“The fundamental problem we face involves the degree to which the truth must now compete with such a vast multiplicity of falsehoods that discovering truth itself becomes unviable.” - Paris Review

There’s no question that they’ve helped me write. And yet, if I look back over my career as a writer, the value I’ve derived from carefully controlling my environment has paled in comparison to my main source of motivation: scary e-mails from editors. - The New Yorker

Is it a helpful shorthand for describing the remarkable plasticity of our nervous system or has it become a misleading oversimplification that distorts our grasp of science? - Aeon

Institutions foster cooperation by rewarding good behaviour and punishing rule-breakers. Yet they themselves depend on cooperative members to function. We haven’t solved the cooperation problem – we’ve simply moved it back one step. So why do institutions work at all? - Aeon

What happens in a performer’s brain while playing? Traditional brain-imaging tools like functional m.r.i. (f m.r.i.) require subjects to lie motionless in a scanner. Newer wearable technologies, including EEG (electroencephalography) caps fitted with electrodes, make it possible to study musicians in more natural settings. - The New York Times

From the jarring morning alarm to the podcast we listen to on the way to work; from the constant murmur of the office to the background music in the café; from the endless information on our smartphones to the television that’s on just to have “something” playing. - 3 Quarks Daily

What are the consequences of a “human-free” internet? - Fast Company

“The unfortunate victim Googles a company name looking for a contact number, then calls the number thrown up by AI. This doesn't actually lead to the company in question, but rather to someone pretending to be that company, who then tries to take payment information.” - Wired

SAG-AFTRA is not real happy about this development from a newer generative video source. “This is unacceptable and undercuts the ability of human talent to earn a livelihood.” - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)

The masterplan forms one of Australia's largest urban development projects and, once complete, will be the country's first major city built in over a century, according to SOM. - Dezeen

Is the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation the last best hope for American arts and letters—or is it killing them? - The Atlantic

A.I. companies are increasingly exerting outsize influence over higher education and using these settings as training grounds to further their goal of creating artificial general intelligence (A.I. systems that can substitute for humans). - The New York Times

Olivia Newton John and John Denver might be mostly known for the mildness of their music, but at one point they were two of Nashville’s untouchables. - Slate

Not just Kate Bush - but other top songs inspired by literature, including Rosaliá, Kendrick Lamar, and, yes, The Rolling Stones. - The Guardian (UK)

Many worry that a kind of “canned” creativity will take over much of what originates from real people today, pushing a broad swath of lab technicians, ad writers, studio musicians, and commercial artists out of jobs and into unemployment lines. - Christian Science Monitor

“You know, when I said I was going to do Salome a couple of people told me that this was the perfect opera for me because it’s the closest to those ‘90s plays. And then in some ways I was a bit disappointed, because then I was wondering whether I was typecasting myself!” - Bachtrack

Gaza showed how power brokers from the White House on down seem eager for pretexts to punish dissent in ways that create a chilling effect, and that the hottest rhetoric from activists can be exactly that pretext. - The Atlantic

The embarrassment comes in what can all too easily happen when classical music tries to get down with the kids with new formats. Visuals! Apps! Short excerpts instead of whole symphonies! All of which can patronisingly say: we’re just like the pop cultures you love: we’re groovy too! - The Guardian

The murals are all part of Elon Musk’s effort to blame Democrats for crime - and they’re appearing on buildings across the United States. - Chicago Sun-Times

“What was initially believed to be nothing more than a large rock was found to contain the snout of an ichthyosaur, which was so heavy it took two men to lift.” The fossils likely “had been moved by a glacier and deposited at Melton some 200 million years ago.” - BBC

“Victor Quiñonez, the artist behind the exhibition, said he learned about the university’s decision when students messaged him on social media to say the windows of the gallery in Denton, northwest of Dallas, had been covered and the door locked.” - The New York Times

“In the face of an £8.2 million deficit in the coming year, … initially there will be a ‘voluntary exit scheme’ available to all staff. … With regard to the exhibition programme, (there could be) fewer free exhibitions, not as many ticketed shows, less international borrowing of artworks, and more expensive tickets.” - The...

“The Paris prosecutor's office on Thursday said that nine people were being detained as part of an investigation into a suspected decade-long, 10 million euro ($11.8 million) ticket fraud scheme at the Louvre.” - AP

Tina Rivers Ryan had stepped into the leadership role at Artforum after a tumultuous year. It had just fired David Velasco, at the time its editor in chief, after he had signed and published an open letter calling for Palestinian liberation. - The New York Times

“In a joint interview, they said their goal was to staunchly defend writers and free expression at a moment when threats, in the United States and around the world, had become ‘existential.’” - The New York Times

“You can reduce anything down to tropes – grumpy v sunshine, pride v prejudice – but should we? What does it mean for the way we read – and for the ways we think about art?” - The Guardian (UK)

“There are two types of requests: books to help people understand what’s happening in the country and books to provide a momentary escape.” - Minnesota Public Radio

But only on the Turkish novelist's own terms, which is one reason it’s taken a while. - The New York Times

The name was given by present-day collectors and dealers; in their Victorian heyday, they were usually called mock or mocking valentines. They were very much intended to mock or offend their targets, and they did so with spirit. - The Conversation

In the medieval period, poets had used “coffee” as a symbol (or euphemism) for wine (forbidden in Islam), so praising coffee in a poem was suspect. So was all the fun being had at coffeehouses. Yet both the drink and the establishments serving it had passionate defenders making their case in poetry. - History...

“When you read a book, you live inside it — you're intellectually and emotionally invested, because you create its world in your mind.” But a movie? You’re just visiting. - NPR

Not that we’re judging your trips to the cottage, but, for instance, "Tkaronto patiently and beautifully expresses that longing for connection through fleeting, thorny and bittersweet romantic interlude.” - The Guardian (UK)

“Some of them are startlingly cinematic, far beyond the workmanlike coverage we expect from seeing the same action on television.” - The New York Times

“The region’s new generation of filmmakers is no longer bound by the intimate, place-specific arthouse mode that often defined the late 2010s New Catalan Cinema. ... They are pushing into genre, into international co-production, into areas their predecessors rarely touched.” - Variety

Is it all about popularity? What about when a network drops every episode at once? Does a series need to have characters who might grip an audience, or a dense plot? The NYT editor in charge of recapping has Thoughts. - The New York Times

The wind-down of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has given birth to a new independent, nonprofit organization that looks to fill some of the gap left by CPB’s closure after nearly six decades. - InsideRadio

In 2023, principal Taylor Stanley asked management if they’d permit a male-identifying dancer to play Carabosse; they said no. This year, they said no again. So Stanley went over their heads to choreographer Peter Martins, who’s fine with it. Now Stanley is making quite a meal of the role. - The New York Times

Or, how France’s Guillaume Cizeron and Laurence Fournier Beaudry (who’s actually Canadian) ended up paired at all, then became the gold medalists despite having been together only since March. - AP

Antonio Najarro, former director of the Ballet Nacional de España and choreographer of several medal-winning routines in ice dancing: “It seemed very difficult to me. Flamenco is so rooted in the earth that doing it on ice felt almost crazy. But curiosity got the better of me.” - El País in English (Spain)

A new iron curtain now separates American dance and Russian dance, bringing an abrupt end to a rich dialogue that spanned centuries. Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, two crown jewels in the American repertoire, would not exist without Petipa’s original stagings; meanwhile, Russian ballet was bolstered by American influence. - The Atlantic

“In Speak, American tap dancers collaborate with their counterparts in kathak, a classical Indian percussive dance form. While these genres have been crossed before, rarely have the participants been such masters of their art.” - The New York Times

“The most decorated ice dance pair in U.S. figure skating history wants more than a team medal in Milan — they want the ice dance gold medal. ... But while they did so much heavy lifting for their team, their competition got extra rest.” - USA Today

It hasn’t been easy: some artists are scared to come to the theater, as are many audience members, and some shows have had to be cancelled. (Alex Pretti was shot two blocks from one theater on a two-show Saturday.) Yet performances are happening when and where they can — including, sometimes, in clandestine locations....

Some have lost an arm, others their legs, yet others their eyesight or voice. They’ve spent a year rehearsing a parody of Virgil’s Aeneid. One company member describes the work as both “rehabilitation and socialization.” - Deutsche Welle

Playwright Ray Lawler’s most famous work, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1955), was a turning point in Australian theatre history. In the 1970s, Lawler wrote two prequel plays – Kid Stakes and Other Times – to form The Doll Trilogy. Melbourne’s small-but-ambitious Red Stitch is staging them together for the first time since 1985. - ArtsHub (Australia)

“I was studying this issue of conspiracy theories and what makes people susceptible to a conspiracy theory. There’s a real terror of (not conforming) in our culture, and we will gladly believe somebody else’s nonsense if it means we don’t stick out from the group.” - WBEZ (Chicago)

“These content creators are not just copycats; they are attempting and sometimes mastering the complicated dance moves and distinctive performances of shows they may never see live, let alone be cast in. Sharing the result with the world, they are making TikTok a theater of their own.” - The New York Times

Libby Howes, who was central to the group’s avant-garde breakthrough Rumstick Road, left the theatre during a psychotic breakdown. “For decades, Howes’s location has been a mystery; she has been an unquiet absence, one of the ghosts in the avant-garde’s machine.” - The New York Times

“Keep a diary, get a camera, learn to print your own photos. Don’t put it all in your phone, because everything in your phone belongs to someone else. And if you want to write a secret to someone, send a letter.” - The Guardian (UK)

“A Dutch novelist, travel writer and journalist, (he) was lauded for his insights into European history and culture and often tipped as a possible winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.” - AP

With his ensembles Gächinger Kantorei and Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, he undertook the first complete recording project of Bach’s cantatas and major choral works. As the period-instrument movement picked up steam through the 1980s, ‘90s and onward, Rilling was the last remaining Bach specialist to cling strictly to modern instruments. - Moto Perpetuo

He was discovered by director Robert Altman for the 1970 films M*A*S*H and Brewster McCloud; he subsequently featured in Heat (1995), Dogma (1999) and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004). Yet it was his co-starring role in alongside Ruth Gordon in Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude that would establish his place in cinema. - Deadline

“The influential founder of France’s École Philippe Gaulier … taught the art of clowning for decades and his students included Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Emma Thompson, Rachel Weisz and Geoffrey Rush.” - The Guardian

“Scarlett Pavlovich filed a lawsuit against Gaiman and his wife, Amanda Palmer, in Wisconsin in February 2025, accusing Gaiman of multiple sexual assaults while she worked as the family’s nanny in 2022. She filed lawsuits against Palmer in Massachusetts and in New York on the same day she filed the Wisconsin action.” - AP