Melbourne Digital Concert Hall streamed 430 performances, with over $1.6 million going to musicians during one of the longest, strictest lockdowns in the world. In 2022, as the Australian Digital Concert Hall, it will transmit 200 programs by performers from Perth to Brisbane to Hobart. - The Age (Melbourne)
Historically, in America, the true strength of the Classics and of a Classical education has not been among the elite but among the rising middle class. - Los Angeles Review of Books
Veteran archaeologists have noted visible changes just over the past half-century or less. Much of the rock art is painted on sandstone, which absorbs water from rains that are getting heavier; some of that stone is collapsing as salt expands and contracts in more variable weather. - The Guardian
Technoboosts include brain stimulation, which uses electric currents or other means to directly target certain brain areas and change their behavior, and synthetic psychedelics, which are lab-created versions of drugs such as ayahuasca. - Vox
First of all, when her neighborhood submitted a bid to be London's Borough of Culture, she agreed to participate, thinking it wouldn't win. Then it did. So she had to come up with an idea. And she did — whereupon something entirely different (a play) was announced. - BBC
Sleep’s benefits extend far beyond the brain, and that muscles, the immune system, and the gut can all have a say in when and how sleep occurs. That work “might change our focus from studying sleep’s role in complex cognitive processes to how it impacts basic cellular function.” - Science
"(He was) celebrated for incorporating traditional Native American imagery and materials into lively, unconventional sculptures before his claim of Cherokee ancestry was widely challenged, setting off an intense art-world debate over his authenticity." - The New York Times
The school became known for supporting the education of girls, who make up about a third of the student body. The school’s all-female orchestra, Zohra, toured the world and was hailed as a symbol of a modern, more progressive Afghanistan. - The New York Times
"Back in April, the only real player in the kid-centric terrestrial radio space, Radio Disney, which started life on the airwaves 25 years ago this week, quietly wound down. … Today's Tedium looks back at the many attempts to sell kids on radio." - Tedium
Studios have long had a reputation for promising actors or writers a percentage of a movie's profits, then using accounting tricks to show that the film made no profit, no matter how large the grosses. Bohemian Rhapsody screenwriter Anthony McCarten has had enough. - The Hollywood Reporter
"The Antiquities Trafficking Unit is very much a victim of its own success. Set up in 2017 … to curb the smuggling of cultural heritage, it has seized 3,604 illicit items." 2,281 of those are still there; here's a look at eight of them. - The New York Times
"Scholars have long believed that apprentices learned their craft before they were allowed to carve reliefs for rooms like this one," the Chapel of Hatshepsut in Thebes. But one archaeologist says that apprentices did work on the wall reliefs: you can see the corrections the masters made. - ARTnews
A dozen graduates wrote letters describing abusive and sometimes racist language as well as body-shaming and authoritarian attitudes. The school's current director says progress has been and will continue to be made. (He even threw out the scales.) - The Salt Lake Tribune
"(A study) revealed the industry suffered a 60% decline in output because of restrictions. It said about 55% of jobs — 450,000 people — were furloughed in the sector, second only to hospitality, and well above the national average of 16%." - BBC
Mott's Hell of a Book won for fiction; Miles's All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack for nonfiction; Lo's Last Night at the Telegraph Club for young people's literature; Espada's Floaters for poetry, and Elisa Shua Dusapin's Winter in Sokcho for literature in translation. - AP
