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Bruce Willis Diagnosed With Frontotemporal Dementia

Last year the 67-year-old actor retired after receiving a formal diagnosis of aphasia.  His condition has now worsened: he's suffering progressive loss of nerve cells in his brain's frontal and temporal lobes.  There is currently no treatment for the disorder. - The Hollywood Reporter

The Architect Who’ll Renovate Greece’s National Archaeological Museum Is David Chipperfield. Some Greeks Are Furious.

"Before the proposed design had been chosen, the Association of Greek Architects had threatened to (go to) the country's supreme administrative court after it became clear that only award-winning foreign firms with experience in museum work would be permitted to participate." - The Guardian

Judge Orders Paris’s Musée d’Orsay To Restitute Four Major Impressionist Paintings Stolen By The Nazis

"The group includes Renoir's 1883 seascape Marine Guernesey, and a study, completed around 1908, for The Judgement of Paris (in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art), as well as Gauguin's Still life with mandolin (1885) and a watercolor titled Undergrowth (1890-1892) by Cézanne." - ARTnews

How Craft Beer Creates Community

In 2015 there were 4,803 craft breweries in the US, by 2021 there were 9,118. Equally important is the ideological shift in the beer market they signify. Big beer singularly seeks and values profit. Craft beer, while also motivated by profit, equally values community, quality and independence. - The Conversation

Defending JK Rowling

This campaign against Rowling is as dangerous as it is absurd. The brutal stabbing of Salman Rushdie last summer is a forceful reminder of what can happen when writers are demonized. And in Rowling’s case, the characterization of her as a transphobe doesn’t square with her actual views. - The New York Times

The Case For Everything-Is-Math

The mathematics that's all around us, after all, doesn't come to us smoothly, in neatly formed themes or topics or packages. It's not separated into ascending levels of difficulty. It's not necessarily chronological, certainly not alphabetical, never orderly. - Shaastra

The Culture Battle Over Snark And Superficial Knowingness

The current state of public discourse, if it’s even worthy of that name, is a strange fusion where smarm and snark wrestle and embrace one another in vicious shadowy vacuums. It is less clear than ever which side is winning. - LitHub

Japan’s Anti-Disney Theme Park

Disney is, famously, a vast corporate content farm, with all artistic choices carefully examined by an assembly line of executives, marketers, focus groups, etc. Whereas Miyazaki’s vision is absolutely his own. Despite its global success, Studio Ghibli has remained quirky and unpredictable. - The New York Times

Theatre Audience Behavior Is Getting Worse, In Part Because Of… Marketing?

West End Theatres: “We are talking to them about marketing. So, when we market shows let’s not have phrases such as ‘best party in town’ or ‘dancing in the aisles’ – the show has something much stronger than that to sell.” - The Guardian

Why Bertolt Brecht’s Plays Still Attract Directors And Audiences On Six Continents

Even 67 years after his death, the left-wing firebrand's work gets produced from Germany to Japan to Togo (Mother Courage is currently being staged in Lomé) to Russia — well, at some points, but not just now. - Deutsche Welle

Why AI-Produced Art Makes Artists More Valuable

Instead of thinking of AI-generated art as a doomsday development — a cluster-bomb thrown by Big Tech into the heart of the art world — you can think of it as something with its own fascinating history, intoxicating present and unknown future. Something to be curious about. - Washington Post

A “Documentary Opera” Asks What Russians Really Think About Russia

In what seems to be a cross between an Anna Deavere Smith interview-based theater piece and Gavin Bryars's Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet, composer Eugene Birman has layered original music with candid quotes given by Russians in darkened booths. The title is Russia: Today. - The New York Times

Tate Britain To Rehang Its Collection For First Time In Ten Years, Giving More Prominence To Women Artists

As part of its commitment to diversifying its collections, great female artists from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries – including some never seen at Tate before – will be given prominent positions. - The Guardian

All Those Dealers Selling Stolen Antiquities?  This Man Was Their Biggest Customer

"Starting in the 1980s, (Michael) Steinhardt amassed one of the world's great collections of antiquities. Renowned for their breadth and quality, his private holdings spanned centuries and rivaled those of many museums. ... (Prosecutors believe he) was the principal buyer in some of the world's most prolific antiquities-trafficking networks." - New York Magazine

Ukrainian National Orchestra Arrives At Carnegie Hall

The Carnegie performance was added last spring. The hall’s leaders heard about the tour and thought that hosting the orchestra would help show solidarity with Ukraine. - The New York Times

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