Today’s Stories
How Young People Are Demanding Change In Dance
I was really inspired by all the young people I saw demanding change, whether in how they were taught dance history, the shoes they were given the option to wear in class, who got hired or admitted into ballet schools and the teachers they would be learning from. – Pointe Magazine
How To Think About The “Big Data” Economy
Policy makers, economists, techies, lawyers, business leaders, and consumers should borrow an idea from cultural anthropology and consider the concept of “barter.” – Harvard Business Review
Our Loftiest Ideas Are Rooted In Practical Needs
Unlike ideas of air, food and water that allow us to think about the everyday resources we need to survive, the venerable notions of knowledge, truth or justice don’t obviously cater to practical needs. – Aeon
Revolving Door? Toronto Symphony CEO To Step Down
Matthew Loden has reportedly decided to leave the role after accepting an offer to serve as Dean at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Huston, Texas. – Ludwig Van
Is The Idea of “Toxic” Masculinity Counter-Productive?
“In today’s context, it is unclear why we are talking about boys and girls as though these are fixed identities to which masculinity and femininity naturally attach, unless to speak in these terms promotes a form of gender moralism, or gender dogma.” – Psyche
Is Disagreement A Social Media Design Problem?
Social media developers can take steps to foster constructive disagreements online through design. But our findings suggest that they also will need to consider how their interventions might backfire. – The Conversation
‘He’s A Friend Of Dorothy’: A Brief History Of Yesteryear’s Favorite Gay Euphemism
For you young’uns, back before Stonewall, this was an expression gay men used to identify each other. (If a guy replied “Dorothy who?”, one quickly retreated.) But who was Dorothy — Gale or Parker? – Smithsonian Magazine
Why Is Amazon’s Science Fiction So Toxic?
Amazon has shat out science-fiction programming for years, and it ranges, on the smell-o-meter, from the merely obnoxious to the just plain noxious—a flatulence that fluctuates. – Wired
#IALivingWage: Hollywood’s Writers’ Assistants Fight For More Money And Less Misery
Despite the famously long hours and low pay, aspiring TV writers compete madly for these jobs, hoping to get a foot in the door and onto the career ladder. But, as one assistant puts it, “the ladder has been disappearing.” – Fast Company
Why Is Creativity Going Down?
Studies suggest that bored people score higher on creativity tests. As our distractions have multiplied, our minds have less opportunity to wander. Thus… – Medium
Netflix And (Ugh) ‘365 Days’ Have Made Poland Into A Hotbed Of Video Production
The industry that produced Andrzej Wajda and Agnieszka Holland never anticipated that a trashy softcore flick would become its most-watched product, the world’s lockdown guilty pleasure. Fortunately, Netflix has been putting a lot of resources into more (and more respectable) projects in Poland. – The Hollywood Reporter
Creativity Scores Are Going Down
“A researcher at the University of William and Mary analyzed 300,000 Torrance Test scores since the ’50s. She found that creativity scores began to nosedive in 1990. – Inc
At The Robot Version Of The Eurovision Song Contest
The A.I. Song Contest features three dozen or so teams that use artificial intelligence networks to create parts of, and sometimes all of, a song, along with a jury of scientists and songwriters led by Imogen Heap. And what did they come up with? – The New York Times
Study: Why We See Faces In Inanimate Objects
Face pareidolia – seeing faces in random objects or patterns of light and shadow – is an everyday phenomenon. Once considered a symptom of psychosis, it arises from an error in visual perception. – The Guardian
How A Drama School Class Handled Graduating Right Into The Pandemic
The theater students of the UNC School of the Arts Class of 2020 hadn’t expected to be starting their careers right at the moment their chosen industry completely shut down. Here’s a look at how they managed and where they are now. – The New York Times
Dancing To Heal From Turmoil And Tragedy
Ari Honarvar, who as a teen danced secretly to get herself through life in post-revolution Iran, writes about how she now leads communal dancing as therapy for Central American asylum-seekers marooned in Tijuana. – Slate
Rebel Filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. Dead At 85
He built a cult following in the 1960s underground with inventively odd satires, then hit the mainstream in 1969 with Putney Swope, in which a Black Power activist takes over a New York ad agency, followed by Greaser’s Palace, the life of Christ as a spaghetti Western. – Variety
Scientists Are Figuring Out The Chemical Baths Stradivari And Guarneri Gave Their Spruce Wood
Researchers using an array of high-tech methods have found traces of alum, potash, lime, borax, and plain old salt in the wooden fronts of these old instruments — and the cellulose molecules in the spruce were rearranged by those treatments. – The Strad
Publishing Industry About To Get Slammed By Supply Chain Troubles
“Truck driver shortages, widespread port congestion, and skyrocketing container costs are among the biggest challenges facing the book industry supply chain for the rest of the year and into 2022.” – Publishers Weekly
Notre-Dame’s Neighbors Sue City Of Paris Over Lead Levels After Fire
“The plaintiffs” — local residents and a powerful labor union — “accuse the authorities of ‘grave negligence’, which they say exposed city dwellers, particularly children and those working to restore the cathedral, to dangerous levels of toxic lead dust.” – The Guardian
Tokyo Olympics Will Be Held Under State Of Emergency
“The Japanese government formally declared a state of emergency in Tokyo on Thursday, due to rising numbers of COVID-19 infections. Restrictions will be in place throughout the duration of the Games, and may mean that spectators are banned from some events in Tokyo and nearby prefectures.” – Variety
How Do We Determine Good Taste?
The very notion of taste contains within itself two ideas in constant tension. – Claremont Review
Inside The Black Market For College Essays
“For every privileged kid too lazy to write an essay, there was a more complex story. To my surprise, of the hundreds of clients I worked with, many—maybe most—students were simply desperate for the help.” – Slate
Dallas Theatre Promises To Diversify, Then Announces An All-White Cast
“An effort was made. Was it good enough? Was it the right effort? Was it an effort that was still within the blind spots that we have? Possibly.” – Dallas Morning News
People Are Returning To Movie Theatres. Just Not Enough Of Them
With pandemic limitations in mind, as of early July, the overall domestic box office has reached $1.05 billion in ticket sales, down 42.3% from 2020 and down 81.3% from 2019. – Variety