Monetizing the full gamut of reality, platforms have opened Pandora’s box. Basic tenets of liberal society—democratic integrity and respect for human life—are being corroded. Regulators need to step in. - The Walrus

Despite valiant efforts by activists and reformers, it’s been the dystopians’ world—or at least the realists’—for some time now: an age of techno-feudalism, digital colonialism, the new Jim Code. - Boston Review

In my assessment, Gen Z’s dark and nonsensical humor does not show a lack of moral values, but it’s instead the product of its desire to engage in more authentic conversations about what they believe. - The Conversation

The label of “neo-Luddism” or “digital Luddite” is also being reclaimed by people concerned about labour conditions, society and democracy in an era of AI expansion twinned with personal profit. - The Conversation

Edinburgh has wrestled with for years: what is tourism actually for? If the answer is simply “more visitors, more spending”, the city will keep winning by numbers while residents feel they are losing by experience. - The Conversation

The difficulties of using AI in Africa are also linguistic. By the summer of 2025, only 42 languages in Africa were supported by an LLM, out of more than 2,000 found in the continent; 98 per cent of African languages have no meaningful AI support at all. - Aeon

From Sacramento and Seattle to New York City and Philadelphia, the study highlights diverging trends across cities — some rebounded from the pandemic and even exceeded their 2019 numbers, while others plummeted. - Hyperallergic

The museums, all on the south side of the National Mall, share one of the General Service Administration’s HVAC plants; the chilled water supply at that facility was disrupted on Thursday, leaving the museums without air conditioning during a heat wave. The buildings will reopen once the issue is resolved. - Washington City Paper

That’s what all the headlines said, but the people of the well-preserved medieval village of Vlkolínec say it’s not that simple. They want to protect their small, still-living community from the pressures of overtourism, which could easily overwhelm it. - Deutsche Welle

The news comes from a filing the museum made last week with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation; management has also filed with the city of Dallas for a construction permit. Work is expected to start early next year. - The Dallas Morning News (MSN)

Justin Davidson on New York’s Perelman Arts Center and The Shed: “Now the boldest experimenters can take advantage of walls that move at the touch of a button, precision lifts, rooms that shrink and expand, projected images (on) moving surfaces. … Yet the revolution, now that it’s here, feels anticlimactic and overpriced.” - Curbed...

Even now, as the museum complex continues to face a pressure campaign from the White House, public fondness for the Smithsonian—for its free entry and eclectic collections—is hard to break among those otherwise receptive to President Trump’s anti-institutionalism. - The Atlantic

No, not by watching Tár. “The very act of conducting—waving a wand to summon ravishing or ethereal or earsplitting sounds—can look like either inexplicable magic or embarrassing nonsense, a kind of tuxedoed air guitar.” - The Atlantic

No, not the clanking of the wheels or that metallic screech, but the jazz of the interplay of 400+ trains running at the same time. - NPR

And then … it was canceled just before the 16-day fest was set to begin. "By Friday, the LA Jazz Fest website had been scrubbed, with only a cryptic message that said, ‘August 22-23. Updated event info coming soon.’” - Variety

Why the comedy part? “New opera is sometimes boring because we’ve forgotten that our job is to entertain people. … During all my time in the American development system, no one ever told me that my job as a composer was to be a dramatist.” - The Guardian

“The dispute began in September 2024, when (David) Wood and (Colette) Holt sued the Philharmonic, saying it had failed to repay a $150,000 loan to secure a collection of the former San Antonio Symphony’s orchestra instruments and its music library. …  The agreement does not include any admission of liability or wrongdoing.” - Texas...

Hard, uncomfortable seats built for 19th-century-sized bodies. No air conditioning and poor ventilation in high summer. The preferences, not to say whims, of the composer’s great-granddaughter because she’s the boss. Years-long waits for expensive tickets. Pricey drinks at intermission. The Wagnerites say it’s all worth it. - The New York Times

“About 30 artworks belonging to Lilli Petroli owner Mauro Lilli were stolen in the unusual heist, including bas-reliefs attributed to Pablo Picasso, a bronze ballerina sculpture by Giacomo Manzù, paintings by Bruno d’Arcevia of the Italian Manner movement, and pieces by sculptor Mario Moretto.” - ARTnews

"The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) says it has spent £50,000 trying to remove paint from the wall of the Grade II-listed building in Carey Street.” Er … a solution presents itself. - BBC

“To some people, these are just puppets. … To me, there’s so much to them. It’s sculpture, casting, painting, sewing, mechanics, history, research, performance design — all at once. They are like kinetic art objects.” - The New York Times

“Today (Malo Chapuy) paints religious scenes, altarpieces, and early Renaissance-style portraits that look like museum artifacts save for the proliferation of wind turbines, water towers, astronauts, and spaceships.” - Art in America

London’s National Gallery is facing backlash from conservative groups in the U.K. after convening a 50-citizen assembly to help shape its future planning. - Artnet

One of those institutions, the National Gallery of Art, has studied vibrations ahead of the race as it prepares for possible effects on its art — but it’s declining to say what it found. - Washington Post

No, not just The Odyssey. “A new audience is finding poetry, particularly (though not exclusively) through social media: a new generation of poets, particularly but not exclusively performance poets, have come to prominence through Instagram, TikTok, and other short-form video formats.” - The Guardian (UK)

Wasn’t there a compact, for a while, that if you started a book, you’d damn well finish it? “Even lifelong DNFers often feel bad about closing the book — that it’s a sign of a quitter, or that they’re too stupid.” - The New York Times

If languages had all been getting ever easier over all of that time, humans worldwide would just be yelling “ah,” pointing at things and gesturing frantically. Despite occasional appearances otherwise, we are doing better than that. - The New York Times

 I knew the context. I knew who was using it. I knew when it should be used. I knew when it was already embarrassing to use it. I wasn’t speaking the language but I was fluent. Now, I’m joining the ranks of the bamboozled elderly and Googling “quiet on the creek”. - The Guardian

“Readers gave AI-generated stories they believed to be written by humans the highest ratings in a new study published by Cambridge University Press, … with researchers noting that ‘participants generally seemed to have poor instincts about how to tell which story was AI-generated’.” - The Bookseller (UK)

Arday is the sociologist who just resigned from Cambridge after accusations of plagiarism and of being, basically, the British George Santos. Despite the possibility that some of what he recounts in his book is untrue, S&S is “proceeding with the publication of Great and Unfortunate Things by Jason Arday as planned.” - The Guardian

"We tricked them by putting soccer in a comedy show. … The first thing you’ve got to do to get somebody to become a soccer fan is just make them care about one team, to find one team.” Even if it’s fictional. - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

“The fact that acting nominees only submit one episode per performance feels very high stakes: One episode must make the best possible case that you deserve to win.” - Vulture

Together, these shows comprise a new wave of teen television defined by a slow indie-film pace, an anti-algorithm aesthetic, and longing as its central engine. - The Guardian

“The U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority cleared the pending acquisition, ruling that a Paramount-Warner tie up does not pose a ‘substantial lessening of competition’ in the country. Meanwhile, Britain’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said it also wouldn’t intervene — on the basis of several ‘legally-binding commitments’ from Paramount.” - AP

Most films are distributed with caption tracks, but cinemas, on average, caption only 1% of all showings. This is despite statistics showing that in the UK, one in seven people – approximately 14% of the population – are deaf or have hearing loss. - The Conversation

The venue, which hadn’t shown a first-run movie for 35 years, has announced it’s the highest grossing theatre in the country for Christopher Nolan’s mythological epic on the film format. - The Hollywood Reporter

“In 1956, under the direction of Lew Christensen, SFB went to the Pillow with three programs featuring eight ballets by George Balanchine and Christensen himself. The performances were a tremendous success, and … helped propel SFB from regional significance to international renown.” Now, under Tamara Rojo, the company is back. - Pointe Magazine

“There is some debate over exactly when biama emerged, but it exploded in popularity after the coronavirus pandemic as young people turned to TikTok to post and respond to dance challenges that fused acrobatics with goofiness that pushed bodies to their limits.” - The Guardian

Youngjun Choi, who has created dance routines for some of South Korea's biggest pop stars (including BTS), and Joon Jung, a choreographer-turned-tech exec, co-founded the startup MVNT to build an AI system for dance, much like Suno, the generative AI music platform. - Business Insider

ENB said some customer email address and business contact information "may have been included in the affected data" from the cyber attack and that it was taking the matter seriously. - The Standard

As co-founder Ericka Squire puts it, “Palm Beach County is ripe for a festival that feels like Jacob's Pillow” — a pitch that worked on the right funders. The first-ever Banyan Dance Festival is running this week in downtown West Palm Beach. - WLRN (Miami)

“It’s about creating opportunity. It’s about creating access. It’s about continuing to not just be a voice in my time, but how are we setting up the next generation?” - The New York Times

“I want to see the eyes of the actors, I want to get closer to the emotion - which is what theatre can’t give you. It’s a different thing,” says the Hadestown pro-shot director. - NPR

“There are countless reasons behind the demise of any Broadway show, each of which is essentially a start-up business taking its chances in a volatile market.” - The New York Times

"It’s a distinct privilege to witness something being born. It’s exciting.” But developmental opportunities are disappearing from the United States theatre scene at an alarming rate. - American Theatre

Shapiro, who won a Tony in 2008 for directing August: Osage County and was Steppenwolf’s artistic director from 2015 to 2021, currently runs the graduate directing program at Northwestern University. At Juilliard, where her tenure begins next July, she succeeds Evan Yionoulis, who is now dean at Yale’s School of Drama. - The Hollywood Reporter

As Taproot’s current and founding artistic team members chat in the theater’s comfortable lobby, with its welcoming windows looking out onto North 85th Street in Greenwood, it’s hard to believe that the company’s permanent space was once an X-rated movie theater with a dirt floor basement. - Seattle Times

Pittsburgh's theater community is betting that a business deal of its own — the merger of the Pittsburgh CLO and the Pittsburgh Public Theater — will pay off. - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“The actress Laura Linney, who graduated from Juilliard in 1990, was confused when Ms. Smith stared at the floor during her entire audition. ‘She wasn’t looking, she was listening,’ to Ms. Linney’s voice, the actress said.” - The New York Times

Lane, who didn’t speak Spanish when this part of her career began, "exuded a sultry Latin air as the star vocalist for the bandleader Xavier Cugat in the 1950s and ’60s, and in a successful solo career afterward.” - The New York Times

The comic monologue, titled Cartwheel, is billed as about a woman “approaching forty, juggling motherhood and finally getting around to being furious about the whole wrongful-imprisonment thing. Especially when half the world is telling her to get over it, while the other half still thinks she’s guilty.” - AP

In recent years, celebrities have attempted to set boundaries for their adoring, sometimes obsessive fans.  - The New York Times

A two-time Oscar nominee who’s widely expected to get another nomination for her performance as Circe, Morton said, “I’ve got really good agents and a manager, but at the end of the day, I’m 49. I do believe I’m a good actor, (but) there are other good actors out there.” - Variety

After emerging internationally in the late 1970s, he established himself as one of the leading specialists in the operas of Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini. He guest-conducted at most of the world’s major opera houses and served as music director of the Teatro Regio in Turin for three years in the 1990s. - Moto Perpetuo