Call the genre the AI-and-I essay. Between April and July, the New Yorker published more than a dozen such pieces: essays about generative AI and the dangers it poses to literacy, education, and human cognition. Each had a searching, plaintive web headline. - n+1

In some recovery programs, “one day at a time” is a mantra. This is a little like what E. L. Doctorow said about being a novelist: Writing a novel “is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” - The New Yorker

The quality of stupidity is just, sort of, there; and there’s lots of it. Could you write a history of happiness, or bad luck, or knees? - The Guardian

We tend to think that we perceive reality as it is, with cameralike eyes that objectively log the light that hits them. But as information from the eyes flows into the brain, it becomes more abstract and subjective. - Scientific American

“In recent years, Americans have drifted away from many of their once-beloved sources of pleasure: drinking, throwing parties, having sex, making friends. Yet they keep coming back to theme parks.” - The Atlantic

Hopwood DePree "grew up listening to stories of the family’s ancestral home in England, but believed them to be fairytales, until he began researching his family tree online, and discovered his Manchester roots.” - The Guardian (UK)

The subject has grown rarer as the art world has gotten more commercial, but there are still people who immerse themselves in projects that take years and sometimes decades to complete, assuming they have any end date at all. - The New York Times

The Trump administration’s settlement proposal to UCLA — which includes a nearly $1.2-billion fine over allegations of antisemitism and civil rights violations — seeks to drastically overhaul campus practices on hiring, admissions, sports, scholarships, discrimination and gender identity. - Los Angeles Times

Philip Kennicott: “If you can erase ‘The Scourged Back,’ if you can erase … any one of the millions of enslaved people who suffered similar torments or worse, then you can erase anything, and nothing will trouble the American conscience ever again.” - The Washington Post (Yahoo!)

Headlines focus on that tiny segment of the arts that garners extraordinary numbers (whether readers, audience members, or dollars). The lucky writers and performers are ultimately discovered and rewarded with untold riches and rewards. But what about those creative people—many quite talented, a few geniuses—who struggle to have their work recognized? - Nightingale Sonata

“In the months and years since the siege that destroyed it, the city has been turned into a showcase of the concept of the ‘Russian world’ — an idea of Russia as encompassing nations in its former sphere of influence — and an exemplary model of forced Russification.” - The Dial

In recent years, a group of YouTubers and podcasters have attracted millions of viewers by proclaiming that physics is in crisis. The field, they argue, has discovered little of importance in the last 50 years, because it is dominated by groupthink and silences anyone who dares to dissent from mainstream ideas, like string theory....

Marianna Brilla and Lisa Paglin spent years in Italy studying old vocal treatises and historical recordings to find the roots of bel canto technique. Now they run the New Voice Studio, where they combat the opera world’s obsession with power and volume, teaching instead “spontaneity, beauty, and freedom.” - El País (Spain) (in English)

The agreement, retroactive to Nov. 24, 2024 and ending on Nov. 20, 2027,  maintains the starting weekly base salary of $3,450, with biannual increases which rise to $3,960 (making an annual minimum salary of $205,920) in the last six months of the contract. - Riff Magazine (San Francisco)

Israel’s recent participation has been a divisive issue in Europe and its broadcasting community ever since Israel began its military campaign in Gaza Strip in late 2023. - Deadline

It sounds like boot camp. An 89.5 hour workweek. Back to back 14 hour days. Overtime pay a rarity (and lack thereof legally sanctioned). Working in a warehouse where temperatures exceeded 100. Bullying. - Broadway World

The whole place exudes the ethos of Pärt, whose music demands love and dedication from its interpreters yet almost nothing of its listeners, offering a timeless sound redolent of both the Renaissance and modern Minimalism, and capable of touching casual audiences and avant-gardists alike. - The New York Times

Sadly, “if you put one of the new tapes into an old-fashioned Walkman, it won’t produce any meaningful sound, because the DNA cassette doesn’t use the magnetic signals of its predecessor.” - New Scientist (Archive Today)

Some estimate that the city’s subterranean history could stretch back 1 million years, with early human settlement from the Lantian Man and walled settlements already visible during the Yangshao period 7,000 years ago. - Artnet

Trump’s March executive order directing the Interior Department to eliminate information that reflects a “corrosive ideology” that disparages historic Americans. National Park Service officials are broadly interpreting that directive to apply to information on racism, sexism, slavery, gay rights or persecution of Indigenous people. - Washington Post

“Fine particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide in the capital’s air are accelerating the decay of the sandstone fort, built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan and recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Researchers … found black crusts up to half a millimetre thick on some walls.” - The Independent (UK)

“For the past decade, visitors to the Louvre could rent a Nintendo 3DS console for personalized tours, audio commentary and additional information about more than 700 artworks at the famed Paris museum. Now, the Louvre is getting rid of the handheld gadgets” — because Nintendo has stopped making them. - Smithsonian Magazine

“The Trump administration has ordered the removal of signs and exhibits related to slavery at multiple national parks, according to four people familiar with the matter, including a historic photograph of a formerly enslaved man showing scars on his back.” - The Washington Post

They are "an estimated $400 million trove amassed by Leonard Lauder, chairman emeritus of the Estée Lauder, and an estimated $80 million collection from the Chicago billionaires behind the Pritzker Architecture Prize." - The Wall Street Journal

“This is who the Fifth Circuit is harassing: a mom of four with a Diet Coke in her hand, doing this while her kids are at school. This fight is everyone’s—it belongs to every individual American.” - Publishers Weekly

Before Lebanon’s long civil war, authors from all over the Arab world published in liberal Beirut the books they couldn’t release in their own countries. Now, decades of conflict in Lebanon have led to both government censorship and self-censorship, while bookstores and readers cope with prolonged political and financial crises. - New Lines Magazine

“Libraries are enduring book bans, mental health crises, drug overdoses, and more” — including accusations of peddling pedophilie porn — “as we try to provide resources and assistance far beyond our means, both fiscally and emotionally.” Yet, writes Katie Walsh, moments like this one with a young teen reader make up for it all. - Slate (Yahoo!)

The digital froth of the 2010s—BuzzFeed, Upworthy, the ceaseless click-baiting and SEO-hunting—could be understood as a Bronze Age, and we are now after the fall, in a new era we can’t quite name yet. Literary prestige, for one, has never meant less. - Ross Elliot Barkan

Definitions, professional and amateur, are a click away, and most people don’t care or can’t tell whether what pops up in a search is expert research, crowdsourced jottings, scraped data, or zombie websites. - The Atlantic

In 2020, the magazine published a story by freelance journalist Ruth Shalit Barrett about wealthy parents pushing their children into niche sports to gain an edge in college admissions. After a media columnist spotted some factual issues, The Atlantic retracted the story entirely, and Barrett sued for defamation and reputational damage. - TheWrap (Yahoo!)

In 2024, due to data security concerns, Congress passed legislation requiring the Chinese company ByteDance to either sell TikTok to an American owner or withdraw the app from the U.S. market. Presidents Trump and Xi Jinping will reportedly speak on Friday to finalize a deal. - AP

“Since its launch in February 2024, (the station’s) JazzNEO (channel) has been operating without a dedicated studio and airing all pre-recorded programming. The new state-of-the-art space will allow for live hosting, interviews, and live jazz performances.” - Inside Radio

“Twenty years ago, YouTube launched with the idea that everyone should have the opportunity to create and find a global stage. Since then, we’ve seen creators shape culture and entertainment in ways we never thought possible." - Deadline

A committee of Trustees of the university, which owns and operates the station, unanimously rejected a plan to transfer ownership of the station licenses to Philadelphia station WHYY for $1. WPSU-TV reaches 515,000 households in 24 Pennsylvania counties; WPSU-FM serves more than 450,000 listeners. - Centre Daily Times (State College, PA)

“The workforce reduction includes layoffs of 12 active workers and the elimination of nine vacant positions, representing approximately 5% of the employee roster of more than 400 staff. … WETA also canceled its local television shows If You Lived Here, Get Out of Town and WETA Best Bets.” - Current

What changed it all? Chariots of Fire. - CBC

Over more than a decade with Lines, Cissoko has become such a part of King's creative process that it's now almost impossible to know the dancer from the dance, as the poet Yeats put it.  - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)

“I thought the (wider) world was so interesting (when I was young), and outside was where I could breathe. I think the world I was coming from was not one in which I could survive. As a queer, white Arab (in Belgium), everything about me was problematic for my environment.” - The Guardian

Working with a physician and several dancers, Lynne Charles (who had a 35-year-career as a principal ballerina) developed 4Pointe, a somatic method to strengthen specific muscles for pointe work. “It’s not meant to replace traditional pointe class,” she stresses. “It’s meant to go hand-in-hand alongside it, like Pilates or Gyrotonic.” - Pointe Magazine

Universally, there is an urgent call for dance’s back offices to approach funding with the same creativity, vitality, and care that goes into artistic decision-making. - Dance Magazine

“Many from the Ballet Nacional are quietly choosing to leave behind difficult conditions: Blackouts that make rehearsal spaces and exercise rooms swelteringly hot. Scarce medical supplies. Pointe shoes stuck in customs for months.” - The New York Times

Choreographer Joshua Beamish is the founding director of Ballet Vancouver, which, like Ballet BC and Goh Ballet, will focus on contemporary choreography. The company will present a home season and tour internationally. - Vancouver Sun (Yahoo!)

They have brothers and fathers in the war; they have family members cut off from them in the occupied Donbas. At one rehearsal, an actress apologized for being late; she had just heard that a friend from drama school had been killed at the front. - The New York Times

“A spokesperson said the number eligible for voluntary redundancy was 420 of its (835) permanent employees, as part of a programme running until October 5, following which compulsory redundancies will begin.” - The Stage

Chris Jones has a look at the company’s three-theater headquarters, which has just undergone an on-time, on-budget $80 million renovation, and at the programming and engagement strategies which help maintain Milwaukee Rep’s growing audience base and healthy finances. - Chicago Tribune (Yahoo!)

A reporter crunches some numbers and looks at the basic operation of The Brick, a 54-seat theater in a former auto-repair shop in the Williamsburg neighborhood. The Brick (which presents outside work rather than producing its own) hosts over 200 performances a year on an annual budget of $558,400. - The New York Times

Many of the TikToks “deliberately portray as a stereotypical bad boyfriend or spouse with wandering eyes. Some are more explicit, like one in which Hamilton appears to be taking a sexy selfie when interrupted by Eliza.” - The New York Times

“The new-play results nationwide and in New York are very close to parity after all, while the all-play results, which include all the Shakespeares and Dickenses, are closer to the old 60/40 divide we were used to seeing about a decade ago.” - American Theatre

In the review, she famously wrote in praise of the chain’s chicken Alfredo as “warm and comforting on a cold day.” “As I ate, I noticed the vases and planters with permanent flower displays on the ledges,” she wrote. “There are several dining areas with arched doorways. And there is a fireplace that adds...

“When I started the Institute, the major studios dominated the game, which I was a part of,. I wanted to focus on the word ‘independence’ and those sidelined by the majors — supporting those sidelined by the dominant voices. To give them a voice. - Los Angeles Times

“His wavy blond hair and boyish grin made him the most desired of leading men, but he worked hard to transcend his looks — whether through his political advocacy, his willingness to take on unglamorous roles or his dedication to providing a platform for low-budget movies.” - AP

Sure, he said that, but what he meant was that he "just stopped doing that particular type of work so could do some other work.” - The Guardian (UK)

“King’s improvisational skills were formidable, even by the standards of a music built on improvisation. ... She would rearrange songs on the fly, and she often slipped from lyrics to scat singing. Her range was equally impressive.” - The New York Times

Rugoff is most famous internationally for his 2019 Biennale, which saw the 79 artists included—a relatively low number for the world’s biggest art festival—each show at least two works in two different locations. - ARTnews