"San Francisco Ballet’s Nutcracker season will kick off as planned, despite concerns that opening night would be canceled due to a stall in contract negotiations. Ballet management … reached a tentative two-year agreement with its union members on Thursday." - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
"Tortoise agreed to invest £25 million ($31.9 million) in the British title over the next five years and has pledged to keep publishing the print edition of the approximately 230-year-old paper. Under the terms of the deal, the Scott Trust will become a key shareholder in Tortoise Media." - Bloomberg (MSN)
When cataracts had rendered him almost completely blind, Monet finally agreed to the eye surgery he had been avoiding for years. When he recovered, he evidently gained the ability to see ultraviolet light, and thereby could see colors normally invisible to human eyes. - Artnet
Two researchers of information ecosystems find that the structures and mechanisms of improv theater and the right-wing media ecosystem are surprisingly similar — which explains why the latter's followers become so devoted. - The Conversation
It would have been unfathomable to dig up the famous cathedral before the fire. However, archaeologists now had the chance per a French law on preventative archaeology, which can be used “to detect and undertake the scientific study of archaeological remains. - ARTnews
The gift will enable the museum to establish a endowment that will fund the admission waiver in perpetuity. The gift went into effect the day of the museum’s official announcement on December 3. - ARTnews
His recipe for making blue pigment from the clay soil of Alabama is of one of the few things the great African-American inventor patented. Yet he never commercialized the process. Now, for the art triennial Prospect.6 in New Orleans, Amanda Williams has painted some structures in Carver blue. - CNN
With a crazed sense of humor and geysers of gore, these works demand recognition of simple and obvious facts: that looks aren’t everything and that everyone is going to die. Some will even be lucky enough to grow old. Why keep torturing ourselves to deny the truth? - Washington Post (MSN)
Just as it is with a medical doctor, discretion is part of Suzanne Siano’s business model — she does not reveal to anyone what works she has inspected or conserved. Some of the paintings in the Grand Palais booths were familiar to her as former patients, but she was mum on which ones. - The New York Times
“By suggesting that some works may be construed as hate speech and requiring visitors to sign a waiver, the sign not only misrepresents the purpose of the exhibit but also undermines the intent of the artists and the curatorial process." - Hyperallergic
Lianhuanhua, read by children and adults alike, are palm-sized books with two or three lines of text and one image per page, and they became hugely popular in the early 20th century. But their storylines, often traditional tales, frequently incorporated magic and the supernatural — anathema to Mao Zedong Thought. - History Today
The report concluded that while the AI boom will substantially enrich giant tech companies, creators’ rights and income streams will be drastically reduced unless policymakers step in. - The Guardian
While the people of France supported the effort in the immediate aftermath—within days of the fire, there were donations of more than $900 million—the years that followed were beset by pushback, controversy and outrage. - The Wall Street Journal
Music executives say Swift has raised the bar for the concert industry, not just with ticket and merchandise sales, but conceptual ambition, stage production, wardrobe and news-cycle penetration. - The Wall Street Journal
