I’ve found that some of the most rigid thinkers describe themselves as spectacularly flexible while the most flexible people are often unaware of their own adaptability. This is why, instead of relying on asking people how rigid they think they are, I began studying people’s unconscious thinking styles. - Psyche

Some patterns emerge: many utopias employ a framing device in which the narrator is accidentally or fantastically transported to a new land, and then subjected to reams of expository monologue about how it all works.  - The Guardian

How should we remember the American Revolution when millions march in the streets and shout “No Kings!”? When squads of masked thugs invade homes without warrant, kangaroo immigration “courts” deport hundreds of thousands without due process, and an executive agency buys up warehouses to use as internment camps? - Boston Review

This is one novel frustration of the AI age, yet millions of users searching for the “right prompt” are engaging in an old literary practice: turning mental images, vague desires and atmospheric intuitions into precise language. - The Conversation

Anyway, the reason I’m writing all of this is not to brag, but to complain. Over the last two years, I’ve felt like my job has become a bit less important than it used to be, for three reasons. - Noahpinion

Zhuangzi insists that even in idealised situations where values can be straightforward, the idea that hierarchies and institutions can reflect that moral map is a profound misunderstanding of how power actually works. - Aeon

The creative sector is Chicago’s third-largest industry and accounts for nearly 213,000 jobs, according to a new economic impact study released Thursday by Arts Alliance Illinois, a statewide advocacy organization. - WBEZ

“The reductions amount to roughly five percent of the organization’s current workforce of 1,169 staff. Nine of the cuts will involve compulsory redundancies, with the remainder expected to come from unfilled vacancies, voluntary departures, and natural turnover.” - OperaWire

In May, Misan Harriman was accused by the Telegraph of sharing a social media post that contained a conspiracy theory about the Golders Green attack because it questioned the amount of coverage given to the Muslim victim, Ishmail Hussein. - The Guardian

The editors have chosen four movies, six books, two songs, a piece of classical music, a painting, and a monument “whose impact extended beyond culture to society as a whole.” - The New Republic

“A landscaped median under construction for months in front of the Kimmel Center has reached completion — the down payment on a promised major redo of the Avenue of the Arts streetscape. The leafy ribbon down the middle of Broad Street from Spruce to Pine Streets was officially unveiled Wednesday.” - The Philadelphia Inquirer...

“Fifty-five cultural institutions and 28 schools will benefit from grants ranging from $60,000 to $2 million,” with much of the money designated for buildings or infrastructure. “In previous years, the discretionary budget has been divided into small grants ... across sectors like the arts, public housing, social services and parks.” - The New York...

I playfully ask them, “Why do you have to see it?” But I know why. They have grown up seeing music as much as hearing it. With iPhones steeping the modern human being in images 24/7, listening to extended forms of music without visual illustration will appeal ever less. - The New York Times

Bettina Varwig's research focuses on how 17th and 18th-century listeners responded to music. “When you read about how music affected listeners in Bach’s time, their testimonies are striking in their bodily intensity. Music contracted their innards and made their hearts leap.” - The Guardian

The new program, called Spark, will include grants, mentorship and marketing support, Suno said, as the company said it’s looking to “help more artists turn ideas into finished projects, connect those projects with fans, and build new opportunities to grow their careers both on and beyond Suno.” - The Hollywood Reporter

A researcher cataloguing the music collections of the Diocese of Bergamo discovered a four-page setting of the Vespers psalm Dixit Dominus, scored for three male voices a cappella, written by the young Donizetti sometime between 1818 and 1821. - Gramilano (Milan)

Two musicians who were part of the orchestra have given a different version of events, saying the keyboardist left after tension between Hurwitz and the orchestra during rehearsals on the day of the performance. - The Guardian

“Live Nation has confirmed that the company had several meetings with the Department of Justice and the Office of the White House Counsel before a surprise antitrust trial settlement, while its president and CEO, Michael Rapino, held a conversation with President Donald Trump.” - Variety

Courtenay Finn is currently chief curator and director of programs at the Orange County Museum of Art, which merged with the University of California, Irvine last year. She has previously served as the chief curator at moCa Cleveland in Ohio, senior curator at the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado, and curator at Art in General in...

In 1943, Rockwell painted a four-panel portrait of people waiting to see President Roosevelt. The artwork, called So You Want to See the President!, spent 40 years hanging in the West Wing; last year the White House Historical Association purchased the piece, which is now in a nearby museum. - USA Today

Dutch archaeologists found this curse tablet in a pit beneath Heerlen‘s town hall square. Archaeologists often frequent this area situated amid the former site of Coriovallum, a Roman military settlement along the Via Belgica, which once connected Belgium’s Tongeren region to Cologne.  - Artnet

Located deep within the jungles of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, the city—which the researchers have named “Minanbé,” a Maya Yucatec phrase meaning “there is no road”—had been hidden by vegetation for over a thousand years. - ARTnews

The city wants structures that will go up smoothly, look good while they last, and go away quickly. Those are separate goals, none of them easy to achieve. - New York Magazine (MSN)

In 15 photographs, four paintings, and one very iconic sculpture, “a visual chronicle of the national experience, from Iwo Jima to Emmett Till to January 6.” - The New Republic

Ingram Library Services and Penguin Random House have announced a print-on-demand program designed to supply libraries with popular backlist titles.  - Publishers Weekly

“The Commonwealth Foundation asked writers to provide drafts, story outlines, manuscripts and other evidence of their creative process when investigating allegations of AI use surrounding this year’s Commonwealth Short Story Prize, director-general Razmi Farook has (said).” - The Bookseller (UK)

“The Commonwealth Foundation dismissed accusations that the short stories which won its literary prize this year were generated with artificial intelligence, saying a month-long review had found ‘AI wasn’t used’ to write them.’” - The Independent (UK)

“Talk to authors, talk to prize judges, talk to critics and to editors and you hear versions of the same story. ... What might have been excellent books are marred by shoddy copy editing, flat-out errors, cursory proofreading — and, in some cases, an obvious lack of revision.” - The Guardian

Samir Pail argues that the publishing industry is fundamentally flawed insofar as publishers and authors generate consumer demand, then hand buyers off to companies like Amazon, which takes a significant cut and then owns the customer relationship. - Publishers Weekly

The collection is the latest donation to the Library Company of Philadelphia, founded by Franklin in 1731, by Charles Rosenberg, a now-retired historian of science at Harvard University. He described this collection, including volumes dating to the late 1600s, as largely “how-to-run-your-sex-life books.” - The New York Times

The indie movie studio was, for a sizable set of Americans under 40 or so, about as cool as a studio could get. (You never saw anyone wearing a Focus Features hoodie, right?) Then A24 announced a $75 million deal with Google’s AI venture, DeepMind. The fan base is furious. - The Hollywood Reporter

The Emmy Award-winning drama has also become an urgently needed Hollywood success story at a time when much of the local film and TV industry has left California for other states and countries. - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

“Arkansas TV, formerly Arkansas PBS, is cutting and moving PBS news programming to make room for homegrown shows filmed in Arkansas, once again pulling the old switcheroo on folks who hoped their generous donations would prevent this very thing from happening.“ - Arkansas Times

Cosm, founded in 2020 by Steve Winn, has opened several dome structures throughout the U.S. Cosm’s venues — three in Los Angeles, Dallas and Atlanta, with upcoming venues in Detroit and Cleveland— allow fans to experience sporting events and other entertainment experiences through various 87-foot, 12K LED dome displays. - Variety

The station reached more than 705,000 listeners during the ratings period, surpassing major public radio outlets including WNYC in New York (693,000 listeners) and KQED in San Francisco (645,000 listeners). - Nielsen

“While comparatively obscure microdrama companies, with names like DramaBox and GammaTime, have received significant investment in the past year from venture capitalists and entertainment studios, NBCUniversal, BET, A+E Global and Fox have all announced plans to produce microdrama series.” And there's serious money to be made. - The New York Times

For years, there has been too much ballet at Lincoln Center, which I say as someone who loves the form. Modern dance is part of the center’s history, too, and now it is finally being given a stage. - The New York Times

The Turkish metropolis has become one of the world’s major centers of tango, perhaps behind only Buenos Aires itself. This month Istanbul hosted La Turca Tango Marathon and Championship, a three-day festival and competition which saw 56 dancers from around Europe competing in six categories. - The New York Times

“To get a new major approved, facult­y must demonstrate that there’s a genuine hunger for more dance on campus. They must lay out the benefits not only for future students, but also for the institution as a whole — its reputation and its bottom line.” Here’s how these four colleges did it. - Dance Magazine

She is creating a final solo work for herself — her first time onstage in 13 years — as a farewell, and she officially departs as artistic director of Lucy Guerin Inc at the end of this year. The company, based in Melbourne, has toured widely, from Paris to New York to Shanghai. -...

When Executive Director Josh Neckels received notification from the bank that the company had received a deposit, he nearly dismissed it as spam, but decided to call the bank to check. - Oregon Arts Watch

“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)

After almost a century as a small private business, Sardi’s was officially acquired this week by the company that was already the restaurant’s landlord — the Shubert Organization, owner of 17 Broadway theaters. The legendary eatery has now closed for renovations and is expected to reopen in November. - Eater

Peter Marinker, now 84, first played Krapp in 1983, and he’s reusing the tapes he made back then for this production in London. He’ll have an earpiece to get prompts if necessary, but when his memory fails, he refers to a poem written by the aging Beckett himself after developing aphasia. - The Guardian

A next-generation orchestral software from the German company KeyComp threatens to inflict the deepest cuts yet on what has traditionally been a steady gig for professional musicians. - The Guardian

“How did the new musical — long Broadway’s fundamental building block — become so scarce that the New York Drama Critics’ Circle opted to forgo an award this year for best musical, and two of the five Tony nominations for best score went to music composed for plays?” Well, several reasons. - The New...

The show is Warriors, an adaptation of the 2024 concept album by Miranda and Elsa Davis. The source material is Sol Yurick’s 1965 novel The Warriors, which was adapted into the now-classic 1979 film. The Miranda-Davis musical, which makes the titular gang female, will start previews next March and open in April. - AP

“Orchestral software from the German company KeyComp threatens to inflict the deepest cuts yet on what has traditionally been a steady gig for professional musicians. … Thanks to successful union campaigning, the software is banned in New York, Washington DC and in Hamburg, where the software company is based.” - The Guardian

“I wanted to keep the party going. I wanted to keep the happiness and joy and explosions of laughter going into a dour part of our lives, not our childhood anymore,” Brooks recalled. “ - AP News

A former child actor who trained as an operatic soprano, Blyth had a busy career in Hollywood through the 1940s and ‘50s and worked in television in the ‘70s. She’s best remembered for her Oscar-nominated performance as the “cheap and horrible” daughter of Joan Crawford’s character in Mildred Pierce. - The Hollywood Reporter

From the late 1970s, she had a glittering 25-year career as a coloratura, from the Met to La Scala to Santa Fe and beyond. Mills then became an admired teacher and diction coach; from 2016, she was artistic director of the Livermore Valley Opera in the Bay Area. - San Francisco Classical Voice

“The movie mogul still stands convicted of another sexual felony in New York and others in California, and he remains behind bars. But the New York rape charge had remained unresolved after an overturned conviction followed by two hung juries, ... (and) his accuser said she could not bear to testify again.” - AP

In France, feelings about him are more mixed than in the U.S. (For one thing, during and after the French Revolution, he favored a constitutional monarchy, not the most popular position then.) But an exhibition at France’s National Archives which tells Lafayette’s full story has become a hit. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)

The daughter of the founders of Houston’s Menil Collection, Christophe herself had a glittering social life filled with the arts and artists, and she funded career-establishing work by Robert Wilson, Twyla Tharp, Trisha Brown, and others. Her family life, on the other hand, was … well, fraught. - New York Magazine (MSN)