Political institutions differ considerably from one purportedly democratic society to the next. Voting procedures, representation schemes, conceptions of free speech, and judicial arrangements are not uniform across societies that are widely regarded as democratic. - 3 Quarks Daily
Americans used to go to movie theaters to watch new characters in new stories. Now they go to movie theaters to re-submerge themselves in familiar story lines. - The Atlantic
NFTs (and with them cryptocurrency and all that comes with it) have upended the art market, bringing contemporary art and millennial meme culture crashing together. - ArtReview
From one point of view, it’s obvious that, despite exceptions, most stories portray “goody-baddy” dynamics—from nursery rhymes to juicy gossip, from ancient folktales to Holy Scripture, from lowbrow reality shows to award-winning documentaries. The question is, why? - Quillette
At minimum, percussion students need a room to practice in — usually in a large single family home and not an apartment — over $10,000 for instruments, and $6,500 per year for lessons. And this is to say nothing of other crucial training opportunities, which come at an additional cost. - I Care if You Listen
Adaptations from well-known sources go right from the beginnings of opera as a distinct genre circa 1600 (Peri's Euridice and Monteverdi's L'Orfeo) to the remarkable flowering of new opera (especially chamber opera) in the US today. And there are good reasons for that. - Van
“We have been here for 35 years. We have made 300 creations, several international tours, 11 Canadian tours, and 70 concerts across the country. Before, the word “fatigue” was not even a reality for me, but time does its work.” - Ludwig Van
"The Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports has announced that Italy will return a fragment of the Parthenon Frieze, which has been on loan as part of a cultural exchange." - Artnet
Accurate is the word of the match so far. Inevitably, the string of draws is the main narrative out of Dubai; no one has won a regulation game in the world championship in more than five years. But wins at this rarefied level most often come thanks to an opponent’s mistake. - FiveThirtyEight
"These female-made Westerns are really tackling toxic masculinity and the ways in which men's attempts to prove themselves as men can backfire, rather than glorifying the myth of the cowboy as the older, traditional Western did." - BBC
“With the terror of a global pandemic sending anxiety sky high and rendering TV one of the few safe entertainment outlets, the desire for comfort has become particularly noticeable.” - The New York Times
Yuri Felsen (né Nikolai Freudenstein), born in St. Petersburg in 1894, fled to Paris after the Revolution and was considered by Russian émigrés to be a near-equal of Nabokov. His first novel, Deceit, published in Russian in 1930; will see print in English next spring. - The Guardian
“The knee-jerk thing is to overcorrect,” he continued. “But sometimes you need to double down in your mission. Sometimes you have to think about what doesn’t change, what shouldn’t change.” - The New York Times
"I felt in this situation that everybody's wellness was not considered. The theater makers that were causing the harm were being centered over the people who were being harmed — and those who were reporting harm were told to wait it out and endure it." - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
A retired Boston jeweler says that, shortly after the 1990 heist, an acquaintance brought in a gilded bronze eagle for him to appraise — a piece that he recognized as stolen from the museum. - MSN (The Boston Globe)
