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The Bookstore That’s Helping Mosul Recover From Three Years Under ISIS

The Mosul Book Forum, which offers concerts and events along with books, opened three months after the city was liberated. Said cofounder Fahad Sabah, "If we have to rebuild our city, we need to rebuild our minds as well as our buildings and streets." - Literary Hub

Robert Indiana’s Foundation Sues Publisher For Forgery

The Morgan Art Foundation's filing in US federal court accuses publisher Michael McKenzie of "allegedly forging Indiana's artwork, defaming the foundation, and intentionally interfering with its exclusive contractual rights to reproduce the artist's 'Love' works." - Artnet

Afghanistan’s National Institute of Music Will Rebuild Itself In Portugal

On Monday, 273 teachers and students from the school flew from Qatar, where they landed at a US base after fleeing the Taliban, to Lisbon, where they have been granted asylum. - AP

Cleaning Staff At Guggenheim Bilbao Stage Performance Art To Protest Appalling Wages

The artist Lorenzo Bussi (alias "Art Builders Group") and the workers devised the action, titled "Is Everyone's Work Equally Important?", at the top of the stairs leading to the Frank Gehry building's entrance. The pay rate they're protesting? €5 ($5.65) an hour. - Hyperallergic

Why Podcasting Might Be A Passing Fad For Media Companies

For several years, a mixture of denial and deep optimism have kept up the facade. News outlet leaders believe that, since others are perceived to have success with podcasting, their payoff must be right around the corner. - NiemanLab

Hong Kong’s M+ Was Ambitious. But Its Time May Already Have Passed

M+ seemed inevitable, so right. But if you looked closely enough, divisions between the city and its various cultural saviours were starting to emerge. - Apollo

The Problem: A Tech Solution To “Solving” Democracy Is Problematic

Optimization cannot reconcile people’s conflicting world views. Though conflict has always been the meat of politics, political differences today mean that people not only disagree over solutions and precise settings of valuation parameters; they also clash over the fundamental terms. - Boston Review

Great Books And The Purpose Of College

In the old college system there were lists of books that every student was supposed to study—a canon. The canon was the curriculum. In the modern university, students elect their courses and choose their majors. That is the system the great books were designed for use in. The great books are outside the regular curriculum. - The New Yorker

Singers Who Have Found New Creative Life During COVID

As devastating as the pandemic has been to lives and livelihoods, a number of opera singers have found themselves emerging back into live performance with careers in better, more interesting places than they were when the shutdown began. - NPR

How Paul Winter Redefined Ambient Music

No one in the music world has been more ambitious or creative in exploring the ways musicians can create soundscapes in dialogue with the surrounding world. And he has been doing it for decades, all over the globe, from Siberia to the Grand Canyon. - Ted Gioia

Why Didn’t Lyric Opera Of Chicago Tell Anyone It Renewed Its CEO’s Contract?

Anthony Freud's term was to have expired this year; in October, LOC's board extended it for five years with no public announcement. When asked, the company has given no reason for the silence. Freud's management has come under increasing criticism in recent years. - Chicago Classical Review

Studies: More Education = Higher IQ For Longer Time

We consistently see that longer education does raise our cognitive abilities: a person’s IQ gains one to five points for each additional year of education. The evidence also suggests these effects aren’t just flashes in the pan: they last throughout our lives. - The Guardian

Bramwell Tovey Makes It Official: Artistic Director Of Rhode Island Philharmonic

The longtime music director of the Vancouver Symphony (2000-2018) has been the RI Phil's artistic advisor since 2018, and he is also music director of the Sarasota Orchestra and chief conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra. - Newport Buzz

Australian Artist’s Instagram Account Was @Metaverse. Then Facebook Booted Her Off

Early that morning, when she tried to log in to Instagram, she found that the account had been disabled. A message on the screen read: “Your account has been blocked for pretending to be someone else.” - The New York Times

Device After Device Promises To Save Writers From Their Own Distraction And Procrastination. Could The Latest Batch Succeed?

"Could the new wave of Zen editors and e-ink tablets, tempering tech solutionism with analog nostalgia, reverse this trajectory — and give writers a dedicated device of our own?" Julian Lucas gives some of them a try. - The New Yorker

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