While the specifics differ (as do outcomes, somewhat), the common thread seems to be that these towns built gathering places — community centers or gardens, cafes, public squares with seating and playgrounds. And they've made a real difference. - Fast Company
Optimization cannot reconcile people’s conflicting world views. Though conflict has always been the meat of politics, political differences today mean that people not only disagree over solutions and precise settings of valuation parameters; they also clash over the fundamental terms. - Boston Review
In the old college system there were lists of books that every student was supposed to study—a canon. The canon was the curriculum. In the modern university, students elect their courses and choose their majors. That is the system the great books were designed for use in. The great books are outside the regular curriculum. - The New Yorker
Not-for-profit theatres contributed nearly $2.1 billion to the U.S. economy and attracted 23 million attendees, according to Theatre Facts 2020. SMU Data Arts
It's said to be a “quasi-successor to the Internet,” with comparable impact and importance, that will give users an individual “presence.” - The Walrus
Critic Oliver Wainwright says that the architects of this east London project, called A House for Artists, have found a way to follow local regulations and codes and keeps building costs low while still creating living spaces that are flexible and filled with light. - The Guardian
In the interviews taken as part of my research, I repeatedly found financial constraints underpin three problems causing career unsustainability in the arts. - The Conversation
Being able to engage in the practice of mindful, aesthetic and critical listening is as important to democracy as literacy. Yet, in comparison to the time and money put into early childhood reading development or STEM, these three modalities of democratic listening receive scant attention. 3 Quarks Daily
This year she's been focused on turning seven of Condé Nast's biggest publications into global brands, each under one leader. She is also ensuring that there are unlikely to be any more Anna Wintours — imperial editors-in-chief each with their own fiefs. - The New York Times
The work — a subversive blurring of genre, time and politics reflecting on how little has changed over the centuries, yet how much change is possible — jolted the generally conservative Vienna State Opera. - The New York Times
The NFT confers public proof of ownership and authenticity of an item, which may or may not include copyright — just as in the physical world an artist may sell a work but retain the intellectual property. - The New York Times
"Artists are taught to see each other as competition ... and to believe that failure to achieve status in their chosen field is solely due to a lack of individual talent." The pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests, and social media changed all that. - Los Angeles Review of Books
In this Q&A, she says that in 1996, Harvey Weinstein and Miramax deliberately buried the movie, but that young people today (including her daughter's friends) have discovered it and love it, especially now that Roe v. Wade is in jeopardy. - Vulture
Americans used to go to movie theaters to watch new characters in new stories. Now they go to movie theaters to re-submerge themselves in familiar story lines. - The Atlantic
Adaptations from well-known sources go right from the beginnings of opera as a distinct genre circa 1600 (Peri's Euridice and Monteverdi's L'Orfeo) to the remarkable flowering of new opera (especially chamber opera) in the US today. And there are good reasons for that. - Van
A retired Boston jeweler says that, shortly after the 1990 heist, an acquaintance brought in a gilded bronze eagle for him to appraise — a piece that he recognized as stolen from the museum. - MSN (The Boston Globe)
Most of us assumed the dear old mag had shut down forever. In fact, it was only closed from 1969-71, before being relaunched as a quarterly; it's now bimonthly and was overhauled in 2013. Here's an overview of the Post's two centuries. - Columbia Journalism Review
Excavations in the Lachish Forest, about 40 miles southwest of Jerusalem, have uncovered the remains of a Hellenistic fortress — a structure which the Israel Antiquities Authority says was destroyed by the Maccabees' army during the rebellion commemorated by Hanukkah. (Other scholars aren't so sure.) - Yahoo! (The Daily Beast)
The gift represents an important leap forward for the Met project, which is now expected to cost about $500 million and calls for creating 80,000 square feet of galleries and public space with an architect to be announced this winter. - The New York Times
Impossible to sum the central figure of American musical theatre up, but: "Sondheim not only bound music, lyrics and book inextricably together, but he explored in far greater depths the human condition in all its anxieties and moral complexities." - Washington Post
