Herzog & de Meuron has designed a deliberately “irrational” exhibition space, set largely below the Parkway and sheathed in reflecting steel, so that the building vanishes into air (as architects like to say), mirroring the gardens around it rather than asserting its own profile. - The New Yorker
The quality of stupidity is just, sort of, there; and there’s lots of it. Could you write a history of happiness, or bad luck, or knees? - The Guardian
Universally, there is an urgent call for dance’s back offices to approach funding with the same creativity, vitality, and care that goes into artistic decision-making. - Dance Magazine
We are again confronting a massive attack on the very foundations of democratic education and, this time around, the stakes feel even higher. In the 1950s, the targets were individual teachers—communists, progressives, liberals—and their left-wing unions. Now the target is the system itself. - Boston Review
This year, it will present over 700 shows across its stages, from pop music to Broadway musicals and seemingly everything in between. In recent years, it’s earned more revenue than Seattle Opera, Seattle Symphony and Pacific Northwest Ballet combined. - Seattle Times
The whole place exudes the ethos of Pärt, whose music demands love and dedication from its interpreters yet almost nothing of its listeners, offering a timeless sound redolent of both the Renaissance and modern Minimalism, and capable of touching casual audiences and avant-gardists alike. - The New York Times
Teacher evaluations are a big part of how higher education got to this point. The scores factor into academics’ pay, hiring, and chance to get tenure. But maximizing teacher ratings is very different from providing quality instruction. In fact, those aims are largely opposed. - The Atlantic
We tend to think that we perceive reality as it is, with cameralike eyes that objectively log the light that hits them. But as information from the eyes flows into the brain, it becomes more abstract and subjective. - Scientific American
Although some devil’s advocates might say that AI use democratizes the ability to create high-quality promotional materials, Agan feels like the aesthetic just isn’t in line with the club’s ethos. - SFGate
For one thing, “the real challenge isn’t technology itself, but how technology has evolved to actively compete with the very cognitive processes that reading requires.” - LitHub
Is a showing of Back to the Future or Jaws something like a ballet company’s Nutcracker - dependable money for a theatre, with a nostalgic gloss for audience childhoods or young adult lives? - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
Sadly, “if you put one of the new tapes into an old-fashioned Walkman, it won’t produce any meaningful sound, because the DNA cassette doesn’t use the magnetic signals of its predecessor.” - New Scientist (Archive Today)
"Dictionary content is expensive. … The cost of lexicographers—people are expensive, and the output is low. It is very difficult to justify that just for the sake of completism. You will never have enough staff to keep up. People are too productive in the creation of language.” - The Atlantic
