"Commissioned by Harvard professor Louis Agassiz and taken by Joseph T. Zealy in 1850, the daguerreotypes — an early form of photography exposed on copper plates — show Renty and Delia stripped to the waist.” Now, the images will go to one of their descendants. - Hyperallergic
“PBS filed a federal lawsuit Friday asking a court to block the May 1 executive order by the Trump White House to cut off funding to public media, calling the move a violation of the 1st Amendment.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
At Madrid’s Bernabéu Stadium, dozens of music gigs took place in 2024 - until September, when everything came to a (non-screeching) halt when the stadium’s neighbors sued over the noise. - BBC
The dismissal marks the first action Trump has taken against the Smithsonian Institution since an executive order he signed earlier this year that promised to eliminate “divisive narratives” and “anti-American ideology” from the museum and research body, which is partially funded by the federal government. - Washington Post
The Sacred Harp, the collection from which the traditional American practice of communal shape-note hymn-singing takes its name, was first published in 1844 and has been in continuous use ever since. The compendium is currently undergoing its first update in decades; publishers stress that it is a renewal, not just a reprint. - AP
Artists that take inspiration from the headlines are often accused of “profiting” off these stories; whether that’s acceptable is a moral question, since as long as the work is fictionalized, artists are under no legal obligation to get permission from the source of their inspiration, let alone compensate them. - LitHub
“The original New York Trilogy owes a debt to the existential detective, a genre archetype whose cases carry themes of choice, isolation, meaninglessness; not just murder but mortality. … Questions of purpose surround the graphic New York Trilogy — unrelated to any existential searching.” - The Comics Journal
Reputation is part of national security, and the U.S. has historically enhanced its reputation by building relationships through cultural tools. - The Conversation
Look to this year’s “Summer Stipends.” These are small grants given to scholars to support new research, and the NEH typically gives out close to 100 such micro-grants each year, at $6,000 a pop. This year, the grant amount has been bumped up to $8,000, but only 18 grants have been approved. - Artnet
Rome was always an enormous shapeshifting laboratory of experiments in governance, administration, and interregional trade. Crucially, the military troubles punctuating the third century taught emperors to move away from the isolated centre of the Italian peninsula and closer to where things actually happened. - History Today
A former director of the Vienna State Ballet and La Scala Ballet after his performing years, Legris was the supreme classicist of his era. Now he’s back home, making a new version of the Léo Delibes ballet Sylvia, using a classical movement style rarely seen in new ballet choreography today. - The New York Times
Psychological studies have long shown how memories can be shaped by cues, doctored images, or repeated misinformation. What AI adds is scale and precision. - 3 Quarks Daily
“The point of all these actions is to chill speech,” Gomez told the small crowd. “We all need to understand what is happening and we need people to speak up and push back.” - Los Angeles Times
This is not a new problem but the TV Academy has not made any changes to the talk or variety categories to address the situation, which comes as late-night is facing its own existential issues. - Deadline
John McWhorter: “Sitting through a three-or-more-hour performance in a language we don’t understand is a peculiar cultural phenomenon, ... and it’s a big part of what keeps opera from reaching more people. ... The composers of yore had their works translated ... because they wanted audiences to understand what they were hearing." - The New York Times
