That, basically, is what’s at stake in the low-grade shots fired (culturally speaking) across the internet about Michael. - Wired

“There was something very intentional to Girls, something that spoke to me. I could’ve connected with it. Instead, I rejected it dramatically. I wasn’t the only one.” - Slate

“Familiar things require less from us; they deliver the emotional payoff we expect. But repetition is also a way of revisiting earlier versions of ourselves.” - The Atlantic

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

“Ó Ceallacháin says many artists with disabilities feel as though they need to “]exist between ‘professional enough’ to be a ‘real’ artist for the Department of Culture and ‘disabled enough’ to receive support from the Department of Social Protection.” - Irish Times

And ‘unease’ is too kind a way to put it: “Everything left unsaid still lingers between the lines, sandwiched between the formidable melodies of his greatest hits, like toxic ooze leaking out from the middle of two slices of Wonderbread.” - Salon

Talk about the baby and the bathwater: "History needs stewards. The people of the Internet Archive do an outstanding job of preserving irreplaceable work and making it available to journalists and researchers.” - Nieman Lab

“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

“Nothing will halt the American addiction to handing out hunks of gilt. For all the supposed independent spirit of the republic, its citizens seem to secretly yearn for the honours system they abandoned in 1776.” - Irish Times

That is to say, “classical” music, and they’re not just for noobs - “There’s plenty for experts to enjoy, too, including detailed structural analyses of specific symphonies and the historical context behind them.” - The New York Times

“There is something in the embodied expression of a trained singer, on stage, in a room with other human beings, that no synthetic content can touch. But in an age when AI generates infinite aesthetic stuff at effectively zero cost, ‘irreplaceable’ needs to be made explicit.” - Opera America

"Opera has had to adapt to survive, and the truth is it has done so successfully.” - New York Sun

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

“Lego’s appeal, represented by its zillions of plastic blocks and many movies and TV series, transcends nations. It is one of the planet’s top-selling toy brands, and the toy’s singular pixelated appearance is instantly recognizable on any screen.” - Salon

“Visitor numbers have indeed recovered after falling from their peak in 2019, but finances were hit hard during the pandemic. Those financial headwinds have led to multiple rounds of redundancies, restructures and several ‘culture war’ battles.” - The Guardian (UK)

“The wide-ranging battle over control of the Indiana legacy — which included accusations of forgery, unpaid royalties, elder abuse and copyright infringement — clouded the market for the artist’s work.” - 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

Haruki Murakami has a new novel coming out, and the narrator is … what? A woman?! - LitHub

A fiction author gets a phone call from the government: “Jügler was asked to explain what historical source material he had consulted for Mayfly Season and which period he was planning to tackle in his next book.” - The Guardian (UK)

It’s rough in these reading streets. “Librarians across the country are fighting to maintain students’ access to books and to keep their jobs amid cuts to library programs and persistent efforts to restrict reading materials.” - Salon

That was for Amazing Stories, a magazine that published Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and other stories driven both by ideas and some possibly limited characters (who could, however, fill science books with their thoughts). - NPR

“There are about 70% more bookstores now than there were six years ago in the United States. After 20 years of declining numbers, they’re coming roaring back.” - Fast Company

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

But for practical knowledge? Your kids and grandkids know: It’s YouTube. - Slate

“The initial backlash to Cotoye v. Acme being shelved was clearly getting to WBD by November of 2023 when the studio began offering other production houses like Netflix, Amazon, and Paramount (more on this in a bit) the chance to buy the movie’s distribution rights.” - The Verge

No matter how much money it makes, Michael won’t be one of the good ones. - The Guardian (UK)

“Heated Rivalry became a bona fide great TV show, as worthy of Emmy consideration as shows about emergency medicine and international diplomacy and AI. But we’re not having that conversation for the dumbest of all possible reasons: the rules.” - Vulture

The contract, which is oddly long but helps shore up health care, earned the approval of more than 90 percent of the members who voted. - The Hollywood Reporter

Not to go all Holden Caulfield, but honesty, the fakery - it burns. Yes, including Mother Mary. - Variety

Sure, they’re relatively young, but that doesn’t avoid the energy and kinetic demands of high-energy dance and music performances. The stars “must train to develop stamina and prevent injuries while also maintaining the specific physique that their industry demands.” - The New York Times

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

Well, says the first Director’s Resident of Washington, D.C.’s huge Folger Shakespeare Library, you might need to look a little deeper. - NPR

“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....

The famous Torch Song Trilogy writer and performer: “I try something new every day, and you can try something new every day. … And some of it’s going to be great and some of it’s going to be terrible. But go out and have fun.” - The Guardian (UK)

Mark Swed: “MTT made music matter by making hope matter. He was, moreover, one of us. He achieved greatness though an epic amplification of a uniquely L.A. positivity in which grumpy became wistful.” - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)

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