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Music As Protest: Louisville Kids Make Music Video To Protest School Bus Cuts

“Where My Bus At” highlights the budget cuts made to school bus routes. In April 2024, the county board of education voted to remove most school bus routes. - Blavity

Why Christopher Marney Revived The Long-Dead London City Ballet

"I spoke to many UK venues that London City Ballet once toured to, and it seemed these days few British ballet companies are passing through them. … Large-scale companies cannot necessarily fit into the mid-scale venues I was looking at … (and) a flexible company of 14 dancers with a mouldable repertoire felt (workable)." - Gramilano

We Use Visualizations To Understand Data. But We Can Use Music Too

“Vision is one of the most obvious and direct ways to process input, but when you think about it, you use your ears a lot for clues from the environment to get around. You aren’t even often aware of how you use sounds to navigate along with vision." - The Scientist

How Do You Solve A Problem Like The Unloved Brutalist Behemoths Of D.C.?

A few architects share ideas for cheering up forbidding concrete hulks like the FBI headquarters, Hubert Humphrey Building, and Hirshhorn Museum. Others, however, like them just as they are. It took only some white paint on a few slabs in subway stations for a campaign to arise demanding, "Keep Metro Bleak!" - Smithsonian Magazine

Showings Of Anti-Putin Film At Venice Film Festival Abruptly Canceled

Georgian anti-Putin drama The Antique, which was due to premiere in Venice parallel section Giornate degli Autori (GdA), has had its screenings suspended following the issuing of an emergency decree on behalf of Russian and Croatian producers claiming copyright issues with the screenplay. - Deadline

How Urban Bush Women Manages The First Leadership Transition In Its 40-Year History

Company founder Jawole Willa Jo Zollar has handed the reins to co-artistic directors Chanon Judson and Mame Diarra Speis. "In the spirit of sankofa — the Akan word for holding our history while imagining our future — here are some lessons these leaders have uncovered in their stewardship of this organization." - Dance Magazine

Dennis Quaid And His Perpetual Comeback

After two career collapses (one due to cocaine, one to a nervous breakdown), he has "carved out a space in Hollywood of his own, a sort of sui generis everyman who might not fit as a rom-com or action star but could instead do just about anything else." - The Washington Post (MSN)

Library-Book-Banning Mania Has Arrived In Australia

Electors in Albany, Western Australia (about 4½ hours south of Perth) voted to remove two sex education titles, one aimed at teens, from public library shelves in what the local LGBTIQA+ advocacy group called a "moral panic" and an attempt to conflate sexual minorities with child grooming. - ABC (Australia)

Here’s A Surprise: At Burning Man, Women Now Outnumber Men

"An estimated 49% of people who went to Black Rock City ... in 2023 identified as female, marginally higher than the 48% of attendees who identified as male. That reflects a stark change from 2013, when 40% of Burners identified as female and 58% identified as male." - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)

Leonard Riggio, Who Made Barnes & Noble Into A Bookstore Powerhouse, Is Dead At 83

He started in 1971 by buying the Barnes & Noble name and flagship Manhattan store, acquired hundreds more outlets (including the B. Dalton chain), then, in the 1990s, launched the "superstores" B&N became known for. Indie booksellers despised him — until he joined forces with them against Amazon. - AP

California Lawmakers Pass Bill Protecting Performers From Unauthorized AI Replicas

"AB 2642 would require explicit permission from performers (or their representatives) to use AI software to create digital replicas. … The bill will now return to the California Assembly, which must approve changes made in the state senate. If passed there as expected, it will then be sent to Gov. Newsom." - TheWrap

Minnesota Orchestra Names A Veteran Executive As Interim CEO

"Brent Assink, former executive director of the San Francisco Symphony and past president of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, … takes over for Michelle Miller Burns, who is leaving in September to lead the Dallas Symphony Orchestra." - The Minnesota Star Tribune

How We Build Learning Over Time

When we think about what makes our minds special, we tend to focus on intelligence. But if we want to grasp reality in all its complexity, then “cleverness is not enough.” We need to build capacious and flexible theories about the world—theories that will serve us in new, unanticipated, and strange circumstances. - The New Yorker

Spotting AI Fakes: Can Art Historians Help?

One issue is that every image is worth scrutinizing as a cultural object that conveys values—but only if we can be certain about its origins. How can we interpret a photograph of an event from 1924 if the photograph was digitally fabricated in 2024? - Art in America

How ChatGPT Is Transforming Blind People’s Relationship With Visual Art

Be My AI noted that DALL-E does not “‘see’ in the human sense; it processes data and identifies patterns within that data.” I countered, “But the human brain also does not see. The eyes feed signals to it for interpretation. AI and human perception do not seem so dissimilar to me.” - ARTnews

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