Yearly Archives: 2021
Seriously? Curators Crack The Top Five “Most Trusted” Professions
Curators enjoyed a 4% increase in trustworthiness across gender and political affiliation in 2021. Notably, however, advanced degree holders were much more likely to...
Big Entertainment Comes To Riyadh. But…
Mass entertainment events are no longer a novelty in the once austere kingdom, but there have been reports by local and foreign women that...
Schadenfreude For The Holidays: The Meanest Book Reviews Of 2021
"Among the titles being cast into the maw of the volcano this year: Blake Bailey's oozing hagiography of Philip Roth, Mitch Albom's latest cavity-inducing...
Can Machines Measure Common Sense?
Consciousness, thought, creativity, will, imagination, and agency — once considered to be explainable only through philosophical reflection were now reformulated as precisely defined cognitive...
Intelligence, Machines, And Why It’s Increasingly Difficult To Tell The Difference
Any of us have interacted with apparently thoughtful machines often enough—for instance, when on the telephone and trying, often fruitlessly, to get to a...
Why Cecily Strong Dares To Do “The Search For Signs Of Intelligent Life In...
"Of course I wanted to do this. The biggest reason to say no is, why would you ever put yourself in a position to...
How The Met Museum Dances Around The Looting Of African Art
If you want to see an acrobatic display of ducking and weaving in a gallery by people trying desperately not to set off any...
Mapping One Of Machu Picchu’s Most Unusual Features
"Pilgrims traveling to Machu Picchu in the 15th century were greeted by Chachabamba, a ceremonial water complex that was designed to demonstrate the power...
Joan Didion, 87
Didion came to prominence with a series of incisive, searching feature articles in Life magazine and The Saturday Evening Post that explored the fraying...
For Her First Piece As Choreographer, Tamara Rojo Remakes Petipa’s “Raymonda”
Says the artistic director of English National Ballet, "I am by no means Petipa, but what I'm trying to do with Raymonda is what...
Researchers: Where Your Sense Of Right And Wrong Comes From
The researchers found that higher conscientiousness – the tendency to be organised, hardworking and disciplined – was related to rating loyalty, authority and purity/sanctity as important...
The Lucille Ball Almost No One Saw
The first woman to run a TV studio (a job she never liked and only did after she and Desi Arnaz divorced), Ball was...
Nielsen Confesses It’s Been Undercounting TV Audiences For A While Now
"The media-measurement giant informed TV networks and other clients Wednesday that it has, since September of 2020, undercounted so-called 'out-of-home' audiences — the people...
Omicron Is Keeping Older Viewers From Going Out To The Movies
A YouGov poll of 1,000 Americans found that roughly 56% of 18-to-44-year-olds weren't deterred by the new, rapidly spreading coronavirus variant, with only between...
Baltimore Is Becoming A Matisse Capital
The Baltimore Museum of Art has roughly 1,200 works by the artist, and it's just opened the Ruth R. Marder Center for Matisse Studies,...
Millennials And Gen Zers Are Flocking To The Metropolitan Opera
A set of young New Yorkers seems to have decided that the Met is cool. Sure, many of them appear more interested in the...
Spain Declares Export Ban And Formal Interest In Possible Caravaggio
The Madrid regional government has given the painting of the scourged Christ official bien de interés cultural status, which legally requires the current owners...
Belgium Shuts Down Its Performing Arts, Too
Following the lead of the Netherlands and Denmark as the Omicron coronavirus spreads, Belgium is ordering theatres, concert halls, and cinemas to close beginning...
The Essence Of Who You Are
The essence of selfhood is neither a rational mind nor an immaterial soul. It is a deeply embodied biological process, a process that underpins...
Sydney Theatres Band Together For Strict New COVID Policies
Their rules require all visitors to be fully vaccinated while on-site (excluding those under 16 years), and to wear masks while in the theatres and...
This Year In Art: Rise Of The NFTs
Nifty Gateway was quick to tout Pak as the most expensive living artist, surpassing Jeff Koons. Still, the Merge sale indicates that there is no shortage...
As Hollywood Withdraws From China
2022 will be a chapter marked not only by bilateral friction between the two superpowers, but by the Chinese film industry’s decoupling from the...
Hollywood Has Been Hooked On China’s Money. That May Be Over
The reversal of fortunes in China has begun to accelerate in the past year. In 2021, just 25 U.S. movies were released theatrically in...
Pittsburgh Symphony Expands Its Diversity Fellowship Program
The program will support four new fellows each season by the year 2025, making it one of the larger fellowship opportunities in the country. -...
Was Don Quixote (And Was Cervantes) Nostalgic For Muslim Spain?
"Cervantes knew that after the terrible, dogmatic reality in which he lived, there would be imagination. But" — having spent years in Algiers —...