Sacre bleu! What is happening? A French artist won "a competition to replace the existing six windows installed by architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in 1844 – even though the windows were not damaged in the 2019 fire.” - The Guardian (UK)
“His music speaks to something timeless: the longing for connection, and the pain at not finding it. He gives voice, and then consolation, to that part of us that feels alone in the world even when surrounded by people who care for us.” - The New York Times
Adam Moss sits in on rehearsals and talks with the five-time Tony-winning director and his actors (including Audra McDonald and Joy Woods, of course) on how much Wolfe changed the show while changing so little of it. (And no, it's not all about race, though that's certainly part of it.) - New York Magazine
"The ensemble of the 25-year-old Congo Square Theatre Company … has told the Tribune it has 'unanimously decided to not participate in any production, artistic curating and programming for the upcoming 2025 season until the current board president has been removed from the board.'" - Chicago Tribune
The series of 11 grass-covered mounds, titled The Sound We Travel At, is a physical representation of Doppler waves. It's right in busy Kendall Square; people regularly walk past and even sit on it. MIT spent $1.3 million on it. Yet almost no one realized that it's there. - The Boston Globe
Joshua Oppenheimer, who convinced participants of the 1965-66 mass executions to re-enact them for his Oscar-nominated films The Act of Killing (2012) and The Look of Silence (2014), has just released The End, a musical (!) set in a rich family's bunker after an environmental apocalypse. - The Washington Post (MSN)
"Portrait of Dr. Gachet," painted just weeks before van Gogh's suicide in 1890, had a clear chain of ownership, including years on display at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt and the Met in New York. In 1998 the painting was sold privately; almost nobody has seen it since. - The New York Times
"The company says it has 'ceased to exist' following the loss of all its Arts Council Wales funding in 2023. … The company will now evolve into TEAM (Theatre, Engagement, Music, Arts), focusing on the grassroots work it has always done within the community and education." - BBC
"The story I saw coming to a grim conclusion in that courtroom was about more than a failed media company. … Carlos Watson may have built Ozy with big dreams and 'diversity' in mind, but as those ideas became corrupted by the superseding desire for capitalistic success, it all came crashing down." - Slate (Yahoo!)
"Being violated and brought close to death is (a) psychological abyss, but living with the belief that actors and producers have exploited your rape for money, and that more than 5 million viewers, including some of your own friends, watch it for entertainment … will bring you dangerously close to becoming the Joker." - Slate (Yahoo!)
Fortnite “customers could ultimately receive $245 million for what the agency called Epic’s use of ‘dark patterns’ to trick millions of players into unwanted purchases. Another $275 million will settle accusations that the studio violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.” - The New York Times
In Bend, Oregon, “there have been previous reports of sculptures being decorated with Christmas garb in the past, but the googly eyes are a newer development” - one city officials are begging people to stop. - Oregon Public Broadcasting (KLCC)
Andrew Wallenstein, then-co-editor-in-chief of Variety: "I’m not going to say if I had to do it all over again I would do it differently because I understand why I did what I did then. But looking back on the hack, I wish I’d taken a different tack. Let me explain why." - Variety
Justin Davidson: "A new museum wing here can’t just be an exercise in logistics. It’s also a presence in Central Park and a half-billion-dollar embodiment of the museum’s encyclopedic mission. … (Frida Escobedo's design) looks laudably simple because it provides an elegant solution to a tangle of trade-offs and constraints." - Curbed (MSN)
"In the months since the revelations, I revisited Munro’s stories, spoke with members of her family and tracked down a number of her unpublished letters. Munro’s appalling failures as a mother seem to have been an imaginative incitement, instrumental to her artistic project." - The New York Times Magazine
"A federal judge in Texas rejected the auction sale of Alex Jones’ Infowars to The Onion satirical news outlet, criticizing the bidding for the conspiracy theory platform as flawed as well as how much money families of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting stood to receive." - AP
Under a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board, "10 fired dancers, and three whose offers of employment were rescinded, will receive over $560,000 from the dance company in back pay, front pay and compensation for damages incurred through the loss of their employment." - KERA (Dallas)
"A poet of rage and revolution as well as love and longing, (she) emerged as a fiery voice of Black liberation in the 1960s before honing a more tender, meditative style in best-selling books for children and adults." - The Washington Post (MSN)
Why? Because the reasoning era is here. The basic difference: “Language models learn a grammar, perhaps even something about the world, while reasoning models aim to use that grammar.” - The Atlantic
