What you lose in optimizing morality is the same thing you lose in maximizing your airline-mile spend. In other words, nothing quantifiable—but precisely the chance to escape quantification, to orient toward something that cannot be counted, predicted, analyzed. - The Point
The SLF has been sharply critical of Amazon, arguing that it destabilises the book trade. In a statement reported by the Bookseller, it accused the company of seeking “to flood the market with fake AI-generated books, promoted by fake reviews, written by fake readers to the top of fake rankings”. - The Guardian
The museum today is focused on the fact that fewer visitors are coming now than before the pandemic, and the concern is legitimate. But the way back can’t be merely quantitative. - Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
An emerging trend skews more classic Hollywood—directors, particularly those who might be considered auteurs for their well-defined aesthetic and storytelling style, have begun to matter just as much as the actors attached to them. - The Atlantic
The creators of some of the more politically compelling movies and TV shows of the past year have explored how being alive feels during a tumultuous period. They capture the atmosphere, the mood, the ambient existence of everyday people who are living through a transformative time in history. - The Atlantic
He started making videos of himself performing robust opera arias while standing outside on a car lot, wearing his name tag. He composed lyrics to describe the cars he was selling and put the videos on TikTok and Instagram. - Seattle Times
The stranger-than-fiction truth is that Tarantino has written an original, old-fashioned British farce, in the door-slamming, trouser-dropping, mistaken identity vein of Brian Rix or Ray Cooney. - Daily Mail
I don’t understand how anyone can say they’re anti something that’s potentially creative. If it’s not working for you today it could work for you a year from now. Soon conversations like that won’t even matter. It’s like discussing the Internet. It already is. - The Hollywood Reporter
An investigation by the Guardian found that UK museums hold more than 263,000 items of human remains from around the world, including whole skeletons, preserved bodies, such as Egyptian mummies, skulls, bones, skin, teeth, nails, scalps and hair. - The Guardian
The centerpiece of the agreement is expected to be structural changes to Live Nation’s ticketing business. Under the settlement, Ticketmaster will be required to open parts of its platform to rival ticketing companies, allowing third-party sellers such as SeatGeek or Eventbrite to list tickets directly through Ticketmaster’s technology. - Politico
“History is repeating itself 70 years later, just in a different way. The government is ‘systematically trying to erase our history with the demonization of trans and non-binary community,’ Newbury said. ‘It has given itself license to hate.’” - Oregon ArtsWatch
An “emerging trend skews more classic Hollywood—directors, particularly those who might be considered auteurs for their well-defined aesthetic and storytelling style, have begun to matter just as much as the actors attached to them.” - The Atlantic
“All these Palestinians told us that they thought the BBC would never run our film, and we really had to try and persuade them to talk to us because they didn’t and don’t trust the BBC.” The journalists were shocked to learn that the sources were correct. - Reveal
“Glasgow is slowly becoming a hollow shadow of the thriving, radical and creatively edgy place it once was. ... If you’re a young creative person studying in Glasgow today, why would you stay here after graduation?” - The Guardian (UK)
The Paramount Skydance president is "facing new scrutiny after his Paramount bosses hired a law firm to investigate his surreptitious dealings with a Las Vegas high-roller and self-styled ‘fixer.’ Investigators are reviewing whether Shell leaked sensitive corporate secrets.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
So says a new report, which “criticises the industry for failing to consider how it might adapt to better accommodate parents, with the result that many, in particular women, drop out.” - The Guardian (UK)
What you lose in optimizing morality is the same thing you lose in maximizing your airline-mile spend. In other words, nothing quantifiable—but precisely the chance to escape quantification, to orient toward something that cannot be counted, predicted, analyzed. - The Point
“Glasgow is slowly becoming a hollow shadow of the thriving, radical and creatively edgy place it once was. ... If you’re a young creative person studying in Glasgow today, why would you stay here after graduation?” - The Guardian (UK)
“Our job is to ‘opportunity-make’ a space.’ … A lot of people think cultural development shouldn’t exist. There should be housing development, factory development and office development. But culture? What is that?” - Irish Times
The Seattle Opera offered a deal on tickets to Carmen using the code Timothee, and LA Opera “posted a photo from the opera Akhnaten ... with the caption ‘Sorry, @tchalamet. We’d offer you complimentary tickets to Akhnaten, but it’s selling out.’” - NBC
“From spyware as standard to the conspiracy theorists who insist that Melania Trump has been replaced by an impersonator, we are in a deeply paranoid moment. Fittingly, the figure of the doppelganger stalks right across contemporary culture, through books, fashion and film.” - The Guardian (UK)
When a coder rejected an autonomous AI's contribution, the digital diva researched and published a personalized attack piece. Welcome to the age when artificial intelligence doesn't just create—it retaliates with very human pettiness. - Undark
“All these Palestinians told us that they thought the BBC would never run our film, and we really had to try and persuade them to talk to us because they didn’t and don’t trust the BBC.” The journalists were shocked to learn that the sources were correct. - Reveal
So says a new report, which “criticises the industry for failing to consider how it might adapt to better accommodate parents, with the result that many, in particular women, drop out.” - The Guardian (UK)
DOGE employees used ChatGPT to make their choices. “The prompt was simple: ‘Does the following relate at all to D.E.I.? Respond factually in less than 120 characters. Begin with ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’’ The results were sweeping, and sometimes bizarre.” - The New York Times
“The problem lies in a rotten, corporate family tree,” and the self-described nerds aren’t going to let anyone forget it. For instance, in one panel, “it’ll be much, much more about fascism than a steamy book panel usually would be.” - The Stranger (Seattle)
Gross: “Using Grammarly’s ‘Expert Review’ allows an approximation of Stephen King and Neil deGrasse Tyson to nitpick your work. While Tyson has the opportunity to say whether he’d like to be turned into a chatbot, other authors, like Carl Sagan, cannot because they are dead.” - AV Club
Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) on Friday filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to block President Trump from closing the Kennedy Center after he announced last month that it would shut down to allow for renovations. - The Hill
“History is repeating itself 70 years later, just in a different way. The government is ‘systematically trying to erase our history with the demonization of trans and non-binary community,’ Newbury said. ‘It has given itself license to hate.’” - Oregon ArtsWatch
“‘For McAllen, mariachi is like the Friday Night Lights of high school,’ said Anthony Medrano, a prominent San Antonio mariachi musician. ‘There’s pride in it.’” - The New York Times
“The core problem has been ticket revenues, which were weakening even before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered its theater with a devastating financial impact. Box-office receipts last year were down $20 million from a decade earlier.” - The New York Times
“For all that the audience are loving it, the enthusiastic self-infantilisation feels depressing to me. Is Middle England so deprived of communal singing – the pub, the church, the local choir – it makes this appealing?” - The Guardian (UK)
“Nelsons, 47, has become one of the most unfortunate symbols of all that is irresponsible about the overstretched, overtired, overindulged modern music director. It has been not only deeply frustrating, but genuinely sad, to witness his trajectory.” - The New York Times
The museum today is focused on the fact that fewer visitors are coming now than before the pandemic, and the concern is legitimate. But the way back can’t be merely quantitative. - Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
An investigation by the Guardian found that UK museums hold more than 263,000 items of human remains from around the world, including whole skeletons, preserved bodies, such as Egyptian mummies, skulls, bones, skin, teeth, nails, scalps and hair. - The Guardian
“Afroza Bano’s hands, once calloused from planting and weaving reed mats, now grow nimble with needle and thread. But sometimes, they get pricked by sharp pins or roughened by handling coarse fabric.” - The Xylom
“On Tuesday, March 4, commissioners voted to keep the temporary installation of ‘R-Evolution’ on display through October. The 48-foot-tall, steel-and-mesh figure of a naked woman by Petaluma artist Marco Cochrane was previously approved to be on view from mid-March 2025 to early March.” - San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)
“The net effect of this is to adversely impact what is the most important historic — the most identifiable historic — house in the entire United States. This is permanent, what it will do to the White House.” - AP
The SLF has been sharply critical of Amazon, arguing that it destabilises the book trade. In a statement reported by the Bookseller, it accused the company of seeking “to flood the market with fake AI-generated books, promoted by fake reviews, written by fake readers to the top of fake rankings”. - The Guardian
Ashley Ford needed “a reason to believe that giving myself over to a creative life didn’t also mean condemning myself to poverty and invisibility. What I needed was that constant source of air to turn my spark of creativity into a flame I could share with the world.” - Service 95
“Readers’ increasingly vocal partiality for first-person perspective over third person amounts to a profound shift in taste. Even while publishing is in dire straits elsewhere, the romance genre is in the midst of an unprecedented boom period.” - Slate
Many - most, even - of France's booksellers pulled out of . Then the organizers got Amazon to “mutually agree” to end its sponsorship. Who thought this was a good idea in the first place? - The Guardian (UK)
LitHub explores how platforms like Letterboxd and Goodreads transform intimate cultural experiences into competitive metrics. Because apparently we can't enjoy a book anymore without turning it into content for our personal brand. — Literary Hub
An emerging trend skews more classic Hollywood—directors, particularly those who might be considered auteurs for their well-defined aesthetic and storytelling style, have begun to matter just as much as the actors attached to them. - The Atlantic
The creators of some of the more politically compelling movies and TV shows of the past year have explored how being alive feels during a tumultuous period. They capture the atmosphere, the mood, the ambient existence of everyday people who are living through a transformative time in history. - The Atlantic
I don’t understand how anyone can say they’re anti something that’s potentially creative. If it’s not working for you today it could work for you a year from now. Soon conversations like that won’t even matter. It’s like discussing the Internet. It already is. - The Hollywood Reporter
The centerpiece of the agreement is expected to be structural changes to Live Nation’s ticketing business. Under the settlement, Ticketmaster will be required to open parts of its platform to rival ticketing companies, allowing third-party sellers such as SeatGeek or Eventbrite to list tickets directly through Ticketmaster’s technology. - Politico
An “emerging trend skews more classic Hollywood—directors, particularly those who might be considered auteurs for their well-defined aesthetic and storytelling style, have begun to matter just as much as the actors attached to them.” - The Atlantic
“When the tanks entered Ukraine, Ratmansky gathered his artistic team and left for New York, severing ties with the Bolshoi and with Russia.” - New York Review of Books
“This is the frustration of working in the fine arts. The people who care about ballet, for example, care deeply. And most of those who don’t care think of ballet through stereotypes or quick hits of dancers on TikTok.” - The New York Times
“I feel as if I’m stretched a bit too far, but somehow in that stretch there’s a spark of creativity. There’s a place for outrage — sometimes outrage may be the most appropriate response to something happening in our world. But it’s more generative to approach these questions with curiosity and love.” - The Guardian
“Things gotta change, 100 percent,” Liu says. “I think the whole system’s got to scrap it and start over. The competition system and the setup just isn’t fit for consumption, honestly.” - The New York Times
“Calpulli Ocelocihuatl (is) one of roughly half-a-dozen Aztec dance groups active in San Jose. Other Aztec dance groups – some whose histories stretch back more than half a century — are also thriving along the West Coast, from Washington state down to Sacramento, Oakland, Salinas and San Diego.” - The Mercury News (San Jose)
Gentleman Jack, premiering this weekend at England’s Northern Ballet in Leeds, is Lopez Ochoa’s adaptation of a 2019 television series about Anne Lister, a 19th-century landowner considered to be one of the first modern lesbians known to us. - The New York Times
The stranger-than-fiction truth is that Tarantino has written an original, old-fashioned British farce, in the door-slamming, trouser-dropping, mistaken identity vein of Brian Rix or Ray Cooney. - Daily Mail
So what’s an NYT theatre critic to do? “There are so many things beyond our control ... but somewhere amid all the hubbub, someone is making something, and you need to pay attention.” - The New York Times
“To me, a great protagonist for a musical is somebody who wants something so desperately, who is going to be relentless to the point of recklessness. … Alice lived until 1977. She was the author of the Equal Rights Amendment. She never stopped.” - Boston Globe
“Nearly 20% of Broadway theater tickets are now being purchased by solo attendees — double the rate from just a couple of years ago, according to audience data for the 2024-25 season from the Broadway League.” And one theater owner, ATG Entertainment, is tapping into that crowd with a “Solo Seats” initiative. - NPR
The Washington Post's theatre critic chair sits empty after layoffs, leaving D.C.'s robust theatre scene wondering who's watching—and whether anyone still cares. Local companies now face the existential question: make art for critics, or just make art? — American Theatre
“The 5th Avenue Theatre Company, Seattle's primary producer of Broadway-scale musicals, is eliminating about 14 staff positions and pausing some education and engagement programs amid cash flow problems, the nonprofit announced Friday.” - The Seattle Times
He started making videos of himself performing robust opera arias while standing outside on a car lot, wearing his name tag. He composed lyrics to describe the cars he was selling and put the videos on TikTok and Instagram. - Seattle Times
The self-taught Mosley's works “show as much concern for pure form as any modernist’s, and reflect the influence of Constantin Brancusi and Isamu Noguchi, two particular heroes, as well as that of pre-modern African tribal sculpture.” - The New York Times
“Anyone who laid eyes on a DC Comics cover from 1973 to 1983 was likely seeing an example of Ms. Wood’s work. She colored nearly every cover for the company, whether the image was for a horror title, a war comic or a superhero adventure.” - The New York Times
“A trained psychiatrist, Lobo Antunes wrote, … in an elaborate, metaphorical style that he called 'controlled delirium,' … more than 30 novels dealing with topics ranging from Portugal's battles in its former colonies to the dictatorship that ran the country and social ills such as drug addiction.” - AFP (Yahoo!)
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon brought the now-standard sans-serif font back from her studies in Basel in the early 1960s, when Americans were completely accustomed to traditional typefaces likes Times New Roman and Baskerville. She then became famous for her colorful designs, interior and exterior, for the new Sea Ranch community in California. - Artnet
“Together with her late husband, real estate developer Jack Benaroya, Becky Benaroya championed dozens of arts, humanitarian and civic organizations including the Seattle Symphony,” whose home, Benaroya Hall, opened in 1998. - The Seattle Times
March 19–21: Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival returns to DiMenna Center for Classical Music to celebrate the rich diversity of Ukraine's peoples, places, and musical practices
“All these Palestinians told us that they thought the BBC would never run our film, and we really had to try and persuade them to talk to us because they didn’t and don’t trust the BBC.” The journalists were shocked to learn that the sources were correct. - Reveal
DOGE employees used ChatGPT to make their choices. “The prompt was simple: ‘Does the following relate at all to D.E.I.? Respond factually in less than 120 characters. Begin with ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’’ The results were sweeping, and sometimes bizarre.” - The New York Times
“‘For McAllen, mariachi is like the Friday Night Lights of high school,’ said Anthony Medrano, a prominent San Antonio mariachi musician. ‘There’s pride in it.’” - The New York Times
Many - most, even - of France's booksellers pulled out of . Then the organizers got Amazon to “mutually agree” to end its sponsorship. Who thought this was a good idea in the first place? - The Guardian (UK)
“The core problem has been ticket revenues, which were weakening even before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered its theater with a devastating financial impact. Box-office receipts last year were down $20 million from a decade earlier.” - The New York Times
“Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers returned her trophy, the president resigned and 16 members have quit — with more considering their position.” - The Hollywood Reporter
“Nelsons, 47, has become one of the most unfortunate symbols of all that is irresponsible about the overstretched, overtired, overindulged modern music director. It has been not only deeply frustrating, but genuinely sad, to witness his trajectory.” - The New York Times
Oh: “The push into artificial intelligence by Oracle creates a thirst for more insight into how people view news and entertainment and what products they buy online. The streaming channels and social media giant both offer greater and more granular information." - NPR
That is to say, people’s sweat had gotten all over Michelangelo’s masterpiece, and now it’s being cleaned off while the sweat accumulates on a screen. - Associated Press
“Construction is expected to continue for a decade or so, but The Guardian called it ‘nevertheless a day full of emotion for a city that has lived with Gaudí’s unfinished work for generations.’” - ART News
Wesley Morris: “Why wouldn’t I have wanted this? A six-episode show that’s exemplary as romance, as physical intimacy, as banter, as athlete psychology, as conversation, confession and comedy, as just good television that involves a few of my favorite things: sex, sports, men, ... So why? Let’s start with wariness.” - The New York Times
The broadcaster’s decision to end its long relationship with Lebrecht — the widely-read, controversial critic and blogger who has hosted several interview programs on Radio 3 over the years — comes after Wang made public a message from Lebrecht which she described as “derogatory misogynistic bullying.” - The Guardian
