“The brain initiates voluntary action unconsciously: our conscious sense that we have decided to act is actually the result of this brain activity.” It’s possible that our only choice is in deciding not to do something. - 3 Quarks

“Since the (Sam Bankman-Fried/FTX) scandal, the movement’s organizations have shied away from the limelight and become extremely concerned with PR. For several years, their growth has been severely curtailed. But they survived. And the new AI money has given EA a chance to come back larger than ever before.” - New York Magazine

Why should a name matter so much? Psychologists have a term that might help explain what’s happening here: prestige bias. Developed by the cultural evolution theorists Joseph Henrich and Francisco J Gil-White, the concept describes the human tendency to preferentially attend to, learn from, and value the outputs of high-status individuals. - Psyche

At the time, Americans did not understand that they were living through the largest energy transition in human history. Instead, they perceived a series of disconnected events. Unable to discern or conceptualize an underlying cause, they often declared the transformations around them were “kaleidoscopic.”  - MIT Press

Using social media applications to digest bite-sized educational content actually reduces a person’s ability to remember the information, according to new research. - Psypost

A.I. labs, and the related nonprofits around them, have been recruiting workers as versed in Consequentialism and John Stuart Mill as in neural networks and reinforcement learning. - The New York Times

“Near the exit, with his blue eyes and sensible sandals, was Boy George, who swanned over to double-cheek kiss Sharon, then peck the forehead of Martha Stewart, and  —  skipping over Jeff Bezos  —  the tip of Fran Drescher’s nose. Sinatra (A), by the banquette, had just politely pumped the hand of Sinatra (B)...

“The F.C.C.’s focus on The View plays on longstanding grudges held by the president against the show and some of its hosts, and thrusts a talk show started by the ABC journalist Barbara Walters as a breezy kaffeeklatsch into a molten national debate.” - The New York Times

Dar al Funoon, located in the starchitect-heavy Saadiyat Island cultural district — alongside the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (also by Gehry), the Zayed National Museum (Foster + Partners), the Louvre Abu Dhabi (Jean Nouvel) and others — will contain a 2,000-seat performance hall, a 3,500-seat open-air amphitheatre, a 400-seat theatre and a 250-seat jazz venue....

The report often doesn’t even bother to engage with many of the claims it ridicules — like obvious and well-documented facts about anti-Chinese sentiment in post-Civil War America — or takes them as self-evident proof that the Smithsonian is misrepresenting history. - Washington Post

Joyce Beatty, a seven-term representative from Ohio, became an ex officio Congressional member of the Kennedy Center’s board in 2019. She says that the resolution to add Trump’s name to the complex was introduced without advance notice at a meeting in December, and she was muted when she objected. - The New York Times

“(Anthea) Hartig, director of the National Museum of American History since 2019, has commissioned exhibitions that … document the lived experiences of ordinary people, sometimes focusing on race, sexuality and colonialism. … Many historians support her goal of telling a more nuanced story of the United States.” - The New York Times

“The tents are the new home of the Gaza branch of Palestine’s national conservatory, dedicated to teaching classical, popular and traditional music. The institution, founded in 1993, once enjoyed well-equipped offices in Gaza City, three pianos and storerooms full of instruments and musical scores.” - The Guardian

Joe Hisaishi developed his huge following with his scores for Hayao Miyazaki’s animated films for Studio Ghibli. Yet he’s long had a parallel career as a conductor of standard orchestral repertoire in Japan. Now he’s shifting his focus to classical music, and he’s been appointed the Philadelphia Orchestra’s composer-in-residence. - The New York Times

One of the key features is the dramatic spiral roof, which takes cues from an unfurled Chinese folding fan, a space that is accessible to visitors and serves as an observation deck overlooking the Huangpu River and the city's skyline. - New Atlas

“America’s obsession with celebrity has morphed into this really weird, parasocial thing, where people feel incentivized to be deputized defenders of that person and are there to attack anybody who says anything at least a little bit negative about them.” - Washington Post

“People are drinking. They’re happy. They’re paying for music.” - NPR

In 1976, “the centerpiece was the National Endowment for the Arts Bicentennial Orchestra Commissioning Project. That funded America’s six top orchestras to each commission a major work that all six would play.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

“The U.K. banned the export of luxury items such as cars, jewelry, art, and antiques valued over £250 ($330) to Russia in April 2022. Breaching the law is considered a criminal offense,” but the businessman was fined $37,000 instead. - Artnet

“Through the process of opening the museo and welcoming the globe into Frida’s world, there has been one constant refrain: Más amor, más família, más Mexico – more love, more family, more Mexico,” said the artist’s grandniece. - ARTnews

“Ending months of speculation, the New Museum said today that it has selected Massimiliano Gioni, its artistic director, to be its next director. Gioni has been with the New York standby since 2006, and will take the helm in August. Its previous leader, Lisa Phillips, announced her retirement last September.” - Artnet

“Three thieves targeted the Lalique museum in Wingen-sur-Moder in northeastern France at around 5:30 am on Sunday, … (and) made off with 27 pieces of jewelry worth an estimated €4.5 million ($5.1 million), prosecutors said Monday.” - AFP (Yahoo!)

“Salvador Salort-Pons, the director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, recently revealed the discovery of a portrait by Diego Velázquez made during the artist’s earliest years as a court painter to King Philip IV. Salort-Pons, a specialist in Velázquez, published his findings in the current issue of ARS Magazine.” - ARTnews

It is extraordinarily difficult for most brick-and-mortar stores in any industry to survive, and that is especially true for art galleries. These large art shows may create a lot of foot traffic, but that doesn’t always translate to robust on-site sales for the galleries. - The New York Times

Patrice Lawrence "has a practical vision for her laureateship. ‘To change policy you need evidence,’ she says. ‘We say stories work, let’s show how they work.’” - The Guardian (UK)

“Hemingway is etched into the landscape of Pamplona. Hotels and bars have busts of him or signs up that he was once there. Outside the Pamplona bull ring, ... a huge banner hangs in honor of the novel, including a quote that shows how the festival left the writer speechless.” - AP

The Emperors’ courts did, in fact, document their history carefully, according to a procedure which was followed more-or-less faithfully from the first century BCE onward. That’s not to say that the result was either comprehensive or impartial. - Aeon

“While nothing that he writes is of much interest, Nazir himself is shaping up to be an oddly appealing character. He’s a cultural chancer.” (And wow, Commonwealth Prize jury, what were you doing?) - Slate

The problem is that not only does AI train on human writing, but humans are stylistically influenced by AI, the interplay creating a kind of linguistic hall of mirrors. Short of an author admitting it, it’s hard to say for certain whether an individual piece of writing is AI or not. That uncertainty is...

“House Bill 434 would require school districts to establish formal policies for removing content from schools that is ‘obscene and harmful to minors,’ … (creating) a standardized removal process in which parents could challenge any book, magazine, film, video, web-based content, sound recording, or live performance offered to students.” - New Hampshire Bulletin

The strategy with saying Alex Jones exploded; “We’re trying to draw him in ... he’s not hurting anybody else for a few minutes or he’s not, you know, spreading more ridiculous lies about innocent people. So we want to waste his time.” - Slate

“The Kossuth radio station and M1, Hungary’s main public television channel, had halted transmission by Tuesday afternoon, with the latter showing the message: ‘Public media should not lie. We are sorry for doing it for so long.’” For the time being, Kossuth is rebroadcasting public radio’s classical-music channel. - The Guardian

“Richard Heffner’s The Open Mind, the gleefully eggheaded talk show on which Martin Luther King Jr gave his first sit-down televised interview — continues to soldier on,” with grandson Alexander Heffner hosting since Richard’s death in 2013. - The Hollywood Reporter

“These new rules cross a line,” claims the streaming giant. “They attempt to fix in law the exact genre balance of our slate, constrain our ability to back other types of French works – drama, comedy, unscripted – and do so only for streamers, while traditional broadcasters are spared.” - Deadline

“Set inside the ‘Tillyverse,’ a digital world located somewhere up in the Cloud, the film” — titled Misaligned and made by Particle 6, the AI-oriented studio which prompted Norwood into existence — “will follow Tilly, an AI being with no real body … or lived experience of her own, only access to everyone else’s.”...

There is growing opposition to the rent-or-license model that has become increasingly common in pop culture, gaming, and streaming. In California, a law that took effect in 2025 requires digital stores to be clearer when consumers are buying a revocable licence rather than full ownership. - Fast Company

Some companies have embraced outright celebration; a few are pointedly grappling with what they see as troubling issues in the country’s history and present. Many are highlighting the huge body of American choreographic work, both ballet and modern/contemporary. - Dance Magazine

Such an opportunity was bound to present itself to the director of San Francisco Ballet in the 2020s. It’s no surprise that she took the opportunity — but what she has to say about the experience, while quite perspicacious, isn’t much of a surprise either. - The Times (UK)

“Call it ballet-qua-haunted house. … Audiences came in-kind on opening night, sporting black lace, corsets, velour, brocade and, in at least a couple cases, a top hat and a waxed mustache.” - San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo)

“Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre has been making movement magic in Atlanta for a decade. Artistic Director John Welker spoke to ArtsATL about its accomplishments so far and its vision for the future.” - ArtsATL

A photo journal of more than 30 teenage girls performing the Rejang dance for the Kuningan holiday, the close of a ten-day Balinese Hindu festival celebrating the triumph of good over evil. - AP

“Beading and sequins, silk bodices and boning, plus 10 layers of pleated net, all painstakingly cut and dyed by hand before being sewn together. ... ‘If you break it down to five days a week, 40 hours, it’s usually about two weeks. To make one tutu.’” - The i Paper

“What resulted was not just an outré and out lesbian ‘Latin spitfire,’ in words, but also decades of film and theater work on topics ranging from racism and homelessness to revolution to questions of identity.” - Hyperallergic

And, for balance, this report also includes on-the-record favorable comments from one high-level staffer who worked with Sharif at Arena — Reggie D. White. who followed Sharif to DC from the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. - DC Theater Arts

In a statement released on social media, the organisers said: “To Our BBTA Community, due to unforeseen circumstances, we have made the difficult decision not to hold the Black British Theatre Awards ceremony in 2026. We know this will be disappointing news … and it was not a decision we took lightly.” - WhatsOnStage...

Former employees describe the tenure of artistic director Hana S. Sharif, who resigned last month, as “three years of terror.” - Notus

“'After the show, people come to me in person and through messages,’ said. ‘A lot of people said, ‘I felt like I am not alone.’ That gives me so much hope and unity.’” - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)

"Call it what you want: colonialism, toxic workplace culture, oppression, patriarchy, the result is the same: power in the hands of a few who extract all the benefit they can from the many while trying to convince us that we should be thankful for the honor of the extraction.” - Amy Wratchford

Her deadpan performances in Woody Allen’s early films (she was his second wife) first brought her to public notice, but she achieved real fame as the pigtailed, gingham-wearing, put-upon suburban heroine of Norman Lear’s soap opera parody Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, which aired 325 episodes over its 18-month run in 1976-77. - Deadline

“The problems at the Barnes were so obvious,” he told The New York Times in 1993, “Ray Charles could see them in a swamp at midnight.” - The New York Times

Robert Kimball, a musical theater historian and champion of American popular song who unearthed hundreds of pieces long thought to be lost and helped rediscover the work of the seminal Black Broadway songwriting team of Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, died on Wednesday in Manhattan. - The New York Times

Wallace was "a self-proclaimed radical historian whose magisterial, unvarnished biography of New York, Gotham, written with Edwin G. Burrows, won the Pulitzer Prize and inspired two more door-stopper volumes about the city.” - The New York Times

She’s from the US, but her family (like a whole lot of people in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and other diaspora landing spots) also claim Ireland. - Irish Times

“(He) often acted as a kind of Indiana Jones of song, as when he helped excavate a treasure trove of manuscripts by George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and others that was found in a warehouse in Secaucus, N.J., in 1982. The hoard dated back to the advent of sound pictures.” - The New York Times