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Culture registers a shift before policy does. At New York Fashion Week, an unusual number of designers sent out clothes yearning for wilderness and open air — the runway as a collective request to log off (Washington Post). In at least 36 states, people aren’t waiting for city councils to regulate license-plate cameras; they’re taking them down themselves (The Conversation). Universities that spent three years pushing students toward AI now face studies suggesting it dulls thinking, and can’t decide which way to lean (The New York Times). Pull back, touch something real.
Philip Kennicott argues the “elite” caricature of the Kennedy Center gets it exactly backwards — it was the most authentically populist major arts center in the country (Washington Post). A federal judge has now ordered 30 days’ notice before anyone demolishes it (AP). Meanwhile the New Deal’s “Sistine Chapel,” the Cohen Building murals, may be rescued by a Freedom Caucus Republican (The New Republic). Buildings make strange allies.
San Francisco Opera and its orchestra reached a deal, ending the strike that darkened opening week (San Francisco Chronicle). And Duncan Sheik, who escaped MTV heartthrob status by writing Spring Awakening, has died at 56 (The New York Times).
All of our stories below.