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Despite Emergency COVID Aid, Arts Funding In Australia Remains Well Behind Peer Countries

"Standard levels of funding of arts and culture in Australia continue to lag behind major world economies and have failed to keep up with inflation or population growth, an analysis of spending shows." - The Sydney Morning Herald

The New York Times Bought Wordle Three Weeks Ago, And Already There’s A Controversial Change

The newspaper is removing words from the game's master list of possible word choices (mostly dirty words and obscure ones). Consequently, one day this week, people playing on the old Wordle page and on the Times page got different solutions to the puzzle. Social media was all abuzz. - Cnet

Links Between Music Preference And Personality Hold True Even Across Cultures And Demographics: Study

The research, involving well over 350,000 people in more than 50 countries, tested subjects for the "Big Five" personality traits (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) and classified the (Western) music that respondents liked in five descriptive categories (Mellow, Unpretentious, Sophisticated, Intense, and Contemporary). - Ludwig Van

An Excellent Year For Women At The Berlin Film Festival

Female artists won six of the nine categories in the Berlinale's main section, including the Golden Bear (Carla Simón for her Catalan film Alcarràs), the Jury Prize, both acting awards, best screenplay, and, for best director, Claire Denis, taking her first major festival honor in 26 years for Fire. - Variety

Tate Britain Will Keep Blatantly Offensive Wall Painting, But Recontextualize It

Rex Whistler's wall painting includes depictions of black slaves on a leash and caricatures of Chinese figures. The room will no longer be used as a restaurant, as it had been for decades. Instead, Tate said the new installation would "be exhibited alongside and in dialogue with the mural, reframing the way the space is experienced". - BBC

These Women Artists Weren’t “Forgotten.” They Were Erased

Unfortunately, much of the language that surrounds their retroactive inclusion — through museum retrospectives, new biographies, and increasing market interest — makes it seem as if their systematic erasure has been a fluke of history, rather than an intentional sidelining. - Hyperallergic

Coming: A Digital Copy Of Your Brain

In 2016, Bill Ruh, then-CEO of GE Digital, predicted that “we will have a digital twin at birth, and it will take data off of the sensors everybody is running, and that digital twin will predict things for us about disease and cancer and other things.” - Wired

Our Evolving Understanding Of Stonehenge

Since 2001, there have been at least ten major archeological projects at or around Stonehenge, along with many smaller ones; many have involved techniques unavailable to previous researchers, such as high-precision radiocarbon dating, ground-penetrating radar, and isotope analysis. - The New Yorker

Viacom and CBS Change Name to Paramount

CBS is a foundational name in broadcasting — the Columbia Broadcasting System launch dates back to 1927 and the early days of commercial radio. The Eye name will endure on the broadcast network and other existing assets. - Variety

The Original Laptop?  A Tiny Medieval Pipe Organ With Hand-Pumped Bellows

It's called the organetto, and though no originals survive, there are hundreds of depictions of the instrument in art and manuscripts of the era. Based on those pictures, makers have begun building organetti. There's even a star performer on the little keyboard. - Early Music America

Melbourne Clubs, Musicians, Warn They’re Dying Under COVID Restrictions

“We used to play shows in Sydney, we can’t really get them much any more. There are no venues to play at. It’s a really hard city to crack. I don’t want Melbourne to be that. That’s terrifying to me. Because what do we do then? There’s nowhere to play.” - The Guardian

Arts Programs At HBCUs Are Underfunded

Many historically Black schools are known for their famous alumni in the arts, but donations to HBCUs these days have tended to go specifically toward STEM programs. That's started to change — and if there's one person who deserves credit for it, it's MacKenzie Scott. - The Chronicle of Higher Education

What Jonathan Larson Taught Me About My Relationship With Theatre

Every time I encounter his work, it forces me to confront head-on the most futile labor that defines my occupation: finding language to describe art. As an artist, I hope my work will exceed definition, but as a critic, I need to do just that to the best of my ability. - The New York Times

“Fixing” Old Musicals To Fit Today’s Social Sensibilities?

Jed Perl’s “Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts” is useful in showing the problems with thinking of social justice as inherent to serious art rather than one of many forms it may take. - The New York Times

Pakistan’s Hottest New Pop Star Is A Veiled Female Rapper

"Eva B, once a little-known rapper from (a) Karachi urban-slum settlement" — and who now draws millions of viewers on YouTube — "says her brother had told her if she wanted to rap she had to wear a veil, but that it is now a part of her identity and personality as a musician." - The Guardian

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