"In the post-pandemic era, Philadelphia’s cultural districts often look like the good old days: streets and sidewalks crosshatched with arts patrons animating the city's parking garages, restaurants, theaters, and bars. On other nights: crickets." - MSN (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
"Archaeologists said Wednesday that the ruins of Nero’s Theater, an imperial theater referred to in ancient Roman texts but never found, have been discovered under the garden of a future Four Seasons Hotel steps from the Vatican." - AP
"The 2023 Emmy Awards are officially moving off their usual September airdate as actors and writers continue their strikes against media conglomerates. … The postponement is the first for the Emmy Awards in more than two decades." - The Hollywood Reporter
"Consisting of 50 paintings, nine works on paper, and two sculptures, the donation represents the art of 39 artists. Among those included are well-known American artists like Georgia O'Keeffe, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Charles Sheeler, and Alexander Calder." - ARTnews
"His arts education charity, the Acosta Dance Foundation, has set up its global headquarters in Woolwich. Housing five dance studios, it aims to teach styles from across the world. … He said he located the centre in this part of south-east London because of the many locals with African heritage." - BBC
The world-ending devastation of the first scathing review. The righteous indignation at the first three-star review. No one understands me. Are these people even literate? Am I even literate? It’s all too much; it doesn’t make you a better writer. Block the site and focus on your work. - The Guardian
A Goodreads blitzkrieg can derail an entire publication schedule, freak out commercial book clubs that planned to discuss the release, or even prompt nervous publishers to cut the marketing budget for controversial titles. - The Atlantic
All the fears and complaints that Hollywood actors and writers have are a reality for musicians and songwriters, too. Yet the rockers, pop singers and hip-hop artists are not on strike to protest their paltry royalties or AI inroads. One big reason? They’re not unionized. - Los Angeles Times
Ironically, the education of more and more people in the United States has led to an expansion of potential audiences for quality, and progressive, history. It has also generated a series of unresolved questions about overt and implicit politics, style, and the identity of the historian as a writer and a public person. - Boston Review
The Dresden prosecutor’s office announced on July 21 that the two activists, Jakob Beyer and Maike Grunst, would be fined €1,500 ($1,600) each for the act. - Artnet
Yasmeen Lari, who's spent nearly two decades creating and promoting architecture for the poor using inexpensive traditional materials and techniques, has designed improved, flood-resistant huts made of mud, rice husks, lime, and bamboo for thousands of villagers. Each costs less than $90. - The Guardian
New music for old instruments is, of course, nothing new. Nor is the engagement by composers with varying degrees of historically informed performance. But in scouring the internet, there appear to be new directions revealing unknown aspects of old instruments. - Early Music America
"Democracy, it's been said, isn't easy. Neither is examining its terrible fragility through the form of a deeply fun, fairly avant-garde song-and-dance show. … Does real democracy stand a chance, if old-school authoritarianism has a good beat and you can dance to it?" - Variety
With each musician guaranteed $200 for an hour-long set, “we’ve presented about 400 concerts featuring 500 musicians, reaching about 18,000 listeners." - San Francisco Classical Voice
"Barbie combines the rules of the movie musical ... with the investments of a Beckett or a Ionesco play. … (It's) a highly symbolic exercise where theoretical entities get to speak for themselves, and where real people get to tell anthropomorphized theoretical entities what effects they have on the human experience." - Literary Hub