New research builds on a growing understanding that the majority of the brain’s function goes to maintenance. While many neuroscientists have historically focused on active, outward cognition, such as attention, problem-solving, working memory and decision-making, it’s becoming clear that beneath the surface, our background processing is a hidden hive of activity. - Quanta
Taste is a subtle sensibility, more often a secret weapon than a person’s defining characteristic. But we’re entering a time when its importance has never been greater, and that’s because of AI. - The Atlantic
With the sudden closing of Small Press Distribution last year and the impending disappearance of National Book Network, the avenues for small presses in North America to get their books into retail stores have been evaporating. Enter Stable Distribution, a joint venture of Hachette Book Group and the Stable Book Group. - Publishers Weekly
Doechii, the Grammy-winning rapper, and entertainment mogul Tyler Perry made overt statements about the current administration and its multi-pronged attacks on communities of color. - The Contrarian
“The university would run the museum. The details are being worked out. Negotiations are ongoing and a finished agreement is months away with the anticipation to have finalization sometime in the fall.” - CultureOC
“The board directed the secretary to assess content in museums and make needed changes to ensure unbiased content, including personnel changes,” a Smithsonian spokesman said. - The Wall Street Journal
“Ms. Holdridge, along with her best friend, Marianne Mantell, built the label, Caedmon Records, into a recording industry dynamo by releasing LPs of such notable authors and poets as T.S. Eliot, Langston Hughes, Gertrude Stein, Robert Frost, Eudora Welty, and Ernest Hemingway reading their own words.” - The New York Times
To read for joy, for wonder, for emotional truth is to hold onto something deeply human. And in a moment when the stories we’re allowed to tell and read are increasingly politicized, if not outright banned, that act feels quietly radical. - The New York Times
The May 27 document, which reverses a legal opinion issued in 1938, could be laying the groundwork for Trump to abolish or dramatically shrink national monuments, which confer federal protections to millions of acres of federal land, much of it in the American West. - Washington Post
“Founder of culture and city guide Broadsheet Nick Shelton (explains) why the title is expanding from Australia and New Zealand into London. It currently has 85 staff based across Australia and begins its conquest of the London cultural media scene with a team of five later this year.” - Press Gazette (UK)
“Traditionally, TV creators pitch ideas for shows to big studios, which (front) the money to get the project rolling and then own the final product. … Duplass Brothers Productions acts as its own studio by assuming the financial risk to make its series itself (it knows how to keep budgets low).” - Vulture (MSN)
“The Metropolitan Opera’s stage door, a plain entrance hidden in the tunnels of Lincoln Center, routinely welcomes star singers, orchestra musicians, stagehands, costumers and ushers. But a different bunch of visitors arrived there on a recent afternoon, carrying stuffed toy rabbits and ‘Frozen’ backpacks.” - The New York Times
“Beginning January 1, 2026, major French museums — including the Louvre and the Château de Versailles — will charge non-European Union visitors €30 (about $35), up from €22 ($25). …The new pricing, described as a ‘differential tariff,’ marks a sharp turn in France’s long-professed commitment to universal access to culture. It’s also triggered a domino effect.” - ARTnews
St. Sophia, the 11th-century landmark considered the mother church of Orthodox Christianity in Russia and Belarus as well as Ukraine, was damaged by blast waves from bombs dropped on the Ukrainian capital last night by Putin’s armed forces. - Euronews
After months of increasingly public complaints by company dancers, Demis Volpi, an Argentine-German choreographer who succeeded company founder John Neumeier one year ago, will officially end his tenure at the close of this season. By mutual agreement, he is stopping work immediately. - DPA (Yahoo!)
