Good Morning,
New York’s incoming arts commissioner wants to keep the city’s culture scene affordable (Gothamist). That’s a useful admission about where the leverage actually sits: the binding constraint on urban culture is rent and space, not programming.
A federal judge blocked the auction of more than 100 Titanic artifacts (Washington Post), courts rather than curators holding the line on what counts as heritage. Florida voters flipped the school board at the center of the state’s book-ban fights (Yahoo News). And Kennedy Center revenue cratered after Trump’s name went on the building (Washington Post) — an audience voting the way an audience can.
Two ideas stories worth your time when you have some: solarpunk cities where the tech follows nature’s lead (Aeon), a future that isn’t just the present running faster. And Australia’s recording industry has banned AI-generated tracks from the ARIA charts (Variety), quietly conceding that a chart was always a trust instrument, not a scoreboard.
Also: a landmark South LA theater reopens after 15 years of renovation (Los Angeles Times), and playing Lumière turns out to require a seven-pound flaming candle strapped to each hand (Yahoo Entertainment).
All our stories below.