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- Writing Is Hard, And Young Writers Are Getting Extra Discouraged
“They’re simultaneously struggling to figure out if they need to use AI to keep up in today’s competitive industry—or eschew it altogether in order to maintain trust.” – Fast Company
- Now The LAPD Are Involved In Finding Out What Happened To Netflix’s Nicolas Cage Movie
“This report is being made on an emergency basis, as there is reason to believe that Netflix, Inc. and its employees are suppressing and/or spoliating evidence of the theft of an asset with a cost of $45 million to create.” – Los Angeles Times (MSN)
- No, A Music Teacher Is Not A God
Why do teachers get so many pedestals – and so, so many opportunities for abuse? “Being perpetually curious is hard work. Grappling with an unruly instrument and the infinite subjectivity of music is extremely hard work.” – The New York Times
- How Country Music Suddenly Started Dominating The Billboard Charts
“For a century now, country music has been a parallel universe of hitmaking that didn’t always register on the national pop charts—for data reasons more than popularity reasons.” Streaming is changing everything. – Slate
- First, Record Albums Came Back, And Now It’s CDs
Teens and 20-somethings are, again, driving the shift back (related: so are K-Pop bands). One fan, on switching out phone for CD player: “It gives me a different feeling. … I feel like I’m listening to an artist’s work. It brings me joy.” – The Guardian (UK)
- Patricia Douglas Challenged A Culture Of Abuse In Early Hollywood, And Paid A Price
In 1937, Douglas was told to come to a producer’s ranch for a movie. But, “she later said, she and more than 100 other young women — many of whom were minors — had been summoned to entertain men attending MGM’s annual sales convention.” – The New York Times
- Australia, Like Most Places, Has A Dwindling Number Of Drive-In Movie Theatres
In Melbourne, there’s one hold-out. “The drive-in demands little of its audience. You can lie down, walk around, talk and sing without fear of being hushed. Parents feel at ease bringing newborns, and dogs can curl up beside their owners.” – The Guardian (UK)
- Don’t Be Fooled By The Emmy Nomination For SubwayTakes
“The Emmy nod isn’t, in itself, a milestone. What it actually represents is much smaller: a win for YouTube’s awards campaigning, confined for now to a category that’s spent most of its existence as the Emmys’ junk drawer.” – Vulture
- How Theatre Created, Then Recreated, The ‘Rocky Horror’ Mad Scientist Lab
“A slapdash seediness has been embedded in the musical’s aesthetic DNA ever since it started in 1973 in a tiny upstairs space at the Royal Court Theater in London.” – The New York Times
- What Sepideh Moafi Brought To The Pitt
“The Iranian American actor drew from her own childhood experiences and advocacy work as an ambassador with the International Rescue Committee to shape Dr. Al-Hashimi into who audiences get to know onscreen.” – HuffPost
- Designer Error, By About 10,000 Miles
Sydney, Australia, has an Allianz soccer stadium, and so does Munich, Germany. Guess which one appears on the Sydney Marathon medal? – The Guardian (UK)
- The Smithsonian Plan For A Latinx Museum Avoids A Congressional Vote
“The Smithsonian Institution has called a board meeting to discuss giving one of its current buildings to the National Museum of the American Latino, which would bypass the need for congressional approval for a new site.” – The New York Times
- Orchids Made Charles Darwin Who He Was
“Darwin had long been interested in orchids, possibly influenced by the borderline sexual love his grandfather, Erasmus, felt for them and put into his writings.” – LitHub
- Meta May Finally Face A Day Of Reckoning Over Child Safety
“Other companies in Meta’s social media cohort, like Snap, TikTok, and YouTube, have opted this year to settle some suits that allege their platforms have harmed kids’ mental health. Meta instead chose to go to trial, only to very publicly lose and pay massive fines.” – Wired
- The Mayor Of Los Angeles Suddenly Loves The Warnermount Merger
What in the rolling over for rich people hell, Karen Bass? – Vulture
- After The Pentagon Fired The Publisher, The Editor, And A Reporter, Can We Call Stars And Stripes Independent?
As they say, if a headline asks a question, the answer is usually pretty clear. The fired reporter, Lara Korte: “These are important issues we’re reporting on, and I think being able to maintain independence is extremely critical.” – NPR
- Boston Symphony Orchestra Musicians Vote To Authorize A Potential Strike
The contract expires at midnight tonight (Sunday, August 23). That’s not to say there will be a strike, but the musicians are supportive of a potential strike, which would be the first in the BSO’s history. – WGBH
- Marquise Lindsey-Bradley shares strategic approaches to engaging young audiences
Marquise Lindsey-Bradley, Marketing & Engagement Director of the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, shares their strategic approach to engaging young audiences.
- Behold America’s First-Ever Jellyfish Museum
“The private Jellyfish Museum in Pompano Beach, Florida, just north of Fort Lauderdale, … was created by Alex and Yana Yanovsky, who previously developed successful aquariums in Ukraine, including their first jellyfish museum in Kyiv. The couple left those facilities behind when they fled Ukraine following the 2022 Russian invasion.” – AP
- Study: Web Traffic To The 10 Biggest News Websites Has Dropped By A Third In Two Years
Combined traffic to the ten biggest news websites in the US is down by almost a third compared to two years ago, new analysis shows. The difference was even higher across the top 50 news websites in the US, with monthly visits falling 37% since July 2024. – Press-Gazette
- Weird Idea Spreads On Chinese Internet That Tang Dynasty Never Existed
The Tang era (618-907 CE) is considered a golden age, a period of territorial expansion, prosperity and high culture which every Chinese schoolchild learns about. Claiming it never happened is like telling Brits there was no Norman Conquest. Yet the bogus idea has caught on widely enough that China’s government is weighing in. – CNN
- How The COVID Crisis Shifted Culture Funding
In 2019, arts organizations in BIPOC-majority neighborhoods of a major U.S. city received 16% less median grant funding than those in white-majority neighborhoods. By 2022, they were receiving 289% more. – SMU Cultural Data
- Study: More Than One-Third Of Web Pages Created Since 2022 Show Signs Of AI
Over one-third of web pages published after the release of ChatGPT show signs of being written by AI, according to a new study from Pew Research released on Thursday. – TechCrunch
- Christian Band Demon Hunter Sues Netflix Over Megahit “KPop Demon Hunters” Movie
KPop Demon Hunters was the sleeper hit of 2025, dominating Netflix’s streaming numbers. The musical-fantasy produced by Sony Pictures Animation has over 600 million views since its debut in June of last year. – Movieweb
- Lenny Bruce And His Endless Battles With The Vice Cops
Working in the 1960s, when most standup was a succession of one-liners, Bruce used profanity, political satire, and sexual material which comedians today consider a basic right. Yet in his day he was regularly arrested and tried for obscenity; Phil Spector ultimately said Bruce died from “an overdose of police.” – Los Angeles Times (MSN)
- Dance Man Ted Striggles, 84
Ted Striggles, a dancer and lawyer who combined his disparate skills to support artists both struggling and successful, and to advise them on how to survive, including with his influential 1976 guide, “Poor Dancer’s Almanac,” died on Saturday at his home in Manhattan. – The New York Times
- How “Hadestown: The Musical” Became A Movie Hit
Billed as a “five night only” event, “Hadestown: The Musical” has extended its run in theaters for four weeks, thanks to popular demand. In the process, the filmed stage show has become an indie blockbuster, grossing $20.7 million. – Indiewire
- More Schools Are Teaching Cursive Again. Should They Be?
Pennsylvania and Florida legislators argue, for example, that an informed citizenry needs to be able to read historical documents, which are often written in cursive script. – Washington Post
- The Growing Threat Of Cyberattacks On Museums
We live in a time when digital systems underpin everything from ticketing to surveillance and building access. Sidelining cybersecurity leaves museums vulnerable to attacks that could threaten both their finances and their collections. – The Conversation
- Four Comics At Edinburgh Fringe Explain How They Developed Their Very Odd Characters
For instance, Sam Eley gives the background on his Basil Crumbwick, whose papier-mâché head makes him seven feet tall, while Katie Pritchard recounts the origin story of her Sir Elton Scone, who hosts a Great British Bake Off-style show which uses no ovens. – The Guardian
- How The Kennedy Center Plans To Put Trump’s Name Back
- What’s Changed In Classical Music Over 50 Years
What has surprised me, looking back to 1976 (when I started writing for a tiny magazine that sadly went out of business this year) is how much of the classical music landscape has survived, despite the economic pressures that you don’t need reminding about. – BBC Music
- Research: Large AI Datasets Obscure Authorship
It feels counterintuitive, but at sufficiently large scales, they find, you can often remove any single image from the training data, or every image by a given artist, or every photograph of a given person, and the generated sample doesn’t change. – MIT
- Paul Simon’s “Graceland” At 40
Hard as it may be to believe today, Graceland was not an instant hit when it came out, and Simon received criticism for what’s now called cultural appropriation and for violating sanctions against apartheid-era South Africa. Now its influence is widespread enough that it can be hard to perceive these decades later. – The Guardian
- How Adam Sklute Transformed Salt Lake City’s Ballet West
The ways that the company’s skill level, repertoire, national and international reputation, budget, and especially school (a ten-fold increase in enrollment) have grown during Sklute’s 20 years as artistic director are extraordinary. – The Utah Review