It was debated whether coffeehouses were truly a place of creativity or frivolous laziness. Many resolved to leave the coffeehouse behind, as if it were a vice, and then failed to kick the habit. - Aeon

While most retailers today assume that consumers want ever greater assortment, Costco’s popularity speaks to a countervailing desire for less choice. Indeed, the pre-selection of items for sale in their warehouses is part of the value proposition. - The Walrus

Burnout’s meaning shifted from literal to figurative over time. It began as a description of candles burning out or fuel being used up, then shifted to a barn burning down and a worker’s energy or body being depleted in the rebuilding. Eventually it came to simply describe a worker’s exhaustion. - The Conversation

How do all other norms—our morals, our ethics, our sense of what is good for us and for others—change when we continually imagine ourselves to be living in a universal room with everybody else? - Derek Thompson

Using Nhandeflix, "users can find Guarani cultural productions like Roda Cutia (a Guarani children’s song), Bicicletas de Nhanderú (a documentary about a Guarani-Mbya town in southern Brazil), … and Como a noite apareceu (a fictional film based on a Guarani legend).” - El País English

Don’t blame Homer for this one, and don’t read this story if you don’t want spoilers. - Slate

“One of the sad things about this story is that we did not emerge with a more active, permanent activist constituency for the arts in America. We got complacent and people were exhausted. - The Guardian

We found that as federal relief funding waned, the gap between the strongest- and weakest-performing cities widened sharply. - SMU Data Arts

“Despite new Prime Minister Andy Burnham undergoing an extensive cabinet reshuffle, incumbent culture minister Lisa Nandy is set to remain in post. Nandy, who has been a member of Parliament since 2010 ..., was appointed secretary of state for culture, media and sport by previous Prime Minister Keir Starmer in July 2024.” - Variety

Frohnmayer’s dilemma was that he believed in artistic freedom and didn’t think Congress should dictate what the N.E.A. funded, but he also felt obliged, as a political appointee, to avoid funding work that Congress and the President found offensive. The result was flip-flopping. - The New Yorker

The report ranked Cleveland No. 1 revenue growth among arts organizations from 2019 to 2024 in a cohort of 10 U.S. cities. The others were Atlanta, Des Moines, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Sacramento and Seattle. - Ideastream

Why? No one’s saying: “In their legal papers, the companies gave no reason for the stipulation of dismissal and did not mention any settlement.” - The New York Times

Sony Music Entertainment has filed a second copyright infringement lawsuit against Udio, asserting 30,117 sound recordings it says the AI music company copied without permission to train its generative AI models. - Music Business Worldwide

"ZDF dropped plans to air ‘Keine Angst’ (‘No Fear’), the new song by rapper Danger Dan and classical (pianist) Igor Levit, in its weekly current affairs satire show Die Anstalt. The network said the song, which calls for Germans to take action against the far-right, could be interpreted as an ‘incitement to violence.’” - The...

“Country music tends to be preoccupied with place; the charts are full of tributes to the satisfaction of being firmly rooted in a small town, and the sorrows of leaving it behind. In fact, this preoccupation is the secret theme of these sun-and-sand songs.” - The New Yorker

Well, that happened. “Purists saw it as another concession to American spectacle.” - The New York Times

North Korean defectors say they “used to listen to songs in secret, often not knowing who they were listening to, but clinging to the mysterious and hopeful lyrics. Some even managed to watch K-pop performances, shocked by the blue-haired idols wearing make-up.” - BBC

But it might be too good - so good that audience members can hardly believe they’re outside. - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

Beginning and End, a 452-square-foot mural painted by Julio Escámez, was unveiled in 1972 by the Allende-aligned government of the city of Chillán, 250 miles south of Santiago. After Pinochet’s coup, he ordered the mural destroyed, and it was thought lost; in 2021, conservators discovered that it had been only painted over. - Artnet

Stadiums are no longer just being designed for matchdays, with architects boldly pursuing novelty to create distinctive year-round landmarks. - Dezeen

Chicago, where the skyscraper was born, stood between the Western frontier of violence, timber, and gold and the banking capitals of the East Coast. It was at the center of a bridgeable world and the resources that flowed through it, requiring a degree of capital consolidation the likes of which had never been seen before....

It monitors customers’ social media activity and internet searches, factors in Hailey Bieber’s latest outfits and spits out 300 styles a month made cheaply in China. After it reached $460 million in sales in 2025, one of its founders boasted to The Wall Street Journal, “We’re more like a data company than a fashion company.” -...

This year, the houses devoted nearly as much space to private sales, lending, financial services, luxury goods, hospitality, and advisory work as they did to paintings and sculptures. Read together, they suggest that the biggest transformation in the auction business isn’t the recovery itself. It’s the transformation of the auction houses’ businesses. - ARTnews

The PRESERVE Act (“Protecting Resources and Ensuring Stewardship of Enduring Records of Visual Expression Act”) would require the General Services Administration, which manages federal agencies, to identify any artworks contained within government buildings deemed “surplus property” and form a committee to oversee the future of said artworks. - ARTnews

Stabilizing a modest number of impactful, sustainable nonprofit literary organizations via large, annual gifts puts them in the best position to do what they do best—which is find great books to publish, support translations, and dream up new ways to reach readers—rather than having to spend so much time drumming up funding. - Publishing Perspectives

“Senate Bill 4925, a partisan effort to control materials in public schools, … was introduced June 24 by Republican Senators. … Like its companion legislation, House Bill 7661, SB 4925 would amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to prohibit the use of federal funding for ‘sexually oriented material’ in public schools.” -...

“(The state) is doing something unusual, attempting to create a common canon of books that all students statewide will be required to read. The list was approved last month by the Republican-led Texas State Board of Education and is in the process of being finalized. It will take effect starting in 2030.” - The New York...

Preserve this language (or species or building or mine) or else surrender to indifference, cynicism, and nihilism. But is that ever the choice we face? - The New Yorker

New covers - foil-stamped! Or colorfully graphic-novel-esque! - famous translators, deckled edges, and marketing moves try to set apart various versions of The Odyssey for the surprisingly robust market. - The New York Times

Why? “Digital attention span is at an all-time low. … You’re almost definitely going to spend more time looking at a zine than anything you see scrolling. It’s more interesting and more real.” - The Guardian (UK)

Disney is cutting several hundred positions, with Pixar and National Geographic among the divisions most affected by the move. - Deadline

Both Emily Wilson, who published a widely acclaimed English translation of The Odyssey in 2017, and well-known professor/writer/editor Daniel Mendelsohn are glad the movie is out there and doing so well, and they praise a number of the film’s elements, but they each think Nolan missed something crucial in the original. - AP

“Netflix disclosed in an SEC filing Friday that it paid $587 million for InterPositive, in cash. … InterPositive was formed in 2022 as (Affleck) began to explore the AI space, with a particular emphasis on upending visual effects without impacting the creative part of filmmaking.” - The Hollywood Reporter

“This is a critical first win in our case to ensure this megamerger never sees the light of day,” California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, a Democrat who is leading the states’ lawsuit, said in a statement. A spokeswoman for Paramount did not immediately respond to a request for comment. - The New York Times

“Why do so many press-tour stops these days suddenly feel like the halfway point between TikTok and a cult’s humiliation ritual?” - The Guardian (UK)

“The superhero spoof … received not a single Emmy nomination in a major award category. Despite the fact that it dared to land savage, serious and entertaining punches about everything warped in American culture — corporate greed, celebrity worship, moral hypocrisy and how they all fit together.” - The New York Times

“The data shows that the majority of kids who enroll in dance will not pursue it as a career, and 90 percent will quit in their preteen years. There’s an opportunity for dance education to rethink its approach: How do we teach kids to love dance and the skin they’re in for all stages...

“Being onstage, although well out of the spotlight, brought once-familiar sensations flooding back: the particular dry-mouth feel that comes from nerves and heavy lipstick, the sweat-and-velvet musk of the costumes. But nothing can quite prepare you for your first look into the Met audience — faceless and staggeringly vast.” - The New York Times

“He became a devoted student at the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater’s drop-in classes. Sibley integrated his love of movement with his identity as a proud Black gay man, and in his advocacy for social change and racial justice through public performances.” - Hyperallergic

Though Dmitriy Popov, now 20, was acquitted of murder, he was convicted of first-degree manslaughter as a hate crime and other charges for attacking Sibley — a Black and visibly gay man — with a knife and puncturing his heart while Sibley and friends were dancing outside a Brooklyn gas station in 2023. -...

Nobody has definitive data, but Anne Green Gilbert has reached thousands of people during her career as the creator of, and advocate for, something she calls Brain-Compatible Dance Education. - Seattle Times

“It’s not that I don’t have a strategy — I just don’t have one for my life. I don’t plan it. Some people define their next goal and know exactly what they want. I let things come. ... I have a vision about how I want to run the company.” - Hube

“The distinction between a preview and an official opening night, once a universally understood boundary, has become increasingly blurred. In an era dominated by instant social media reaction, some no longer seem to realise there is a difference at all.” - WhatsOnStage (UK)

In Avignon, where artists, programmers and theatergoers rub shoulders for a month every summer, the announcement has ignited fierce debates and protests. Last week, an estimated 1,800 people demonstrated in front of the Papal Palace. - The New York Times

“The theatrical return not only highlights Goldberg’s enduring comedic chops but also showcases her versatility as a playwright with a deep empathy for everyday people often lost to stereotype.” - The New York Times

“In 2023, English was represented by only a handful of productions, and last summer the majority of Arabic-related offerings were dance shows, rendering the question of language somewhat moot. But the focus on Korean at this year’s festival ... has opened an inviting window.” - The New York Times

Going all the way back to before 1600, the cantankerous, pompous, book-smart nincompoop has been a figure of mockery on European stages, a target for venting people’s dislike for know-it-all behavior. Some of the stereotypes associated with the character, however, were rather nasty. - The Public Domain Review

When director Indiana Lown-Collins, who’s half-Spanish, first worked at Shakespeare’s Globe, she decided that flamenco steps would sound terrific there, thundering on the wooden floor and resounding around the circular space. Now she’s settled on the perfect vehicle: Love’s Labours Lost. - The Guardian

“After over a week of ambiguity surrounding his whereabouts following his scheduled release from a five-year sentence for ‘contempt, defamation, and public disorder,’ Cuban dissident performance artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara arrived in Miami on Saturday, July 18.” - Hyperallergic

“Lam Wing-kee, a former Hong Kong bookseller who became a symbol of resistance to Beijing’s crackdown on speech freedom after he was seized by Chinese authorities in late 2015, has died in Taiwan. … Lam was one of five people affiliated with Causeway Bay Books who disappeared in late 2015.” - AP

Her name was Lore Segal, but often, when I spoke of her to friends or to my own students, I referred to her as “my teacher,” though nearly 50 years had passed since I’d sat in a classroom with her. - The American Scholar

Melson was a” musician and songwriter whose close collaboration with the singer Roy Orbison in the late 1950s and early ’60s produced a long list of sweeping, operatic rock ballads that established Mr. Orbison as an international star.” - The New York Times

Fricker, who won for My Left Foot, also gained fame as a beloved, heroic pigeon-feeder in Home Alone 2. - The New York Times

Hannah Waddingham, of Ted Lasso fame: "An overnight success after 25 years is delicious. And I’m fine with it, because I’m very at peace with who I am. I’m more than happy to share that I’m 51 and proud of it.” - The Guardian (UK)