How the U.S. Made Progress on Climate Change Without Ever Passing a Bill
The Atlantic
This week as the Biden Administration inched closer to an epic infrastructure bill that contains a number of items they say would help fight climate change. The Sunrise Movement, a high-profile climate advocacy group made up mostly of young people, protested across the street from the White House. Now prominent progressive lawmakers have threatened to derail the bill because it doesn’t contain enough to fight climate change. 
This isn’t a new battle. Famously, Obama fought to push a major climate bill that stalled. 
But what if I told you we’ve surpassed the lofty goals sought out in that legislation without it ever passing? How is that possible? 
This is a fascinating look at how people and businesses (with incentives) took the initiative to start making changes to combat climate change even when the government couldn’t or wouldn’t take meaningful action.

The Beatles: Get Back—An Exclusive Deep Dive Into Peter Jackson’s Revelatory New Movie
Vanity Fair
I love the Beatles. I love their music, yes, but I also love the story of the Beatles just as much because it’s not just these four blokes from Liverpool that conquered the world overnight like their story is often reduced to. No, it’s about two friends who put together a band and worked really, really, really hard, caught a break and then set the world on fire with a well-crafted sound. But it goes on, because at the height of their fame they stopped touring but continued to make incredible music. And then they broke up and the individual members continued to make influential and exciting music (Well, Ringo at least made (and makes!) entertaining music…). 
About that break up… Yoko’s fault, right? The documentary “Let It Be” that came out in 1970 certainly suggested that was part of it, as well as festering discord among the four that made the “Let It Be” sessions an acrimonious slog. 
Or was it? 
Peter Jackson – yes, he of “Lord of The Rings” fame – gained access to hours of footage from those sessions and, viewed together, paints a very different picture of that period. Peter Jackson was uniquely positioned for this task because his studio performed cutting edge restoration of World War I footage for the haunting documentary, “They Shall Not Grow Old” – seriously, go check out the trailer: it’s like you’re watching a reenactment, but it’s original footage! 
I was already super excited when news of Peter Jackson’s documentary broke last year and it was just going to be a movie. Now it’s going to be a six-hour mini-series on Apple+??
As we patiently (or not-so-patiently) wait for the release this fall, this article talks to Peter Jackson and looks at how it came together and what the remaining Beatles think about this revised look at the end of the Beatles.

A new Van Gogh work discovered hidden in a book
The Art Newspaper
You ever make a doodle on a piece of paper and use that scrap to keep your place in a book? Apparently so did Vincent Van Gogh. He gave the book to a fellow Dutch artist, Anthon van Rappard, without likely realizing his bookmark was still in there. Their relationship soured, but Rappard – and his family – kept the book (signed with “Vincent” on the cover) until 2019 when the Van Gogh museum bought it. Alright, check your old books now! 

Summer of Soul
Hulu and in theaters (remember those?)
Full disclosure: I have not yet seen this documentary because it just came out today. I have seen the trailer (here) and I cannot wait to watch the whole thing. When we think of the summer of 1969 generally two things come to mind: the moon landing and Woodstock. This should be in there, too, because over six weeks in Harlem a who’s-who of the most important African American artists performed free shows that were recorded, but never aired. Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson presents the unearthed footage along with interviews from performers and people who were there to put this landmark festival in its rightful place on the mantle of the most important concerts in America. 

Dear Olivia Rodrigo: Ignore the internet. “Originality” is overrated.
Vox
Unless you’re slightly obsessed with music and pop culture like I am, it’s entirely likely you’re asking “What’s this fuss with Olivia Rodrigo and everyone bagging on her?” Or it’s just as likely you’re asking “Who is Olivia Rodrigo?” 
Background: Olivia Rodrigo is an teen actor and musician. She first gained prominence playing Paige Olvera, a guitarist in the Disney Channel series “Bizaardvark” for three seasons. Following that she played Nini Salazar-Roberts in Disney+’s “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.” Then, last year all that acting stuff kinda became background because she released the mega-single “Driver’s License” (That’s a YouTube link; here’s the Spotify link). It’s a lovely song and led to her debut album release, “Sour,” in May of this year. It met with critical acclaim with a Metacritic score of 83. The AV Club wrote “Her debut record, SOUR, will be a contender for best pop album of the year.” While the New York Times called it a “Nuanced and often exceptional debut album.”
Young woman makes well-received art so, inevitably, the backlash begins! This article deals with the backlash in general, but there’s two items I’d like to single out. First, Courtney Love – yes, Mrs. Kurt Cobain, and the former lead singer of the band Hole – took offense at Rodrigo’s promo image for her upcoming concert film “SOUR Prom”. Love went so far as calling it plagiarism. I’ll let you judge, this side-by-side provided by Page Six: 

Love wrote on her Facebook page, “It was rude of her, and [Rodrigo’s record label] geffen not to ask myself or [’Live Through This’ cover photographer] Ellen von Enwerth.” Oh, there’s more: “Stealing an original idea and not asking permission is rude,” she continued. “There’s no way to be elegant about it. I’m not angry. it happens all the time to me. And he really [sic] I’m very gracious or say nothing. But this was bad form. That’s not bullying or bomb throwing. This persons [sic] music has nothing to do with my life. Possibly never will. It was rude and I gave [sic] every right to stick up for my work…”
That’s a lot. But I’d prefer to let Elvis Costello have the last word here. Someone tweeted that the first song on Rodrigo’s album, “brutal,” is “pretty much a direct lift” of Costello’s 1978 hit, “Pump It Up.” The riff absolutely is. But the name “brutal,” is half of Costello’s 1994 “Brutal Youth,” album title so its hard to imagine this was any sort of plagiaristic subterfuge. Costello himself replied to that tweet with this: “This is fine by me, Billy. It’s how rock and roll works. You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy. That’s what I did. #subterraneanhomesickblues #toomuchmonkeybusiness”.
Yes. 
Yes. 
Yes.
Rock on, Olivia.