“(The Latin poet) recognized that bees had what we might call social being — co-dependent, organized, enterprising — and he praised them for having all the virtues of a Roman citizen: industrious, hardworking, loyal, and (willing) to die to defend the colony.” - Literary Hub
Trump’s threat to walk away from the Kennedy Center suggests an additional danger: He could lose interest and doze off, as if at yet another Cabinet meeting or NBA Finals game, leaving parts of the government to fend for themselves. - The Atlantic
Pride: the Musical, now at the National Theatre in London, is the stage adaptation of a 2014 film about the London-based activist group Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners and the members of a Welsh colliery community whom they supported financially during the 1984-1985 miners’ strike. - The Guardian
On May 14, almost exactly 43 years later, Michael Jackson's Billie Jean was No. 1 again, prancing to the top of Spotify’s global chart following the release of the biopic “Michael.” - The Wall Street Journal
On Thursday an update to the Spotify iOS app switched the icon back to the well-known logo users are familiar with. That did away with the glowing green mirrorball icon for the Spotify app for Apple devices that it introduced the second week of May. - Variety
Gatekeeper, here, doesn’t mean the patriarchal bogeyman of progressive fever dreams. It means the picky curator who maintains a necessary membrane between your half-formed, typo-addled thoughts and the wider world. It means the tastemaker who triages opinions and batters the better ones into readable form. - The Walrus
“For (a decade NCAAkron) has supported research and development of new work by over 800 dancers from around the United States through dancing labs and residencies. ‘As nobody questions when a scientist goes into a lab, that’s what we believe is possible for a choreographer going into the studio,’ said director Christy Bolingbroke.” - Signal Akron
The court also found that the AI overview made claims "that are not even made in the search results." None of the linked sources drew any connection between the plaintiffs and the shady companies the AI mentioned. The court called these "the defendant's own statements." - The Decoder
The growing trend for auctions of deceased famous people’s personal items – which has boomed ever since the hugely popular Marilyn Monroe estate sale in 1999 – has even attracted its own portmanteau: “deleb” as in dead celebrity. - The Guardian
One answer lies in the sheer ubiquity and sensory intensity of gardens by the second half of the 19th century, when impressionism came into being. Social change that made leisure gardens accessible to all (no longer just kings and aristocrats). - The Conversation
“The Washington National Opera (WNO) filed a lawsuit Thursday, alleging that the Kennedy Center failed to return more than $17 million in donations made to the organization after its split from the venue earlier this year.” - The Hill
On one side are texts produced before the arrival of generative LLMs. On the other, everything that has followed—texts that might still be useful, even compelling, but that will always face a lingering suspicion of not being entirely human, of having been smoothed by systems trained to predict the word that comes next. - LA Review of Books
“Visitors rightly expect exceptional exhibitions, meaningful educational experiences, digital access, welcoming spaces, and opportunities for deeper engagement. Those expectations require sustained investment. That challenge is particularly significant for an institution that remains committed to free general admission for all.” - ARTnews
The board voted Thursday to seek a stay of U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper's May 29 ruling that said Trump's name was illegally added to the Kennedy Center. - NPR
“The streamers are newer. They don't have established libraries of ‘80s and ‘90s movies to reboot, and yet they're still looking for familiarity of titles. (Finding hot titles on BookTok to adapt is) one way to compete at an IP level.” - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
