Good Morning,
Newspapers keep gutting their book sections, so an independent bookstore decided to run its own reviews rather than wait for the reviews to disappear entirely (Nieman Lab). Lesson of the day: if something goes away and it was important to you, then you have to build it yourself. Art-house movie theaters are increasingly doing the same, posting audience growth by courting the younger moviegoers the multiplex gave up on (Variety).
The machines, meanwhile, are thriving. Google is putting $75 million into whizkid studio A24 to build AI filmmaking tools (MSN), while new software lets producers shrink pit orchestras to almost nothing (The Guardian). Both are betting the expensive human labor is optional.
And the fight over who controls the story keeps escalating. Lonnie Bunch is maneuvering to keep the Smithsonian independent as the administration leans on it (The Atlantic), while London’s National Portrait Gallery quietly pulled a work over a reference to Churchill that some found distasteful (The Guardian) — pressure from outside, editing from within.
Lighter note: Benjamin Franklin’s library just inherited 1,500 rare books about sex (The New York Times). Make of that what you will.
Doug
