The data (as well as Aristotle’s intuition, per his question about the prominence of melancholics in the arts) suggest that the answer is yes. - LitHub
"When people ask Harout Bastajian how a Christian is creating the decorative program of a mosque, he likes to answer, 'God works in mysterious ways, brings us all together to decorate his house of worship.'" - Hyperallergic
The fact that Ukraine feels more culturally familiar to many people watching these events closely has had a profound impact not just on the kinds of images that are circulating, but also how they circulate. - Washington Post
Native to the East African coast, Swahili developed as a lingua franca for various nationalities doing business in busy ports like Zanzibar. Now Swahili is spoken, written, read, and broadcast across a huge swath of the continent by 200 million people, for most of whom it's a second language. - Quartz
"The thing that always struck me about the symphony is that you have the sense that the listeners are enduring the first three movements in order to get to the choir." - Baltimore Magazine
"Blurring the lines between a walking tour and the theater, Chasing Andy Warhol sets off from New York's Astor Place Cube, with actors lying in wait with carefully positioned props. All throughout, a bewigged Warhol consistently eludes the audience and the play's tour guide." - Artnet
Artur Solomonov describes the mood in the Russian theaters in the wake of the invasion as “complete shock . . . the realization that our way of life has ended.” - Stage Raw
The former ABT star, now artistic director of the Australian Ballet, wanted to bring together leading dance companies from all over the country for a festival. That gathering, called DanceX, was to open last September but was foiled by a COVID lockdown. DanceX will happen this October. - The Age (Melbourne)
In January, the Casino di Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, also known as Villa Aurora, was put up for auction with a floor price of €471 million ($546 million), and nobody bid. This week the mansion went back on the block at a 20% discount (€376 million/$410 million). Still no buyer. - Artnet
WUNC is no. 1 in the ratings for the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill radio market, has $20 million in cash reserves, devoted listeners ready to donate, a growing newsroom, and signals in several other parts of the state. What ambitious new plans can it, and will it, pursue? - The Assembly (North Carolina)
"A district court judge in Florida ruled that the City of Miami Beach had the right to censor a public artwork depicting Raymond Herisse, a Haitian-American man who was killed by Miami Beach police in 2011." The city government, declared the judge, has First Amendment rights of its own. - Artnet
"Vincent Bolloré wields a fearsome agenda-setting power; his outlets, known for adopting the tics and style of Fox News, play an outsize role in directing the national debate. ... Much of the political class recycles, in varying shades, messages that run in a loop on his networks." - The New York Times
"The leading French daily, with 425,000 digital subscribers to date, plans to reach 1 million paying readers in the next two to three years, with a quarter of them reading the (online) English version, Le Monde's chairman said this week." - Bloomberg Quint
After two years' closure, and with both storage/maintenance of the collection and staff salaries desperately underfunded, five of the museum's 13 display rooms have reopened. Employees and volunteers are working to get the impressive collection (e.g., Picasso, Chagall, Dalí, Calder, Botero) back in shape. - The New York Times
The modern “word-cross” appeared for the first time in print in the December 21, 1913 edition of New York World’s FUN Supplement. Section editor Arthur Wynne, trying to fill the Christmas insert, drew inspiration from his native England. - Zocalo Public Square
