical piece, belongs exclusively to them by registering it with a time stamp on a blockchain, a tamper-resistant database. - The Globe & Mail (Canada)
“Before the war started we danced for our company and each dancer felt like they danced for themselves,” he says, “But now we are motivated to dance for our country. Before we were dancing for Kyiv City Ballet, now we have become something bigger.” - Globe & Mail (Canada)
"Culture really does become a matter of life and death, then, when a society is under pressure. This can be for good or for ill: how narrative is shaped can, of course, be damaging – or dishonest." - The Guardian (UK)
Do art auction houses have a responsibility not to sell stolen goods? This case would seem to say there's no such responsibility. And the statute of limitations has passed. But the researchers are still on the case. - The New York Times
Streaming could go a lot of different ways, but how will it go? "Streaming broke our TV-watching culture. ... It's totally fractured now, we don't have this communal TV-watching experience that we once had." But things could change. - Wired
"The days of 'cripping up' - a term disabled actors regularly use to describe those with no physical impairment playing disabled characters - appear numbered now." - BBC
Or rather, the fashion of re-fashioning old things into new, what one might call the "use it up, wear it out, make it do" style, is back. And not just because of inflation, either. - The Observer (UK)
The boy band 4*Town (with five members) from Turning Red is so popular on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram Reels, and the music charts (with music by Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas) that it's getting a book of its very own. Who's to say what's real? - Variety
Can Los Angeles media ever represent the entire city - or even some of Black L.A.? "I remember begging news outlets to come and cover what we were doing for the kids. But the only time they would respond was when it was something that was negative." - Los Angeles Times
92NY's CEO: "The 92nd Street Y is a lot like New York City. ... Amazing things happen here. But, like New York City, for a number of years we underinvested in maintenance and capital." - The New York Times
