“‘We’re both interested in the accessibility of the arts,’ said 25-year-old Sian, who had come with her drama-school buddy. ‘I don’t know the show, but I know that the context of the song is her singing out to the peasants. And we’re the peasants!’” - The Guardian (UK)
“The industry treats reality stars like the animals in a nature documentary: They can be compelling as we observe them in their habitat, but the true talent must come from the people behind the camera.” - Vulture
Architects "balked at having their voices clipped. The compromise was to let architects write the texts they wanted (which can be full of jargon and a struggle to parse), and to let A.I. produce shorter, plainer summaries." - The New York Times
But the industry has new tools to help companies track down what songs are ‘made’ by software, and what are human-created. The focus could "enable more precise licensing, with royalties based on creative influence instead of post-release dispute.” - The Verge
The industry group argues that "$900 permits are not what is causing productions to flee L.A. That is just a drop in the bucket.” Unemployed workers feel differently. - Variety
The news "came as a shock to authors who were swayed by the possibility that 8th Note could help engineer best sellers with elaborate marketing campaigns on TikTok. Instead, 8th Note has started taking down digital editions of their books, effectively unpublishing them.” - The New York Times
A Gentle Reader complains about the seeming informality of some all-black women’s attire on orchestral stages. Miss Manners replies, “Surely women musicians can find long black dresses or trouser suits they can wear at every concert. … Miss Manners recalls reading about a cellist who …” - UExpress
In the wake of the nineties revival, ABBA’s music has come to seem so universal—pure, uncut, lab-grade pop, purified of any particularizing influences—that it can be hard to remember that it originated in a particular milieu, and a marginal one at that. - The New Yorker
Like its better-known counterparts in Bali and Java, the wayang kulit of Kelantan in northern Malaysia tells the stories of the Hindu epics Mahabharata and Ramayana — which is why the conservative Muslim government has suppressed it. Kelantan’s last wayang master has trained (unusually) a female puppeteer who’s updating both stories and puppets. - Hyperallergic
Jaws has earned the “classic” epithet. It invokes certain nostalgia for cinephiles and original audiences, many of whom fondly remember their first viewing. Aside from any cultural wistfulness, however, feelings towards the film may very well be a harkening back to a pre-neoliberal era when the embers of baby-boomer optimism still smouldered. - The Conversation
Abraham Lincoln was one of the punctuation mark’s supporters: “I have a great respect for the semicolon; it’s a very useful little chap,” he wrote. The American novelist Kurt Vonnegut, on the other hand, was steadfast in his derision of the semicolon. “All they do is show you’ve been to college.” - Smithsonian
What might have motivated a respected professional to allegedly take such high risks for such low rewards? Why is the police investigation taking so long? How did the museum not notice the missing artefacts for so many years? And why did the thief, whoever it may be, make so little effort to cover his tracks? - The Observer
“A deconstruction of the relationship between viewer and viewed, depiction and depicted, Las Meninas comprises a nesting doll of paradoxes that play with pictorial space to ask, Just what is it you think you’re looking at?” - ARTnews
The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a decision on Monday finding that the Trump administration‘s withholding of funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), appropriated by Congress, is in violation of the law. - ARTnews
Studies link loneliness and social isolation to increased mortality, dementia and stroke. Among adults, loneliness is linked to chronic diseases such as heart disease and obesity, and it is known to worsen job performance and commitment. - Aeon
