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Director Of Paris Opera Ballet Resigns Following Years Of Criticism

Aurélie Dupont, who is 49 and has been at the company since the age of 10, was appointed hastily following the resignation of Benjamin Millepied in 2016; two years later, an internal survey revealed extensive discontent and dysfunction.  She departs on July 31. - Le Monde (in English)

A Zen Priest Wins The 2022 Women’s Prize For Fiction

The novel has the rather Zen title The Book of Form and Emptiness, and its author is American-Canadian novelist and filmmaker Ruth Ozeki (who, yes, is a Zen Buddhist priest). Among the other finalists for the £30,000 award were Elif Shafak and Louise Erdrich. - BBC

Why Do Dictators Have Such Bad Taste?

Their palaces and possessions are their trophies and their way of bragging to the world that they have succeeded. And they become the physical manifestation of their immunity from prosecution or public opinion. - The Art Newspaper

Welcome To The Cheech: Major Chicano Museum Opens

Cheech Marin has amassed a collection of more than 700 paintings, drawings, sculptures and mixed-media works by Chicano artists. In art-world circles, Marin’s trove of Chicano art is believed to be the largest such collection in the world. - The New York Times

A Fluxus Pioneer Explains It All

On June 21, Nye Ffarrabas turns 90. She is "in the midst of several new Fluxus projects". When asked whether she had any advice for her 20-year-old self, without hesitating she smiled and said, "Forget the 1950s."

How BAM Expanded Its Audience During The Pandemic

“BAM isn’t just for one audience. We were consistently sold out this season and more often than not had a standby line. That’s because the programming is doing lots of different things. And that diversity of programming allows us to reflect the diversity of this borough.” - Variety

Renee Fleming – Keepin’ On Keepin’ On

A good run indeed. At 63, an age when many if not most opera singers have retired, Fleming is still keeping extremely busy — and her projects have nothing to do with nostalgia. - San Francisco Classical Voice

In Which I Attempt To Convince You Of The Value Of Reality TV

For many Americans, watching so-called lowbrow, “mindless” reality TV — the type of content that doesn’t further our intellect in any tangible way — is just part of our culture. - Mic

James Baldwin On Fire Island

He had two stays in the gay community of Cherry Grove, neither during high season, during which he worked on Another Country (May 1959) and Blues for Mister Charlie (September 1963).  It wasn't a comfortable place for him, and not only because the Grove was, back then, very white. - Literary Hub

Russia’s Cultural Brain Drain, In The Words Of The Brains Who Have Drained

Actress Renata Litvinova: "I suddenly realized that maybe I'm never going back." Director Kirill Serebrennikov: "I continue to allow myself the illusion that my departure was not a permanent escape." Scientist Ilya Kolmanovsky: "With time, people will come to understand that Putin's invasion was also an attack on Russia." - GQ

New AI Breakthrough Makes Startling Pictures, Raises Questions About Creativity

It's leaps and bounds ahead. It raises immediate questions about how these technologies will change how art is made and consumed. It also raises questions about what it means to be creative when DALL-E 2 seems to automate so much of the creative process itself. - The Daily Beast

How Did Stanley Kubrick Ever Get Away With Making A Hollywood Movie Out Of “Lolita”?

"Forced to excise or elide some of the book's thorniest elements for the sake of (the film's) being allowed to exist at all, ... Kubrick flirts with bad taste by recasting sections of the movie as a dark comedy – a contrast that make its sadder moments all the starker." - The Guardian

How Much Responsibility Do You Have To Be An Informed Citizen?

There are two reasons why it is unclear whether positing a personal responsibility to be informed improves our information practices. - Psyche

Jaron Lanier: A Non-Obvious Way To Fix Social Media? Groups!

The point is that the people in the groups know one another well enough to take on the pursuit of trust and quality, and to rid their groups of bots. Perhaps the size limit should be in the low hundreds, corresponding to our cognitive ability to keep track of friends and family. - The Atlantic

Is It Telling, In This Age Of Mistrust, That Tom Hanks Is Playing A Bad Guy?

"At the end of the day, the only people who care about your image in a movie is the marketing department."  Hanks discusses finding his way into Col. Tom Parker (in the upcoming Elvis) and working with "a particular countenance that I carry into any movie." - The New York Times Magazine

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