The great breakthrough in human enlightenment was to develop techniques – empirical science – to allow us to grasp the real complexity of the world and to understand it in terms of the interaction of mindless (or at least unintentional) processes rather than humanly meaningful stories of, say, good vs evil. - 3 Quarks Daily
"Swiss architecture studio Herzog & de Meuron has completed the restoration and conversion of … the remains of a 115-year-old power plant" along the notoriously contaminated Gowanus Canal "into an art manufacturing hub, now called Powerhouse Arts." - Dezeen
Contemporary debates about who ‘owns’ the classical past obscure the intellectual role it played in the emergence of modern democracy, and the reasons we are surrounded by its iconography in the first place. - Aeon
"After years of development, Shucked ... became what it is today, an irreverent comedy that both delights in its Dogpatch characters and knows full well how to convey that delight to sophisticated New York theater-goers whose remnant recollections of Minnie Pearl are likely fading by the minute." - Deadline
It is not simply about the words that appear in letters, books, poems and lyrics. It is also about the words that morphed into other pronunciations and evolved to have a veiled meaning, for the safety of Black people. - The New York Times
"Turkey's creative community fears Erdoğan could now intensify a long-running crackdown that has intimidated artists, musicians, filmmakers and other cultural activists. Kurdish, female and gay artists feel especially vulnerable." - The Art Newspaper
Stravinsky, right now, is in freefall. In 2021, few summoned much enthusiasm for an anniversary retrospective that was quickly quelled by Covid. - The Critic
"It's not just that he's commandingly large and muscular, with a Moses-like beard. ... Standing in profile with his chest angled forward, he could be an Assyrian sculpture. Breathing like a dragon and then opening his eyes, he could be inspirited clay, the first man." - The New York Times
Unable to turn a profit, team owners are cutting costs by laying off employees and ending contracts with star players. In some cases, they are selling their teams and sometimes at a loss, offering a blunt reality check to people who believed e-sports could be the next big thing in entertainment. - The New York Times
"Eight months after Italy took a sharp turn to the right, the government headed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni ... is wreaking havoc at state broadcaster RAI, prompting the abrupt exit of several executives and TV personalities and causing alarm within the country’s film and TV sectors." - Variety
Over the past few years, as the San Antonio Symphony slowly fell apart and the new San Antonio Philharmonic was born, firefighter-turned-administrator Paul Montalvo has gradually built the Classical Music Institute, whose chamber orchestra quickly grabbed the contract to accompany opera and ballet when the Symphony closed. - San Antonio Report
"Zach Tatti, an art conservator, (has) made his annual trek to Philadelphia to clean and restore sculptures throughout the city. It's been a tradition for Tatti's family business since the 1980s, through an agreement with his father, Steve, and the (city's) Association for Public Art." - MSN (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
"(The $10-monthly) Basic level gets you one to three movies a month. ... A $40 Pro account will get 30 movies a month — (roughly) a movie a day, depending on the month. The company says its $20 tier is the most popular, at three to seven a month." - TechCrunch
The producers say the immersive musical, about Imelda Marcos, is based in karaoke (near-mandatory for Philippine politicians) and that recorded instrumental tracks are integral to the show's concept. The AFM says the contract with the theater the show's playing in requires 19 musicians, period. - The New York Times
"The Metropolitan Opera failed to properly safeguard the credit card numbers and other personal information of more than 45,000 patrons and employees compromised in a massive computer hack during 2022, says a class action lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court." - New York Daily News
