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The ‘Digital Organism’ In A Dutch Forest (That’s Actually A Responsive Art Installation)

Whoa: “Each battery-powered light, called a ‘Pixie,’ is nestled on a diamond-shaped wooden plaque, and contains a microprocessor that sends signals to other Pixies in the forest. Each microprocessor is equipped with certain ‘behavioral rules’ that tell the Pixies how often and how quickly they should send signals to surrounding Pixies.”

The Mayor Of Düsseldorf Canceled A Show Honoring A Victim Of The Nazis, But Why?

His claims seem shady to many in Germany, including the German minister of culture. “‘Exhibitions aimed at confronting Nazi wrongs are more necessary than ever at the current time,’ said Hagen Philipp Wolf, a spokesman for the German culture minister Monika Grütters. ‘It is therefore beyond regrettable that the planned exhibition about the life and activities of the Jewish art dealer Max Stern and the history of his persecution in Düsseldorf is not now taking place.'”

Disney Is Finally Removing That Lengthy ‘Frozen’ Short From Pixar’s ‘Coco’

People really, really hated the length, the placement, the fact that it wasn’t a Pixar creation, and much more. Screenings after Dec. 8 won’t have the Olaf-based 21-minute “short” in front of Coco. Of course, “The request from Disney also asks that theaters use the newly freed-up time to hold extra screenings of Coco each day.”

Radio Host Who Rather Suddenly Left Show Accused Of Harassment By Many Former Colleagues

The Takeaway’s John Hockenberry had many complaints against him from his co-hosts, women of color who were eventually forced off the show by his behavior, which the station (WNYC) protected. But there’s more: “There were unwelcome sexual overtures, physical and verbal, directed at the younger women who worked on the show as low- to mid-level producers, assistants, and interns. For the most part, these women did not report their experiences to WNYC management for fear of endangering their jobs. The second group of grievances came from the women of color who served as Hockenberry’s co-hosts — The Takeaway was explicitly founded, in 2008, to bring more diverse voices to public radio.”

Dickens Isn’t The Inventor Of Christmas, But He Did Give The Novel Quite A Boost

Yes, a new film claims he “invented Christmas,” but gets many other things right. “Commercial requirements drove Dickens to audacious innovations. … Dickens was forging a path that the others followed. He showed how the novel could be popular yet daring, capacious yet true to the ordinary pains of one individual’s experience. He proved that you could experiment and still sell books.”

An Open Letter Calls On New York To Remove Statues Of Teddy Roosevelt, Columbus, And More

The signatories include art historians like Lucy Lippard and Hal Foster, and artists as well, in the wake of the final meeting of NY’s Mayoral Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers. “These monuments are an affront in a city whose elected officials preach tolerance and equity. … We encourage the Commission to seize this opportunity to make a brave, even monumental, gesture that will resonate for generations to come, rather than a politically expedient fix that will be easily absorbed — and quickly forgotten — by the status quo.”

The Orchestra Of Broken Instruments Shows What Happens When School Funding Gets Cut

Composer David Lang wrote the Symphony for a Broken Orchestra, and “more than 1,500 broken musical instruments have been sourced from the dusty corridors of the School District of Philadelphia, which has no budget to fix them.”

Remember How Bookstores Used To Be Before Christmas?

This lovely piece is by a woman who worked as a book wrapper: “In the weeks before Christmas the Chinook was loud and warm and full. Toddlers threw stuffed monkeys from the two-story playhouse in the children’s book section; men in hiking boots and dirty ski jackets bent over topographical maps they’d pulled from tall oak chests containing all the landscapes of the West: every vein, every slope, from the prairie to the Pacific. Shoppers balanced tall stacks of books in their arms, left stacks of books on the wide black counter while they went back for more.”

Will Disney Buy The Fox Empire?

Well, Disney is sure interested. The behemoth would “buy 21st Century Fox’s movie studio, television production arm, some cable channels and international television operations.”