Today's Stories

Judy Blume, She Says, Has Written Enough

The author says, “You're living with for months, sometimes years. And you're locked up in a little room all day with them. That's why 50 years is enough. I was ready to come out into the world. Now, she owns and runs a bookstore. - NPR

Have Movies Doomed Us All?

Seriously: Movies have "proved to be a tool of dictators, an instrument of propaganda and the weapon of ruthless, unaccountable corporate interests.” - The New York Times

With The Roku Sale To Fox, Not To Mention The Paramount Deal, Right-Wing Interests Dominate Streaming

"The scale of this quiet coup is staggering. … In practical terms, Roku controls the television home screen.” - Salon

Apparently, There’s Such A Thing As ‘Dad Cinema,’ So Happy Father’s Day

The number one movie in Dad Cinema is, of course, a Kevin Costner classic. But there are many others, including classic Mel Brooks fare. - The New York Times

In New York, The City’s Oldest Museum Celebrates An Expansive View Of Democracy

The New York Historical’s new wing features a show that's “historically broad, thematically loose, unabashedly polemical, made up of equal then and now.” - The New York Times

David Hockney Wanted, And Got, Only Two Mourners At His Funeral

But “his publicist, Erica Bolton, announced that his life and work would be celebrated in a series of memorial services to be held in places he has lived around the world, including London and Yorkshire.” - The Guardian (UK)

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How Exhausting Is It To Voice A Minion?

Also, can one simply voice one Minion? No: French animator Pierre Coffin has co-written and co-directed most of the movies with the small mumbling crew, and he also "voices every last one of the yellow creatures himself.” - Variety

Burned By AI, Granta Will No Longer Publish External Award Winning Short Stories

Ouf. "For the sake of our own editorial integrity, the Granta Trust board has now taken the decision that we will no longer engage in external publishing partnerships. We … wish our former partner, the Commonwealth Foundation, all the best in its work.” - The Guardian (UK)

Norway Had Its Own John Singer Sargent

“Asta Norregaard was a sought-after portrait painter among the rich and famous in Norway at the turn of the 20th century, but when she exhibited her work in the country’s capital, critics were quick to dismiss her pictures as decorative and frivolous.” - The New York Times

Did The Pitt Put Forward Enough Of Its Actors For Emmys?

“Particularly curious is Irene Choi, who isn’t on the ballot for her performance as med student Joy Kwon, even though her character was essentially on a parallel track to Iverson as med student James Ogilvie.” What gives? - Vulture

The Fierce Dance That’s An Ode To Sinead O’Connor

“O’Connor was 56 when she died and still making music – she had almost completed a new album. To be a middle-aged woman in the music industry is a rarity, but dance isn’t so different.” - The Guardian (UK)

What Should Ghosts Look Like In Children’s Books?

“What children know of ghosts, and at what age they know it, is murky territory. … And if you show even a very young child a picture of a ghost, in my experience they can often tell you that it is, indeed, a ghost.” - The New York Times

All Of The Music That’s Been Fed Into ‘Generative’ (Read: Theft-Based) AI

“Companies often claim to use only content that is freely available online, but the datasets reveal the quantity of downloadable music that developers can access even though it is not supposed to be free.” - The Atlantic

The Movie ‘Obsession’ Is Raking In The Money, But Who’s Seeing The Profits?

“The art director of Obsession disclosed her paycheck for about three weeks of work: $6,741.36, after taxes.” The movie has now made $300 million on a budget of $750,000. - The New York Times

About Cannes, A Lot Of Alcohol, And Getting Sober

“The first film I was able to get into after that meeting was an anniversary screening of The Shining (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1980). I’d seen the film before, but this time I realized that it was about an alcoholic who tries to dry out.” - Paris Review

What Might Have Been: Gaudí’s Design For A New York Skyscraper

A supertall skyscraper, no less, topping out at 360 meters/1180 feet. The great Barcelona architect did a speculative design of a hotel complex in 1908 for a pair of Manhattan businessmen. AI artist Thierry Lechanteur has used Gaudi’s surviving drawings to create renderings of the project. - Dezeen

Have Our Devices Dulled Our Sensory Experiences?

"The way we consume such content, by swiping idly on a glass screen, stands in stark contrast with the content of the content, the skillful manipulation of resolutely tangible material. It’s ironic, and a bit dystopian, this disjuncture, but I’m entranced by the videos anyway." - The New Yorker

Movie Theatre Box Office Has Surged This Year. So What Next?

“When we recognized that people want to go out, that they want to be treated with good service in a good theater with good product, when we recognized that and gave them that, they just came back in hordes more than any other generation." - Deadline

Gaudí Was A Superstar. Why Didn’t He Have More Influence On Future Architects?

Architectural history and Antoni Gaudí just weren’t headed in the same direction. - Dezeen

The Obama Center: The Difference Between Libraries And Monuments

There is no question about its monumentality. It is at once colossal, haughty and ultimately inscrutable—as a great monument should be. The question is whether it should have been a monument in the first place. - The Wall Street Journal

By Topic

Have Movies Doomed Us All?

Seriously: Movies have "proved to be a tool of dictators, an instrument of propaganda and the weapon of ruthless, unaccountable corporate interests.” - The New York Times

Have Our Devices Dulled Our Sensory Experiences?

"The way we consume such content, by swiping idly on a glass screen, stands in stark contrast with the content of the content, the skillful manipulation of resolutely tangible material. It’s ironic, and a bit dystopian, this disjuncture, but I’m entranced by the videos anyway." - The New Yorker

Last Remaining Chinese Theatre In America Seeks Emergency Funding

City records describe it as a 410-seat performing arts and film theater and the last remaining Chinese theater in any Chinatown in the United States. The theater at 636 Jackson St. opened in 1925 as the Great China Theater for Chinese opera. Over the decades, it also became a movie house and community gathering place. - San Francisco Chronicle

Why Writers Should Embrace AI

AI may well be terrible news for software engineers, but I think it’s an intriguing development for people who care about language and ideas – precisely the people who currently reject it the most. - Aeon

What Literature Teaches Us About Neurodivergence

Far from being a modern phenomenon, neurodivergence has a long history. In other words, people whose ways of thinking, sensing or behaving differed from social expectations have always existed. Members of my research project have described discovering these historical figures as like finding neurodivergent ancestors. - The Conversation

The Philosophical Consequences Of Simulations

Students tend to have a low tolerance for fanciful hypotheses and abstruse thought experiments. All but the most philosophically inclined roll their eyes at Descartes’s famed “evil demon” scenario in which the reader is meant to reflect on whether any of her beliefs couldn’t have been presented as a deception of a malevolent spirit. - Hedgehog Review

With The Roku Sale To Fox, Not To Mention The Paramount Deal, Right-Wing Interests Dominate Streaming

"The scale of this quiet coup is staggering. … In practical terms, Roku controls the television home screen.” - Salon

Court Says Trump Administration May Alter Slavery Exhibit At George Washngton’s Philadelphia House (And Philadelphia May Not)

When the Trump administration removed from the site panels telling the history of the enslaved people who lived with the Washingtons there, the city of Philadelphia sued. A lower-court federal judge ordered the panels restored; a three-judge panel of the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed that order. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)

David Hockney Was Working Class. Artists From The Working Class Have A Much More Difficult Time Today

Through policies and schemes, previously unheard-of opportunities for people of his background began to open up, without which he would not have become the success he is considered today. The situation today for aspiring artists from a similar background is much starker. - The Conversation

Ballmer And Bezos And Benioff: Mega-donors To The Obama Library

The foundation collected six donations of $50 million-plus, including one anonymous contributor. - Chicago Sun-Times

The Woman Trying To Rebuild Oakland’s Arts Program

Oakland currently allots its entire arts community only $300,000 in grants — in contrast to the combined $29 million that Grants for the Arts and the San Francisco Arts Commission apportioned across the bay last fiscal year. - San Francisco Chronicle

U.S. House Committee Advances Measure To Axe Department Of Education’s Only Arts Grant Program

“The Republican-chaired House Appropriations Committee … advanced a proposal that could defund the Department’s Assistance for Arts Education program, … which was established in 2015 to fund primary and secondary arts education with an emphasis on ‘disadvantaged students’ and children with disabilities.” - Hyperallergic

All Of The Music That’s Been Fed Into ‘Generative’ (Read: Theft-Based) AI

“Companies often claim to use only content that is freely available online, but the datasets reveal the quantity of downloadable music that developers can access even though it is not supposed to be free.” - The Atlantic

An Expedition To Preserve The Sounds Of Church Organs

The show up at old churches in remote communities, preparing their solar-powered mobile studio, and recording instruments both humble and monumental, whose complex systems of keys, stops, hand cranks, foot pedals, bellows and reeds were designed to vibrate the air around them until it approximates the sound of God. - The Guardian

High Ticket Prices Are Keeping Fans Away From Concerts This Summer

Post Malone, Meghan Trainor and the Pussy Cat Dolls have all cancelled shows or entire tours in recent months — and while some of them have cited other reasons for doing so, fans have still pointed to their tours as part of the trend. - CBC

Iranian Star Sentenced To 74 Lashes Because She Sang Without A Hijab

And she was singing a patriotic song, no less. In a December 2024 video which went viral, Parastoo Ahmadi performed “From the Blood of the Homeland’s Youth” with an uncovered head. For this “vulgar and immoral content,” Ahmadi and her production team have been sentenced to flogging. - The Guardian

Unknown Bartók Manuscript Discovered In Spain

“(The item was identified by) Hungarian antiquarian bookseller Ádám Bősze, who acquired the document at a Spanish auction where it had been mistakenly catalogued as a simple page from a musical album.” - Moto Perpetuo

Troubled San Antonio Philharmonic Appoints Interim Music Director

Facing more than one court case and no scheduled concerts, the struggling Texas orchestra has promoted its associate conductor, Felipe Tristán, to the music director’s podium on an interim basis. - San Antonio Express-News (MSN)

In New York, The City’s Oldest Museum Celebrates An Expansive View Of Democracy

The New York Historical’s new wing features a show that's “historically broad, thematically loose, unabashedly polemical, made up of equal then and now.” - The New York Times

Norway Had Its Own John Singer Sargent

“Asta Norregaard was a sought-after portrait painter among the rich and famous in Norway at the turn of the 20th century, but when she exhibited her work in the country’s capital, critics were quick to dismiss her pictures as decorative and frivolous.” - The New York Times

What Might Have Been: Gaudí’s Design For A New York Skyscraper

A supertall skyscraper, no less, topping out at 360 meters/1180 feet. The great Barcelona architect did a speculative design of a hotel complex in 1908 for a pair of Manhattan businessmen. AI artist Thierry Lechanteur has used Gaudi’s surviving drawings to create renderings of the project. - Dezeen

Gaudí Was A Superstar. Why Didn’t He Have More Influence On Future Architects?

Architectural history and Antoni Gaudí just weren’t headed in the same direction. - Dezeen

The Obama Center: The Difference Between Libraries And Monuments

There is no question about its monumentality. It is at once colossal, haughty and ultimately inscrutable—as a great monument should be. The question is whether it should have been a monument in the first place. - The Wall Street Journal

Art Galleries Are Not Okay

What went wrong? The short answer is: The art world expanded wildly, but the art market — the total dollar volume of art sales — did not. In fact, if you read the Art Basel/UBS Art Market Report for 2026 carefully, and adjust for inflation, the data shows that the art market has stagnated. - The New...

Judy Blume, She Says, Has Written Enough

The author says, “You're living with for months, sometimes years. And you're locked up in a little room all day with them. That's why 50 years is enough. I was ready to come out into the world. Now, she owns and runs a bookstore. - NPR

Burned By AI, Granta Will No Longer Publish External Award Winning Short Stories

Ouf. "For the sake of our own editorial integrity, the Granta Trust board has now taken the decision that we will no longer engage in external publishing partnerships. We … wish our former partner, the Commonwealth Foundation, all the best in its work.” - The Guardian (UK)

What Should Ghosts Look Like In Children’s Books?

“What children know of ghosts, and at what age they know it, is murky territory. … And if you show even a very young child a picture of a ghost, in my experience they can often tell you that it is, indeed, a ghost.” - The New York Times

So, If The Obama Presidential Center Isn’t A Library Or Archive, Then What Exactly Is It?

The Obama Foundation opted not to have the National Archives and Records Administration, which keeps presidential archives, involved in the Center; it will make Obama’s papers available digitally. So what is the Obama Center? Part museum, part public park, with a branch of the Chicago Public Library. - The Christian Science Monitor

Why The New Obama Presidential Center Is Not Officially A Library

It isn’t a presidential library if it isn’t run by the National Archives and Records Administration, and the Obama Foundation had two big reasons for deciding not having NARA involved. So President Obama’s papers and archives will be made available to the public digitally while the Obama Center serves other functions. - Chicago Sun-Times

In Its Centennial Year, The Book Of The Month Club Has Become Kind Of Cool

Since its rebrand as Book of the Month (no more club) a decade ago, the subscription service has grown every year and now has over 400,000 members. Its strength, says chairman John Lippman, is human curation: “We don’t depend on algorithms to determine your next book.” - Publishers Weekly

Apparently, There’s Such A Thing As ‘Dad Cinema,’ So Happy Father’s Day

The number one movie in Dad Cinema is, of course, a Kevin Costner classic. But there are many others, including classic Mel Brooks fare. - The New York Times

How Exhausting Is It To Voice A Minion?

Also, can one simply voice one Minion? No: French animator Pierre Coffin has co-written and co-directed most of the movies with the small mumbling crew, and he also "voices every last one of the yellow creatures himself.” - Variety

Did The Pitt Put Forward Enough Of Its Actors For Emmys?

“Particularly curious is Irene Choi, who isn’t on the ballot for her performance as med student Joy Kwon, even though her character was essentially on a parallel track to Iverson as med student James Ogilvie.” What gives? - Vulture

The Movie ‘Obsession’ Is Raking In The Money, But Who’s Seeing The Profits?

“The art director of Obsession disclosed her paycheck for about three weeks of work: $6,741.36, after taxes.” The movie has now made $300 million on a budget of $750,000. - The New York Times

About Cannes, A Lot Of Alcohol, And Getting Sober

“The first film I was able to get into after that meeting was an anniversary screening of The Shining (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1980). I’d seen the film before, but this time I realized that it was about an alcoholic who tries to dry out.” - Paris Review

Movie Theatre Box Office Has Surged This Year. So What Next?

“When we recognized that people want to go out, that they want to be treated with good service in a good theater with good product, when we recognized that and gave them that, they just came back in hordes more than any other generation." - Deadline

The Fierce Dance That’s An Ode To Sinead O’Connor

“O’Connor was 56 when she died and still making music – she had almost completed a new album. To be a middle-aged woman in the music industry is a rarity, but dance isn’t so different.” - The Guardian (UK)

Upheaval At DC’s Dance Place As Artistic Director Position Is Eliminated

A week after artistic director Tariq O’Meally was abruptly dismissed, an unsigned statement was released: “Dance Place has restructured its staffing model and is reimagining its approach to presentation programming in response to a dramatically contracting public funding environment and its commitment to operating with both efficiency and deeper community ownership.” - Dance Magazine

Some Dance Forms Are Deeply Culturally Coded. How Can They Be Reinterpreted In Contemporary Choreography?

Choreographic researcher and artist Nazira Yerbolkyzy is among a new generation of practitioners working to reframe this relationship by exploring how traditional movement philosophies can be reinterpreted through contemporary choreography and movement analysis. - BroadwayWorld

Longtime ABT Principal Cory Stearns, Not Entirely By Choice, Retires From Performing

The 40-year-old wasn’t happy when artistic director Susan Jaffe told him to make room for someone younger, but he’s philosophical: “I’ve been with ABT my entire life, and I feel very grateful. ... The idea of continuing to dance for the sake of dancing, that’s not what I (want) right now.” - The New...

Sydney Dance Company Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela: The Exit Interview

“The amount of things that I didn’t get! … We will never get to fulfil the potential of what we want to achieve. There are so many versions of our life.” - The Saturday Paper (Australia)

Generational Change In Australia’s First Nations Dance

Australian dance is undergoing a generational transfer of leadership. At the same time, First Nations choreography has never been more visible. Yet visibility and authority are not the same thing. - ArtsHub

A New Center For Playwrights On Cape Cod Bay

“Pulitzer-winning playwright Paula Vogel has teamed up with former Huntington Theatre Managing Director Michael Maso and philanthropist Grace Nordhoff on a new center for playwrights and theatrical composers that will open in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, in 2028. Bards on the Bay will be housed in The Nancy Nordhoff Theatre Center.” - Playbill

“The Seduction Of Certainty”: Playwright Moisés Kaufman On The Roald Dahl Bio-Play “Giant”

“Most plays about prejudice comfort the audience with clarity. They reassure us that we would have recognized it immediately. Giant offers no such reassurance.” - Observer

Theatre In London’s West End To Be Renamed For Judi Dench

“The Shaftesbury Theatre will be known as the Judi Dench Theatre from February 2027. … Dench has a long association with the Shaftesbury, which is one of the largest independent theatres in London.” - The Guardian

As It Struggles Financially, San Francisco’s Magic Theatre Tries A Three-Leader Management Structure

“Actor and former Magic Theatre board member Sarah Nina Hayon, who also founded New York's 24SevenLab, is artistic director; actor Daniel Duque-Estrada is producing director; and video designer Joan Osato … is director of sustainability and growth.” - San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)

Alan Cumming’s Theatre In The Scottish Highlands Will Present Its Own Mini-Version Of Edinburgh Fringe

Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s five-day event — called “Edinlochry” — won’t be as chaotic as the actual Edinburgh Fringe can be, mainly because it will be curated rather than open-access. - The Edinburgh Reporter

Could You Memorize All Of Shakespeare’s 154 Sonnets?

This actor did, though he adds, “When I first had the idea, oh, yeah, I'm going to learn them all. I … I did not realize how much work it actually was.” - NPR

David Hockney Wanted, And Got, Only Two Mourners At His Funeral

But “his publicist, Erica Bolton, announced that his life and work would be celebrated in a series of memorial services to be held in places he has lived around the world, including London and Yorkshire.” - The Guardian (UK)

Joyce Carol Oates Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop

“In one day this May, for instance, she tweeted 36 times about the following subjects: boxing, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, shortened attention spans, Jonathan Swift, Madame Bovary, Jude the Obscure, people who read works of classic literature too quickly, her late husband, the Elizabeth Taylor Cleopatra, the Unabomber, and her cats.” - Vulture (MSN)

The Meanings Of David Foster Wallace

The Bible warns that “all craftsmen who make idols will be humiliated.” American culture, perhaps in an effort to stave off potential embarrassment, often creates idols only to later destroy them. - Liberties Journal

How Byron Allen Went From Standup Comic To Media Mogul To Stephen Colbert’s Time Slot

“He was one of the first entertainers to recognize that there was more money to be made in owning your content, rather than just performing it. Over the last three decades, he has built a multibillion-dollar business, Allen Media Group, which now has 2,000 employees across various media properties.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

Rex Reed Hated Everything

In my ongoing conversations with him, along with the despairingly pungent emails he regularly sent from his AOL address Rex seemed to interpret the glut of mediocre films he was forced to endure as a highly personal affront to strict standards of taste, decency and class. - The Hollywood Reporter

Misty Copeland On Drive and Motivation

What people do not always see is the aspect of drive that is perhaps the hardest to name — the will to keep going in those moments when the path is unclear, when recognition may never come. You stay focused on the work while navigating a life on the public stage. - The New...

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With The Roku Sale To Fox, Not To Mention The Paramount Deal, Right-Wing Interests Dominate Streaming

"The scale of this quiet coup is staggering. … In practical terms, Roku controls the television home screen.” - Salon

All Of The Music That’s Been Fed Into ‘Generative’ (Read: Theft-Based) AI

“Companies often claim to use only content that is freely available online, but the datasets reveal the quantity of downloadable music that developers can access even though it is not supposed to be free.” - The Atlantic

What We Learned About How To Celebrate A Divided America’s Birthday From The Bicentennial

Philadelphia, as the cradle of American independence, was supposed to be the center of attention 50 years ago. From the beginning, deliberations involved arguably the most important architect of the late 20th century, Louis I. Kahn. - Architecture and the City

Why The Art Workers Coalition Still Resonates Across The Art World

“Among their demands were a section of the museum dedicated to Black (and, in a later, amended statement, Puerto Rican) artists, an artist committee granted curatorial power, a ‘rental fee’ paid to artists for the exhibition of their work and free admission for all.” - The New York Times

Building A Jazz Trilogy Based On Black British History

Renell Shaw: “Our story is of growth, and it’s a love story, too. I mean, my grandmother came over here from Jamaica looking for work, and my grandfather came over to chase my grandmother!” - The Guardian (UK)

They Just Had To Take That Man’s Name Off The Kennedy Center From Behind A Curtain

After blowing the deadline and begging for more time - and being denied - workers took Donald J. Trump’s name off the Kennedy Center on Friday night. But “a spokeswoman for the center, said the institution was … evaluating ‘legal options.’” - The New York Times

Washington National Opera Sues Kennedy Center

“The Washington National Opera (WNO) filed a lawsuit Thursday, alleging that the Kennedy Center failed to return more than $17 million in donations made to the organization after its split from the venue earlier this year.” - The Hill

David Hockney, 88

“Over a seven-decade career, Hockney explored and reimagined classical portraiture, landscape painting and pop art, working in painting, collage, photography and digital drawing. … One of the most popular and critically lauded British artists of his” — and perhaps any — “generation, his works sold for record prices at auction.” - AP

Boston Symphony CEO: Yes, We Handled The Nelsons Thing Poorly. No, We’re Not Changing Our Minds.

Chad Smith: “I can see that it was an abrupt announcement externally. It didn’t represent abrupt decision-making, though. It was a very considered conversation that has been going on for some time. … Our intention was to have a joint statement, but that wasn’t agreed to.” - The New York Times

Photographer Duane Michals, 94

“In a career that spanned six decades and crisscrossed artistic and commercial contexts, Michals challenged photographic convention and innovated new forms; he is best known for building sequential, frame-by-frame narratives that pair photographs with handwritten text to poetic effect.” - Frieze

The “Middleware” Problem: How Do You Find Classical Music?

“For decades, the relationship between artists and audiences was heavily mediated and nurtured by newspaper critics, classical radio hosts, record-store owners, etc. — They made the music findable and meaningful. I call that layer the civic middleware of culture, and over the past twenty years it has largely collapsed.” - Bachtrack

At The Tonys, Schmigadoon Wins Best New Musical; Liberation Wins Best New Play

Schmigadoon! winning might give it an economic boost, though Liberation has closed. Other big winners are Ragtime and Death of a Salesman. - The New York Times

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