We should embrace conscious ignorance—an intellectual humility that helps us recognize our own limitations while remaining receptive to the knowledge of others. This form of ignorance, like the Socratic “I know that I know nothing,” is the foundation of true competence. - CJR

Every single aspect of human life across the broadest categories of human organization is being reoriented around the pursuit of attention. It is now the defining resource of our age. - The Atlantic

The more time you spend having your mind changed online, the more you might sense that there’s something odd about the way in which opinions tend to be formed and held today. To any question you can ask, there’s apparently already an answer; in fact, there seem to be more answers than questions. - The New Yorker

Survey participants placed the value of online reviews above price, free shipping, brand, and recommendations from family and friends. The survey found 94 percent of customers ranked it as the single most important factor, and four out of five said they won’t shop on a website unless it has customer reviews. - The Walrus

What is fiction in the first place? Despite common usage, philosophers agree that we can’t equate ‘fiction’ with ‘false content’. On the one hand, the inclusion of falsity isn’t enough to render a work fiction. - Aeon

Haven’t critics freaked out about the brain-scrambling power of everything from pianofortes to brightly colored posters? Isn’t there, in fact, a long section in Plato’s Phaedrus in which Socrates argues that writing will wreck people’s memories? - The New Yorker

"Sleep-deprived travellers are choosing their hotel on the basis of its pillow menu or booking themselves into away-from-it-all sleep retreats with tailored sleep-inducing activities. Sweden has a different, more natural approach to sleep tourism." - BBC

"Among the issues are determining what private philanthropy’s role should be in maintaining the arts-and-culture ecosystem and forging a unified effort to advocate for increased public funding." Key to the latter is forming partnerships with organizations elsewhere in Wisconsin, so as to counter "deep Milwaukee skepticism" in the state legislature. - Milwaukee Magazine

Among the findings of the study are that people value being closer to the stage than further away. Reserved seating is more valuable than general admission seating. However, for people with children and older respondents, reserved seating held significantly more value. - Butts In Seats

"The £60 million funding package includes £40 million for initiatives such as the Create Growth Programme, the Supporting Grassroots Music Fund, the UK Games Fund, the Music Export Growth Scheme, and the UK Global Screen Fund. Additionally, £16.2 million will be allocated to four cultural projects under the Cultural Development Fund." - WhatsOnStage (UK)

Among Trump's executive orders on the first day: canceling Biden's Executive Order 14084 of September 30, 2022 (Promoting the Arts, the Humanities, and Museum and Library Services). - The White House

Alan Cumming, who made the comparison, provides a good example: he was hired in September to run the Pitlochry Festival Theatre and "invite the world's best theatre artists" to perform. He still doesn't know whether the company will be funded even for this summer. It's like this throughout the sector. - The Scotsman

At a 150th anniversary gala on Friday, before guests reach the marble staircase, the baroque sculptures, the inlaid golden mosaics and the elaborately painted ceiling, they will pass two giant mirrors set on the ground floor. - The New York Times

Allegations of inappropriate behavior first surfaced in 2006, when principal oboist Katherine Needleman told a union rep and orchestra personnel staff that Carney made a 3 a.m. visit to her hotel room while the orchestra was touring Spain. - Baltimore Banner

Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said that he expects Blue would remain a major presence at the Met. Already, he added, she has “made a mark as one of the great Aidas of our time.” - The New York Times

Deezer has been among the most aggressive digital service providers (DSPs) when it comes to detecting AI-generated content, “noise” tracks meant to skim royalty revenue, and other low-quality content. - Music Business Worldwide

"One surprising thing," says one of the co-founders of the free-with-RSVP series, called Night Temple, "is how these really accomplished film composers, who have music on big movies and big shows, say there’s something really vulnerable about writing for this. There's a bit of danger to it." - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

The ability to create a fully analog recording in 2025 is exceedingly difficult and expensive. Analog recording decks require specialized maintenance, and the tape used for master recordings is vastly more expensive than recording to a hard drive. - Digital Trends

It's "a place where people could browse, handle, and borrow stimulating materials, a place where playing with material could spark new ideas and make unexpected connections." - Works In Progress

"His global brand would seem like an odd choice for the most basic tier of New York’s urban shelter, sort of like handing out food-bank groceries in Louis Vuitton bags. … (Yet) the pairing of high-design auteur and low-income residents meets an assortment of needs and isn’t just noblesse oblige." - Curbed (MSN)

Liberty Mutual and Great American are refuting the claim submitted by the owners of the 25 paintings which were on display at the Orlando Museum of Art in 2022 until the FBI seized them and they were revealed to be forgeries. - Artnet

In a leaked memo to French culture minister Rachida Dati, Louvre director Laurence des Cars wrote that overcrowding at the museum is causing "physical strain" on the building and that some areas "are no longer watertight, while others experience significant temperature variations, endangering the preservation of artworks," - AFP (Yahoo!)

A 32-year-old Greek man discovered the artifact in a black bag in the college town of Thessaloniki and turned it in to police on Saturday evening, Greek authorities said in a statement Wednesday. - Washington Post (MSN)

The changes demonstrated a miscalculation of not just the economic dynamic of the art market—for which supply is harder to stimulate than demand—but also its psychology. - The Art Newspaper

“This really should be the time that publishers are digging deep on representation, research and making sure whatever lands across their desk isn’t just rubber stamped because the last person said it was OK." - ArtsHub

I’m always fascinated by the trends that the Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy anthologies reveal. Short stories are (usually) quicker to write than novels, which means that they tend to be more responsive to current events than books published during the same period. - LA Review of Books

In addition to using ChatGPT Enterprise to increase the efficiency in its daily work processes, “experts and creatives from content businesses will work with OpenAI to develop new ways of creating and distributing video, audio, and text content,” the announcement said. - Publishers Weekly

"Penguin Random House parent company Bertelsmann has agreed to a 'strategic collaboration' with OpenAI to use ChatGPT technology across many of its operating units. ... The agreement not only includes employees' use of ChatGPT, but the 'development of new products and services' as well." - Publishers Weekly

Upgrading the look of B&N stores, and improving the quality of its workforce, are among the reasons James Daunt cited as contributing to the bookseller’s resurgence: “We want to have good teams inside nice-looking stores.” - Publishers Weekly

Aphasia brings up existential questions that get at the heart of human connection: Who are we without language? If I were struck by aphasia today, what would be left unsaid, to my family, my friends, my readers? - Public Books

"When they did the premiere of Twin Peaks: The Return, the executives had not seen it, and they said: 'Mr. Lynch, would you say a few words?' And he comes out; he goes: 'This project has a lot of wood in it. I like wood.'" - The Guardian

"Struggling with declining revenue in its groundbreaking nonprofit radio/newspaper model, Chicago Public Media is offering voluntary buyouts for Chicago Sun-Times journalists and business employees at WBEZ. The WBEZ newsroom will not be affected by the buyout announcement Wednesday, but more cuts could be on the way." - Chicago Tribune (MSN)

The hare-brained Online News Act has only been in effect for a few months, but already it has proved a disaster for small and emerging news media in Canada, with the country’s Indigenous media perhaps the hardest hit. - Canadian Dimension

Over time, digested in larger quantities, this entertainment sands away the distinctions between this and that until context collapses into a river of color and sound. - The New York Times

"Paramount must face some claims in a lawsuit from Warner Bros. Discovery accusing it of setting in motion a breach of a $500 million licensing deal for the exclusive rights to South Park, a court has ruled." - The Hollywood Reporter

Execs said the March ceremony will "celebrate the work that unites us as a global film community and acknowledge those who fought so bravely against the wildfires." For this year, the proceedings will "move away" from live performances of the Best Song nominees in favor of celebrating the nominated songwriters. - The Guardian

A former principal at San Francisco Ballet and artistic director of Oregon Ballet Theatre, he was most recently Karen Kain's associate artistic director at the National Ballet of Canada. He takes up his new position in June. - Winnipeg Free Press

A full house for the National Ballet of Ukraine these days is 560 people, because that's the capacity of the bomb shelter in the theater's basement. Here's a photo journal of the Christmas production at a company where, as one ballerina puts it, every show could be the last. - The Times (UK)

The new professional company, based in the large Dallas exurb of Plano, will debut in August and will follow with a three-show mainstage season and appearances at dance festivals next spring and summer. Local ballet instructor Sydney Blalock Ritchie is artistic director, with Cindi Lawrence Hanson as executive director. - Plano Magazine

"Her centennial is this year — she died in 2013, at 88 — and she remains widely regarded as America’s first prima ballerina. … Her legacy rests ... in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s — a series of revelations about what ballet could be and what a ballerina could look like." - The New...

"Rhythmic beats echoed through the Tunis Opera Theatre stage as dancers faced off at the first-ever edition in the Arab world of a street dance tournament originating in Paris. This year's Juste Debout is hosted in eight cities including London, New York, Beijing and Tokyo, as well as the Tunisian capital." - AFP (Barron's)

The metro Pittsburgh-born Graham spent her teenage years in Santa Barbara and saw her first dance performance — featuring her future teacher Ruth St. Denis — in Los Angeles in 1911. "She talked about how intoxicating the light in Santa Barbara was to her, and she would just run and spin." - Orange County...

But as with actual theater, not all political theater is created equal. Some of it is shudderingly effective, to the extent that it ceases to be theater. - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)

The show, titled Gwyneth Goes Skiing, has already played in London, the Edinburgh Fringe, and Park City, Utah, where the actual events took place. The audience serves as the jury, and the show has three different endings depending on the verdict. (In real life, Paltrow won $1 in damages.) - Gothamist

"'If you get me to 20,000 likes, I’ll do something amazing.' That is what the performance artist Louise Orwin promises audiences in Famehungry, a TikTok-set existential crisis about being an entertainer in the digital age. - The New York Times

National Theatre CEO Kate Varah: "Many I speak to in the sector feel they are at a breaking point with limited funds and conflicting demands. … They are being asked to find new revenue streams to stimulate national economic growth with reduced core funding and no central, annual capital maintenance fund." - WhatsOnStage (UK)

While it would be misleading to take the dollar figures in isolation as the only measure of these companies’ ‘post-COVID’ build-backs, their financial statements tell a story of responsible management in pursuit of recovery. - ArtsHub

The problem is that while Radio 4 does indeed feature drama, no regular slot there allows for anything other than a play lasting 45 minutes. Leaving aside the fact that this rules out broadcasting classics by, say, Shakespeare or Chekhov, where does this leave new commissions? - The Stage

For instance, he was a gym rat when he was younger, and even after he was shot he could do 46 pushups. And he encountered, and was influenced by, both Marcel Duchamp and John Cage while he was a teenager in Pittsburgh. - Artnet

"(She was) a trailblazing painter who gained accolades as a Minimalist during the 1960s before diverging from the movement later on" in favor of "'radical figuration.' … Across more than six decades of work, Baer found innovative — and challenging — ways of exploring how the eye perceives an image." - ARTnews

After being named editor in chief in 1978, Mr. Schneiderman elevated The Voice’s journalistic game, diversified a newsroom that was nearly all white and all male, and reckoned with an increasingly competitive landscape in which traditional newspapers and magazines imitated The Voice’s cutting-edge cultural and media coverage, as well as its insouciant tone. -...

"De Groft became director of the Orlando Museum of Art in 2021 and set out to bring more attention to the museum by programming exhibitions featuring big names in the art world. The museum soon was making headlines, but not in the way De Groft wanted." - Orlando Sentinel (MSN)

"(He had) a long history of provocative offerings including Les Valseuses (Going Places), Tenue de Soirée (Evening Dress) and Trop Belle Pour Toi (Too Beautiful for You). … His greatest successes in the 70s and '80s (were) a series of outrage-baiting films, many featuring Gérard Depardieu, ... exposing wounded male machismo." - The Guardian

Plowright was “perhaps the greatest Anglophone actor of the 20th century”, in Variety’s words. She was certainly a leading pioneer in post-war British theatre’s modernisation – particularly in terms of her theatrical style, as well as her geographic and class origins. - The Conversation