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"Today culture remains capable of endless production, but it’s far less capable of change. Intellectual property has swallowed the cinema; the Hollywood studios that once proposed a slate of big, medium and small pictures have hedged their bets, and even independent directors have stuck with narrative and visual techniques born in the 1960s." - The New York Times

"On the one hand, there’s never been more of it — more specials, podcasts, comedy-generated discussions and debate and cultural flare-ups. … On the other hand, comedy, like everything else, is in bits. Online, it has shattered into memes and trolls and culture warlords and goats singing Bon Jovi." - MSN (The Atlantic)

Georgie Wolton launched the careers of Norman Foster and Richard Rogert, but all that's left of her legacy now is a house in deep disrepair. - The Observer (UK)

Social media's rewards for rage and hate are immediate, and terrifying. - The Guardian (UK)

68% of art museum workers have considered leaving the field, 74% cannot always cover basic living expenses, and it takes an average of 12 years before a worker receives a promotion. Turnover is high — art museums lost 30% of full-time employees hired between 2020 and 2022. - Los Angeles Times

Dmitri Krymov had nine different shows running in Moscow when he left for Philadelphia to stage The Cherry Orchard. Then Putin invaded Ukraine, and Krymov's friends warned him not to come home. Now he's settled in New York, with his own fledgling theater company, raising the money himself. - The New Yorker

DALL-E-3 claims - unconvincingly - that artists can now decline having their work included in data sets. - The Atlantic

Zelda Williams: "I’ve witnessed for YEARS how many people want to train these models to create/recreate actors who cannot consent, like Dad. This isn’t theoretical, it is very very real." - Vulture

Look to Bottoms to lead the way. - The New York Times

California State University Sacramento, the official licensee for CapRadio's two outlets (news/talk KXJZ 90.9 and classical KXPR 88.9), has assumed control of the stations from CapRadio's management and board after an audit revealed the irregularities that led to a financial crisis. - Inside Radio

The unnamed, now-former collections management staffer at the Deutsches Museum in Munich took one painting right off the gallery wall, replaced it with a forgery and sold it at an auction house. He also stole three artworks from storage and sold two of them. Then he bought himself a Rolls-Royce. - CNN

"In the U.S., bringing a heritage language back into a family usually comes down to the efforts of individuals. The parents I spoke with who taught their children a heritage language that they themselves didn’t speak fluently had essentially organized their own lives around the effort." - MSN (The Atlantic)

Such systems, sculpted for an industrial society, falter in the face of a postindustrial, information economy. Schools were built for a world before the vast library of human knowledge became instantly accessible at our fingertips, through the computers on our desks and smartphones in our pockets. - The Guardian

Lina Khan made her reputation with a very different idea: What if pleasing the customer was not enough? Low prices, she argued in a 95-page examination of Amazon in the Yale Law Journal, can mask behavior that stifles competition and undermines society. - The New York Times 

"If art is meant to be a portal, then the art of the future will have not one single exit, but unlimited gateways... This transition, as we are now experiencing it in the early days of the AI overhaul, will test our relationship to reality." - Wired

The strike is still alive, but picket lines (for the WGA) have been suspended. - Variety

A "best and final offer" before today's meetings may lead to a deal soon, but the writers say this is a management-side leak and that the WGA needs to stay focused and strong. - The Hollywood Reporter

"Helping people in theater take care of their children is part of core mission — an early initiative was hiring babysitters to watch children at auditions. Then the leadership realized that theater artists need audiences." - NPR

Crowd science has long been working to understand how throngs can turn dangerous. It has borrowed from psychology and epidemiology, and now is also incorporating complex systems theory, physics, and physiology, combined with plentiful empirical data coupled with computer modeling. Scientists have even started turning their eyes toward the dangerous dynamics of virtual crowds. - Nautilus

The Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, founded in 1945, abruptly canceled its youth events on Saturday - and then deleted everything off its calendar for 2023-24. - CTV Kitchener