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If Reading Helps Shape Our Brains What Happens When We Stop?

Will people's preference for video over text affect our brains or our evolution as a species? What kind of brain structure do good readers actually have? My new study, published in Neuroimage, has found out. - ScienceAlert

Composer Margaret Brouwer, Still Busy As She Approaches 85

"Eighty-five is a milestone, no matter one’s field. That, though, isn’t what Brouwer is celebrating. No, all she’s really thinking about are the commissions on her plate and the stack of older works awaiting revision or arrangement for other instruments." - The Land (Cleveland)

Why The Art World Has Been Taking Another Look At Rococo

So what is Neo-Rococo, really? It’s a contemporary movement that merges the delicate pastels, ornamental elegance, and sensuality of 18th-century Rococo with modernist abstraction and feminist perspectives of contemporary art. - Artnet

Peter Schjeldahl’s Death Marked The End Of An Era

Schjeldahl’s death was not just the death of a person but of a whole approach to writing about art. It was an approach that many people loved and that some people hated, because, on the surface, it seemed like he had turned art and language into one large epicurean buffet.  - The Nation

Nicole Ritchie And Paris Hilton’s Excellent Opera?

It’s an enlightening moment, one of many it turns out, in “Paris & Nicole,” a three-episode lark about Hilton and Richie reuniting to write an opera based on their decades of friendship. This art form, they learn with jaws dropped, isn’t easy. - The New York Times

I Worked For Ozy Right Through Its Collapse. Here’s What I Saw From The Inside.

"The story I saw coming to a grim conclusion in that courtroom was about more than a failed media company. … Carlos Watson may have built Ozy with big dreams and 'diversity' in mind, but as those ideas became corrupted by the superseding desire for capitalistic success, it all came crashing down." - Slate (Yahoo!)

What It’s Like To See Your Sexual Assault Be Made Into An Episode Of “Law & Order: SVU”

"Being violated and brought close to death is (a) psychological abyss, but living with the belief that actors and producers have exploited your rape for money, and that more than 5 million viewers, including some of your own friends, watch it for entertainment … will bring you dangerously close to becoming the Joker." - Slate (Yahoo!)

For Wage Theft At Disneyland, Disney Co. Agrees To California’s Largest-Ever Settlement

"The Walt Disney Co. has reached a California-record $233 million settlement with Disneyland workers over a 2019 class-action wage theft lawsuit. The settlement will provide back pay to workers at the Anaheim theme park, with interest dating back to the start of 2019," - TheWrap (Yahoo!)

Zakir Hussain, 73, Master Of Indian Classical Drumming And World-Music Fusion

Son of legendary tabla player Alla Rakha, who was drummer of choice for Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan, Hussain grew up playing alongside those superstars. He was considered the greatest tabla player of his generation and collaborated widely with musicians in other genres, from Yo-Yo Ma to Mickey Hart. - BBC

Martial Solal, Perhaps France’s Greatest Jazz Pianist, Has Died At 97

Best-known to the wider public for his score to Godard's film Breathless, he was one of the first European jazz musicians to get enthusiastic support from the likes of Duke Ellington and Oscar Peterson, and he went on to a nearly seven-decade career of world renown. - The Guardian

Dallas Black Dance Theatre Officially Loses Funding From City

The decision by the city council — to redistribute the $248,000 previously allocated for DBDT to other organizations — comes just a few days after DBDT settled, by paying $560,000, a complaint brought to the National Labor Relations Board by the dancers DBDT fired last summer." - Dallas Observer

A Game Company Now Must Pay For Manipulating Players To Buy Shiny In-Game Items

Fortnite “customers could ultimately receive $245 million for what the agency called Epic’s use of ‘dark patterns’ to trick millions of players into unwanted purchases. Another $275 million will settle accusations that the studio violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.” - The New York Times

How Pointe Shoes Became Such A Big Business

Dancers at City Ballet go through about 7,000 pairs of pointe shoes every year. - Business Insider

That Time An Advertising Copywriter Wanted To Write The Great American Novel, But Ended Up With Rudolph

At Montgomery Ward, Robert L. May’s “boss tapped him to write the children’s story and suggested it have an animal protagonist because Ferdinand the Bull, a popular animated short produced by Walt Disney Productions, had just been released.” - Fast Company

The Movie Version Of Maria Callas Isn’t Quite Accurate, But That’s Normal

“While we can’t claim to know what was going through Callas’ mind as she neared the end, we can nevertheless examine how much the external world referenced in Maria resembles the real thing.” - Slate (MSN)

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