“Netflix disclosed in an SEC filing Friday that it paid $587 million for InterPositive, in cash. … InterPositive was formed in 2022 as (Affleck) began to explore the AI space, with a particular emphasis on upending visual effects without impacting the creative part of filmmaking.” - The Hollywood Reporter
“Senate Bill 4925, a partisan effort to control materials in public schools, … was introduced June 24 by Republican Senators. … Like its companion legislation, House Bill 7661, SB 4925 would amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to prohibit the use of federal funding for ‘sexually oriented material’ in public schools.” - Publishers Weekly
“Despite new Prime Minister Andy Burnham undergoing an extensive cabinet reshuffle, incumbent culture minister Lisa Nandy is set to remain in post. Nandy, who has been a member of Parliament since 2010 ..., was appointed secretary of state for culture, media and sport by previous Prime Minister Keir Starmer in July 2024.” - Variety
“After over a week of ambiguity surrounding his whereabouts following his scheduled release from a five-year sentence for ‘contempt, defamation, and public disorder,’ Cuban dissident performance artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara arrived in Miami on Saturday, July 18.” - Hyperallergic
“Lam Wing-kee, a former Hong Kong bookseller who became a symbol of resistance to Beijing’s crackdown on speech freedom after he was seized by Chinese authorities in late 2015, has died in Taiwan. … Lam was one of five people affiliated with Causeway Bay Books who disappeared in late 2015.” - AP
“(The state) is doing something unusual, attempting to create a common canon of books that all students statewide will be required to read. The list was approved last month by the Republican-led Texas State Board of Education and is in the process of being finalized. It will take effect starting in 2030.” - The New York Times
“This is a critical first win in our case to ensure this megamerger never sees the light of day,” California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, a Democrat who is leading the states’ lawsuit, said in a statement. A spokeswoman for Paramount did not immediately respond to a request for comment. - The New York Times
In Avignon, where artists, programmers and theatergoers rub shoulders for a month every summer, the announcement has ignited fierce debates and protests. Last week, an estimated 1,800 people demonstrated in front of the Papal Palace. - The New York Times
This year, the houses devoted nearly as much space to private sales, lending, financial services, luxury goods, hospitality, and advisory work as they did to paintings and sculptures. Read together, they suggest that the biggest transformation in the auction business isn’t the recovery itself. It’s the transformation of the auction houses’ businesses. - ARTnews
The PRESERVE Act (“Protecting Resources and Ensuring Stewardship of Enduring Records of Visual Expression Act”) would require the General Services Administration, which manages federal agencies, to identify any artworks contained within government buildings deemed “surplus property” and form a committee to oversee the future of said artworks. - ARTnews
Her name was Lore Segal, but often, when I spoke of her to friends or to my own students, I referred to her as “my teacher,” though nearly 50 years had passed since I’d sat in a classroom with her. - The American Scholar
While most retailers today assume that consumers want ever greater assortment, Costco’s popularity speaks to a countervailing desire for less choice. Indeed, the pre-selection of items for sale in their warehouses is part of the value proposition. - The Walrus
Frohnmayer’s dilemma was that he believed in artistic freedom and didn’t think Congress should dictate what the N.E.A. funded, but he also felt obliged, as a political appointee, to avoid funding work that Congress and the President found offensive. The result was flip-flopping. - The New Yorker
Preserve this language (or species or building or mine) or else surrender to indifference, cynicism, and nihilism. But is that ever the choice we face? - The New Yorker
Burnout’s meaning shifted from literal to figurative over time. It began as a description of candles burning out or fuel being used up, then shifted to a barn burning down and a worker’s energy or body being depleted in the rebuilding. Eventually it came to simply describe a worker’s exhaustion. - The Conversation
