Paul Tillich defines “the courage to be” as “the ethical act in which man affirms his own being in spite of those elements of his existence which conflict with his essential self-affirmation.” In other words, it is not simply an attitude or disposition. The courage to be is a deed. - The Conversation

Unfortunately, the dominance of psychological narratives manifests in the misplaced hopes we cast onto individual leaders – whether in the political, technological, social or religious realms – and the often simplistic ideas they put forward. - Psyche

As with any large-scale production - though this one also involves a lot of mechanics around the rides - there’s an army of creative workers that theme park visitors never, ever see. - Fast Company

Also: “We technically could create a ‘universal’ solution, but every color space is made for different purposes, and they impact how everything is displayed, from the shades of a website to the color grading of a TV show. We would be sacrificing the ability to optimize anything.” - The Verge

“Undecidability means that certain questions simply cannot be answered.” - Wired

That’s right, we’ve built a whole architecture - and funded people’s lives, or defunded their jobs entirely - based on nothing but lies. - The Verge

Proponents say that reaching the 100 million target would give Canada the centres of gravity it needs for such clusters to form; critics say the plan is nothing more than a corporate push for more profits, backed by multinationals like McKinsey & Company and BlackRock. - The Walrus

The loss of potentially thousands of such grants has left recipients reeling and prompted some organizations to mobilize, as millions of dollars of previously approved funding were stripped from state humanities councils, museums, historic sites, archives, libraries, educators and media outlets. - Washington Post

So many artists have quietly pulled out of the 2025-26 season that the center has had to keep delaying its schedule announcements. - The New Yorker

"Unfortunately I had to cancel all my upcoming events in the United States as I felt unsafe traveling, especially after watching students and university professors abducted on the street just in front of other people." - CBC

“The (NPS) on Monday appeared to restore its original webpage on the history of the Underground Railroad after it was met with backlash for deleting a prominently featured photo of abolitionist and women’s suffragist Harriet Tubman, as well as segments of text describing the horrors of slavery.” - The Washington Post (MSN)

The latest target is San Francisco’s Dream Keeper Initiative, introduced in 2021 at the height of the “defund the police” movement... But now, a variety of theaters, media companies and other entities say the city is reneging on promised grants — a total of more than $14 million affecting 38 recipients — without explanation. - San Francisco Chronicle

A team of artists and neuroscientists took white blood cells donated by the composer (who cooperated with the project), reprogrammed them to be stem cells, grew cerebral organoids (clusters of neurons that mimic the human brain) and used customized technology to render the organoids’ neural signals into music. - The Guardian

At the emotional core of “The Last Repair Shop” are the stories of the dedicated technicians and the students who benefit from the free instruments. The message: Music education has the power to transform lives. - Los Angeles Times

It quickly garnered a reputation as a hub for sexual content, given that it gave adult performers and sex workers the ability to create and upload content on their own terms, or at least without a production studio as the middleman. The platform takes a 20% cut and the rest goes to the creator. - NPR

Royal Opera assistant director Netia Jones: “As artists, we must explore technology in all its guises because we are trained to create rather than to destroy.” - The Observer (UK)

Using eminent domain, the municipality acquired the largely vacant campus from Rider University for a payment of $42 million. A financial crisis led WCC to merge with Rider in 1991; subsequent money troubles led Rider to attempt to sell the WCC property and move its programs to Rider’s own campus.” - The Daily Princetonian

“Mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili sued the Metropolitan Opera and her union, alleging the company unlawfully terminated her contracts because of a vocal issue that developed after she gave birth. She also accused the union of failing to pursue a grievance against the company.” - AP

Archaeologists have finally found physical evidence for something they had long suspected: the temple complex included an educational institution, likely for training scribes and priests. They have also discovered a collection of tombs dating from several centuries after Ramses, indicating that the site was in use long after he died. - Artnet

Only one museum in Mexico, with comparable material, didn’t make me feel culturally exhausted or embarrassed by my ignorance in this way. - 3 Quarks Daily

Sarah Boardman won a nationwide “call for artists” by the Colorado state government to paint its official portraits of Obama and Trump. At the unveiling of Trump’s in August 2019, Boardman said she painted in the style of artist Lawrence Williams, who created 43 of the presidential portraits in the state building. - ARTnews

“Call them what you like — mud trays, clay troughs, unbaked earthen dishes — but the four 3x1½-inch dull-colored things hardly get the pulses racing. … A new study … (suggests they were) objects used in the funerary rites of Osiris, the ancient Egyptian god of the afterlife.” - Artnet

 “Ordinarily, paintings and sculptures are exempt from customs duties,” says Nicholas M. O’Donnell, a partner in the Boston law firm Sullivan & Worcester, but “under the recently announced tariff it gets a little more complicated”. - The Art Newspaper

On March 6, representative David Lowe filed House Bill 3958, which outlines a proposed civil penalty against any museum showing “certain obscene or harmful material.” The Texas Penal Code defines “obscene” as any kind of performance or material that depicts sexual acts without literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. - ARTnews

According to a new NPR/Ipsos poll, reading is something a majority of Americans enjoy, and want to get better at. But it's nowhere near a top priority. - NPR

“The American Library Association (ALA) and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), whose members include museum and library workers nationwide, have sued over what the ALA called, in a release, ‘the Trump administration’s gutting of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).’” - Publishers Weekly

“72% of demands to censor books were initiated by pressure groups, government entities and elected officials, board members and administrators, reported the American Library Association (ALA). Just 16% of ban attempts were made by parents, while 5% were brought forward by individual library users.” - The Guardian

The college essay is a deeply unfair way to select students for top colleges, one that is much more biased against the poor than standardized tests. It wrongly encourages students to cast themselves as victims, to exaggerate the adversity they’ve faced, and to turn genuinely upsetting experiences into the focal point of their self-understanding....

“I see all that being as a measure of: ‘If we fly under the radar, we’ll be safe,’” they said. “But it’s sad because who gets left behind – for staff members of color, who are visibly queer, who are disabled, we don’t get to turn off that part of ourselves.” - The...

The list also includes “Memorializing the Holocaust,” Janet Jacobs’s examination of depictions of women in the Holocaust, and “How to Be Anti-Racist” by Ibram X. Kendi. Also listed are “The Making of Black Lives Matter,” by Christopher J. Lebron; “How Racism Takes Place,” by George Lipsitz,,, - The New York Times

“Eight years after its premiere, the series adaptation of Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel is coming to a much lower-key close, indicative of all that's happened in that intervening time, and the toll that becoming an iconic symbol, far beyond a mere TV show, can creatively exact on any work of art.” - TheWrap (MSN)

Generally, streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+ are just that: services, not goods, so they don’t face any kind of markup when they cross borders. But at a time when the stock market is in “chaos,” the economic uncertainty caused by Trump’s tariffs is sure to have impacts on those services. - Wired

“Yorgos Lanthimos had filed a request to film scenes for sci-fi comedy Bugonia at the fifth-century BC site in April. But in a statement on Thursday, the culture ministry said permission had been refused because ‘the proposed scenes are incompatible with the symbolism … and the values the Acropolis represents’.” - The Guardian

“Because most federal funding goes to ensuring underserved areas of the country have a news source, defunding PBS would likely disproportionately impact rural communities. It would also be a major blow to lower income households, which often rely on PBS programming for its children’s entertainment.” - TheWrap (Yahoo!)

“A new audit from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting found that Capital Public Radio and its affiliate stations overstated funding, reported ‘questionable costs,’ and failed to comply with financial requirements and grant guidelines.” - Capital Public Radio (Sacramento)

“This is Jurassic Park: Castlemaine Redux, a shot-for-shot remake (if you squint) of Jurassic Park.” The film's director, with a $3,000 budget, has classic Australian issues: “Some sheep walked into the last shot and screwed up the continuity.” - The Guardian (UK)

“As a 10-year-old in Philadelphia, I experienced Dance Theatre of Harlem much in the same way that (today’s children) are experiencing it now. ... What I got from that was that Dance Theatre of Harlem met me where I was, and then took me to another place.” - Pointe Magazine

During 2023 and 2024, a troupe calling itself “Ballet of Ukraine” played dates in several cities in Sweden and Finland — but an investigation by Swedish television found that the group is registered in Russia and had its fees sent to a Russian-owned company in Switzerland, thus deceiving audiences and violating sanctions. - BroadwayWorld

“Dance has always been more fragile as an audience draw; we are so keenly aware of that and are always trying to build bridges to help audience members find ‘their stories’ in our performances.” - Wisconsin State Journal (Internet Archive)

It was the first starring performance at the theater for Maria Shuvalova, daughter of former official Igor Shuvalov, who now heads a Kremlin-backed bank. Several reviews were harsh, and the ones that weren’t may have been paid for; one critic says she was offered money for a favorable report. - The Times (UK)

"The response of these dance leaders reinforces my belief that the Trump administration’s move to suffocate diversity in the arts is ultimately doomed to fail. The voice of Americans of all races, genders and ability levels is a bell that cannot be un-rung and the arts are endlessly inventive, subversive and evolving." - New...

Out of 213 classically-based companies examined, only 30% of artistic directors are women and 70% are men. Women comprise 32.3% of artistic directors at second companies and 46.2% of assistant or associate artistic directors. Nearly half (49.2) of company executive directors are female. - Dance Data Project

“The historic fantasy of the Great White Way as a glamorous montage of gleaming marquees, sparky backstage romances, and elegant audiences reveling in black tie was a Hollywood concoction, arguably false from the start.” - New York Magazine (MSN)

“Perched on a hillside on Lefkada, an island off the west coast of Greece, the structure has been excavated by archaeologists from the Ephorate of Antiquities of Aitoloakarnania and Lefkada over the past decade.” - Artnet

“For our annual ‘Yesteryear’ issue, we asked 29 Broadway legends to pose before Mark Seliger’s camera and revisit their most memorable roles. Their careers span an enormous length of time” — 65 years, in fact, from Dick Van Dyke in Bye Bye Birdie to Audra McDonald in Gypsy. - New York Magazine

Opening night is not a Broadway show’s first performance in front of a paying audience, as it used to be many decades ago. That first show is now called the first preview. - New York Theatre

But this surprise is of the good, even great sort: The theatre “has paid $9.5 million to buy back the campus it lost in bankruptcy in 1970 — a remarkable feat for a theater organization, and a building, brought back from the brink.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

"Weimar cabaret has a kind of punk, dirty, gritty, raw, social commentary energy about it. … It flares up in times when there’s a lot of scary shit happening in the world.” - The Guardian (UK)

“(He) became a heavily autobiographical musical theatre writer, folding his experiences as a gay Jewish man with a brain stem malformation into some of his most lauded work.” - Playbill

Music director, at various points, of the Indianapolis Symphony, Opera Theater of St. Louis, and the Ensemble orchestral de Paris, he is noted especially for a series of landmark recordings of Berlioz’s vocal and stage works — in particular a multi-award-winning Les Troyens. - Gramophone

“Marcus was everywhere that mattered to a young, determined and very talented artist in the late 1950s and ’60s. In Provincetown, Mass., on Cape Cod each summer, painting out of a shack in the dunes. At the Cedar Tavern in Greenwich Village, holding her own.” - The New York Times

But he’s OK if you’re stuck on that era of his long, and continuing, career. Meanwhile, he’s also a painter, which is why The Thomas Crown Affair is, in his words, his favorite of his movies. - The New York Times

“(He) rose improbably from rural poverty in Costa Rica to the towering heights of the global antiquities market, despite accusations that he trafficked in fake and stolen artifacts — and … fell precipitously when those accusations proved to be true.” - The New York Times

“Filed last week in New York federal court, the complaint from Dr. Brian Morley, the ex-medical director of health insurance corporation AmeriHealth Caritas, … (states) “Defendants falsely told millions of viewers … that Dr. Morley testified in a Medicaid hearing that ‘he thinks it’s okay if people have shit on them for days.’” -...