“What started as a technique to support human understanding in the face of increasingly complex tools became a way to replace human understanding. Ease became an unquestioned good. Complexity became something to hide.” - Slate

“The role of the critic isn’t to summarise or repackage art, but to actively participate in a conversation about it,” and using AI isn’t going to help with that. - The Conversation

The letter characterizes this tech, also known as “age assurance,” as a tactic for the “centralization of power.” The letter notes, “Those deciding which age-based controls need to exist, and those enforcing them gain a tremendous influence on what content is accessible to whom on the internet.” - The Baffler

Two-thirds said they had observed the decline among children who they also said no longer felt the need to spell because of voice-to-text technology. - The Guardian

The academic humanities today broadly maintain the same basic sense of what history is and of the value of studying it that Renaissance humanists developed in their polemics against medieval scholasticism. - Hedgehog Review

Some research suggests that many, if not most, diagnostic errors arise from failures in thinking—cognitive bias, premature closure, insufficient reflection. Accordingly, some researchers frame diagnostic error as largely a problem in clinical judgment. - The Atlantic

Also, what’s that board going to look like once the president gets finished with it? “Smithsonian officials declined to comment on the appointment process, and offered no explanation for the delays.” - The New York Times

“Solutions like Proudly Human and Not by AI aim to be broader, covering published text, visual art, videography, and music, but the verification processes being used by these services can be questionable.” (Archive Today version here.) - The Verge

“Payment services don’t have any incentive to consider the value of controversial and unpopular speech or how it may benefit our society.” - LitHub

“The (fully-costumed) clowns gathered in front of the Ministry of Education in La Paz to oppose a decree published in February. The new mandate says schools must give 200 days of lessons each year — effectively banning schools from hosting the special events where these entertainers are frequently employed.” - AP

The Federal Trade Commission last May began requiring Ticketmaster to disclose concert ticket fees upfront – a practice known as all-in pricing. But documents obtained by the Guardian in public records requests show how Ticketmaster simply raised other fees so it wouldn’t lose money. - The Guardian

Last week, the Federal Government’s recently established Parliamentary Inquiry into Arts and Cultural Philanthropy held its first significant hearing. - ArtsHub

“At a time when women did not yet have the right to vote, but were playing in women's leagues and filling the stands at occasional Ladies Days, ‘Take Me Out’ celebrates a fictional young woman's deep and abiding passion for baseball.” - NPR

Next month the hipster harpsichordist is doing the cycle three different ways: the usual manner, for solo keyboard; arranged for strings, flute and continuo (the scoring of Bach’s Musical Offering; and as a new composition, UNDR for piano, percussion and electronics. He explains here in a Q&A. - Bachtrack

Arts philanthropy is essential but elusive. Even so, there is a curious — and hopefully not delusional — optimism in classical music, L.A. style. We have lively leadership at all levels. “Accessibility” isn’t the term bandied about; “adventure” is. Full houses are common. - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)

Composer Chris Rogerson will lead the summer festival in the Colorado resort town, taking over after the 16-year tenure of pianist Anne-Marie McDermott. Rogerson is the first composer to direct the event: before McDermott were flutist Eugenia Zukerman and violinist Ida Kavafian. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)

“Nearly half a century on, although performances on period instruments (let alone fortepianos) are hardly the norm, historically informed performance has increasingly moved toward mainstream acceptance, picking up new repertoires, time periods, and styles along the way. The movement’s relative success may seem surprising.” - Early Music America

Bach never knew the modern piano or its flattened-out tuning, so any pianist who plays the Well-Tempered Clavier on a Steinway is making a version of the piece that Bach wouldn’t have even imagined. - The Guardian

“Dalí prescribes this very method, deeming zinc white the color with which ‘you will achieve the most absolute whites in your picture.’ But chemically speaking, this approach causes problems.” - Artnet

“The claim, registered in a New York lawsuit filed in 2015, has long been disputed by the Nahmad family, a prominent dynasty of art dealers that wields enormous power in the international art market.” But a federal judge (finally) ruled for the claimants. - The New York Times

China has ordered a sweeping, nationwide audit of its state-run museums after a scandal at one of its top institutions revealed that national treasures had quietly slipped into the private market, according to Hong Kong newspaper South Morning China Post. - ARTnews

New York is missing out on the ideas of designers who could find surprising paths through an obstacle course of conventions, whose experience with the constraints and cultures of other continents might loosen New York’s rigid set of habits. - New York Magazine

The museums’ management acknowledged an attack earlier this year, but denied any major security breach or theft of data. The statement came ‌after Corriere della Sera reported that hackers had infiltrated the galleries’ network, taken control of the photographic ​server, and sent a ransom demand ‌to the director’s personal phone. - Reuters (Yahoo!)

The 185-acre Baps Swaminarayan Akshardham, completed in 2023 and known for its intricate carvings in white stone, has for years faced allegations of visa fraud and maltreatment of its construction workers and artisans. Now some of those workers says they’ve developed bronchitis and silicosis, with two having died. - The Guardian

No, you can’t “steal” a book title, but this is … hm, interesting. - LitHub

“The president uses verbs to evade responsibility and even proclaim a new form of leadership. Perhaps surprisingly, this is true even when Mr. Trump is proudly, if also prematurely, declaiming military successes.” - The New York Times

HarperCollins has announced a multi-year partnership with Toonstar, an “AI-powered” animation studio, to adapt a slate of the publisher’s titles into original YouTube series. - Publishers Weekly

For the first 40,000 years of its existence, it was simply an abstract symbolic system to process complex data; only in the last 3,000 years did mankind acquire the strange notion that these sign-systems might correspond to the grunts and gurgles they used for everyday communication. - Unherd

Ever since a publisher’s clever marketing trick in 1923, Norwegians have associated the period around Easter with crime fiction. The phenomenon is called påskekrim (Easter crime) and it’s ubiquitous. And since Norway is usually still cold this time of year, holing up and reading makes sense. - BBC

“Are they evil or are they sick? While novelists writing in the years of the War on Drugs were asking this question about serial killers, the general public was asking the same question about drug addicts.” - Literary Hub

Anthony Norman thought he was just doing a job. But no, says a writer for the weirdly Truman Show-like series: “It was so much more than we ever could have hoped for. … He’s a true hero.” - The New York Times

"Sister Margaret-Angela saw their involvement in Call the Midwife as something that would endure. ‘We've bought all the DVDs so it'll be in our archives,’ she said. ‘It's part of the community history now.’” - BBC

“Mario has always belonged to an older generation of comedy. … Charlie Chaplin built a legacy on the notion that a body can be battered by the world and still rise back up, like Mario, hat intact.” - Washington Post (MSN)

The network is launching the new video podcast and cross-platform show NPR Newsmakers, which will feature long-form interviews with some of NPR’s highest-profile reporters and hosts. - Inside Radio

AI isn’t just another flash-in-the-pan techno-bauble, like VR headsets, the “metaverse,” or NFTs. It’s actually revolutionary. The insistence betrays the measure of anxiety one might expect at a confab celebrating a power–hungry industry staring down an energy crisis. - Wired

“If a studio or production house needs something shape-shifting or face-switching, chances are they’ll call Parker & Stone. And chances are something strange — and, perhaps even more surprising when it comes to AI, potentially ethical — will result.” - The Hollywood Reporter

PSU’s “dance program had once been a cornerstone of Portland’s artistic community, even as it struggled against decades of intermittent support, administrative turnover, and shifting school priorities.” - Oregon ArtsWatch

Among the Largest 50 companies, in Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, artistic directors earned an average of $240,741. This represents an increase compared to FY2023, during which the average compensation was $227,650. - Dance Data Project

After being in the company for a full year, any full-time member of Boston Ballet can take courses toward a degree from Northeastern University, with almost all courses available online. - CBS News

Pelican, as it’s titled, will be staged on a roller-skating rink — just as the original was in 1963 and 1965. - Artnet

Tiit Helimets, an Estonian dancer and choreographer who was a principal at San Francisco Ballet from 2005 to 2023, will take up his new role at the start of next season. - The Sacramento Bee

Two Canadian sisters make polished, professional, joyous ballet breakdown videos every week - and they have won over ballet scholars and ballerinas alike. “The goal is to make viewers feel equipped to say, ‘I understand what’s going on, and I can appreciate it.’” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

“According to producing artistic director Rachel May, Synchronicity’s programming, partnerships, and community impact have never been stronger, and the theatre’s leadership is actively engaged in a search for a new theatrical home.” - American Theatre

Shawn and Eisenberg, an author and actress who has been Shawn’s partner for five decades, performed with scripts in the Off-Broadway production of What We Did Before Our Moth Days to fill in for ill co-stars Hope Davis and Maria Dizzia. - Playbill

“When I did it before, nobody was really explicitly saying the opposite of what I was saying. I was attacking implicit assumptions, unthought-through assumptions that people seemed to have. Now I’m attacking open declarations that people are making very publicly.” - Slate (MSN)

The Todd Haimes Theatre is one of five spaces owned by Roundabout, including Studio 54 and the Stephen Sondheim Theatre on Broadway. The current production of “Fallen Angels” will mark its official opening on April 19, and will run in a limited engagement through June 7. - Broadway News

Between his roles as producer, co-playwright, and star of Good Night, and Good Luck, about CBS newscaster Edward R. Murrow, Clooney himself took in an estimated $9 million (if not more) for the 13-week run of the production, which grossed $48 million. - Broadway Journal

“Matt Stone and Trey Parker, having grown up around church members in Colorado, did not want to make fun of them or their religion. ‘They believe goofy stuff, but they’re really nice,’ Parker said.’" Yet, wonders Jesse Green, could the show get produced these days? - The New York Times

A German artist who created carnival displays mocking Russian President Vladimir Putin was sentenced in absentia on Thursday to 8 1/2 years in prison by a court In Moscow. - AP News

“As the architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable once noted: ‘There is a kind of collective schadenfreude in the revelation of defects in great buildings and flaws in great men.’ Few figures bear this out more fully than Wright.” - Aeon

In a paywalled essay in Vanity Fair, the playwright/actor/screenwriter/impresario writes that he read 23 books, finished an outline he owed to a film studio, journaled, and profited from his time off the grid. Indeed, he says, “you could re-create this experience and rich white people would pay for it.” - The Cut (MSN)

“Working primarily with found steel objects, Edwards created masses of hooks, chains, and beams, some of which were abstracted beyond recognition. His titles … tended to be forceful, referring to anti-Black violence, Malcolm X, African cultures, and even American-led wars in Vietnam and Iraq.” - ARTnews

Roberts dedicated her life to sharing the stories of her people, preserving and promoting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture through language, dance and ceremony, and securing pathways for First Nations talent to flourish. - The Guardian

"Known for the organic beauty, narrative drive and humor of his productions, (he) became the most famous ballet choreographer in Texas, and one of the most celebrated in the country, during almost three decades at the helm of Houston Ballet and later at Fort Worth-based Texas Ballet Theater.” - The Dallas Morning News (Yahoo!)