"The 2023 iteration was expected to draw thousands of attendees to Washington in early August. But just weeks before writers from across the world were due to land, the Smithsonian abruptly canceled the event, citing 'unforeseen circumstances'" - possibly "controversial" content. - Washington Post
"Stars including Elliot Page, Martin Short and Tatiana Maslany are among the 74 Canadian actors who signed a July 10 open letter calling for on- and off-screen colleagues in B.C. to vote down the deal they say uses them as 'a bargaining chip.'" - CBC
"The duo mounted the stage and briefly unfurled an orange banner on Friday. They were met with boos and jeers from some members of the audience at the BBC's classical music festival, before being led away by security staff." - BBC
"'We have had so many conversations with our upper management about the issues we are trying to fix, and once it became clear that they would not budge on these issues, unionizing became the obvious choice,' said Ella Fent, Drunk Shakespeare United union leader." - American Theatre
Over the past few months, I’ve become an A.I. limitationist. That is, I believe that while A.I. will be an amazing tool for, say, tutoring children all around the world, or summarizing meetings, it is no match for human intelligence. It doesn’t possess understanding, self-awareness, concepts, emotions, desires, a body or biology. - The New York Times
“A truly alien alien is so incomprehensible that stories about them just become stories about human beings,” Jaime Green writes in her new book, The Possibility of Life: Science, Imagination, and Our Quest for Kinship in the Universe. - The New Republic
In Zulu, amapiano means “the pianos,” or “piano people,” and the genre’s name refers to its origin as a jazzy variant of house music—at parties around Johannesburg and Pretoria, d.j.s would sometimes invite keyboard players to improvise chords over the beats. - The New Yorker
Some inaccuracies were very obvious, while others needed more detailed detective work, and only became apparent as we got to know the music more intimately. - Classical Music UK
“There was this idea that, OK, industry and maybe some people left this city, so now it’s our playground." (the city’s population declined from about two million in the 1960s to about 1.5 million in 2021). “If you leave a building abandoned, it’s going to get filled with art.” - The New York Times
"State-of-the-art imaging technology has enabled the British Library to read hidden pages of William Camden's Annals for the first time. … Those pages had been either over-written or concealed beneath pieces of paper stuck down so tightly that attempting to lift them would have ripped the pages and destroyed evidence." - The Guardian
An artificial intelligence company in Delaware boasted, in a press release, that it had created 100 million new songs. That’s roughly equivalent to the entire catalog of music available on Spotify. - The Honest Broker
"Hungary’s right-wing government has fined a bookstore nearly €32,000 (12,000,000 forints) for displaying the award-winning young adult graphic novel Heartstopper in the children's section of the store." - Euronews
The reasons for the delay are being attributed to unexpected construction and redesign challenges that have emerged as the nearly 100-year-old hall undergoes a $125 million renovation. - San Diego Union-Tribune
For their US debut, Seoul Metropolitan Dance Theater and stage director Kuho Jung have adapted the "il mu" dance from the royal Jongmyo Shrine, combining it and other ritual movement with contemporary dance to create the stage work One Dance. - The New York Times
