“Baby sloths are the new Internet darling, thanks to a sloth sanctuary recently featured on Animal Planet. A video of its occupants went viral, and now online denizens can’t get enough of the Central and South American mammal.”
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Yet Another Thing Siri Can Do: Play The Piano
Yes, the sweet-voiced assistant inside the latest iPhone can, with the right wireless port, play any song in your music library on a Yamaha Disklavier.
The Ugly Caricature At The Heart Of Holland’s Holiday Celebrations
Every year on the eve of St. Nicholas Day, in a televised ceremony, Sinterklaas comes sailing into a Dutch port with a slave servant assistant – or a group of them – called Black Pete and dressed like an escapee from a minstrel show. Complaints about racist caricature are beginning to rise, and some Dutch people are reacting with unusual hostility.
We Swear We Didn’t Design These Twin Towers To Look Like 9/11. Really, We Didn’t.
As part of a large new urban development scheme in South Korea, the Dutch architectural firm MVRDV designed twin skyscrapers with a “pixelated cloud” structure connecting them roughly halfway up. The architects, in their apology, insist that the resemblance to the burning World Trade Center never occurred to them.
More Memories Of Merce Cunningham
The company’s sound engineer remembers taking a Polaroid; a former intern recalls Merce teaching her the proper technique for pushing a pillow onstage; one dancer describes the calm way he dealt with replacing injured dancers; another dancer recounts seeing Merce in a dream shortly after he died.
A Visit With Ai Weiwei Under House Arrest
“By the conditions of his release from detention, Ai was not then allowed to give formal interviews or make public political statements. He was not allowed to discuss censorship or human rights in China, what happened to him during his detention, or broader questions about China’s future. So instead, we chatted about art and cats.” (He has about 20 of them.)
Dancing About Frank Gehry’s Architecture (And On It, No Less)
“Since 2008, choreographer Noémie Lafrance has been creating a series of dances titled Rapture, “staged on the exterior surface[s] of Gehry buildings. [The works] feature dancers travelling across the roofs and walls using custom rigging systems and video mapping projections to reveal the dynamics of the architecture’s curves in motion.”
Looking At Sleeping Beauty‘s Most Terrifying Sequence
“Watching [Alina] Cojocaru, with her steely grace and perfect phrasing (note, for example, the way she drifts that pirouette at 0:30 across the music, or the flawless arabesque sequence from 1:45) you might not guess that the Rose Adagio is one of the great challenges for ballerinas. But it’s a killer.”
What An Old Card Trick Shows About Subconscious Perception
A Spanish researcher “has used the card trick to reveal how we take in more visual information than we consciously notice. The results suggest that if you are not sure whether you recognise something or someone, you should pay attention to your gut instinct. Your subconscious may have registered the information after all.”
Swords Into Plowshares? How About Kalashnikovs Into Jewelry?
Social entrepreneur Peter Thum’s new venture, Fonderie 47, “acquires and destroys AK-47s in Africa, then brings some of the metal back home where it is transformed into rare jewelry, watches and accessories. The sale of each piece of their jewelry funds the destruction of more weapons.”