In a brazen raid on the Tefaf art fair, one of the men was filmed smashing cases with a sledgehammer while accomplices kept visitors away. One visitor picked up a large vase in an apparent attempt to halt the robbers before quickly putting it back. - BBC
Perhaps the term “antiquarian,” which traditionally referred to old, valuable books, often first editions and manuscripts, now seems to me to apply to all books. Books, by definition, have become, if not antiquarian, antiquated in their material form. They have become artifacts. - The Smart Set
"It’s really quite strange that people from so long ago seem to have understood so much. And, if you’re looking at things like sexual relations, it’s amazing: there’s hardly a permutation that has not been covered by a myth. They knew everything." - The New Yorker
There are – allegedly – occasions when we come to understand something about the world via a peculiar kind of experiment that takes place only in the mind. Thought experiments, as they’re known, are an exercise of pure imagination. - Aeon
When we talk about labor-saving devices, whose labor is saved, exactly? It’s women’s labor. But during the industrial era, the household work traditionally performed by men became more completely replaced by technology than the household work traditionally performed by women. - 3 Quarks Daily
Singers of Western opera (Anthony Roth Costanzo), Cantonese opera (Pui Yan Li), and Carnatic (South Indian classical) music (Ganavya Doraiswamy) demonstrate what they do to warm up and exercise their voices and how their particular exercise help them. - Smithsonian Magazine
Away from theatre, the retail sector regularly uses smell to help drive sales (though they give it a nicer name – scent), in a similar way to how they use background music or directed lighting. - The Stage
Stephen Marche: "The love story below is my attempt to develop an idealized love story out of all the love stories that I have admired. ... "Autotuned Love Story" certainly isn't mine. ... It's the love story of the machines interacting with all the love stories I have loved." - Literary Hub
Gilliam’s abstractions are unusual in that they are often sculptural, in essence suggesting that painting need not be two-dimensional. Working by methods in which his paint was allowed to roll down his canvas on its own accord, he embraced chance and relinquished control. - ARTnews
"Five permanent artworks are planned for Wadi AlFann" — a "valley of the arts," part of the $15 billion AlUla complex which will be unveiled in 2024 — "(by) James Turrell, Agnes Denes, Michael Heizer, as well as Saudi artists Manal AlDowayan and Ahmed Mater." - Artnet
"The CRTC chair has acknowledged that the law will allow the government to do indirectly what it says it can't do directly, by pressuring platforms to manipulate their algorithms to prioritize certain content over others." - CBC
"(He) helped pioneer the science and art of computer graphics and made many of the first computer-generated pictures, portraits and movies." - The New York Times
But it's not directly because of COVID - it's more that "dozens of record-pressing factories have been built to try to meet demand in North America — and it's still not enough." - St. Louis Post-Dispatch (AP)
"Known today primarily for his literary works, it is often forgotten that ETA Hoffmann, a multi-faceted artist and universal genius, also practised as a lawyer, composer, Kapellmeister, music critic and illustrator." - Bachtrack
The Nutcracker and Coppélia were not originally the gentle, nervous-parent-friendly tales you might expect from the ballets. Indeed, Hoffman's original Coppélia story gets downright grisly. - Bachtrack
