Art forms that once expressed creators’ personal visions are reduced to fulfilling the audience’s cravings. In theory, I understand why some people say AI is just another creative tool, like the camera or the keyboard. In practice, that tool is filling our world with the ugly, frictionless, disposable content we’ve quickly come to call “slop.” - The Atlantic

Two words: Skills nostalgia. - Aeon

Many, many artists have thoughts. - Hyperallergic

You can thank the young ones: there’s “a gen Z-led wave fueling a fresh resurgence of indie movie houses.” - The Guardian (UK)

But how to search them up? Google won’t help as much (if at all) anymore, but there are ways. - Wired

Jean-Paul Sartre, for instance, insists that for humans ‘existence precedes essence’. We do not have an essence until we give ourselves an essence. In short, ‘man first exists: he materialises in the world, encounters himself, and only afterward defines himself.’ I define myself. - Psyche

“For decades, the premise behind buying games, VHS tapes, DVDs, and other media was simple. You handed over money, and in return you got the game, show, or movie to keep. That bargain is now breaking down.” - Fast Company

“The White House condemned the  for what it said was a failure to celebrate the nation’s heritage, arguing it had become a political tool intent on denigrating the American story.” No First Amendment red flags here at all. - The New York Times

Elon Musk and a MAGA army, not to mention AI, not to mention (other) authoritarian governments, are sure coming for the little nonprofit that could. - The New York Times

"A Turkish court on Friday ordered a comedian jailed pending trial on charges of insulting religious values and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after his stand‑up routine included references to him as a ‘dictator.’” (This is what the some might call Erdogan “not beating the charges.”) - Seattle Times (AP)

And Sony’s email to Playstation UK customers was simply a reminder of that uncomfortable, horrifying fact. - Wired

Financed by public subscription, powered by photography and P.R., the Statue of Liberty is now so identified with her adopted home that she has all but melted into symbol. - The New York Times

“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)

Javid from Afghanistan “said the festival in the idyllic Bannau Brycheiniog national park had been his first ever experience of a music concert. Under the Taliban, he said, ‘There is no music, and it’s banned to listen to any music.’” - The Guardian (UK)

Doug Shadle: “As I listened to the symphony — a strange yet monumental work with a choral finale eclipsing Beethoven’s Ninth in scope — the sonic confluences that have given shape and vibrancy to our national culture for 250 years rushed at me for over an hour.” - Early Music America

Spotify has removed more than 500,000 registered streams from Malcolm Todd‘s Earrings, after the song’s rise to No. 1 on the platform’s daily US chart was tied to bets placed on the prediction market Kalshi. - MusicBusinessWorldwide

From California bungalows to New York skyscrapers, from forest retreats to streamlined headquarters, what makes an architecture American, let alone the most significant example of such? - Architectural Record

Did someone hit a big flashing “irony” button for our timeline? - The New York Times

“There is nothing emancipatory, nor original, about creating a luxury venue that privileges sensibility over scholarship, allure over accessibility, and fine dining over gallery square footage.” - E-Flux

“When you open these cardboard frames up and look at the edges of the paper and see they’re stained and old, you can really picture Beatrix Potter’s hand. … It’s such a privilege to be this close and be trusted.” - The New York Times

Across Europe, many Jewish museums have seen visitor numbers drop, patrons back away and security threats rise since the fall of 2023. The association’s members also reported online harassment, vandalism and acts of aggression against staff members. - The New York Times

Labeled Canada’s largest art fraud ever by investigators, the scheme has been the subject of a prolonged court battle that culminated last year in the conviction of Jeffrey Cowan, one of eight people arrested in 2023. He has been accused of taking part in an effort to sell 1,400 faked Morrisseau works. - ARTnews

For instance: "If The Brutalist, then Claire Messud’s This Strange Eventful History.” - LitHub 

Susanna Clarke: “A narrative makes illness seem rational – and it gives the sufferer a measure of control – or at any rate the illusion of it. This is particularly true of the sort of chronic illness in the face of which poor doctors are often at a loss. - The Guardian (UK)

True, the person writing this was a history major, but still: "A rare surviving copy of the Declaration of Independence has been discovered at The National Archives in Kew, the only known example of its kind outside the US.” Discovered by a volunteer. - BBC

Supposed AI tells - “are also characteristic of human writing, which, after all, the large language models (LLMs) that produce them were trained on.” - The Guardian (UK)

“Fandom communities are still mostly relying on vibes. Most fanfics aren’t judged by a tool like the AO3 skin, but by tells' that could include anything from specific sentence structures — like the notorious ‘it’s not X, it’s Y' — to overuse of flowery metaphors.” - The Verge (Archive Today)

In a phone interview on Tuesday afternoon, Jamir Nazir told me that he feels vindicated—and relieved. “Look, I didn’t use it!” he said about AI. Now that he has won the prize, Nazir said, he is free at last to explain his process and clear his name. - The Atlantic

“It is a testament to the state of the industry that trophies won’t keep the lights on. Still, the huge success of South of Midnight makes Compulsion’s potential  stand out as a real head-scratcher.” - CBC

It all depends on cosplay at L.A.’s Anime Expo - and this year, many attendees showed signs of devotion to the relatively new series Witch Hat Atelier. - Variety

The actor, currently famous thanks to his project The Pitt, says he “missed out on roles in Saving Private Ryan and Good Night, and Good Luck because he couldn’t get out of filming” ER. - Variety

“I still don’t think anyone actually likes Euphoria, but it’s big and expensive and full of movie stars, and at this moment in time Hollywood needs all three of those things to remain viable.” - Vulture

There Will Be Blood “both celebrates American cinema and inverts it.” - The New York Times

But now? “More and more, the space of American cinema is defined by one word: fantasy. … The fantasy worlds where our movies increasingly take place add up, in both philosophy and sensation, to a kind of abstract no-man’s land.” - Variety

“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

“A lot of the challenges that are happening right now are of the times. They’re reflecting what’s going on in our country, and I think it’s important that we all try to stick together through it and keep dancing.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

The movie certainly helped over the 26 years since it was released: there are noticeably more boys in ballet classes than there used to be — especially where there are boys-only classes. But they still face trouble from peers at school. - The Sunday Times (UK)

“'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

“Who are ‘our people,’ broadly defined? Can we even talk about a common American experience or identity, to which we can all attach a full-throated patriotism? We might look to the example of New York City’s Lincoln Center.” - American Theatre

“’Basil Biggs’ premieres this month in Philadelphia, written for the nation's 250th anniversary. The title character is her great-great-grandfather, a free Black man who became a … conductor of the Underground Railroad … and prominent figure at Gettysburg” who made Lincoln’s speech there possible. - NPR

Jason Moore, who has restaged and updated the show for London: “Once I revisited, I was like, ‘Oh, right, we made this in our 20s,’ and it's for people in their 20s. There's now a whole generation of people who ... know the show from a soundtrack, but never saw it.’” - People

The blaze broke out at the Belvoir St Theatre’s scenery shop on Monday, June 22 and burned well into the next day; at one point 80 firefighters were battling the flames. No one was injured, but tools, materials, and stored set elements were lost and the building is seriously damaged. - Limelight (Australia)

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

The four-time Emmy nominee, who received an honorary Oscar in 2022, says he was diagnosed with the disease three years ago. His 80th birthday is later this month. - AP

“Dunn appeared in more than 650 performances at the Metropolitan Opera, where she became one of the company’s leading dramatic mezzos. Although she portrayed a wide range of roles, she was most closely associated with Bizet’s Carmen, which she (sang) more than 400 times in opera houses around the world.” - Moto Perpetuo

“My problem arose when I discovered Duolingo’s competitive aspect, when I learned that it is essentially a game. ... This means forgoing any real learning, and earning easy points by simply reading sentences out loud.” An excerpt from his latest book, The Land and Its People. - The Guardian