We imagine our choices are free, our selves sovereign, but much of our behavior arises automatically. We are driven by inner conditions, social cues, learned scripts, and neural flows—just as the machine is driven by token prediction and loss minimization. The difference, of course, is that the human brain is plastic. - Hedgehog Review

On average, we spend more than two hours scrolling through such platforms each day. But not all reading is created equal. The mind can skim over the surface of a sentence and swiftly decode its literal meaning. But deep reading — sustained engagement with a longform text — is a distinct endeavor. - Vox

 “I was mad that the representation, whether of teenagers or queerness, was not completely akin to my own real-life experience — this show was my lifeline; the least it could have done was conform to my limited perception of reality, right?” - HuffPost

And be replaced with … people and print? "Indie local news publishers I know, already frustrated by the junkiness of digital distribution, are increasingly turning to in-person events, print editions and zines and printed handout cards with QR codes.” - Matt Pearce

With each recording, “we’re atrophying our memory a little and trusting that it will work autonomously. But it’s like an engine: if we give it a boost, it keeps working, but if we don’t, it gets worse and worse.” - El País

Design works best when it knows what it can achieve and what it can’t; the history of design is full of utopian projects that failed to make a difference. - The Atlantic

"Although authors of heterosexual erotica have been jailed in China, observers say the genre is subjected to far less censorship. Gay erotica, which is more subversive, seems to bother authorities more.” - BBC

Why? "Unlike the dawn of the internet where democratized access to information empowered everyday people in unique, surprising ways, the generative AI era has been defined by half-baked software releases and threats of AI replacing human workers.” - Wired

Thanks to Elon Musk and DOGE, of course - and no one knows when that might improve. - Wired

“Arts and cultural organizations in Portland face a double whammy: in addition to cuts in the city’s budget, the proposed elimination of the NEA, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has left organizations scrambling.” - Oregon ArtsWatch

“Legislators have approved spending roughly $39 million for performances, exhibitions, operations and some building and expansion projects through multiple budget categories, but the money will be divided among far fewer organizations than in years past – if the money isn't vetoed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.” - Tallahassee Democrat

“The cutbacks to Create NSW were announced to staff on Monday, … (signaling) the end to a decade-long government-led building boom of new museums, galleries and theatres in NSW and … (a promise) to reinvest million-dollar savings into new frontline programs to fill auditoriums and halls already built.” - The Sydney Morning Herald

The movie isn’t seen as progressive, but “on TikTok, people … have reinterpreted the ‘Colors of the Wind’ lyrics to comment on an array of contemporary topics they feel strongly about, like immigration, the Middle East, the president and Elon Musk, Black Lives Matter and oil drilling.” - The New York Times

“Five times a year, art is sandwiched by science. It typically takes four to five days to transform T-Mobile Park into one of Seattle’s most versatile concert venues, before the bells and whistles are deconstructed in an overnight sprint.” - Seattle Times

A personalized tour of the Library of Congress “included original manuscripts from composers Béla Bartók, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky and Johannes Brahms. … But it was American composer George Gershwin's manuscript for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess that moved Sondheim to tears." - CBC

A Dudamel test, and also, well, New York has awesome music in the parks in the summer, basically. - The New York Times

“The celebration, which drew arts and civic leaders for the first of three preview nights, was far grander than the concert on March 26,1965, that opened LACMA’s Leo S. Bing Theatre the night before the doors opened to the museum’s original galleries.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

The police bust of an all-women party she hosted in 1925 was the subject of Ma Rainey’s 1928 record “Prove It on Me Blues.” Rainey and her contralto voice were part of a wider lesbian blues counterculture that included Gladys Bentley, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters and Alberta Hunter. - BBC

The wing’s design stresses each region’s singularity while fostering an atmosphere of cosmopolitan exchange. We’re meant to feel that the Met is no longer what the writer Ishmael Reed described a half century ago: “the Center for Art Detention.” - The New Yorker

To appreciate these works only as visual objects exacerbates the intellectual violence of decontextualization. The Met has responded to this by writing extensive object labels and wall texts, carefully parsed but unflinching even when subjects, such as headhunting, may make some visitors uncomfortable. - Washington Post

Critic Christopher Knight does not, let’s say, find it great: “Grieg’s ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ meets Beckett’s theater of the absurd.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

“After nearly half a decade, Vinnie Bagwell, a self-taught sculptor-artist, is still waiting for the million dollars that the New York City department of cultural affairs promised for her to work on monument Victory Beyond Sims.” - The Guardian (UK)

“Needless to say, this was not a situation Webster expected to encounter as an up and coming artist.” - The New York Times

Maybe! “Although the £100,000 target has been reached, the has said extra money will strengthen its bid when the piece is sold at Sotheby’s.” - BBC

Which of America’s founding fathers began writing his memoirs in the early 1770s, a project that remained unfinished when it was posthumously published in 1793? - The New York Times

Oh, it’s big. Rebecca Yarros’s Onyx Storm “came out earlier this year and sold 2.7 million copies in its first week,” for instance. - NPR

The least wanted novel contains a mix of “such ostensibly despised elements as stream of consciousness, explicit sex scenes, an extraterrestrial setting, metafictional commentary on novel-writing itself, talking animals, second-person narration, and tennis.” (Tennis?) - Slate

Esther Freud writes novels inspired by her life; now her sister is writing memoir on Instagram. "How strange, over this last year, to read my sister’s interpretation of events. Free from the wiles of fiction, her voice rings out, clear and clean.” - The Guardian (UK)

“The women who run the Atelier Devauchelle in Paris sew and create new bindings. They restore old bindings and torn pages. They create slipcovers and special boxes to protect fragile books.” - The New York Times

The letter “asks them to refrain from publishing books written using AI tools built on copyrighted content without authors' consent or compensation, to refrain from replacing publishing house employees wholly or partially with AI tools, and to only hire human audiobook narrators.” - NPR

What strikes me most about the list is this: Long-held categories in the movie business are fading, just like they are in the broader culture. - The New York Times

 The idea that AI-generated video is both the future of filmmaking and an existential threat to Hollywood has caught on like wildfire among boosters for the relatively new technology. - The Verge

"We are being advised that the curtailing of Palestine Action could have a major knock-on effect for us as it could become not only illegal for others to voice support for them but also for us, as film-makers, to distribute this film.” - The Guardian (UK)

For one thing, the decline of print media is too stark. “Yes, there are still front rows to sit in, parties to attend. But the day to day of the job is overseeing a tangle of revenue and content streams.” - The New York Times

And we do mean all of our photos - everything on the camera roll. “Meta’s public stance is that the feature is 'very early,’ innocuous and entirely opt-in.” Sure, Jan. - The Verge (Internet Archive)

The three crew members "accused the film’s producers of negligence and failing to follow industry safety rules, allegations that the producers denied.” - The New York Times

“In Kakuma in northern Kenya, where more than 300,000 refugees’ livelihoods have been affected by funding cuts that have halved monthly food rations, the children use the Acholi traditional dance as a distraction from hunger and have perfected a survival skill to skip lunches as they stretch their monthly food rations.” - AP

“Artists were reaching out to us asking us if they would have one last chance to perform,” said executive director SK Kerastas. “We wanted to create a situation where we could say yes to all of those asks, and so we came upon this idea of doing a marathonic performance.” - WBEZ (Chicago)

“For those communities willing to share this with visitors (through ceremony or education at cultural centers), don’t neglect the opportunity. And if you’re asked to join — the only answer is yes. … So, to travelers, take note: every culture has its own form of traditional movement, a few of which are highlighted below.” -...

Dutch National Baller director Ted Brandsen: “Just as you don’t (simply) replace a Rembrandt with a new painting, you don’t let such wonderful ballet heritage go to waste. The only way to preserve it is to keep performing it ... in a different context, away from the orientalist gaze of the nineteenth century.” -...

“In the dark, brick-walled basement of the Kharkiv National Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre, a dance company has created a space protected from drones and bombs where audiences can lose themselves in performances of classic ballets.” - Globe and Mail

The pointe shoe manufacturer Virtisse, based near Philadelphia, saw its entire inventory — 25,000 pairs, worth over $3 million — literally go up in smoke. Now, as it tries to get back on its feet, it faces costs 50% higher than before because of the Trump administration’s tariff policy. - Marketplace

“It has traditional skills and tricks and excitement, but instead of being a traditional succession of acts it’s a completely theatrical experience: a rollercoaster of a show.” Then there are the foxes that sneak in at night and steal costumes. - Irish Times

"It’s organized chaos at rehearsal for The Color Purple on a recent afternoon at the Goodman Theatre downtown,” but “director Lili-Anne Brown looks on with expert calm.” - Chicago Sun-Times

"There was a group of writers who were part of something called the New York Theatre Strategy; Sam Shepard and Lanford Wilson and Terrence McNally and Julia Bovasso and Irene Fornes, and they were all upset because no one would do their work Off-Broadway. So they said, “Will you co-produce with us?" - American Theatre

“Meadow, 78, has served as artistic director of Manhattan Theater Club since 1972, and by her own count has produced or presented more than 600 shows” — not to mention presiding over the nonprofit’s astounding growth — “making her one of the most prolific and successful figures in the American theater.” - The New York Times

He’s the guiding hand behind Tom Hiddleston’s offbeat Rome, Nicole Scherzinger’s revelatory, Tony-winning Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, and Rachel Zegler singing “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” to passersby from the balcony of a London theatre. But his unorthodox tactics aren’t always that successful. - The Guardian

More than a pandemic-era stopgap, fiction podcasts are now emerging as a legitimate artistic medium. With Australian audiences increasingly turning to audio content for news, entertainment and escapism, it’s no surprise that creatives are responding in kind. - ArtsHub

 Her unwavering commitment to shoring up the integrity of a book at every stage solidified her legacy as an editor who could turn talent, hers and that of the authors she published, into cultural and literary power. - Slate

“I worked for a long time facilitating other people’s creativity, and that was very meaningful and very fulfilling, but I started to miss my own,” Roth, 49, told me during a rehearsal break at a black box studio in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood. - The New York Times

Oh was "a glitter-dusted experimental artist-activist whose theater works intertwined political provocation with profound compassion in rituals of communion with audiences,” beloved by theatre folk in New York and across the country. - The New York Times

 “There is a kind of performative sheen or a performative element that is not about just the fact of quashing opposition wherever it might be found … but also demonstrating the facts of that quashing through the overt and open humiliation … of the persons involved.” - Hyperallergic

The Argentine-born musician, who had long performing experience in both classical and jazz, wrote memorable music for an impressive list of feature films and television series, earning four Grammy Awards and six Oscar nominations. In addition, he composed over 50 concert works and maintained a conducting career. - The Washington Post (MSN)

His career ranged from Baptist minister to LBJ’s press secretary to publisher of Long Island’s Newsday to a decade at CBS News, but it was for PBS that he produced hundreds of hours of some of American TV’s most cerebral and provocative series. - AP