The AI industry is splitting away from the lives of everyday people. Exclusive polling conducted for the Guardian last year found that twice as many Americans believe their financial security is getting worse than better, hardly half as optimistic as Jensen Huang’s prediction. - The Guardian

An emerging scientific picture is that such “clock time” isn’t a standalone, physical phenomenon at all. It’s a mathematical tool or book-keeping device – useful for coordinating our interactions, but with no independent existence of its own. - The Guardian

“Plato decried the falsity of imitation of real life—called ‘mimesis’—specifically in the arts. ... What makes you ‘you’ or the world the ‘world’ if artists can just depict a facsimile and receive recognition from an audience?” - The Defector

"Put the Warners Bros. sale alongside the Oscars’ imminent move to YouTube, and the whole night carried with it a bittersweet fin de siècle air, as if it was being immortalized in retrospect even as it was happening.” - Vulture

“The Holly’s revival offers a case study in how a historic landmark can complement an existing arts ecosystem — strengthening downtown vitality while reconnecting a community to its past.” - Oregon ArtsWatch

The study of wisdom dates to antiquity, but only in the past 40 years have researchers begun to apply the scientific method to probe what wisdom is and how it develops. - Knowable

“The AI companies are claiming fair use, but this argument is bogus,. It’s bogus because while they claim it’s fair to use the work of creators as training data, they do multimillion-dollar deals with rights holders and publishers like Disney, and Condé Nast, and Vox, and Warner Music.” - Fortune

“Tacoma Arts Live has filed for receivership, a court process similar to bankruptcy. ... TAL announced earlier this year that it would close for good this summer and sell the historic Tacoma Armory, its sole remaining building, citing debts incurred in part due to declining ticket sales following the pandemic.” - The Seattle Times

Reversing the pro-culture stances of his predecessor, left-leaning former president Gabriel Boric, new president José Antonio Kast has ordered a 3% reduction of the culture ministry’s budget. What’s more, his government has no stated cultural policy of any kind. - The Art Newspaper

Though it has long been one of the country’s most successful technology hubs, Shenzhen has always been on the margins of the global cultural map. Now it is trying to shed its reputation as a “cultural desert” and claim a place in Asia’s increasingly active art scene. - Artnet

Tempting as it is to blame Trump for the Kennedy Center’s fate, he does not bear sole responsibility. The idea of a national arts center was always more of a noble dream than a reality. - The New Yorker

These proposals, the rush to realize them, the stacking of key oversight groups with Trump loyalists and flunkies and the collaboration of firms like Shalom Baranes Associates, have upended and effectively destroyed the process of design review — which has until now preserved Washington as a monumental, picturesque capital. - Washington Post

What’s the vision might not be the right question, then. It might be: Does the vision even exist? - Boston Globe

It is difficult to appreciate the toll of being on the road for days, weeks, and sometimes months on end, playing program after program and often dealing with social and media commitments in addition. - Nightingale Sonata

Puccini died without finishing the opera, and the standard completion by Franco Alfano is widely considered unsatisfactory. Not to mention, of course, that the opera is an Orientalist fantasy. So Washington National Opera commissioned a new completion (plus editing of the original libretto) by two Asian-American artists. - The New York Times

Yes, even if you’re not great at it (yet). "Make it up as you go along. If nobody else wants to sing, you sing. Be a zealot about keeping your instrument in tune but nothing else. Force yourself to write one new song a week.” - The New York Times

“Music wasn't something that was going to be a long-term thing. ‘I remember distinctly begging my mom for X amount of dollars to buy a certain drum kit and I was like, 'Mom, I'm not going to be in a rock band when I'm 30.’” - CBC

In just one example, "as the American composer Adrian Younge says: ‘Alice Coltrane took the harp, an instrument of angels and orchestras, and made it sound like the cosmos breathing.’” - The Guardian (UK)

Two of the 11 pieces have been sent back to Nigeria; the other nine will remain at Zurich’s Museum Rietberg on loan. - ARTnews

“The institution’s new Arts of Africa galleries, … a 6,400-square-foot home for its 4,500-piece African art collection, … will open in Fall 2027, presenting 300 African artworks dating from antiquity through today, installed throughout the museum’s third floor.” - Artnet

According to the AI in Galleries report by the art industry network First Thursday, 84 percent of galleries surveyed say they are using AI tools in their daily work. Yet only 8 percent have a formal policy governing how those tools should be used. - ARTnews

“Within the Czech Republic, the dismissal has been viewed by some as a politically motivated gesture. (Alicja) Knast took up the position in 2021, having been appointed to the role by … a Social Democrat. … (Otto) Klempíř, a member of the right-wing Motorists party, became culture minister last year.” - ARTnews

The lawsuit seeks to have the White House and the Kennedy Center board comply with existing historic preservation laws and secure Congress' approval before moving ahead with the renovations. - NPR

I got the sense that the Whitney Biennial is hiding from the world today instead of reflecting on it. - Hyperallergic

Shipping costs are rising; freighters are being re-routed, interfering with schedules; one shipment was on a vessel struck by a missile. Perhaps worst: insurance policies usually exclude acts of war. - Publishers Weekly

“The newly established award, launched to honour the legacy of the late Booker Prize-winning novelist, aims to support unpublished and un-agented writers across the UK and Ireland.” The inaugural winner is Florida-born, London-based writer and teacher Anna Dempsey for her yet-unpublished novel This Is About an Alligator and Nothing Else. - The Guardian

What I learned is that modern LLMs are built in a way that is antagonistic to great writing; they are engineered to be rule-following teacher’s pets that always have the right answer in hand. - The Atlantic

If they are to survive America’s post-literate era and serve society in the future, colleges need to invest in programs that answer the question, “Why read?” They must also design courses where the techniques of close reading are taught. - The Hill

“The lawsuit (by the American dictionary publisher and British encyclopedia) incorporates both the ‘mass-scale copying’ of their copyrighted content for training AI models and for real-time RAG scraping (retrieval-augmented generation). It also claims ChatGPT generates outputs that contain ‘full or partial verbatim reproductions’ of Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster content.” - Press Gazette (UK)

Recently Barnes & Noble has tried to convince more publishers to publish paperback originals, particularly for YA and middle grade books. But choosing a format to please one vendor, no matter the size of that vendor, is limiting, especially when smaller indie bookstores run on such tight margins in the first place. - LitHub

“At 11am, the ABC News channel switched to broadcasting the BBC News channel as staff walked out in protest. The ABC News channel filled the schedule with repeats of Planet America and the National Press Club, but broadcast Question Time as normal.” - The Guardian

“OpenAI said it will discontinue Sora, the generative-AI video creation app it launched last year, without providing a reason for the decision. … The announcement comes just three months after Disney inked a groundbreaking deal with OpenAI” licensing the conglomerate’s characters for use with Sora. - Variety

“It’s the story of an awards season unlike any other — one that stretched over 14 months and came to an end in, of all places, a train station in downtown L.A., with a ceremony that many felt went off the rails, even as its very occurrence was something of a miracle.” - The Hollywood Reporter

Los Angeles County lost more than 42,000 entertainment jobs from 2022 to 2024; and Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery made just 15 theatrical movies combined that filmed in the country over the last two years. - The Hollywood Reporter

It certainly won’t happen fast. “Restoring the physical infrastructure is going to take a lot of money and some time but it can be done,” said the VOA’s White House bureau chief. “What is more difficult is recovering from the trauma that our newsroom has gone through.” - AP

“Today, CBS News Radio provides material to an estimated 700 stations across the country and is known best for its top-of-the-hour news roundups. The service will end on May 22, the network said Friday.” - AP

“Once a week, about a dozen patients come to Ramos Mejía Hospital to dance — a session that uses the movements of tango to help address issues of balance, stiffness and coordination. The goal is to give them approaches to movement that they can use in their daily lives.” - The New York Times

Dance competitions offer significant business opportunities. Yet visible profitability can invariably lead to exploitation. Is there a danger that competitions are at risk of becoming an easy way to make a fast buck? - The Stage

The industry still has an obsession with “perfect” feet. High arches have traditionally been praised in ballet, and some dancers today use farches (fake arches), which give the illusion that your foot is more bendy than it is. - The Guardian

Port City Ballet Company in Halifax is currently in its first season, offering a full school program as well as professional performances (in the capital and throughout the province) and a living wage for Nova Scotia dancers at home. Founding artistic director Nova Johnstone talks about getting the company launched. (video) - CTV (Canada)

“The industry still has an obsession with ‘perfect’ feet. High arches have traditionally been praised in ballet, and some dancers today use farches (fake arches), which give the illusion that your foot is more bendy than it is, … (even though) flat-footed ballet professionals are out there and thriving.” - The Guardian

Four prominent dancemakers working in film and television discuss the current state of the industry. - Dance Magazine

The show’s producing team told the playwright, Stephen Adly Guirgis, that he was no longer welcome at rehearsals after tempers flared on Friday between Guirgis and Mark Kaufman, who runs Warner Bros. Theater Ventures, an entity that is among the play’s lead producers. - The New York Times

Theaters have experimented with “Black Out” nights intended to attract patrons of color. At issue in the lawsuit was whether a discount offered as part of the Playwrights event was discriminatory. - The New York Times

“(A) grant (from the Stephen Sondheim Foundation) will go toward rebuilding Steppenwolf’s Scout program, which supports new works by emerging writers and was shuttered during the COVID-19 pandemic. Steppenwolf has developed and launched more than 130 plays in its 50-year history.” - WBEZ (Chicago)

Why? “Antigone isn’t wrestling with a prophecy. In her story, fate is what one powerless girl makes it, and right action is possible, as long as we don’t fear the consequences.” - The New York Times

Three and a half hours is the danger zone: the length of many an unabridged classic. The artists, too often, haven’t thought of the way time sits on our bodies and our minds. This is the play you’re most likely to feel restless in, like it has taken up too much of your day,...

“Since January, (Nataki Garrett), whose era-defining OSF term lasted just four years, has been at another helm as interim artistic director of San Francisco's African-American Shakespeare Company, and she's optimistic that this new appointment will be less troubled. For one thing, she no longer retains a security detail.” - San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)

“He built a serious and wide-ranging classical career, collaborating with major artists like Eugene Ormandy, Leonard Bernstein and Yo-Yo Ma, without stinting the traditional ballads that John McCormack (1884-1945) had brought to the masses.” - The New York Times

“After a nearly two-week trial in Santa Monica, jurors found Cosby, 88, liable for the sexual battery and assault of Donna Motsinger. They awarded her $17.5 million in past damages and $1.75 million for future damages, … (plus) an additional $40 million in punitive damages,” totaling $59.25 million. - AP

“(Her) memorable film roles included a porn actress abducted by aliens in Slaughterhouse-Five, Lex Luthor’s secretary in two Superman films and an Oscar-nominated performance as the wife of Lenny Bruce in Lenny. (She died) following a 15-year battle with Parkinson’s disease.” - Deadline

Along with his happy student-teacher alliance with Hammerstein, the defining association of Sondheim’s life was his tortured relationship with the mother he described as a “monster,” among harsher words. - The Atlantic

Brendon said that “thousands of people had told him that helped them in hard times. ‘It just got them through, which means that this show is more than just dollars and cents,’ he said. ‘It’s something that needs to be honored.’” - The New York Times

An early profile of Jean Tinguley “defined an approach that informed the dozens of artist profiles he wrote for The New Yorker over the next 62 years … providing the magazine’s readers with a sophisticated guide to often arcane styles and -isms.” - The New York Times