At times, I find myself speaking with my kids about A.I. in the same terms that we might discuss a creepy neighbor who lives down the block: avoid eye contact, cross the street when you walk past his house, and, when in doubt, call on a trusted adult. - The New Yorker

Someone observes a behavioral difference between groups or countries. They can’t immediately identify the mechanism. So, they invoke “culture” as an explanation or, even worse, “the culture.” The word lands with a satisfying thud that sounds like an explanation but isn’t one. It is the terminus of inquiry, not the beginning. - Laissez Faire

By recognising the social orientation of the experience, we can take a step towards understanding the nature of FOMO and what it can do for us. Emotions that feel bad often serve important purposes. Anger can help us realise when things are unjust, regret can motivate us to make amends. - Psyche

The discovery of this “problem-finding” creative process was a seminal moment in creativity research. In the decades since, countless researchers have shown that many of the most meaningful forms of real-world creativity and invention depend less on solving well-defined problems than on figuring out what the problem is in the first place. - Psychology Today

Named Ace, the robotic system developed by Sony AI, won three out of five matches against elite players, but lost the two it played against professionals, clawing back only one game in the seven contests. - The Guardian

This soul of yours has obviously come into existence with your body. Yet equally obviously it’s not made of bodily stuff. It lasts through the night when your body sleeps. It wanders off and leaves your body when you dream. - Aeon

“At its core, Artists Count consists of a $1.3 million fund, available to active artists in both San Diego and Tijuana. In addition, a companion study will focus on communities with the least access to resources, examining ‘the realities, challenges, and economic impact of working artists’ on both sides of the border.” - SanDiegoRed

He complained that the 2,030-foor by 167-foot pool, which was built in 1922 between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, “never looked great” because the stone on the bottom of the pool was “not really meant to be a stone that's underwater for that much of a period of time.” - The Independent

But with the boom came backlash: the suspicion that biennales were above all an excuse for a tote-bag-wearing international art crowd to descend on a city for a few weeks, leaving behind a large carbon footprint but little meaningful engagement with the local population. - The Guardian

“A theme emerged at virtually every stop: The water damage was real, apparent in some places through discoloration and pooling. Some pieces of equipment, including several 800-ton chillers that help cool the building, are decades old and need replacement. And the building is so massive ... that repairs will require time to finish.” -...

“We need a NATO for universities,” said Lee Bollinger, president emeritus of Columbia University. “When one university is attacked, everyone commits to coming to their defense. We need less capacity of individual institutions to make decisions about where we should go in defending universities and more power in a system.” - InsideHigherEd

“I can’t wait for the judge to get hit with a $45 ‘Verdict Convenience Fee,’ a $30 ‘Gavel Processing Fee,’ and an $80 ‘Digital Print-at-Home Ruling Surcharge,” a Reddit user cracked. (After the verdict, Live Nation said in a statement, “The jury’s verdict is not the last word on this matter.") - The New Yorker

Under the arrangement, the Saudi government would have provided the Met with $200 million in badly needed funding in exchange for the company performing a three-week season at the Royal Diriyah Opera House just outside Riyadh each February for the next three years. - The New York Times

Tech companies with billion-dollar valuations are extracting value from copyrighted music on the internet and selling it as a service: making music-making easier and, they claim, more democratic. But creatives have always found ways to democratize and innovate music and art, long before tech companies tried to bite their flow. - Music Radar

This year’s list is organized by the “No Music for Genocide” initiative, which also calls on anti-Israel artists to have their music geo-blocked inside Israel. - Times of Israel

His contract, which was to expire in summer 2027, has been extended through the 2031-32 season, and the Venezuelan-born conductor’s title is now Music and Artistic Director. (He is also music director of the San Diego Symphony.) - Gramophone

The initial court ruling "was subsequently appealed, overturned and referred on several occasions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), resulting in a three-decade long legal battle over the regulation of sampling in Europe." -NME

“(John) Dowland was well regarded; (he) was also well-connected, cosmopolitan and at times unusually well-remunerated for his work. Yet his musical expression was dominated by melancholy. With that imbalance comes the sense that Dowland had an acute understanding of his place in the musical market of the time.” - The New York Times

This year’s prize arrives at a moment when sculpture, funding structures and art education are becoming unusually entangled. - The Conversation

The Venice Biennale‘s jury said on Thursday that it would not consider nations whose leaders have been charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court—a move that effectively tosses Israel and Russia out of the running for the top honors at the world’s greatest art exhibition. - ARTnews

“Another day, another setback for Berlin‘s long awaited Berlin Modern, as moisture damage in the building’s shell and microbial contamination in other parts of the structure have forced the postponement of the museum to 2030. … The latest delay adds approximately eight months to the construction timeline for the Herzog & de Meuron-designed building.” - ARTnews

“The European Commission has informed the Biennale foundation of the (€2 million/$2.3 million) funding cut over three years, and the Biennale has 30 days to defend its decision to include Russia for the first time since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.” - AP

NEON goes out on a high note after 14 successful years of exhibitions, performances and initiatives that enriched Greece’s art scene. - Ekathimerini

V&A East’s boxy, beige facade, pierced by pointed shards of window, was concocted by Irish architects O’Donnell + Tuomey and has received mixed reviews. Its futuristic appeal does, however, help establish a distinct identity from that of the original V&A in west London—an ornate Victorian shrine to the history of design and the decorative arts. - Artnet

While these common gripes point to eccentric speech patterns, they don’t point to grammatical annihilation. English has weathered far worse. … English has lost almost all of the more complex linguistic trappings it was born with to become the language we know and — at least, sometimes — love today.” - The Conversation

Both Newcastle and Adelaide made the decision to invite Abdel-Fattah but only one imploded over it. So what went differently for Rosemarie Milsom? - The Guardian

Books do not create a higher form of conversation but instead allow for a unique ‘fruitful miracle of a communication in the midst of solitude’. Great writers do not reveal to us the admirable depth of their minds: they guide us in cultivating the ability to make sense of words, and things. - Aeon

Butler was not happy with her 1978 novel Survivor, and she forbade any reprint of it. But her estate, along with her publisher and agent, agreed that “to deprive readers of the ability to read any of Butler's works would simply be unjust and unfair.” - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)

“I believe AI can simultaneously solve the problem of not knowing what to read and the difficulty of maintaining consistent reading habits.” Subscription-based reading platform Millie’s Library is taking things a step further by integrating a conversational AI chatbot into its platform. - Korea Joongang Daily

“Young Adult” fiction, despite its name, is aimed at teenagers; the "New Adult” category covers actual young adults, 18 to 24 or so. Four of the Big Five US publishers have now launched imprints dedicated to that audience. The subject matter is mostly romance, though publishers hope to expand beyond that. - Publishers Weekly

Maybe the middle ground was 45 days. Because at CinemaCon 2026, every single studio, not just Universal, reiterated its commitment to windows of at least that length. - TheWrap (Yahoo!)

“Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav‘s compensation tied to the company’s pending merger with Paramount was rejected by an eye-opening 82% of shareholders.” Unfortunately, that vote is non-binding. - Deadline

“The ‘challenge grant’ requires $1 million to be used per year for three years, on the condition that the network retains its PBS membership and that the foundation matches every dollar with contributions from other donors.” The state network’s board voted in December to separate from PBS, then backtracked after pushback. - Arkansas Advocate

Shareholders of Warner Bros. Discovery voted to sell the company to David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance for $31 a share in cash at a special virtual meeting Wednesday morning. The approval was a key hurdle in advancing the deal. - Deadline

Days after layoffs at Artnet and Artsy shook the art world, investor and owner Andrew E. Wolff has offered his clearest explanation yet for the cuts, framing them as part of a broader consolidation strategy already underway at the two companies. - ARTnews

This past January, Khaby Lame, a Senegalese-Italian who has 160 million followers for his Chaplin-esque silent TikTok shorts, signed a $975 billion deal with Hong Kong-based firm Rich Sparkle Holdings for use of his likeness in AI-generated videos. Three months later, Lame largely disavows Rich Sparkle, whose share price is plummeting. - TheWrap (MSN)

To allow for genuinely open, honest exchange, the rules at the Creators in Dance Summit, which hosted 75 choreographers across numerous genres, were simple but strict: “You cannot name individuals or institutions, and you can use what you received at the summit, but you cannot name who said it.” - Dance Magazine

“Sara Mearns was missing her cues. She couldn’t hear what her dance partner was saying from across the studio. She was late for her entrances because the music sounded too soft. … Now, ‘I feel like it’s a whole new chapter of my life,’ Mearns, 40, said in an interview.” - AP

“The main studio of the École des Sables (in) Senegal defies every convention of what a professional dance space should be. It has no sprung floor, no mirrored walls, ... no walls at all. The dancers work outdoors, under a large, tented canopy. … The floor is unusually treacherous: It’s sand.” - The New...

Ballet BC is an impressive troupe, but it has long specialized in contemporary work; it’s been more than a decade since there was a resident company focused on classical and neoclassical style. That’s why choreographer Joshua Beamish founded Ballet Vancouver, which debuts this week. - The Georgia Straight (Vancouver)

Actors, musicians and politicians in sequined ball gowns and floral off-the-shoulder dresses ascended the steps of the New York Public Library’s regal main branch on Friday night to pose between the lions before the Martha Graham Dance Company’s 100th anniversary gala. - The New York Times

“Experts say the issue is awareness, not admiration. Performances are sometimes staged in unsuitable settings or paired with incorrect costumes — choices that, however unintentional, erode the dance’s sacred meaning.” - Cambodianess

“The Stage understands the Bridge Theatre, which opened in October 2017 and was founded by former National Theatre director Nicholas Hytner and executive director Nick Starr, could be sold as part of a process that began with an investment opportunity being launched.” - The Stage

“One of the questions I always have is whether Willy is having flashbacks, or if he has some kind of dementia. … Miller said very clearly that they’re not flashbacks — Willie is not revisiting his past, but the past and the present absolutely exist simultaneously. He called them concurrences.” - TheaterMania

After 42 years, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater (WHAT) is suspending its operations as of June 1. The director cited “steadily rising costs in an increasingly challenging philanthropic environment” since the company’s post-COVID reopening in 2021. - TheaterMania

“Porchlight Music Theatre, an Equity-affiliated, nonprofit Chicago company founded in 1994, will stage its full upcoming 2026-27 season at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theatre, a historic venue in Lincoln Park that has been mostly dark since the pandemic.” - Chicago Tribune (Yahoo!)

More people are going to the theatre than ever before. In 2025, over 37 million people attended theatres across the UK, while the West End alone welcomed a record-breaking 17.64 million theatregoers, almost three million more than Broadway. But behind the success story lies a quieter reality: the financial model that sustains British theatre is under growing strain....

“As migrants faced uncertainty, displacement and made frequent attempts to cross into the United Kingdom, a robust arts community began to take shape inside the Good Chance Theatre. Residents staged stand-up comedy, music, storytelling, kung fu, circus acts and theater performances.” - Sahan Journal

Thomas was also an example of an artistic leader serving as a guiding star for an entire geographic area - emphasizing the importance of audiences being, as it were, cultural locavores. - San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo)

“Sarah Wedl-Wilson has stood down over a funding scandal involving the irregular distribution of €2.6 million in public money for programmes to fight antisemitism. As culture senator for the Berlin regional government, Wedl-Wilson had already sacked a state secretary in her department, Oliver Friederici, over the affair this week.” - The Guardian

“He was widely considered one of the most distinguished American conductors of his generation” — most notably for his 25 years as music director of the San Francisco Symphony. “In addition to making more than 100 recordings of both rare and familiar classical repertory, he created valuable instructional series for television and radio.” - The Washington Post (Yahoo)

She gave her first recital at four and performed her first concerto at seven, going on to tour with the Boston Pops, play for five U.S. presidents, and record 10 LPs. She developed a new audience with Beethoven videos during the 2020 lockdowns and recorded her last disk at age 97. - BBC

Life in chess has always been a struggle, never more so than today. During the two-year battle for the 2024 world chess championship, I saw tantrums, I saw tears, I heard one top grandmaster muse about leaving the game for a career in fashion. - The Walrus

Over 60 years he wrote or co-wrote more than 50 books and fronted several hundred hours of television, starting in 1956 with the British children’s series Zoo Time. … He was an acknowledged authority on mammal behavior, including that of humans, and maintained a separate career as a surrealist painter. - The Guardian