It’s "a nearly three-hour barn burner, racing from event to event with whirlwind kinetic energy. … Nolan’s reluctance to take a pause should, actually, give us pause. After all, Homer’s poem doesn’t just involve a lot of waiting. It is a postwar tale about waiting.” - Boston Globe

Sure, indoor pickleball courts can work, but there are many arts options. - The New York Times

This doesn’t sound like a very nice life, does it? It’s an existence in which you’re micromanaged and surveilled, given almost no freedom or privacy, and put under constant pressure while, at the same time, being seen as incompetent and lazy.  - The New Yorker

These same dons disdained Britain’s provincial universities—known pejoratively as Redbrick—as well as academics in the U.S., whom they scorned for going about their business with “woefully unnecessary seriousness.” A don, by contrast, was effortlessly successful. - The Wall Street Journal

Journalist Nicholas Carr called the online world “the shallows” for the way it erodes concentration. But the paradox is that its depthlessness arrives as immersion. - The Walrus

From the battlefields of Europe to middle-class households and sex trafficking, women’s logistics has one thing in common: performing organisational and supply work for men who have capital, status and control. - Psyche

“If it were not so tragic for Mexican art, the story would make an excellent detective novel. All the characters and ingredients are there.” - Le Monde English

“It’s no longer strange to think that AI might be everywhere, edging out all forms of human interaction: bots talking to bots, all the way down.” This is … not great. - The Atlantic

The games, reflecting the political goals of the president, resemble gaming classics. Tetris is unhappy with "Build the Wall," a little too close to Tetris itself. Then there’s one like Snake, where gamers “patrol the Rio Grande and capture figures representing migrants.” - Salon

“In the wake of Helene and the subsequent inland migration, the is teaching so-called Old World skills — like fiber arts and clay throwing — as essential tools in the modern age.” - The New York Times

“Across the country’s five largest cities, Chicago was the only one to cut the funding for its local arts agency during its most recent budget cycle. And while its spending dwarfs that of the larger Los Angeles, and trails only behind New York per capita, the pressure is mounting to do more.” - WBEZ...

“Administration officials ‘cannot in good conscience continue to support the Smithsonian under current leadership,’” said a letter from a key policy director and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. “citing artifact loans, procurement assistance and discretionary grants as examples of federal support that could be at risk.” - The Washington Post (Yahoo!)

“If you want to get a young person out of trouble, put a trumpet in their hands – then just watch what they do.” - The Guardian (UK)

The so-called “Primetime Emmys” happen next week, but Bad Bunny cleaned up with seven “creative Emmys” for his halftime show at the huge sporting event. - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

“Despite the increased interest in physical media and the ongoing iPod revival, people are not leaving streaming in droves. Streaming revenue grew by 4.7 percent to $4.9 billion — dwarfing all physical media combined.” - The Verge

 The bargaining committee said it’s far apart from management with regard to compensation, repetitive stress injuries and gaining a voice in the orchestra’s artistic direction. - Ideastream

Tom Service: “What does being the ‘best’ mean? And how and why have the Berliners acquired, and held on to, their globe-topping orchestral reputation for so many decades, through changes of conductor and personnel, political upheaval and technological transformation?” - The Guardian

Metal and classical: deeply different, or close companions? As a musician straddling both genres, I feel they have much more in common than they differ. - San Francisco Classical Voice

The age-old question returns. “Surely Renoir would at least have benefitted from being slightly less prolific.” - Artnet

Of course, “while the museum and the Walton family espouse natural connections between art, community and general well-being (see also recent major investments in healthcare), the urge to collect continues apace.” - KC Studio

"Among the French, the mood is anxious. The tapestry’s early life is shrouded in mystery, but it seems to have led a fameless existence in Bayeux for hundreds of years.” - The New Yorker

“Portrait of a Lady by Italian baroque painter Giuseppe Ghislandi was missing for eight decades before being photographed in 2025 hanging in the home of the daughter of a senior Nazi officer who had fled to Argentina after the second world war.” - The Guardian (UK)

The art world’s merriest prankster; the guy who duct-taped a banana to a gallery wall, called it “Comedian,” and saw it get eaten, sold for $6.2 million, and then eaten again — he says “My work has always been serious. The problem is people often stop at the joke.” - The Guardian

If we look at the meanings incorporated into different objects during the early medieval period, we see that the Bayeux tapestry is a visual form of the scop, an early medieval storyteller who told tales of heroes and great deeds, helping to preserve the oral tradition of the early English peoples. - The Conversation

“Even if you’re writing about stereotypically bad sex, your language should be fresh and surprising.” - LitHub

Publishers and authors are wrangling, and third parties are getting into it, and in general, this isn’t great. - The New York Times

As she said, “It's one of the ironies of trying to be a writer and an activist at the same time that just when you feel you have the most to write about, you have the least time in which to write it.” - The New York Times

That would be the 120-foot scroll of architectural tracing paper on which Jack Kerouac typed — single-spaced — his original draft of On the Road. He produced the whole megillah in three very caffeinated weeks. - AP

The decline of the English major offers a lesson in what young people want. Teenagers in the 2020s have a spiritual thirst that is unmet by a curriculum without order and greatness and charm. A field without a bible like the Norton doesn’t satisfy them. - Portico Quarterly

The company launched in 2020 to offer shoppers a way of buying books online that supported independent bookstores and to divert sales away from Amazon and competing platforms. It operates both as a proprietary sales channel and offers affiliate sales for independent stores and influencers. - Publishers Weekly

Don’t make a “verse,” like “The Monsterverse.” Just make a movie. They don’t all have to tie in together! - The Atlantic

And Maggie Gyllenhaal is kind of sorry she ever tried something “the people who commissioned this project” wanted. - Vulture

“Public television stations are not only broadcasters. They are physical infrastructure inside FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System — one of the pathways that pushes AMBER Alerts, severe-weather warnings, and evacuation orders to the phone in your pocket.” And if rural communities lose their public stations, those alerts disappear. - The Hollywood Reporter

“The kinds of writing that players encounter in games comes as a direct result of the medium’s competing needs and origins." - Washington Post

“It feels like a wicked joke that Cartoon Network's late-night programming block — already an aberration when it launched in cable's heyday in 2001 — is somehow thriving, ... even as the rest of cable slowly slides into oblivion. Even the folks behind Adult Swim don't really understand it.” - TheWrap (Yahoo!)

When Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi — famous in their native Spain as “Los Javis” — took their film La Bola Negra to Cannes this year, they earned a 20-minute ovation, the Best Director prize, a bidding war over distribution rights, and Oscar buzz. They've also learned something serious about themselves. - The New...

“Since joining the Joffrey in 2013, (Greg) Cameron has brought financial stability to the organization, eliminating a budget deficit and establishing its first-ever endowment, which has grown to approximately $30 million. During his tenure, the operating budget more than doubled from $13 million to about $33 million.” - WBEZ (Chicago)

This past May, Dance Place executive director André Mazelin abruptly fired artistic director Tariq O’Malley and eliminated his position. In July, at a town hall, former staffers, performers, and choreographers gave accounts of severe staffing, management, and interpersonal difficulties. (Mazelin himself resigned in August.) - Washington City Paper

The money was given by “an anonymous, long-time patron” of the organization who found themselves “inspired” by its transformation during Nissinen’s time there, according to the news release. - People

You get semi-improvised Bharatanatyam — normally a highly codified form — by three dancers basing their moves on a game of Ms. Pac-Man which they’re playing live onstage. - BBC (MSN)

“By the 1950s, Chandralekha was a legendary figure in (Bharatanatyam). However, she walked away from fame, rejecting the Brahminical and nationalist values that had come to shape it. ... When she returned to the stage in 1984, she brought with her a radically reimagined practice — sensual, iconoclastic and uncompromisingly feminist.” - Elle India

The 49-year-old native of Estonia danced with San Francisco Ballet for 18 years, retiring as a principal in 2023. He spent over a decade applying for artistic director positions; now that he has one, he’s excited about almost every aspect of it, even the fundraising. - Pointe Magazine

The aim of this actor’s comedic videos, “he says, was to land on ‘something bigger and onto a new challenge’ - such as theatre acting.” - BBC

What will happen to the stage where Elvis’s swiveling pelvis was kept demurely out of frame, where the Beatles made their American debut, where Jackie Mason may or may not have flipped the bird at the host, where Topo Gigio found inexplicable fame? - Curbed

“In the quarter-century since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the horror of that day has inspired novels, films, television shows, paintings and sculpture. But the most enduring artistic response has been … Come From Away, about a small town with a big airport where nearly 7,000 travelers were diverted.” - The New York Times

That subject is the Welsh nobleman Owain Glyndŵr, who led a major rebellion against the English in the 15th century. Despite his fame, Sheen says, Glyndŵr’s story wasn’t taught in Welsh schools and nobody had ever staged it on a large scale before. - The Guardian

Last week the principal of Louisville’s performing arts high school told the cast and crew that the school district had cancelled their production due to community concerns about subject matter. The students posted a video online; it quickly tallied a million views — including by members of the current Broadway team. - Playbill

“The company opened in 1992 at the Roswell Cultural Arts Center, served thousands of patrons over the years and collaborated with a ‘who’s who’ of area performers. On April 19 of this year, the Board of Trustees decided to close the company with no fanfare and no public statement.” - ArtsATL

“Morgan caused shock waves in 1970 when she published an essay in Rat, an underground newspaper. The article, titled 'Goodbye to All That,’ named specific men as sexists. ‘Goodbye to Hip Culture and the so-called Sexual Revolution,’ she wrote.” - The New York Times

Two credible allegations of sex with teenage girls would by themselves be enough to get Flynn cancelled today, especially since both complainants said that he forced himself on them. Unfortunately, that’s not how it played out in 1942 and ‘43 for Hollywood’s biggest star. - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)

Those years seemed to be productive and were certainly profitable: she became the highest-priced living female artist, famous all over the world. At the same time, she stopped seeing visitors, fired longtime assistants and was reportedly bedridden. How, and with whom, was she producing her late work? - The New York Times

Wilson’s catalog showcased the full breadth of her native Mississippi’s musical heritage, drawing primarily from jazz but spanning every foundational American genre. - Los Angeles Times

“There’s a real relationship between the way he plays and the way he talks. There’s a sense of gathering the room, gathering a community, and you’re drawn into the emotional experience of his playing.” - The New York Times

A pioneering journalist who became the face of second-wave feminism, she first vaulted to public attention with an exposé for which she went undercover as a Playboy Bunny, then made history as co-founder and editor of Ms., arguably one of the most influential magazines of the 20th century. - The Guardian