But, cautionary moment (akin to making movies about war): “Sometimes the filmmakers, they can kind of get wrapped up in the bad behavior … of the men that they're trying to critique.” Think Fight Club. - NPR

Over one-third of web pages published after the release of ChatGPT show signs of being written by AI, according to a new study from Pew Research released on Thursday. - TechCrunch

It feels counterintuitive, but at sufficiently large scales, they find, you can often remove any single image from the training data, or every image by a given artist, or every photograph of a given person, and the generated sample doesn't change. - MIT

 The fan at heart is a manager of excess: too much feeling, too much weight on too little incident. This is a kind of madness after all, the madness of meaning-making under a few too many constraints. - N plus 1

Today, 52% of Americans say they are more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI in daily life – up from 37% in 2021. Another 9% are more excited than concerned and 37% say they’re equally excited and concerned, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted June 22-28, 2026. - Pew Research

British writers in the 18th century repeatedly invented fictional characters to intervene in the politics and culture of their day. - The Conversation

Wild: “Many of the AI generated images have been centred on the Irish counties of Limerick and Wexford, where shaky videos purportedly showed the character wandering through the streets, causing alarm and confusion among residents.” - BBC

What in the rolling over for rich people hell, Karen Bass? - Vulture

The Tang era (618-907 CE) is considered a golden age, a period of territorial expansion, prosperity and high culture which every Chinese schoolchild learns about. Claiming it never happened is like telling Brits there was no Norman Conquest. Yet the bogus idea has caught on widely enough that China’s government is weighing in. -...

In 2019, arts organizations in BIPOC-majority neighborhoods of a major U.S. city received 16% less median grant funding than those in white-majority neighborhoods. By 2022, they were receiving 289% more. - SMU Cultural Data

In a status report submitted late Tuesday to a federal court, the Kennedy Center outlined its plans to put President Trump's name back on the arts complex. - NPR

More than 160 pages of plans, assembled by the real estate company JLL and presented to the board of trustees, outline extensive changes throughout the building. - Washington Post

As Columbia House closes, Millennials and Gen-Xers are wishing for a bygone era of “customer-service runarounds, unwelcome bills and general scuzziness,” all of which Columbia House perpetrated to great profits for years. - Salon

“The group formed in 1999 to bring classical music to communities that may otherwise not have access to it. It consists of three ensembles,” including one that attracts kids to music and “adults later in life” back to music. - OPB

Though the union didn’t answer questions — and management press releases can be pressure tactics of their own — the extension seems like a good sign as “the BSO announced Sunday that a ‘ratification vote’ is in the offing.” - Boston Globe

Why do teachers get so many pedestals - and so, so many opportunities for abuse? “Being perpetually curious is hard work. Grappling with an unruly instrument and the infinite subjectivity of music is extremely hard work.” - The New York Times

“For a century now, country music has been a parallel universe of hitmaking that didn’t always register on the national pop charts—for data reasons more than popularity reasons.” Streaming is changing everything. - Slate

Teens and 20-somethings are, again, driving the shift back (related: so are K-Pop bands). One fan, on switching out phone for CD player: “It gives me a different feeling. … I feel like I’m listening to an artist’s work. It brings me joy.” - The Guardian (UK)

The report “accuses Pierre-Olivier Costa, the recently suspended president of Marseille’s Musée des civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée (MuCEM), of sexual and moral harassment, breaching rules for granting public contracts, and putting the southern French city’s only national museum ‘at risk.’” - ARTnews

Sydney, Australia, has an Allianz soccer stadium, and so does Munich, Germany. Guess which one appears on the Sydney Marathon medal? - The Guardian (UK)

“The Smithsonian Institution has called a board meeting to discuss giving one of its current buildings to the National Museum of the American Latino, which would bypass the need for congressional approval for a new site.” - The New York Times

“The private Jellyfish Museum in Pompano Beach, Florida, just north of Fort Lauderdale, … was created by Alex and Yana Yanovsky, who previously developed successful aquariums in Ukraine, including their first jellyfish museum in Kyiv. The couple left those facilities behind when they fled Ukraine following the 2022 Russian invasion.” - AP

We live in a time when digital systems underpin everything from ticketing to surveillance and building access. Sidelining cybersecurity leaves museums vulnerable to attacks that could threaten both their finances and their collections. - The Conversation

The ICA San Diego (not to be confused with the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego) is reducing its staff from 19 to 11, including almost all senior management and public-facing workers. The head curator position was eliminated last month. - The San Diego Union-Tribune

But it’s a bit nervewracking: “I feel like for a small press you really need to, not just catch a break, but catch a break every time, … if you want to last.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

“Sometimes words need pictures and pictures need words. When they find each other, characters spring to life.” - NPR

“They’re simultaneously struggling to figure out if they need to use AI to keep up in today’s competitive industry—or eschew it altogether in order to maintain trust.” - Fast Company

“Darwin had long been interested in orchids, possibly influenced by the borderline sexual love his grandfather, Erasmus, felt for them and put into his writings.” - LitHub

Pennsylvania and Florida legislators argue, for example, that an informed citizenry needs to be able to read historical documents, which are often written in cursive script. - Washington Post

“Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, during a Wednesday press conference, threatened to take over public school districts that don’t remove ‘obscene books’ from their library shelves.” - San Antonio Current

And the reason that happened (probably not the reason you think it is) says a lot about where we are with ownership and access to digital stuff. - Reactor

“It’s art and science. You can have the best idea on paper, but if you can’t manufacture it, it doesn’t matter. Or if you can manufacture something that’s okay, but not great, it’s not worth it either.” - El País English

“For Final Fantasy XVI, Fox and his team were given unusual latitude. The writers wanted the story to feel true to Western medieval fantasy stories.” - Washington Post (Yahoo)

“This report is being made on an emergency basis, as there is reason to believe that Netflix, Inc. and its employees are suppressing and/or spoliating evidence of the theft of an asset with a cost of $45 million to create.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

In Melbourne, there’s one hold-out. "The drive-in demands little of its audience. You can lie down, walk around, talk and sing without fear of being hushed. Parents feel at ease bringing newborns, and dogs can curl up beside their owners.” - The Guardian (UK)

“The Emmy nod isn’t, in itself, a milestone. What it actually represents is much smaller: a win for YouTube’s awards campaigning, confined for now to a category that’s spent most of its existence as the Emmys’ junk drawer.” - Vulture

The idea is that most people access ballet through a story ballet - often, even usually, Nutcracker, but also Sleeping Beauty. It was, simply, time for a refresh - including 268 new costumes. - PBS

The ways that the company’s skill level, repertoire, national and international reputation, budget, and especially school (a ten-fold increase in enrollment) have grown during Sklute’s 20 years as artistic director are extraordinary. - The Utah Review

Gia Kourlas on champion Caitlin Simmers: “Her undulating torso, her sensitivity to the fluctuations of an unsteady surface and her speed are all part of her power. ... Her clarity comes from her deep center of gravity, which allows her to slice up and down waves like a silken ribbon.” - The New York...

“Pole dance is a big part of the festival this year, popping up in sweaty, dazzling shows right across the Fringe. Not only do these acts show off amazing physical feats, they also tell stories that range from one woman’s HIV diagnosis, to the relationship between a neurodivergent mother and son.” - The Guardian

The entire field is facing heightened levels of uncertainty, and we have not been spared. Dance/USA needs to reimagine and rebuild its business model. Our existing organizational strategy and structure are not sustainable. I took this job knowing that that was the case. - Dance Magazine

“Audiences at the Bolshoi Theatre could find themselves without 11 of its most well-known productions – among them The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Giselle, Spartacus and Ivan the Terrible – after a dispute over the rights to Yuri Grigorovich‘s choreographic legacy escalated into a criminal fraud investigation.” - Gramilano

Tiffany - of the gorgeously fun teen sex anthem “I Think We’re Alone Now” fame - will relive the ’80s, “making her Off Broadway debut in Spandex the Musical. She plays Linda, a housewife who escapes a life of domestic drudgery to compete in a national aerobics championship.” - The New York Times

“A slapdash seediness has been embedded in the musical’s aesthetic DNA ever since it started in 1973 in a tiny upstairs space at the Royal Court Theater in London.” - The New York Times

Billed as a “five night only” event, “Hadestown: The Musical” has extended its run in theaters for four weeks, thanks to popular demand. In the process, the filmed stage show has become an indie blockbuster, grossing $20.7 million.  - Indiewire

For instance, Sam Eley gives the background on his Basil Crumbwick, whose papier-mâché head makes him seven feet tall, while Katie Pritchard recounts the origin story of her Sir Elton Scone, who hosts a Great British Bake Off-style show which uses no ovens. - The Guardian

“They use (comic strip-style) still frames with embedded captions of jokes, sometimes across multiple images that include longer setups and punchlines — in social media parlance, a carousel.” - The New York Times

Broadway‘s Ragtime went out on a huge note Sunday, breaking its own box office record to become the highest grossing Broadway show in the history of Lincoln Center Theater. - Deadline

In 1937, Douglas was told to come to a producer’s ranch for a movie. But, “she later said, she and more than 100 other young women — many of whom were minors — had been summoned to entertain men attending MGM’s annual sales convention.” - The New York Times

“The Iranian American actor drew from her own childhood experiences and advocacy work as an ambassador with the International Rescue Committee to shape Dr. Al-Hashimi into who audiences get to know onscreen.” - HuffPost

Working in the 1960s, when most standup was a succession of one-liners, Bruce used profanity, political satire, and sexual material which comedians today consider a basic right. Yet in his day he was regularly arrested and tried for obscenity; Phil Spector ultimately said Bruce died from “an overdose of police.” - Los Angeles Times...

Ted Striggles, a dancer and lawyer who combined his disparate skills to support artists both struggling and successful, and to advise them on how to survive, including with his influential 1976 guide, “Poor Dancer’s Almanac,” died on Saturday at his home in Manhattan. - The New York Times

One of the opera world’s most admired lyric sopranos of the 1970s and ‘80s, she was known for her acting skill as well as her voice, especially in such roles as Violetta in La Traviata, Gilda in Rigoletto, and Tatiana in Eugene Onegin. - Moto Perpetuo

Rydell’s most-honored film was nominated for 10 Academy Awards and won three (including for Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn), though he lost to Warren Beatty for Reds. Among his other titles were The Cowboys (with John Wayne), Cinderella Liberty, The Rose (with Bette Midler), and The River (with Mel Gibson and Sissy Spacek). -...