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Playwright David Adjmi’s Having His First New York Production In A Decade, And It’s All In A Recording Studio

"(Stereophonic) unfolds in a recording studio, where a rock band’s protracted work on an album straddles a year from 1976-77. 'It really is like the process and the play are blurring because these people are in a studio forever (and so have we)." - The New York Times

Where Our Brains Save Different Kinds Of Memories

"Each time an experience is recalled, there are changes in the connection weights of the network, causing memory elements to get more averaged out. It raises questions about the circumstances under which “eyewitness testimony be protected from bias and influence from repeated onslaughts of queries." - Nautilus

“An Aesthetic Of Disobedience” — Oscar Wilde As Critic

As he wrote in "The Soul of Man Under Socialism," "Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion." - The Nation

Why So Many People Feel They’re Stuck In BS Jobs

Simon Walo estimated that 19 per cent of people in the United States believe their jobs are ‘bullshit’ and, for the most part, working in one of Graeber’s BS occupations significantly increased the probability that a person perceived their job as socially useless, compared with being in another kind of job. - Psyche

Influencer Boxing (Or, The Joys Of Watching Obnoxious Social Media Celebrities Punch Each Other’s Lights Out)

"This is the world of internet-famous tough guys and celebrities clinging to relevance, of manufactured beefs and emotional arcs plotted via training videos and podcast appearances. … What’s more entertaining: an eight-round heavyweight qualifier or watching family vlogger Austin McBroom knock out TikTok frat bro Bryce Hall?" - The New York Times Magazine

Portland Art Museum Got Rid Of Its Volunteer Docents. Was There A Problem?

Does reflecting the communities they serve mean reducing the role of senior white women, who made up a large proportion of the docent council? - Willamette Week

Shirley Jackson’s Horror Fiction As Grief Therapy

"A common trope in horror is that the character being haunted, possessed, or hunted is going through a personal agony — one that either helps them rise above the evil or destroys them altogether. … Grief cannot — should not — be sugar-coated. So we come to scary movies and books to relate." - Literary Hub

A Never-Before-Published Interview With Gabriel García Márquez

"What would be great is to collect all the myths that exist about me, because maybe they’re more interesting than my life!" Q: "Could it be that you yourself encourage these myths?" A: "Well let’s see …" (in English) - El País (Spain)

The Tiny Village Radio Station In India That’s Helping Fight The Patriarchy

"Meet 'Alfaz-e-Mewat,' a community radio station that offers a mix of group therapy, education, women’s empowerment and entertainment. … In this region — which has some of the country’s lowest female literacy rates and where violence against women is the norm — the station is the voice of change." - The New York Times

U.S. Federal Trade Commission Proposes Requiring All Ticket Sellers To State Service Fees Up Front

"The rule would not set a limit on the fees, but rather would require broader disclosures, including the purpose of the fees and whether they are refundable. This action comes as President Biden has made cutting down on the so-called junk fees one of the priorities of his administration." - The Hollywood Reporter

A New Alabama Sculpture Park Aims To Tell The Story Of Slavery In The U.S.

"When the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park opens in Montgomery, Ala., in early 2024, on a bluff flanked by railroad tracks overlooking the Alabama River, visitors will be able to arrive by boat — retracing the footsteps of tens of thousands of Africans." - The New York Times

Princeton Art Museum Decides It Has A Rubens

"The work in question appears to be The Death of Adonis, an oil sketch on a wood panel depicting the hunter laid flat as a boar attacks." - ARTnews

Winnipeg Symphony Posts $1.3 Million Deficit, But Things Aren’t Desperate Yet, Says Board

A COVID stabilization reserve fund set up by the orchestra's board has covered that budget hole, but with government pandemic aid over and attendance not all the way back, difficult times do lie ahead. Said the executive director, "We've known this was coming." - CBC

Is The Internet Less Fun Now?

The social-media Web as we knew it, a place where we consumed the posts of our fellow-humans and posted in return, appears to be over. The precipitous decline of X is the bellwether for a new era of the Internet that simply feels less fun than it used to be. - The New Yorker

Has The Internet Been Abandoned To Bots?

Under your nose, the Internet of real people has gradually shifted into a digital world of shadow puppets. They look like people, they act like people, but there are no people left. Well, there’s you and maybe a few others, but you can’t tell the difference, because the bots wear a million masks. - New Atlantis

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