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Quote Mill: Do These References Actually Mean Anything?

Think of all the speeches peppered with statements attributed to revered predecessors. Listeners are supposed to infer that the speaker has drawn upon a vast reservoir of material gathered from a lifetime of reading. But no: it was probably a quote pulled from such a compilation after two or three minutes of looking. - Los Angeles Review of Books

Today’s Slang Versus Yesterday’s Cool Words

Whenever I see people in old movies say “Swell!” or the like, I always wonder what other kinds of things they said when we weren’t listening. There’s no reason to think they weren’t as linguistically fun as we are now. - The New York Times

Is Our Ability To Distinguish Geometry What Distinguishes Humans?

What was the simplest task in the geometric domain — independent of natural language, culture, education — that might reveal a signature difference between human and nonhuman primates? The challenge was to measure not merely visual perception but a deeper cognitive process. - The New York Times

When Bad News Strikes Your Small Arts Organization (Can You Recover?)

Growth under these conditions is incredibly difficult, and of course the pandemic has thrown a giant monkey wrench in operations for nonprofits around the country, including Resonance Works. Where to begin? - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Using VR To Study Pompeii’s Design Choices

The paper argues that eye-catching elements in a Pompeiian home would have been important status symbols, with buildings designed to highlight some features while minimizing others. Using angled walls or building raised floors, for instance, would have made a home’s interior seem larger and more impressive. - Artnet

On Artists, Addiction, And The End Of The Myth That The Two Go Together

"It's incredible to consider the lengths we used to go to in forgiving artists for being bad people. ... The myth of the high-functioning addict whose great work was fueled by liquor and drugs has become, if not entirely passé, at least less visible." - T — The New York Times Style Magazine

The Internet’s Powerful Currency: Shame

What’s curious about the brutality that fuels Internet shaming frenzies is that in real life—that is, IRL, in the usual online parlance—most of us would hesitate to consign a normal nobody to nationwide notoriety and several years of unemployment. - The New Yorker

The Author Of The Graphic Memoir “Gender Queer” On Having Her Life Story Caught Up In The Culture Wars

Maia Kobabe: "I'm learning that a book being challenged or banned does not hurt the book and does not hurt the author. The book is selling better than ever. ... A book challenge is like a community attacking itself. The people who are hurt in a challenge are the marginalized readers." - Slate

Former NY City Ballet Dancer Starts New Career As Surgeon

Likolani Brown Arthurs, 36, spent 15 years dancing with the New York City Ballet. Now, she’s moving to a new stage: NYU Langone’s operating theater, where the retired ballerina will begin her surgical residency. - New York Post

This Brave And Skillful Actor Is On Standby For Every Male Role In “Hamilton”

"Jimmie 'JJ' Jeter ... is halfway down the Australian Hamilton cast list, described merely as 'standby'. But he's played every single male role in the show – including the title role on Broadway for a month. And at any moment he might be asked to do it again." - The Age (Melbourne)

Pianist Boris Berezovsky Dropped By Management After Pro-Putin War Comments

At one point he said: ‘There are important political analysts in the West who claim that it is their part of the world that is to blame for the situation in Ukraine.’ At another moment the 53-year-old pianist asked a military officer: ‘Should we really care about the timeline (of the ‘military operation’)? - Classical Music

These Days, Being A Public Librarian In America Can Be Dangerous

Amanda Oliver, author of Overdue: Reckoning with the Public Library, recounts some incidents from her years working in the DC library system, cautioning against the romanticization of public libraries and their equalizing role in society. - Electric Literature

Louisville Orchestra Creates A Creators Corps

The Louisville Orchestra Creators Corps will employ and house multiple full-time composers, called "creators," to represent all musical genres. In return, the creators will regularly present new music for both the Louisville Orchestra and the community. - Louisville Courier-Journal

With Hollywood Cutting Them Off, Russian Movie Theaters Are Turning To Bollywood

Without access to big American blockbusters that reliably put butts in their seats, cinema chains in Russia will turn to domestically-made films as well as titles from Latin America and East Asia, but they'll depend most on Indian movies, which have pulled in big audiences there before. - The Moscow Times

At Nearly 80, Meredith Monk Is Finally Creating Music Other Performers Can Do Without Her

"It's difficult music to score. The performer has to truly feel my music, physically, before they can perform it. ... When other people want to do my work, I insist that they work closely with me or members of my ensemble before they even start." - The Guardian

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