Elif Shafak's latest book "arose out of our own historical moment, which Shafak has dubbed 'The age of three As: Angst, Anger and AI.'" - The Guardian (UK)

If these were the fantasies of teenage boys obsessed with science fiction, we could laugh them off. They are not. These are the foundational beliefs of the most powerful people in the world, who are mobilizing trillions of dollars to turn them into reality. - The Atlantic

Are certain questions closed to the human mind? Are there truths about the world that we can never know? - Aeon

“We have everything we need to be happy,” the hero of Fahrenheit 451 observes, “but we aren’t happy.” Maybe that’s the ultimate lever to pull: the growing awareness that our devices are exhausting and eroding us. - The American Scholar

We have fallen into habits that are steadily deskilling the human body, eroding capacities honed by evolution to support our wellbeing as we move through the world. Some of these capacities are weakening through disuse: we have come to rely on our phones, for example, and now, increasingly, on AI. - Aeon

"My pessimism is reinforced by the zero-sum view of economics that typically accompanies the zero-sum view of moral agency around colonialism. A major piece of evidence for the ‘colonisation explains everything’ thesis is economic." - 3 Quarks Daily

Sherry Turkle: An AI is "really not afraid of death, it’s not afraid of illness, it's not afraid of pain, it doesn't love its children, and it doesn't care if you kill yourself or make dinner." - Wired

In Limoges, the city hall burned. At the actual protests, demonstrators "complained about inflation sent soaring over 3% by the war in the Middle East. Others slammed perceived police brutality in student protests that have gripped France over the past four weeks." - Le Monde English

Hunh: "Distributor Bleecker Street was informed Friday afternoon a 'permanent suspension' was coming regarding any ads it tried to buy, and the company was unable to do so shortly after." - The Hollywood Reporter

The report shows that NCF, with about eight hundred students, had both the largest administrative personnel and the highest operating expenses of any public college in Florida. - n+1

Since April 2025, two months after Trump’s takeover, Rick Canny has been a senior adviser to the Center, which has now amended his consulting contract to appoint him artistic director “in a designated executive consulting capacity.” Memos indicate that Canny wants authority to make a lot of changes. - The Washington Post (MSN)

“The Market Street Arts & Theater District will initially focus on the 900 block of Market Street between Fifth and Sixth streets, with plans to activate one to two vacant or underused spaces; add lighting, banners and public art as part of beautification efforts; fund pop-up performances and other arts programming.” - San Francisco...

His neurologist says performing is out for now. "He describes the combination of extreme sound volume, lighting, stress and energy as the concern. Further testing, he adds, will help determine whether he can return." - The Hollywood Reporter

Mao Weitao has performed in Yue opera (the form from the city of Shaoxing) for almost 50 years, and she’s one of very few performers in traditional Chinese theater to have achieved mainstream celebrity. And she’s done that in part by upending the conventions of the genre. - Sixth Tone

We already knew that the cost would be huge — €1.15 billion for the overhaul and a temporary venue at the former Tempelhof Airport — but Philharmonie management announced that the project is expected to last from 2032 to 2040. (And that’s before overruns.) - AP

The musicians say that, in contract negotiations, management has rejected any cost-of-living increases in pay. (Their salaries have been flat for the past four years.) The company’s season begins on Halloween with the world premiere of The Many Deaths of Laila Starr by composer Kamala Sankaram and librettist Minita Gandhi. - Minnesota Public Radio

Well, so says librettist Royce Vavrek. The subject matter — Abraham Lincoln grieving his young son Willie, who is stuck in the place between death and rebirth — would seem grim. So Vavrek and composer Missy Mazzoli took care to include humor and even joy. - AP

"LA Opera should be an identity, unmistakably, just be L.A. Never imitate any other opera capital in the world. We are not New York, Buenos Aires, Paris, Berlin, Vienna. So, what is L.A.? It’s creativity. It’s cinema, theater, visual art, technology, and all these together, that makes the LA Opera." - San Francisco Classical...

If you have miraculously missed most of the Kelly Clarkson/small business/rudeness cycle, it's back. The art bird at the center of the Brooklyn storm, once tagged at $15,000, now retails for $15 million. - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)

"Pilots looking to clock in flight hours and practice tricky turns can have a bit of fun by tracing the shapes of animals, words, phrases, or in Mr. McDaniel’s case, world-class art. Mr. McDaniel’s Instagram moniker is Pilot Picasso." - The New York Times

Otherwise, they likely would have been described as her father's work, or taken as simply someone from his atelier. - The New York Times

Though Brexit and reforms to wealthy international residents’ tax arrangements have damaged the Britain’s art market, the depth and quality of London’s midsize and smaller gallery offerings still give the city’s art scene an edge. - The New York Times

“The project is currently working toward an opening in 2029 and is in the technical preparatory stages for the bidding process,” a Pompidou spokesperson tells The Art Newspaper. - The Art Newspaper

Police are still looking for the Louvre’s stolen trove of 19th-century jewelry, though French authorities arrested eight people in connection with the crime last October. But the subsequent heists across Europe suggest the Louvre heist wasn’t a one-off and might have emboldened copycats. - The Wall Street Journal

"The prize is open to unpublished manuscripts, with the option of submitting under a pseudonym, and Allende entered under the name Luz Ventura, with the fictional title Los que faltan." - The Guardian (UK)

“The Ukrainian response has been a renewal of patriotism and engagement with national culture, along with enthusiastic defiance: the queues outside bookshops that formed in response to … the destruction, the orders that flooded in for e-books, or customers content to wait months for physical copies.” - The Bookseller (UK)

I’m not the only author to have found myself stuck in a Zoom book club with fake readers. Countless writers with published books have been receiving invitations from reading communities that start to unravel after a basic Google search. - The Dial

Because these scammers have hit on an M.O. to which writers are particularly susceptible, that’s why. And there are a lot of hopeful writers out there, so the scammers can ask for small amounts of money (making it look low-risk to the targets), and make bank on volume. - The Dial

the stylistic choice to write in lowercase is a dead horse that’s been beaten, flogged, and beaten again—what my generation calls ran through. and yet, it’s having a moment. i had to investigate. - Wired

Fragmentation is frequently associated with the crisis of representation in 20th-century literature. Carson reveals that the ancient textual tradition already contains discontinuities that resist the modern desire for completeness. - The Conversation

Says the new Sense and Sensibility's costume designer, "It was an amazing experience to try and fight those two sides, making historic accuracy marry up with how I wanted to give us a more modern take in the film." - Variety

CNN says the partnership would unlock “new pathways for audiences to access CNN’s unparalleled journalism while being compensated for the delivery and use of our unique intellectual property in connection with AI products.” - Variety

“The Public Media Bridge Fund has raised about $87 million and stabilized 186 public radio stations that serve about 30 million people in the United States. (Now begins) PMC’s new $38 million fundraising effort to help stations become more financially sustainable without federal funding.” - AP

You mean it’s not just to pump up the stock price? Well, … - Variety

The biggest driver of the BBC crisis is the cut in real-terms funding for its national, regional and local UK services. These are the services that largely account for licence payers’ willingness to pay the fee. The reduction in the real-terms funding of these services has been building up since 2010. - The Conversation

In an expected development, shareholders for both Fox Corp. and Roku voted to approve Fox’s $22 billion acquisition of the streaming-video platform company. - Variety

"Pithoprakta is a wrenching, urgent work that pushes ballet’s otherworldly quality to a darker dimension, both uncanny and mystical. This is no place for chiffon. It’s not polite." - The New York Times

“In the studio, Virtue has found new freedom in the ‘ability to get grounded with the floor,’ she says. ‘I’m not just gliding across the surface, but I’m actually using the floor as an impetus to step and move and turn.’” - Dance Magazine

Rosalía left audiences in awe with her Saturday Night Live performance of “Reliquia” over the weekend, appearing to stand en pointe for nearly four minutes while singing. But ballet professionals aren’t convinced she pulled off the feat without some theatrical assistance. And, surprisingly, they don’t seem to mind. - Consequence

The steps, known in Chinese as the “flash step”, “prodigal kicking the ball” and “black bear shaking fur,” took off from videos by professional dance instructors, and some people who are picking them up online (rather than in a class) are injuring themselves. - South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)

“There have long been ballet classes for children, and classes for adult beginners have grown in popularity. But there are relatively few designated spaces for serious former students to practice and perform at a high level, with no dreams of going pro.” Enter the Ballet Salon. - The New York Times

Two years ago, Adrian Danchig-Waring suffered a herniated disc which ended up completely dissolving into fluid, and an epidural injection led to a severe bacterial infection. He lost 25 pounds and the ability to walk. Then he made a deal with the universe ... - The New York Times

Possible? Maybe: "Davidson found sources for Puddletown’s business structure by looking backward, to the kind of cooperative arrangements used by first traveling commedia dell’arte companies to Shakespeare’s players, on down to late 19th and early century repertory troupes." Its first show is free. - Oregon ArtsWatch

Nobody quite knew what they had when 2011's first revival started. But "Sound of Music Live delivered an astounding 18 million-plus viewers — well past the hope internally that it would reach at least 10 million." - Variety

"However, there was no explanation given of exactly how a girl performing as a male character runs afoul of the more recent SB12, leaving only the implication that perhaps gender equality has been nixed under its provisions." - Downstage Center

Sir Ian McKellen is set to star in the European premier of a play in which he appears as a hologram. - BBC

Comedians now routinely give their audiences hours of new material every week, in exchange for subscription and advertising revenue that, while amounting to much less than what box offices and network sales departments once commanded, also goes more substantially and directly to the artists. - The New Yorker

Roundabout Theater Company had planned for next spring a large-scale Broadway revival of The Full Monty. That has been postponed, and Roundabout has scheduled a star-studded production of the Romanian-French absurdist playwright’s Rhinoceros, about a town whose inhabitants are turning into half-blind, ill-tempered horned pachyderms. - The New York Times

Nagy was "a prescient artist turned canny art dealer who brought the New York gallery system to India and contemporary Indian art to the world." - The New York Times

For 43 years, he wrote hundreds of reviews, profiles and features, first for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, then the Philadelphia Daily News and Inquirer. Music criticism was his second career: he worked for more than three decades as an electrical engineer for PECO, the region’s electricity and gas utility. - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Actor Alan Mandell, who died at 98, helped shape Los Angeles theater as a performer, director, administrator and arts supporter whose influence stretched from experimental stages to the Mark Taper Forum. - Los Angeles Times

Along with Leontyne Price, Shirley Verrett, and Grace Bumbry, Arroyo was part of the first generation of Black singers to become opera stars on both sides of the Atlantic. A frequent guest on television talk shows, she was arguably the most personally beloved of the four. - The New York Times

When we read her work, we come to understand her in part through her acts of self-discovery, how, not unlike Montaigne, she comes to know herself by reckoning with the ways in which she may have remained unknown to herself. - The Point

Many of those myths — that he was an outsider to the publishing world, a loner, reluctant to do press — come from a 1992 feature article published in The New York Times Magazine which was, it turns out, quite misleading. (However, McCarthy really was a lousy boyfriend and husband.) - The New York...