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- Anime Reaction YouTubers Are At War With Their Platform
You see, reaction videos are based on copyrighted material. You’d think that fair use applied here, and, well, yes, but some reaction vid makers say “the way Remove Your Media has been going after creators is abusive and unrelated to any legitimate interest in protecting copyrighted IP.” – The Verge
- A MacArthur Genius Leaves New York For Paris, But Can’t Resist A Return
Justin Vivian Bond “came back to see not only friends, but also her fans, who are increasingly Gen Z. ‘They’re learning about their queer elders, and their trans elders are really showing up for them.’” – The New York Times
- Do We Really Need A Four-Hour Documentary On Elon Musk?
“The penchant for treating founders as god-kings whose companies are mere extensions of their visionary genius is a large part of the story underlying Musk’s (and others’) precipitous rise, but it’s not only a credulous media and easily swayed investors who are to blame.” – Slate
- At The Venice Film Fest, ‘Woman Unknown’ Wins Big
“The film, a period drama set in Denmark, follows a servant about to marry her factory-owner employer in the uneasy years after World War II.” – The New York Times
- How, Exactly, Will AI Transform Capitalism?
We know AI is going to change everything, but how? “We face a choice: delay and obstruct AI adoption in the name of social justice, or embrace it in a radically altered form.” – The Guardian (UK)
- Jonathan Cooper, One Of The Rare Fine Violin-Makers In The US, Has Died At 76
Cooper was “a luthier who crafted violins of such supple tone and exquisite range that they allowed players to bridge the gap between classical and American fiddle instrumentation, making him a favorite of musicians like Mark O’Connor and Alison Krauss.” – The New York Times
- The Musician And Artist Behind The World Of Meadowlark
“Meadowlark’s kids transmit messages of bravery and courage and celebrate childlike wonder in a world determined to stamp it out. Ósk’s folkloric storytelling has created a deeply parasocial fandom, attracting followers who find solace in this outsider world.” – The Guardian (UK)
- Turns Out That ‘Call My Agent’ Was Barely Even A Satire
When the series began, or even during financing, “There was scepticism about whether anyone in France, let alone audiences around the world, had any interest in a dramedy that pulled back the veil on the Gallic film industry.” Er … very, very wrong. – Irish Times
- Every Real City Needs A Cheap Music Venue
As the Music Hall of Williamsburg closes, one fan wonders what will happen next. – The New York Times
- Parents, Children Sue Meta Over Their Images Being Used For AI Facial Recognition
“The proposed class action alleges that Meta violated Illinois and California privacy laws by extracting biometric information from people’s photos without notice or consent” for training smart glasses – and generative AI images. – Wired
- As More And More Small Museums Get Hit By Thieves, Can France Keep Its Art At All Safe?
“Museum workers, the police and government officials are rattled. They worry about how to protect France’s cultural patrimony in an era of increasingly violent criminal gangs, some of whom have broken into museums in broad daylight.” – The New York Times
- That Time When Russian Printers Went On Strike Over Commas
“At the time, printers were paid by the letter set, but this didn’t include punctuation.” The workers were not having it. – LitHub
- Sarah Paulson On The Long Slog For A Great Movie Part
When Paulson got the script from fellow actor and writer Cody Fern, “I thought he must have sent [the script] to Cate Blanchett or Kate Winslet. … It’s a part in the film space that I haven’t had the opportunity to embody.” – Variety
- Jay Maisel, Photographer Of Miles Davis And So Many More, Dies At 95
“While not necessarily his best photograph — he wished it had been sharper — the Davis picture became part of a portfolio of remarkable depth.” – The New York Times
- The Current President Of The United States Wants To Install A ‘Colossus’ Statue Of The First President
Of course, the “request” came on conservative social media site Truth Social. It “underscores a perception that he sees himself as curator-in-chief of the nation’s national museum.” – The Guardian (UK)
- Is Talk Of Extinction Simply Meant To Distract Us From The True Threats Of AI?
Timnit Gebru: Sometimes “I read quotes to people about artificial intelligence that I’ve gathered in my research, and I ask, What decade was this statement made in? Sometimes people get it right, but a lot of times they do not, because it all sounds the same.” – Wired
- The Warnermount Talks Will Continue Next Month
Hm: “A judge has instructed Paramount, California attorney general Rob Bonta, and the Writers Guild of America to sit down and talk face-to-face in a month.” – Vulture
- Just How Much Is Your TV Spying On You?
Oh, says the company doing the spying, not that much. “The word ‘continuously’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting here as Gamers Nexus demonstrated on LG TV keeping extensive logs of ambient conversations.” This seems fine. – The Verge
- Learning, Or Re-Learning, The Story Told By The Bayeux Tapestry
What could justify moving the fragile tapestry to Britain this year? Probably politics: “Foot by foot, fiber by fiber, this is the material proof of England’s entwinement with the continent 21 miles from its coast.” – The New York Times
- When Competent Is Free, What Costs?
This Week’s Highlights:
This week’s stories kept circling a question: what is worth paying for once competence is free? Fast Company declared — average work now carries almost no market value (Fast Company). But the counter-evidence arrived is all around us. Nature magazine asked whether AI could ever make an Einstein relativity-level discovery and suggested the gap is a creative leap no amount of data could produce (Nature). Students told The Walrus they miss the struggle that made a grade mean something (The Walrus). So scarcity is migrating from output to effort, judgment, and provenance.
Another cultural pattern is more consequential. Operabase, the scheduling database the opera world runs on, is now an events company’s product (The Violin Channel). The BBC is renegotiating the charter that permits it to exist, largely out of public view (The Guardian). And authors say agents and publishers are claiming shares of the Anthropic settlement before the checks even clear (TechCrunch). Whoever owns the infrastructure sets the terms, and culture is discovering how little of its own it holds.
But the construction sector is ever-durable. Europe’s largest dance center is rising in Rotterdam (Gramilano), Brussels and Abu Dhabi finally have opening dates for new culture buildings, and Hollywood posted its biggest summer on record, at least before inflation (Variety).
All this week’s stories below, organized by topic.
- Elizabeth Sobol shares how the arts transform human emotional and physical wellbeing
Elizabeth Sobol, CEO of the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, talks about how the arts can transform human emotional, physical and social wellbeing.
- ‘Tribute in Light’ Phantom Presence of the Missing Twin Towers<a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2026/09/tribute-in-light-phantom-presence-of-the-missing-towers.html" title="‘Tribute in Light’
Phantom Presence of the - Cockroach Milk, Underpants Soil Testing, A Scientific Definition Of Kissing: The 2026 Ig Nobel Prizes
“Winning work highlighted during the 36th annual award ceremony” (which was in Zurich this year rather than Boston) “included hilarious research on the aerodynamics of nose blowing, gently stepping on venomous snakes, confirming that teenagers do indeed smell worse than babies and other side-splitting scientific undertakings.” – Smithsonian Magazine
- Toronto International Film Festival Shifts Emphasis To Film Dealmaking
In a tumultuous time for the industry, this transformation could help keep TIFF in the conversation, but as ticket prices rise, what does it all mean for the heart of this festival: the filmgoing public? – CBC
- The Advantages Of The Proscenium Stage
At this point in history, many of us think of the proscenium as conventional, perhaps limiting or even dull. Yet director Dominic Dromgoole describes it as “liberatingly restrictive,” like the sonnet form or the 12-bar blues. After all, the revolutionary work done by Chekhov and Brecht happened on proscenium stages … – The Guardian
- How AI Has Been Transforming China’s Movie Industry
The Chinese film and video industry is being transformed by AI-driven storytelling, fueled by rapid advances in video generation software, and at ground zero are the so-called micro dramas that play out on millions of smartphones. – Los Angeles Times
- Flock’s Vision Of Surveillance Everywhere
Flock was reported to have a valuation of more than eight billion dollars, with its biggest investor being the venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Around forty per cent of the United States’ law-enforcement agencies now have contracts with the company, and a reported hundred and thirty thousand cameras monitor roads in every state but Alaska. – The New Yorker
- Today’s Tech Billionaires Learned The Wrong Lessons From Science Fiction
As young people, the future billionaires were spending hours (under their covers with flashlights, I imagine) consuming stories about killer robots or Mars colonies. What they seemed not to get—maybe couldn’t get—was that these were cautionary tales, stories that projected deep societal worries into space or onto a future many millennia away. – The Atlantic
- Young Africans Are Sparking A Renewal Of Interest In African Languages
“Experts say the revival in some of them is driven partly by second- and third-generation Africans in the diaspora finding it easier to reconnect with their roots and communicate with older relatives, thanks to social media, online learning and entertainment.” – AP
- High Tension As Charlie Kirk Statue Unveiled In Times Square
Shouting and a shoving match erupted as Italian-American artist Sergio Furnari unveiled his unpermitted life-size bronze memorial to slain right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in Times Square on Thursday. – ARTnews
- Auto-Tune As An Everyday Performance Tool
The debate has come a long way since the advent of Auto-Tune, when artists like Cher and T-Pain had hits that used the technology to turn their recorded vocals into something markedly robotic. – The New York Times
- Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Getting Ready To Open
All eyes are on the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi as it prepares for opening on December 11 after two decades of delays. – ARTnews
- Mexico’s First Female Professional Sculptor, Geles Cabrera, Has Died At 100
“When Cabrera began her long career, few other women in Mexico were taken seriously as artists, and sculpture was something that only men were expected to do. While she enjoyed some early recognition, … major institutions only started noticing her pioneering work much later in her life.” – ARTnews
- A New Survey Of Readers To Find Out How They Discover Books
The survey will talk to 5,000 book buyers and profile them by genre, covering how they discover books across every channel—including social media and other digital tools—where and how they buy, and their mix of print, e-book, and audio, with a deeper look at audio habits, subscription behavior, etc. – Publishers Weekly
- Lonnie Bunch Resignation Throws Smithsonian Into Uncharted Leadership Waters
Previous searches have largely revolved around professional qualifications. This one begins after Trump has spent more than a year demanding changes to the Smithsonian’s exhibits and leadership — and as Republicans and Democrats are already staking out competing visions for Bunch’s successor. – Washington Post (MSN)