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We’re Not Supposed To Call It The Brexit Festival, But Here You Have It…

Unboxed: Creativity in the UK – formerly known as Festival 2022 and derided by some as a “festival of Brexit” – draws on arts, science, engineering, technology and maths in a government-backed £120m celebration of ingenuity. - The Guardian

The Insidious Harm Of “Inspiration Porn”

I've "come to see Keller’s mainstream image and story as a textbook example of “inspiration porn,” where disabled people’s lives are flattened into saccharine narratives about overcoming adversity, usually designed to make nondisabled people feel uplifted and grateful." - The New York Times

The Social Media Problem: We’re Talking Too Much

A lot is wrong with the internet, but much of it boils down to this one problem: We are all constantly talking to one another. Take that in every sense. Before online tools, we talked less frequently, and with fewer people. - The Atlantic

Major Social Media Influencer. Black And Queer Activist. Ballet Star. Meet Harper Watters

"The Houston social-media influencer is a gay Black man with a gift for the absurd and a passion for platform heels. He's also a star dancer in one of the world’s most rigid, gendered, and segregated art forms." - Texas Monthly

Can You Really Be A Better Person Taking Masterclasses Online?

Mark Williamson, the company’s chief operating officer, told me, “I think it’s legitimately possible for us to create an algorithm that builds a personalized catalogue that leads you to become the best person you can be.” - The New Yorker

Fully Trained Dancers Are Finding A New Home In Burlesque

"For the growing number of women who have found their way to nightlife performance from a concert-dance background, burlesque can feel pretty close to a feminist utopia — one where women's bodies and choreographic voices are celebrated." - Dance Magazine

Giant Puppet Finishes Four-Month Refugee Walk From Syria To UK

Little Amal, whose name means hope in Arabic, was created by Handspring, the company that made the equine puppets in War Horse. She stands 3.5 metres (11ft 5in) tall and is operated by a team of eight puppeteers working shifts to control her legs, arms and facial features. - The Guardian

Is Eight Shows A Week Too Much To Ask Of Actors?

The schedule is famously wearing, especially for leads in demanding roles. (Come the holidays, they sometimes do ten shows a week.) As Broadway returns from the pandemic shutdown, some performers are asking that their standbys go on more frequently, and some producers are obliging. - TheaterMania

The Unprecedented Logistics Behind Getting Broadway Up And Working Again

Broadway shows stopped dead in their tracks in March 2020. The production teams simply had to hurriedly depart their stages with scenery still in place, costumes hanging on racks and dressing rooms abandoned — leaving behind a kind of theatrical Pompeii. - Washington Post

This May Be The Most Innovative Public Library In The U.S.

The Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library in Memphis hosts "financial literacy seminars, jazz concerts, cooking classes, and many other events — more than 7,000 at last count. You can check out books and movies, but also sewing machines, bicycle repair kits and laptop computers." - Smithsonian Magazine

Seriously? Send Your Art To Space?

Uplift promotes ‘Constellation Vault’: ‘a platform for commercial promotion and exhibition in low Earth orbit’. ‘The Constellation Vault will offer patrons the exclusive opportunity to acquire highly coveted items for private sale and auction in space, delivered upon return to Earth.’ Apollo

The “Immersive Transcript”, A New Way To Make Podcasts Accessible To Deaf Audiences

"Transcripts are hardly uncommon in podcasting but they're often an afterthought, littered with omissions and inaccuracies thanks to automated transcription. … For their new show More Than This, Vox Media set out to create a podcast that could also be seen and felt. - Nieman Lab

The High-Tide Flooding In Venice Is Only Getting Worse

Says the chief caretaker of St. Mark's, which sits at the city's lowest point, "I can only say that in August, a month when this never used to happen, we had tides over a meter five times. I am talking about the month of August, when we are quiet." - AP

Unknown Arshile Gorky Painting Discovered Behind Later Artwork On Paper

The newly discovered work, called Untitled (Virginia Summer) and dated ca. 1946-47, was found when the Arshile Gorky Foundation sent out The Limit (1947) for routine conservation. - Artnet

Pianist Yundi Li Arrested On Immorality Charge In Beijing

Li, who earned fame in the West in the '00s and became a household name in China, was arrested with a sex worker — and promptly expelled from the musicians' union, crippling his career. State TV warned that "anyone who challenges laws and social morality is doomed." - Bloomberg Quint

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