How low has Putin driven Russian culture? Here are two indications. Thousands of scientists and other intellectuals along with hundreds of ballet dancers and other artists are leaving or trying to leave Russia, ashamed of Putin’s wars and immobilized by his repression. - Hedgehog Review
"They serve as field reporting, pleas for weapons, arias that glorify Ukraine. But the videos have done more than win Ukraine moral and military support. They have created a serialized manifesto — one that makes the case for liberal democracy over oligarchic autocracy, ... clarifying, day by day, democracy's reason for being." - Wired
"It must be close to the Capitol, close enough to implicate and shame those inside it on a daily basis. ... After every mass shooting, turn on the lights and the microphones, and let no political leader who makes the symbolic pilgrimage escape speaking actual truth on the site." - MSN (The Washington Post)
Philanthropists rarely make the large, unrestricted gifts that the receiving institutions really want, and so the two parties bargain: over the purpose and the control of a gift, over the form of credit, over how much the institution has to raise from other sources as a condition. - The New Yorker
We can at least say of the oil economy that its environmental damage, and consequent destruction of the human world, is only an epiphenomenon, whereas for the internet, the destruction of the human is itself the source of value. - LA Review of Books
I too grew up imbibing common technotopian fantasies of the late-20th Century zeitgeist, of a belief in humanity’s manifest destiny of multi-planetary spread and dominion. I just didn’t put the pieces of the puzzle together until I tried to understand climate change. - 3 Quarks Daily
Research from the University of Canberra found that heavy news use dropped from 69% in April 2020 to 51% in January 2021, while those expressing high interest in the news fell from 64% in 2016 to 52% in 2021. - The Guardian
"Susan Jaffe, who recently turned 60, has in mind such steps as opening up artistic processes to the public and soliciting views from balletgoers and other stakeholders on the delicate task of updating thorny works from the classical canon. It's an audience-first approach." - MSN (The Washington Post)
Rather than the “death of the author” heralded by French novelist and philosopher Roland Barthes in the 1960s, are we now witnessing its counterpoint—a cultural sphere where nothing remains but a cult of celebrity being played out on digital platforms? - LitHub
Gilda Radner, Eugene Levy, Martin Short, Victor Garber, Jayne Eastwood, Andrea Martin, and Paul Shaffer all walked into a theatre. This is a (rollicking) oral history of the experience. "Jesus starts his narration, and we look up and Andrea has a dinner roll in her mouth." - Washington Post
Memorizing can become a highly specialized act, based on regular practice and rehearsal. A singer, though fully capable of performing the role of say Aida, is unlikely to be able to memorize an epic poem that is similarly long. - The Baffler
How can immunotherapy cure a 65-year-old, newly retired man of Stage IV lung cancer, restoring the promise of his golden years with his family, but do nothing for the 55-year-old woman whose cancer robs her of decades of life? We do not know. - LA Review of Books
Many of us find ourselves in the alienating position of using (even relying on) technology companies we distrust and hate, knowing that they are bad for us and for society, but somehow being unable or unwilling to escape. - New Statesman
"Starting out as an informal gathering of local men painting wherever they could find some shade, Papunya Tula has become one of the most respected players in the world of Indigenous art, with two art centers (in tiny desert towns) and an art gallery in Alice Springs." - Smithsonian Magazine
Einstein had been a well-paid man. His Princeton salary of $10,000 – roughly $180,000 in today’s money – was set by the university to exceed that of any American scientist. But his earnings in life were insignificant compared to his earnings in death. - The Guardian
Cambodian investigators have explained to the BBC the routes by which sculptures stolen from ancient temples made it to Britain, and two former looters identified items in the British Museum and V&A catalogues which they themselves had taken during the Khmer Rouge years. - BBC
Computer scientists want to know whether all the problems we hope to solve can be solved efficiently, in a reasonable amount of time — before the end of the universe, say. If not, they are simply far too difficult. - Quanta
Protactile, as the new language is called, started with people (usually sighted) signing ASL into the hands of DeafBlind folks. But many of ASL's signs don't really come across in touch, so DeafBlind people have been gradually developing their own vocabulary and linguistic conventions. - The New Yorker
Why do some people revel in collections of novelty eggcups? Or have so many framed pictures you can barely see the (ferociously busy) wallpaper? And why do those at the other end of the spectrum refuse to have even the essential stuff visible in the home? - The Conversation
Canada’s tidy, modest institutions have lowered the ceiling on its creative professions. There’s also something very stay-in-your-lane about the presumption that a Canadian artist will never get big enough to be one of them. They’d sooner call you dead. So much for assimilation! - The Walrus
