"(I was) groping and straining to make sense of Kafka's groping and straining to make sense. Not only could I not always — or even often — be certain that I knew what Kafka meant, I didn't know whether at any given moment he himself knew what he meant." - The New York Times
Cory Doctorow: "Here is how platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification." - Pluralistic
The 14-square mile project was to be on Federal land in eastern Nevada — on the way to Michael Heizer's 1970 work Double Negative, a pair of man-made gashes in the mesa. Fans of the work hated the idea of people driving through an enormous field of solar panels to reach it. - Los Angeles Times
"The marble sculpture, showing a Hercules-like figure with the hero's trademark lion skin and club, was unearthed on Jan. 25 (in) the Appian Way green area. ... (It) bears a 'fair resemblance' to Emperor Decius, who ruled Rome from 249 to 251 AD." - Reuters
"Work by the UK Trade and Business Commission found that ... had Brexit never happened, the UK's creative industries would have received an additional €184 million (£164 million, $201 million), based on the total funds they received last cycle." - The National (Scotland)
"Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events on Thursday announced $11 million in grants for nonprofit arts organizations, including via a new Chicago Arts Recovery Program." - MSN (Chicago Tribune)
Whereas Madison Square Garden is using face recognition to deny entry to people previously expelled from the venue—and certain lawyers—many stadium and entertainment center operators are testing the technology to let people inside. - Wired
A growing awareness of the impact of those systems on the climate has led a number of major institutions to rethink their most fundamental conservation orthodoxies. - The New York Times
The Southern California Annenberg Inclusion Initiative report reveals that while the amount of women represented in Billboard’s year-end Hot 100 chart jumped 28.7% last year, to a total of 30%, only 14% of songwriters represented on the chart were women, a slight decrease from the 2021 statistic of 14.3%. - The Guardian
It Ends With Us is a book about domestic violence. Hoover detractors who say she romanticizes abuse had a new weapon in their arsenal: How can Hoover pretend she takes the subject matter seriously while creating cutesy, juvenile merchandise? - Slate
Generally, U.S. history pages follow one strict interpretation of history written in the 1960s and ’70s, and most editors treat these matters as settled. When information that contradicts these histories is added, some editors claim that new additions constitute “presentism,” or “cancel culture.” - Slate
The Toronto branch of the Dickens Fellowship, a group of dedicated Charles Dickens fans who have celebrated the birthday of the Immortal Boz annually since 1905. - Toronto Star
"While this monumental shift has long been attributed to shifting stylistic preferences, a new study ... argues that it was also due to a change in the environment's appearance: As the Industrial Revolution engulfed London and Paris in smog, the world literally became blurrier." - Hyperallergic
Sometimes buildings are designed as a way to create prototypes and visionary schemes for the future – architects allowing their creativity to be unbounded by the concerns and confines of the real world, such as space or cost or limited technology. - The Conversation
"A lot of people work behind the scenes to put dance on stage. Here are some of the current talents, new and established, who are busy making bodies look glorious, transforming the atmosphere on stage and helping to tell stories in dance." - The Guardian
