It’s enough for them to draw attention to an idea that is worth pursuing further—and an idea need not be true, well-justified given all our evidence, nor even believed by the scientist in order to pass that test. – Nautilus
The Truck Is One Of India’s Great Art Media
“Most drivers are on the road for weeks, sometimes months at a stretch, living a nomadic life and often sleeping and eating in their vehicles. Their trucks become their travel companions and their homes, and the drivers go to great lengths to beautify them. … Hand-painted symbols, elaborate patterns, and quirky slogans with bold typography coalesce into vibrant, idiosyncratic artworks. … Highways transform into runways for chunky vehicles drenched in hues of tangerine, canary, plum, and jade green.” – Hyperallergic
Study: The Size Of Your Eyes’ Pupils Correlates With Intelligence
Now work conducted in our laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology suggests that baseline pupil size is closely related to individual differences in intelligence. The larger the pupils, the higher the intelligence, as measured by tests of reasoning, attention and memory. – Scientific American
Escaping The ‘Teen On Disney’ Trap
Olivia Rodrigo has figured out something that few have before her. There’s” a shift within the Disney sphere, which has apparently evolved enough to allow its stars to curse while still holding down jobs on PG-rated television.” – Washington Post
Bothsidesism Leads To Offensively Inoffensive Opera
See: Bartlett Sher’s Oslo and his Elisir.”It’s rare that history colors a human experience without applying a layer—even a thin layer—to the whole surface.” – Van Magazine
Just Chill, And Enjoy Being An Amateur
If you want to be healthier and happier, that is. “Can’t we stop succeeding for just one moment? Cease trying to be exceptional at something? The answer is yes, but to do so you must embrace your inner amateur.” – Psyche
Greece Will Improve Access To The Acropolis
There’s an argument raging in some circles about a new concrete walkway at the monument – but the culture ministry is not backing down. “In collaboration with Greek associations for people with disabilities, the ministry said signs in Braille and bold would be installed for visitors with visual impairments, in addition to scaled models of the monuments. Handrails and slope warning signs will also be introduced.” – France24 (AFP)
Drainage Workers In Malta Uncover A 2300-Year-Old Tomb
An archaeologist noticed small cuts in an ancient wall – and the reward was a tomb that was used from the 4th to the 1st century B.C.E. The tomb “contained two urns filled with cremated remains as well as the bones of an adult and the articulated skeleton of a young child laid on its back. Artifacts such as a complete amphora, an oil lamp, a glass perfume bottle, and pottery typical of the period were also found.” – ARTnews
Conservative Publishers Are Finding ‘Ice Cold’ Market For Books Trashing Joe Biden
“Authors have little interest in writing them, editors have little interest in publishing them, and — though the hypothesis has yet to be tested — it’s widely assumed that readers would have little interest in buying them. In many ways, the dynamic represents a microcosm of the current political moment: Facing a new president whose relative dullness is his superpower, the American right has gone hunting for richer targets to elevate.” – The Atlantic
Hong Kong’s State Broadcaster Forbidden To Report Political News
“‘We were informed that no political story is allowed,’ says Emily*, an RTHK employee who, along with others interviewed for this article, asked for anonymity to speak freely. ‘We think it’s kind of funny because what isn’t a political story now?'” – The Guardian
Women’s Interests In Gaming May Finally Become Mainstream
Billions of dollars are on the table for an industry that has historically been not just hostile but actively damaging to girls and women who wanted to game. Before this, “Girls couldn’t earnestly be gamers, goons maintained. Worse still, their twisted logic went, fake-gamer egirls were stealing views from real-gamer gamer boys.” Now, thanks to TikTok and real-world changes, things are different. – Wired
Supply Chain Shortages Are Costing Hollywood A Bundle
Constructing sets has become wildly more expensive: “A sheet of plywood was $20 or $30 in recent years but is now roughly three times as much. And it’s not just lumber: Everything from steel to glass to paint has jumped in price in the past few months.” Of course, studios are now looking for other places to save. – The Hollywood Reporter
When Xerox And ‘101 Dalmatians’ Saved Disney’s Animation Studio
Up through Disney’s previous animated feature, Sleeping Beauty, each cell in a film had to be traced and copied by hand, often more than once, then inked and painted — and each movie used hundreds of thousands of cells. That got expensive: Sleeping Beauty cost $1 million more than it earned in its first release (and in 1959 that was serious money). For Dalmatians, animators used Xerox cameras to copy the drawings for cells, saving so much labor and expense that the studio used the technique for the next 30 years, even though Walt didn’t care for the look. – Smithsonian Magazine
Broadway Theatre Owner Cited In Stagehand’s Death
The citations from the federal government’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration were issued to the Shubert Organization for the Winter Garden Theater “six months after Peter Wright, a 54-year-old stagehand, fell nearly 50 feet from a narrow, raised platform while performing routine maintenance in the theater.” – The New York Times
Queering Flamenco (Which Could Really Use It)
“When the journalist and filmmaker Ana González was growing up near Madrid, in the nineteen-nineties, flamenco seemed both ubiquitous and retrograde. For González, this exuberant style of dance and music, which emerged in southern Spain, represented a cloying brand of nationalism. ‘I used to reject the conventional flamenco story, because I associated it with a very conservative tradition,’ she said. It took Manuel Liñán, the subject of Flamenco Queer, to change her mind.” (video) – The New Yorker
The Complicated Legacy Of Betty Crocker
This single cookbook defined American womanhood, but there were a few issues. For one thing, Betty Crocker wasn’t a person. – LitHub
Some Performance Venues Are Having Way Too Hard A Time Getting Federal Relief Money
“As the emails finally started arriving late last week, some business owners got the good news they had been long awaiting: They would be awarded a piece of a $16 billion federal grant fund intended to preserve music clubs, theaters and other live-event businesses devastated by the pandemic. But other applicants ran into fresh obstacles — including the discovery that the government thinks they’re dead. It was the latest bureaucratic mishap for the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant initiative, an aid program created by Congress late last year.” – The New York Times
Investment Funds Are Obsessed With Old Rock And Pop Songs – Why?
It’s not because they’ll live forever; think of the precipitous decline of Elvis’ music and memorabilia. It’s because they’re hot right now and for the next few years. And if you’re a young singer? Well. “The future of the music business is in fashion, make-up, booze, shoes—almost anything except the music itself. If you’re looking for the next Dylan, you are advised to forget about songs entirely. See who has the best side deals, because the sides are now the main course.” – Culture Notes of an Honest Broker
George Beasley, Dead At 89, Built A US Radio Empire
He started in 1961 with one AM station, which he ran while working as a high school principal, in small-town North Carolina. Sixty years on, his Beasley Broadcast Group is one of the five largest radio groups in the U.S., with 62 stations and 20 million listeners a week. – Billboard
Now Netflix Wants To Move Into Video Games
“[The streaming giant] has been approaching senior game industry executives about joining it to lead the creation of a subscription games service, according to reports. … One key decision that has not yet been finalised is whether a game subscription service would also require Netflix to develop games itself.” – The Guardian
‘Why Should The Best Show People Somehow Keep Making The Dullest, Tackiest Hodgepodge Of A Tony Awards Show?’
“Even when not being manipulated by moneybags, the awards have regularly represented Broadway as a neurotic mess: defensive about its marginality, embarrassed by its serious works and insecure about its commercial appeal. … Now is the time for the Tonys to pull their act together.” Jesse Green has a few ideas, and even argues that the recent decision to split the telecast in two could be a good idea. – The New York Times
As Pandemic Lifts, US Museums Are In Less Dire Shape Than Feared
“A year ago, the outlook for U.S. museums appeared grim: a July 2020 survey conducted by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) found that one-third of institutions across the country could close due to the devastating effects of the pandemic. But … a new report by AAM — the professional organization’s third such survey since March of 2020 — suggests that 15 percent of museums are at risk of closure. That’s an improved number to be sure, but a sobering one, too.” – Artnet
JoAnn Falletta’s Successor At Virginia Symphony Is Eric Jacobsen Of The Knights And Brooklyn Rider
The 38-year-old conductor and cellist is also music director of the Orlando Philharmonic and the Greater Bridgeport (Ct.) Symphony, but he’s best known in the wider world for two dynamic contemporary music ensembles: chamber orchestra The Knights, which he founded with his violinist brother Colin, and the string quartet Brooklyn Rider. – The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.)
Dan Frank, Brave And Influential Chief Editor Of Pantheon Books, Dead At 67
He shepherded the work of a remarkable group of authors ranging from Cormac McCarthy to Jill Lepore to Oliver Sacks and beyond. Perhaps his two biggest coups were seeing the potential of graphic narrative to be an enduring genre beyond Art Spiegelman’s Maus (he worked with Spiegelman on subsequent books, and also with Marjane Satrapi and Ben Katchor) and coaxing Joseph Mitchell into publishing a book (Up in the Old Hotel) after 27 years of silence. (Click here for a tribute to Frank by James Fallows.) – The New York Times
International Booker Prize Goes To David Diop’s ‘At Night All Blood Is Black’
“Diop, the author of two novels, and his translator Anna Moschovakis, split the £50,000 annual prize, which goes to the best author and translator of a work translated into English. At Night All Blood Is Black follows Alfa Ndiaye, a Senegalese soldier fighting for France in the first world war, whose descent into madness after the death of a childhood friend on the frontline begins to show itself in extreme brutality against enemy German soldiers in the trenches.” – The Guardian