A series of papers, discovered in Florentine archives, concerns the emancipation in 1452 of an enslaved Circassian woman, probably abducted as a girl, named Caterina, which was the name of Leonardo's mother. All of the documents are linked to his father, who wrote some of them himself. - NBC News
"The site of Banksy's latest work, an outside wall of a derelict farmhouse in the seaside town of Herne Bay in Kent, has been demolished. … The work was confirmed in three photographs posted on Wednesday on the anonymous street artist's Instagram account." - The Guardian
"The Treasury had doubled the rate of the reliefs ... about 18 months ago to help cultural bodies recover from the pandemic, but the support had been due to be phased out from next month. Cultural organisations on Wednesday welcomed (the) decision to extend the measures for another two years." - FT
Increasing use of non-English languages and subtitles demonstrates both a trend toward linguistic realism in Hollywood and also broader acceptance of linguistic diversity in a globalized society. - The Conversation
“Art Basel, New World Symphony, the Miami Ballet — every single art discipline in Miami has grown and blossomed with the city. The only one that is shrinking is film exhibition and for absolutely no reason.” - Hyperallergic
Sensitivity readers can become the implied “baddy” or “goody” (depending on where you stand) in such cases, their service seen as the reason that changes have been made. However, this view assumes that sensitivity readers have more power than they actually do. - The Guardian
What is the purpose of studying at a university beyond job training? How can schools like Valparaiso, which emphasize learning outside of vocational courses, survive when a corporate-consumer model has overtaken higher education and exerted a powerful influence on administrators and students alike? - The New Republic
Lynn Seymour’s death last Wednesday undammed an outpouring of truly wrenching sadness from those whom this extraordinary ballerina injected with her poison - as the choreographer Frederick Ashton memorably said about his enslavement to Anna Pavlova. - The Arts Desk
Much of the reluctance to do what climate change requires comes from the assumption that it means trading abundance for austerity. But what if it meant giving up things we’re well rid of, from deadly emissions to nagging feelings of doom and complicity in destruction? - Washington Post
The goal is to spur more inclusive hiring in the film business, but some producers who are trying to comply say the process is cumbersome at best and privacy invading at worst. - The Hollywood Reporter
"Danmei is romantic fiction about men or male beings – ghosts, foxes, even a mushroom – falling in love, written almost exclusively by and for straight women." Most danmei authors use pseudonyms – for example, Mo Xiang Tong Xiu ("fragrance of ink, odour of money") – because of the Communist Party's disapproval. - The Guardian
In the end, Grand Central Madison succeeds brilliantly in its mission of handling the flow of crowds. But this is merely directing traffic, and we have the right to demand more from our public buildings. To be treated with dignity, for example. - Wall Street Journal
"Seed and garden catalogues sell a magical, boozy, Jack-and-the-beanstalk promise: the coming of spring, the rapture of bloom, the fleshy, wet, watermelon-and-lemon tang of summer. ... They make strangely compelling reading, like a village mystery or the back of a cereal box." - The New Yorker
The advancement of generative artificial intelligence is not an advancement toward artificial personhood for a simple, absolute reason: There is no falsifiable thesis of consciousness. You cannot find a researcher who can define, in a testable way, what consciousness is. - The Atlantic
"The dance video, in which the blue balloons stood in for ions, depicted how Checkers Marshall's Ph.D. work aims to make metal-organic frameworks smaller, more effective, and more useful for other applications, from water filtration to nerve agent detoxification." - Science
