Today's Stories

What I saw From Inside The Kennedy Center Meltdown

Palermo also said Trump's Truth Social post about handing control back to Congress sounded like an attempt to distance himself from an institution. He adds that he believes the Trump administration has driven the center into bankruptcy. - NPR

The Problem With Responses To AI Creations

At its core, this is a debate about values. A short story implies a human artistic act with intentional imaginative labour—the exact practice whose future is now at risk if the literary world doesn’t take a stand. - The Walrus

Will People Embrace The First AI Art Museum?

Dataland — a museum built with artificial intelligence — arrives as debates explode across socio-political lines about the impact of the advancing technology on our culture, cognition, communication, economy, environment and careers, including in the arts. - Los Angeles Times

Tired Of Streaming, People Are Turning To Physical Media

"Ten years ago, the average age of people walking in here were, 40, 50, 60. Now 20 and 22, we are even getting teenagers." - ABC

States Say They Will Sue To Block Paramount/Warner Deal

If Paramount doesn’t lock this down by October, it’s on the hook to pay shareholders a near-$6.9 million daily fee. - Gizmodo

Paramount Launches A Games Studio

Paramount Games Studio launches as Paramount Skydance is awaiting regulatory approval on its pending acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. WBD has its own in-house video game studio, which produces titles based on Harry Potter, “Game of Thrones,” the DC Universe and more WBD IP. - Variety

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Sotheby’s Tried To Quietly Sell A Pollock For $50M. It Didn’t Go Well

According to one source familiar with the effort, Sotheby’s could not find enough bidders to get the auction off the ground. The auction was ultimately called off, though it remains unclear whether the painting was returned to Glimcher, sold privately, or remains with Sotheby’s. - ARTnews

Audiobook Sales Up 9 Percent In 2025, To $2.4B

General fiction accounted for the largest share of audiobook revenue at 27%, with science fiction/fantasy, romance, and mysteries/thrillers/suspense rounding out the top genres. The fastest-growing genres in 2025 were humor, general fiction, and children's, including YA. - Publishers Weekly

Trying To Remember Which Memes Were Important Back In The Day?

The British Film Institute has your back. - The New York Times

Minneapolis Gets A Massive Land Art Mural

Franco-Swiss artist Saype “said he decided to pick Minneapolis for the project during the federal immigration enforcement surge after seeing neighbors helping each other.” - Minnesota Public Radio

Why Is Philly’s Gem Of A Bridge So Badly Neglected?

“The University Avenue Bridge was designed and built as a prime specimen of the City Beautiful aesthetic. … Today, the bridge that connects West Philadelphia and Grays Ferry is a monument to decrepitude.” - Philadelphia Inquirer

What’s Gone Deeply Wrong With Social Media

“Something seems to have broken down in the functionality of the internet, between Facebook’s erratic algorithm and Google search results now headed by fabricated, AI-generated content and sponsored ads.” - El País English

When Los Angeles Turns The Cameras On Itself

“There's something really ugly and beautiful about Los Angeles, I think, and that's what these films capture - the idea that anything could happen here, that people could become overnight famous in LA for something they did really well or something really horrible.” - NPR

The New School In Manhattan Lays Off Nearly 90 People

It’s a body blow to the institution’s humanities sectors. “All 19 impacted faculty members were in the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts and the New School for Social Research.” - Hyperallergic

Vinyl Is Back, But It’s Also Polluting The Planet

“Modern vinyl records are crafted with PVC resin, which makes up more than 75% of an average disk The synthetic polymer itself is made of chlorine and fossil fuel-derived feed stock.” Um, yikes? - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)

Eight Great Moments From The Tonys Stage

Bernadette Peters, Neil Patrick Harris, P!nk, Bowen Yang, André DeShields, and Leslie Odom Jr. added extra glam to a star-studded night - one that also featured strong performances from the casts of Schmigadoon! and Ragtime. - Boston Globe

What Steven Spielberg Has Taught Critic Wesley Morris

“Thank you for daring and caring and trying to show us the light, to keep the lights on, as the artistic system you worshiped and symbolized and helped redefine renounces itself.” - The New York Times

Do We Really Care If Memoirs Are Truthful?

“The facts may not totally line up, but the emotions are all present and accounted for.” - Washington Post (MSN)

At The Tonys, Schmigadoon Wins Best New Musical; Liberation Wins Best New Play

Schmigadoon! winning might give it an economic boost, though Liberation has closed. Other big winners are Ragtime and Death of a Salesman. - The New York Times

Writers, Directors, Critics, And Superfans Choose Their Favorite Spielberg Films

“He came of age in the American new wave era but in spirit belonged neither to that nor fully to Hollywood’s golden age studio system that preceded it.” - The Guardian (UK)

By Topic

Good AI? Model Proposes Thousands Of Designs, Test Them, Then Adapts

The AI model proposed study designs, and robots carried them out and fed the data back to the model for the next round. Humans set the goal, and the machines did much of the work in the lab, cutting the cost of producing a desired protein by 40 percent. - Singularity Hub

Lessons From The Enhanced Games

Trying to break world records remains a high-risk, high-reward strategy for Enhanced. The event proved that breaking records is incredibly difficult, even with PEDs and technological enhancements such as swimming supersuits, both banned in traditional sport. - The Conversation

If You Don’t Use AI It’s Tough To Spot AI

One of the problems with AI use seeping out of business and science writing and into the ‘literary’ world is that literary editors may be the worst equipped to identify AI writing.  - London Review of Books

Criticism In The Age Of AI: It’s Superfluous

The early parts of the story of how the humanities turned against “the human” are well told in two intellectual histories. - Hedgehog Review

Are The Arts Simply Incompatible With Right Wing Government?

A belief that what is good will be paid for by consumers, and that the state should stand back and play as small a part as possible. Applying this to the arts means that they are not a public good but instead a sector that should be shaped by market principles, competition, and measurable returns. - The Big Idea

Study: Humans Need “Semantic Knowledge” To Innovate

The research demonstrates that our “semantic knowledge”, the internal cognitive map of how concepts connect and apply to one another, is the absolute precondition for meaningful invention. - Neuroscience

What I saw From Inside The Kennedy Center Meltdown

Palermo also said Trump's Truth Social post about handing control back to Congress sounded like an attempt to distance himself from an institution. He adds that he believes the Trump administration has driven the center into bankruptcy. - NPR

Will People Embrace The First AI Art Museum?

Dataland — a museum built with artificial intelligence — arrives as debates explode across socio-political lines about the impact of the advancing technology on our culture, cognition, communication, economy, environment and careers, including in the arts. - Los Angeles Times

What’s Gone Deeply Wrong With Social Media

“Something seems to have broken down in the functionality of the internet, between Facebook’s erratic algorithm and Google search results now headed by fabricated, AI-generated content and sponsored ads.” - El País English

The New School In Manhattan Lays Off Nearly 90 People

It’s a body blow to the institution’s humanities sectors. “All 19 impacted faculty members were in the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts and the New School for Social Research.” - Hyperallergic

A New Documentary Shows Just How Much Movie-Makers Can’t Handle The Reality Of Michael Jackson

Capitalizing on his name is one things, as the fictional Michael heads to a billion-dollar take at the box office, but Netflix is also, rather disgustingly, cashing in. - HuffPost

The Effort To Save The Kennedy Center From This President Is Far From Over

“Fundamental questions about the institution’s leadership, finances, and artistic direction remain in flux. ‘It’s not clear if there’s any money to stay open with. … And it’s also not clear who’s going to be in charge.’” - The Atlantic

Vinyl Is Back, But It’s Also Polluting The Planet

“Modern vinyl records are crafted with PVC resin, which makes up more than 75% of an average disk The synthetic polymer itself is made of chlorine and fossil fuel-derived feed stock.” Um, yikes? - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)

An Appreciation For Kanya King, Who Changed And ‘Revolutionized’ Black British Culture

The founder of the Mobo Awards was “engaging, self-effacing, funny, modest. Someone with so much to brag about but who was so humble. Her superpower, it turns out, was kindness and warmth.” - The Guardian (UK)

The Story Of Hong Kong’s Popular Music Can Tell The Tale Of The City’s History

Cantopop is "predominantly Hong Kong music that blends Chinese and western pop sensibilities.” - The Guardian (UK)

The Kennedy Center’s Lawsuit Against Musician Who Refused To Play Christmas Eve Is Tossed Out

“The judge, Tanya M. Jones Bosier, wrote that the Kennedy Center failed to prove that Chuck Redd, a jazz musician and a host of the institution’s holiday program, had signed a contract to perform as he had in years past.” - The New York Times

Meet One Of The American Revolution’s Leading Composers, William Billings

The self-taught composer, who lived in Boston during the revolution years, published six books of music, with over 340 choral works. In addition to the Psalm settings and fuguing tunes he’s remembered for today, he wrote what may be America’s first protest song — in response to the Boston Massacre of 1770. - The...

The Music Industry’s Music Streaming Problem

The industry is not short of superfans. It never has been. It is short of the infrastructure and the will to treat them as customers. - Music Business Worldwide

Sotheby’s Tried To Quietly Sell A Pollock For $50M. It Didn’t Go Well

According to one source familiar with the effort, Sotheby’s could not find enough bidders to get the auction off the ground. The auction was ultimately called off, though it remains unclear whether the painting was returned to Glimcher, sold privately, or remains with Sotheby’s. - ARTnews

Minneapolis Gets A Massive Land Art Mural

Franco-Swiss artist Saype “said he decided to pick Minneapolis for the project during the federal immigration enforcement surge after seeing neighbors helping each other.” - Minnesota Public Radio

Why Is Philly’s Gem Of A Bridge So Badly Neglected?

“The University Avenue Bridge was designed and built as a prime specimen of the City Beautiful aesthetic. … Today, the bridge that connects West Philadelphia and Grays Ferry is a monument to decrepitude.” - Philadelphia Inquirer

The UK’s Heirloom Ceramics Sector Is In Deep Trouble

“The UK ceramics sector employs 20,000 people, half of them in the West Midlands, and is regarded as an indispensable to the economy” - but repeated blows are breaking even the ceramics for the defense sector. - The Guardian (UK)

Archaeologists Are Discovering Centuries’ Worth Of Paris History Underneath Notre-Dame

“Among the hundreds of objects already found: a fourth-century coin stamped with the face of the Emperor Constantine, and shards of medieval pottery painted on the inside with marks no expert has yet deciphered — like a modern Da Vinci Code.” - AP

Miami’s Bass Museum Of Art Creates New Artistic Director Position, Hires Philippe Vergne

“Philippe Vergne, the former director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Dia Art Foundation in New York, has been named to the newly created position of Artistic Director and Chief Curator and will work alongside Executive Director Silvia Karman Cubiña … as her ‘thought partner’.” - The Miami Herald (MSN)

The Problem With Responses To AI Creations

At its core, this is a debate about values. A short story implies a human artistic act with intentional imaginative labour—the exact practice whose future is now at risk if the literary world doesn’t take a stand. - The Walrus

Audiobook Sales Up 9 Percent In 2025, To $2.4B

General fiction accounted for the largest share of audiobook revenue at 27%, with science fiction/fantasy, romance, and mysteries/thrillers/suspense rounding out the top genres. The fastest-growing genres in 2025 were humor, general fiction, and children's, including YA. - Publishers Weekly

Do We Really Care If Memoirs Are Truthful?

“The facts may not totally line up, but the emotions are all present and accounted for.” - Washington Post (MSN)

Sure, Write What You Know, But Write What Scares You

“When you sense a story, or glimpse a scene, or feel a character coming to life, you stop, step back, consider what in that might scare you most. … Let that dread jolt you loose. Then—and this is key for me—find a way to make it worse.” - LitHub

A New Edith Wharton Story Highlights The Human Inability To Deal With War

“The story, on two typed and undated manuscripts that appeared to be different drafts, centers on a dinner party hosted at the same table where, earlier in the war, an army surgeon had performed amputations.” - The New York Times

Mary Shelley’s Sisters

“Fanny’s few surviving letters testify to her interests in poetry, education, art history, literature, current affairs, social politics, and the wellbeing of her extended family. … She counted Aaron Burr (former USA vice president), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (poet), Humphry Davy (scientist), Charles and Mary Lamb (writers)” as acquaintances. - LitHub

Tired Of Streaming, People Are Turning To Physical Media

"Ten years ago, the average age of people walking in here were, 40, 50, 60. Now 20 and 22, we are even getting teenagers." - ABC

States Say They Will Sue To Block Paramount/Warner Deal

If Paramount doesn’t lock this down by October, it’s on the hook to pay shareholders a near-$6.9 million daily fee. - Gizmodo

Paramount Launches A Games Studio

Paramount Games Studio launches as Paramount Skydance is awaiting regulatory approval on its pending acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. WBD has its own in-house video game studio, which produces titles based on Harry Potter, “Game of Thrones,” the DC Universe and more WBD IP. - Variety

Trying To Remember Which Memes Were Important Back In The Day?

The British Film Institute has your back. - The New York Times

When Los Angeles Turns The Cameras On Itself

“There's something really ugly and beautiful about Los Angeles, I think, and that's what these films capture - the idea that anything could happen here, that people could become overnight famous in LA for something they did really well or something really horrible.” - NPR

Writers, Directors, Critics, And Superfans Choose Their Favorite Spielberg Films

“He came of age in the American new wave era but in spirit belonged neither to that nor fully to Hollywood’s golden age studio system that preceded it.” - The Guardian (UK)

The French Open Finals Courts Get Choreographed Ballet Dances For Some Reason

Choreographed by Benjamin Millepied, no less. “Tennis doesn’t have a strong tradition of opening numbers — and certainly not of dance routines.” - The New York Times

A Century On, Martha Graham’s Modern Dance Vision Still Matters Intensely

“Her choreography landed like a bomb in a landscape where vaudeville and ballet ruled the day.” - The New York Times

Lucinda Childs On How She Keeps Her Working Pace After More Than 50 Years

“I just feel fortunate. I’m still running around and everybody keeps reminding me that I’m 85. I don’t think about that so much. I do work every day. I work out every day. ... It’s the first thing I do and that sort of keeps me together physically.” - The Brooklyn Rail

The Japanese Dancers Who Have Chosen To Work In Russia

"I love Russian ballet and always wanted to become a dancer, but there is no national ballet school in Japan, so I chose Russia," says his compatriot Haruka Takemi, 20, who has lived in Russia for six years. - AFP (MSN)

Venues In England Are Scared To Program South Asian Dance: Arts Council Report

Managers of smaller venues fear that they would lose too much money presenting unfamiliar performers in an unfamiliar genre, said the report, which also flags the lack of university- or conservatory-level training in South Asian classical dance forms in England. - Hyphen (UK)

Artists Say They’ll Sue Venice Biennale If They’re Included In Public-Vote Prizes

“Dozens of artists participating in this year’s Venice Biennale contemporary art show are threatening legal action if their names are not removed from the ballot allowing visitors to vote for the best national pavilion and overall participants in the absence of a jury” — they all resigned — “to award the prestigious Golden Lions.” - AP

Eight Great Moments From The Tonys Stage

Bernadette Peters, Neil Patrick Harris, P!nk, Bowen Yang, André DeShields, and Leslie Odom Jr. added extra glam to a star-studded night - one that also featured strong performances from the casts of Schmigadoon! and Ragtime. - Boston Globe

At The Tonys, Schmigadoon Wins Best New Musical; Liberation Wins Best New Play

Schmigadoon! winning might give it an economic boost, though Liberation has closed. Other big winners are Ragtime and Death of a Salesman. - The New York Times

The Strangest Skills 38 Tony Nominees For Their Roles

“Broadway actors need to shine in all sorts of ways. Some are obvious (mastering an accent). Some are surprises (mastering a horse).” - The New York Times

The 1980s Centered A Neon-Colored End Of The World, And Now It’s All Coming To A Theatre Near You

Revisiting the 1980s, a decade whose “reality pulsed with cultural Balkanization, financial erosion, systemic disinvestment, and televised neurosis, the American theatre conjures a cultural imagination crowded with the outsiders, monsters, con artists, hungry things, and chosen kindred of the analog twilight.” - American Theatre

The Four Musicals That Are Counting On Broadway Shows Finally Turning A Corner

“There's a big reason it takes years for a fresh musical to land on Broadway. Cracking any story is a painstaking process. The same goes for crafting a songbook. Getting the two to coalesce? It's a delicate alchemy.” - Washington Post (Yahoo)

Who’s Going To Win At The Tonys Tonight?

Can Jellicle Ball beat out the universally loved Ragtime? Will Lesley Manville’s British chops beat out Susannah Flood’s incredible performance in Liberation? Find out soon! - Vulture

What Steven Spielberg Has Taught Critic Wesley Morris

“Thank you for daring and caring and trying to show us the light, to keep the lights on, as the artistic system you worshiped and symbolized and helped redefine renounces itself.” - The New York Times

Anthony Stewart Head, Star Of Buffy The Vampire Slayer And Ted Lasso, Has Died At 72

“One of his most formative experiences, he said, was seeing Tim Curry in the musical The Rocky Horror Show while in drama school as a teenager. He told The Guardian that it ‘ignited something in my core.’” - The New York Times

What Marjane Satrapi Did For Iranian Women

“Satrapi was a spokesperson for our trauma, our upbringing and our particular flavour of shame, repression and outspokenness. She made us legible to our western peers in our 20s and 30s, and I was sure she would do it again in middle age.” - The Guardian (UK)

Veteran Character Actor James Hardy Stabbed To Death

“The 81-year-old actor was found in the front yard of his home in Tarzana, California, at 9.30am on Wednesday. ... He was unconscious and had multiple stab wounds to the chest. The actor’s girlfriend’s son, Michael Gledhill, 44, has been arrested and charged on suspicion of murder, with bail set at $2 million.” - The...

Marjane Satrapi, Creator Of “Persepolis,” Is Dead At 56

She achieved international fame for the graphic memoir of her girlhood in Khomeini’s Iran, and then for co-directing the animated film adaptation. Based in Paris, she went on to direct other films, animated and live-action, and publish graphic works, and remained a lifelong advocate for the rights of Iranians, particularly women. - Deadline

Carl Schachter, Influential Music Theorist, 93

His groundbreaking work as a music theorist primarily advanced Schenkerian theory by integrating rhythmic, metric, and harmonic dimensions into linear voice-leading analysis, while emphasizing how these elements interact to form structural coherence in tonal music. - The Violin Channel

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At The Tonys, Schmigadoon Wins Best New Musical; Liberation Wins Best New Play

Schmigadoon! winning might give it an economic boost, though Liberation has closed. Other big winners are Ragtime and Death of a Salesman. - The New York Times

Who’s Going To Win At The Tonys Tonight?

Can Jellicle Ball beat out the universally loved Ragtime? Will Lesley Manville’s British chops beat out Susannah Flood’s incredible performance in Liberation? Find out soon! - Vulture

A Century On, Martha Graham’s Modern Dance Vision Still Matters Intensely

“Her choreography landed like a bomb in a landscape where vaudeville and ballet ruled the day.” - The New York Times

The Effort To Save The Kennedy Center From This President Is Far From Over

“Fundamental questions about the institution’s leadership, finances, and artistic direction remain in flux. ‘It’s not clear if there’s any money to stay open with. … And it’s also not clear who’s going to be in charge.’” - The Atlantic

National Symphony Is Paralyzed Because Kennedy Center Still Hasn’t Approved Its Budget

The National Symphony Orchestra’s upcoming season is in jeopardy because the Kennedy Center has not approved its budget, according to officials familiar with the situation, depriving the ensemble of the money it needs to book venues and soloists, announce its season and sell subscriptions. - The Washington Post

Trump Administration’s Plans To Cancel Student Loans For Almost All College Arts Programs

Yale University’s master’s programs in visual arts and music would fail. Harvard University’s master’s degree in museum studies would fail. The Juilliard School’s undergraduate and graduate programs in music would fail. - The New York Times

Trump Administration Wants To Judge Higher Ed Institutions On Graduates’ Earnings, Posing Dangers For Arts Schools

“The Department of Education has proposed a new ‘accountability’ system that would judge higher-education programs largely by graduates’ earnings, ... a test that music, visual arts, and filmmaking programs would, by their nature, be likely to fail." Programs whose graduates don't meet earnings benchmarks could become ineligible for federal student loans. - ARTnews

Speight Jenkins, Director Who Transformed Seattle Opera, Has Died At 89

Over his 31 years as general manager, he made the company into one of the most respected in the country and, said some observers, the Wagner capital of the U.S. It’s easy to forget that he began his career as a New York music critic and hosted Met Opera telecasts. - MyNorthwest.com

A Top Celebrity-Profile Writer Tries To Profile Someone Who Doesn’t Actually Exist: AI Actress Tilly Norwood

Taffy Brodesser-Akner: “Did I mention that in addition to being just a computer, she’s also kind of a bitch?” - The New York Times Magazine

If We’re Really In A Reading ‘Crisis,’ Here Are Some Solutions

It’s not about the phones. Instead, as a society, we have to remove structural barriers - and build new libraries. "A democracy needs its people to read, and it is society’s job to make that possible.” - The New York Times

Even If Trump’s Name Comes Off The Kennedy Center, He Might Still Destroy It

“When the history of Trump’s second administration is written, the whole sorry Kennedy Center chapter will be key to understanding the chaos, cruelty and grotesque egotism of the president, as well as the bravery and determination of those who resisted and persevered.” - Washington Post (Yahoo)

Tony Leung Was Ready To Quit Acting Out Of Boredom, And Then Wong Kar-Wai Came Along

“From the first day I met him, when I was going through a period of frustration, I knew we would make special films, that he would elevate me to another level. He pressed my acting button again.” - El País English

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