In June, Gov. Abbott signed a law making it illegal for most businesses to require proof of vaccination from customers. But a growing number of performers are refusing to play venues that don't require audience members to provide such proof. - The Dallas Morning News
"Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie, an iconic modern art museum designed by Bauhaus pioneer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, reopened to the public Sunday after a six-year refurbishment of the glass-fronted building." - AP
The expatriate American singer-dancer, who arrived in Paris in 1925 and became a legend, will become only the sixth woman, and the first Black woman, to be included among the 80 "immortals" memorialized in the French capital's most august monument. - Yahoo! (AFP)
The agreement commits Broadway and its touring productions not only to the types of diversity training and mentorship programs that have become common in many industries, but also to a variety of sector-specific changes. The New York Times
Aleph Alpha, a startup in Heidelberg, Germany, has built one of the world’s most powerful AI language models. Befitting the algorithm's European origins, it is fluent not just in English but also in German, French, Spanish, and Italian. - Wired
Crudely put, it occurs when you don’t have the right conceptual tools for the job. The result is an inability to make sense of what is happening and a resulting tendency to force phenomena into crude, distorting pigeonholes.” - Nightingale Sonata
Hip-hop is so accessible to everybody – where maybe ballet and other styles of dance might have felt unattainable, with hip-hop, the only criteria is you’ve just got to be dope, and that’s it.” - The Guardian
While a melody can tether you to a song, however, it’s the lyrics that make you want to excavate it. The best songs pull you in beyond their hooky topline. - The Guardian
The rise of newspapers and magazines meant that tales of the bizarre and the outrageous could circulate widely and quickly, while the rapid increase in printed advertising made it easy to promote stunts and shams. - The Spectator
"With an acting career that began in the 1960s with a string of roles in Japanese martial arts films and TV shows and went on to include more than 100 films, Chiba became widely known in the west after being name-checked in True Romance" - and being featured in Kill Bill. - The Guardian (UK)
"'Five-thousand-year-old culture on my back; late-twentieth-century world in my face' is how Ms. Liu described her life-changing arrival in the United States from China in 1984, when she was 36 and already an accomplished painter." - The New York Times
The coronavirus strikes the show in DC again, for the second time in 18 months. "Museum officials pointed to international travel restrictions, the safety of the staff who would install the exhibit, and the potential that the pandemic could worsen." - Washington Post
It's not good: "A surge in construction by Azerbaijan, especially of roads, has led to either partial or full destruction of several cemeteries and cathedrals in the area of Shushi, a town with significant cultural importance to Armenians." - Hyperallergic
