• As you brave the New York summer heat, keep an eye out for five replicas of the Trylon and Perisphere sculpture, which was the focus of the 1939 World’s Fair held in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. Nicole Saraniero has the details for untapped new york:

This miniature replica of the Trylon and Perisphere was built as an information kiosk in the center of Times Square. The eye-catching booth both advertised the fair and provided useful information on how to get there and what to do when you arrive. The booth stood at 46th Street and Broadway, a short walk from the headquarters of its sponsor, Loews Metro Goldwyn Meyer. Pictured above, workers are giving the stand a fresh coat of paint for the upcoming fair season. In the show’s first year, half a million people visited the stand.

• In the Los Angeles TimeSofía Aguilar reflects on crochet as a way to honor her Mexican heritage while tackling the art form’s colonial history, moving beyond the mainstream view of just a “hobby”:

But until recently, I admit that hooking has sometimes felt like a betrayal of my identity. As a child of a Mexican family, I know all too well the costs of colonization and loss of culture. Enjoying something as European as crochet, even when it’s harmless and fun, can feel weird and wrong, or at least it did to me. Especially when the online and real-life crochet community, which is heavily saturated with white designers and artists, asks questions like “Is this just a white girl hobby?” Not that I was surprised.

I love crocheting, but I love it even more now, knowing its connection to a culture that in many ways made me who I am. With every stitch, every loop, and every round of crochet, I carry on the legacy of my great-grandmother, my mother, and the cultural history of Mexico. Take Diego Armando Juarez Viveros, one of Mexico’s most prominent male crocheters who crochets large pieces of wearable art to connect and honor his indigenous heritage. Or Yolanda Soto-Lopez, a Mexican American woman who has amassed millions of online fans for her YouTube crochet tutorials.

• Cuban artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara writes an editorial in the Miami Herald on his continued incarceration in Guanajay for his anti-authoritarian activism and his role in a broader struggle for equality and justice:

Today, every young Cuban is a political prisoner. A censored artist. An exile inside and outside Cuba. Even if you are an accomplice of the system, you will inevitably be crushed like the others, because to be young is to be bold and reckless, eager to change the world. It means fighting for love, dreams and utopia. But these qualities are considered crimes in Cuba, and this condemns us all to martyrdom.

• Dominic Pattern reports for Deadline that Hollywood movie studios plan to stall negotiations until the fall, when striking Writers Guild of America (WGA) union members may run out of money and have no choice but to renege on their demands:

The harsh method grew out of the guild’s victorious battle with the agencies in 2021 to dismantle the lucrative practice of packaging. The WGA chose one agency after another until WME finally backed down, a tactic seen as a warning sign by many C-suites studios and streamers.

Convinced that “giving in,” as another insider put it, to the writers will result in every contract cycle of the WGA, IATSE, Teamsters and many others ending in a strike, AMPTP is aiming for the outcome net.

Publicly, the AMPTP denies the so-called October surprise.

• And as Hollywood actors prepare to go on strike, some cast members of netflixIt is Orange is the new black say they were never paid fairly for their work on the hit series, which premiered 10 years ago this week. Michael Shulman writes for the New Yorker:

A decade later, however, some actors feel disappointed with how they were compensated, both during the original run and in the years that followed. Television actors traditionally have a revenue base from residuals, which comes from reruns and other forms of reuse of the shows in which they appeared. At the highest level, residuals can fetch a fortune; apparently, the cast of “Friends” each earned tens of millions of dollars from syndication. But streaming has blurred this pattern, jeopardizing the ability of active actors to earn a living. “A lot of my friends who have close to a million subscribers, who do billion-dollar franchises, don’t know how to make rent,” Glenn told me. This struggle broughtsagon the verge of a possible strike, authorized by more than ninety-seven percent of the approximately sixty-five thousand voting members. (The trading deadline, after an eleventh-hour extension, is tonight.) In some ways, “Orange” was an early indicator of how lopsided the streaming economy would be, and a number of members of the cast are now in conflict: they are proud to have participated in such a progressive and influential show, but feel aggrieved by the wealth it has created. “We all took a risk together,” said Alysia Reiner, who played corrupt goalkeeper Natalie (Fig) Figueroa. “And the reward for Netflix doesn’t seem to match the reward for all of us who took that risk. I can go anywhere in the world and I’m recognized, and I’m deeply grateful for that recognition. A lot of people say they’ve watched the show multiple times, and they quote me my lines. But did I get paid proportionally? I do not think so.”

• Critic Parul Seghal explores why so many of us are wary of the romance of “storytelling” and maintaining the narrative frame as an almost supernatural means of creating change in a compelling piece for the world. New Yorker:

What if a story betrays us? The solution, it seems, is to look for a better one. Journalist Nesrine Malik states this in the 2019 book “We Need New Stories”: “There is no point fighting false facts, or true but cynically twisted facts, with other facts. The new stories we need to tell are not just corrections of old stories, they are visions. Narrative Initiative, which is dedicated to “sustainable social change,” is one of many organizations dedicated to these strategies; “impactful and lasting social change,” he argues, “moves at the speed of storytelling.”

Anyone in my line has every interest in following suit, proclaiming the supremacy of narrative, and then, modestly, offering themselves, as a professional steeped in history, to be of little use. Blame it on cortisol, though: there’s nothing to quell the skepticism. How the story wraps quietly around us, soft as fog; how effectively does this allow us to forget to look up and ask: what does history not allow us to see?

• Clutter is certainly not for everyone, but as Annie Mindoro Atherton writes in the Atlanticthis comforting mix of tchotchkes and meaningful objects can be precisely what makes a space feel like home:

Cluttering our spaces with painful tokens from the past may seem like a mistake. But according to Natalia Skritskaya, a clinical psychologist and researcher at Columbia University’s Center for Prolonged Grief, it’s natural to cling to objects that carry mixed feelings. “We are complex creatures,” she told me. When I reflect on the most memorable periods of my life, they are not completely devoid of sadness; grief and disappointment often linger alongside joy and belonging, giving the latter their weight. I want my house to reflect this nuance. Of course, in some cases, clinging to old possessions can prevent someone from processing a loss, Skritskaya said. But avoiding all sad associations is not the answer either. Not only is cleaning our spaces of all signs of grief unsustainable, but if every room is cleansed of all suffering, it will also be cleansed of its depth.

• The discourse of “pretty privilege” is back, and @faganchelsea brings a refreshing analysis of what this concept can tell us in practical and economic terms:

• As @livingwith.leo explains, being able to spot white women’s art is an art form in itself! :

• Kermit the frog would be on the side of the workers And we all know it:

• If Eric Carle’s Very Hungry Caterpillar liked TikTok trends: