The data revealed a consistent pattern: People who learned about a topic through an LLM versus web search felt that they learned less, invested less effort in subsequently writing their advice, and ultimately wrote advice that was shorter, less factual and more generic. - The Conversation

For many workers, both remote and in person, the workplace has quietly shifted into a site of constant measurement—where every pause can trigger scrutiny and where productivity is no longer just about results but continuous presence. - The Walrus

“Modernity is a machine for destroying limits." This attack on limits is legible in a host of current phenomena, including mass immigration, free-market orthodoxy, the rise of AI, overseas labor exploitation, the clear-cutting of rainforests, and new ideas about gender. - The Atlantic

What about all the painting, sculpture, photography, video, and performance that people still love to make and see? They’re not going away, but it’s become harder to create fine art in those media while remaining on cultural discourse’s cutting edge.  - Art in America

Although scientists are just beginning to study food noise as a concept, individuals who have taken a GLP-1 drug often report that it significantly reduces this distracting, ruminative thinking about food – a near-constant background hum of unwanted food-related thoughts, feelings and desires that may contribute to making poor food choices. - Psyche

This culture of self-quantification in the pursuit of self-improvement long predates social media, algorithms and targeted advertising. In fact, we can trace its roots back into the daily lives and preoccupations of the Victorian middle classes. - Aeon

The NYT and the Senator’s letter writer are going to be embarrassed. We have a balanced budget, we’ve raised a whopping $117 MILLION under @realDonaldTrump - and FIFA has paid millions plus covered all expenses (the NYT made a gigantic mistake by assuming FIFA was a rental not a major Sponsor)." - The Daily Beast

"We all know the trope of the starving artist," said researcher Gwendolyn Rugg, "But there's actually surprisingly little reliable data out there to back this up." Rugg helped gather and analyze the data from a new survey by the University of Chicago’s NORC and the Mellon Foundation. - NPR

“Senate Democrats are investigating the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts over its spending practices and booking deals involving political allies, accusing its leadership, installed by President Donald Trump, of ‘self-dealing, favoritism, and waste’ amid programming shifts and plummeting ticket sales.’” - The Washington Post (MSN)

“The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, which runs the popular Mütter Museum, announced plans on Monday to expand its footprint at 22nd and Chestnut Streets with a new, accessible entrance, larger galleries, educational and event spaces, an upgraded gift shop, and a renovated core gallery for the museum.” - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)

Many universities, not all, but many, were for a period of time deeply focused on identity diversity, and really not so focused on viewpoint diversity or belief diversity. I think there’s a danger of a pendulum swinging too far in the other direction. - The New York Times

The departments of English, classics, philosophy, world languages and Spanish and Latino studies, for example, will be grouped into the tentatively titled School of Human Narratives and Creative Expressions. - The New York Times

Peter Wollny, now director of the Bach Archive in Leipzig, discovered manuscripts of the two works in Brussels back in 1992. He was intrigued by the music and had a hunch it was Bach's, but it took Wollny 33 years to gather the evidence he needed to be sure. - The New York Times

“(Jensen) Huang and his wife, Lori … are making a previously unreported donation of $5 million a year for multiple years to San Francisco Opera. This year’s gift went toward underwriting The Monkey King; future gifts will help sponsor mainstage operas, young artist training, community programming, and digital media.” - The San Francisco Standard

The deals underline how AI is shaking up the music industry. AI-generated music has been flooding streaming services amid the rise of song generators that instantly spit out new tunes based on prompts typed in by users without any musical knowledge. - APNews

“The Venezuelan-born conductor — who became a naturalized US. citizen last year on the stage of the symphony’s Jacobs Music Center — began his tenure here with the orchestra in late 2019.” His contract term now extends through the 2028-29 season, with the new title of Music and Artistic Director. - The San Diego...

The Galilee Chamber Orchestra, currently touring the US, is based in Nazareth (considered the cultural capital for Israel’s native Palestinians, about 20% of the country’s total population). It was formed 13 years ago as the first fully professional orchestra with equal numbers of Jewish and Arab musicians. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)

For each of this weekend’s three performances of Philip Glass’s La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast, set to Jean Cocteau’s 1946 film), Fort Worth Opera has 100 tickets available for $1 or whatever price the purchaser names. - NBC 5 (Dallas-Fort Worth)

Some, including a prominent art critic, have said she should lose her job, and she has been called to testify twice before Parliament. The criticism is particularly charged given the tumultuous state of French politics. - The New York Times

The 1940 canvas, “The Dream (The Bed),” topped the previous record held by a $44.4 million Georgia O’Keeffe, “Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1” that sold to Walmart billionaire Alice Walton 11 years earlier. - The Wall Street Journal

“The long sought-after solution to the fourth passage of Kryptos, artist Jim Sanborn’s secret-code-bearing sculpture at CIA headquarters, sold at auction Thursday night for a final price of $962,500, blowing past its $300,000 to $500,0000 estimate and placing the 35-year-old enigma in new hands.” - The Washington Post (MSN)

The 1940 self-portrait of the artist asleep in bed, titled El sueño (La cama) — in English, “The Dream (The Bed)” — sold for $54.7 million at Sotheby’s, surpassing the record held by Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, which sold for $44.4 million in 2014. - AP

The 71-by-51-inch painting, named after its subject, was sold at a Sotheby’s auction in New York on Tuesday evening for $236.4 million, including fees. It belonged to the private collection of Leonard Lauder, the cosmetics heir who died in June. - Washington Post

It’s not as simple as the museum not having enough money. An audit report indicates that there have been some very questionable accounting practices at PSAM — questionable enough that one of the eight board members who have resigned so far did so on the advice of his personal attorney. - Los Angeles Times...

A copy of Superman No 1 that was discovered in an attic in California last year has become the world’s most expensive comic book after selling for US$9.12m (£6.96m, A$14.14m). - The Guardian

In an excerpt from his book Across the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of the Crossword Puzzle, crossword constructor and former Will Shortz assistant Natan Last describes not only how it happened, but why it was probably unavoidable. - The Nation

Bande dessinée (comic strip) is considered the “ninth art” in France, and the Festival international de la bande dessinée d'Angoulême is its pinnacle. But the culture ministry has withdrawn €200,000 in subsidy while graphic novelists and publishers are boycotting the event after a staffer who lodged a rape complaint was fired. - The Guardian

None of us are academic philosophers, by any means; we have busy jobs and other pressing adult responsibilities. But the process has proved fruitful. A camaraderie emerges, I’ve found, when a group dedicates itself to a task that requires great effort. - The New York Times

Usually you have to return books you get from a library. Today the New York Public Library will give books away — 1,000 books from its list of the best titles of 2025, chosen by more than 80 librarians from branches across the library’s system. If you get one, you won’t have to return it. -...

Winners include Rabih Alameddine's Beirut-set The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) (Fiction), Omar El Akkad’s examination of the war in Gaza, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (Nonfiction), and Daniel Nayeri’s The Teacher of Nomad Land, set in World War II-era Iran (Young People’s Literature). - NPR

“The Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium has revealed that United Talent Agency (UTA) has signed the governing body for ‘the king of cheeses’ to get the supermarket staple placement in films, TV shows and streaming projects around the globe.” - The Hollywood Reporter

The BBC is now losing more than £1bn a year from households either evading the licence fee or deciding they do not need one, according to a cross-party group of MPs who warned the corporation is under “severe pressure”. - The Guardian

Netflix, Paramount and Comcast submitted bids to acquire the Hollywood colossus, which owns the Warner Bros. movie studio, HBO, and cable networks like CNN and TNT, four people with knowledge of the proposals said. - The New York Times

“The Nevada Senate has again rejected a $120 million annual subsidy for film and TV production, which would have enabled construction of a new soundstage facility in Las Vegas. The bill, AB 5, fell one vote short of a majority during a special session on Wednesday night.” - Variety

Earlier this year, The Times spoke to a dozen current and former SIFF staff and board members, many of whom expressed profound concerns about both SIFF and the impact that the landmark acquisition had on the organization amid broader challenges in the industry. - Seattle Times 

Warners Brothers has had multiple owners over the decades. Three years ago, Warner Media, as it was called, merged with Discovery. And in June, the company announced it would split in two, with film, TV and streaming studios in one camp, and in the other, mostly legacy cable channels, including CNN. - NPR

“Biosensors are devices designed to measure real-time processes and responses within the body, like a person’s heart rate, blood oxygen level, and sleep quality. … Here are a few ways biosensors have been used to expand research in dance medicine.” - Dance Magazine

As VR becomes more widespread, a growing number of dance artists and companies are exploring—and, in some cases, redefining—what this technology can do. - Dance Magazine

An exec at the firm Move AI insists that the combination of motion-capture and AI software isn’t to replace dance artists but to streamline the repetitive, tedious process of animation. (The dance artists are still nervous.) Meanwhile, other AI programs stand to make the work of dance historians and archivists easier. - Dance Magazine

Watching a dance rehearsal as a score-addicted musician is surreal. You can have 30 people in the room, and only two of them will have the score. What is fascinating is that the choreographer has imposed an entirely different, invisible form of notation on the form of their counting. - The Guardian

That question worried the choreographer, administrators, and the dancers, none of whom are Sami themselves. What’s more, the piece was about a particularly sensitive topic: a violent uprising in 1852. So everyone was nervous about performing in the town where the rebellion happened. - The New York Times

Julie Cruse is a pioneer of “computational choreography”: in 2007 she created a piece titled Choreobot in which she used software she coded to generate choreography. Here she looks at the earliest efforts to automatically create movement, explains how her program works, and looks at how AI could develop and change it. - Dance...

The Bruns Amphitheater, formerly home of California Shakespeare Company, is slated to reopen in April 2026 under a new name, the Siesta Valley Bowl. The newly-formed nonprofit Siesta Valley Foundation intends to present theater, including Shakespeare, as well as 40 to 60 concerts per year, which will bring in revenue. - SFGate

Early to Bed (1943) is the only book musical for which Waller wrote all the music, yet no official score or even libretto exists. Yet John McWhorter (yes, the Columbia University linguist/New York Times columnist) managed to find Waller’s sketches and is presenting the show’s score in concert. - The New York Times

“The filmmaking is, I think, up there with anything Hollywood's produced. And musically … there's not many musicals out there, if any, which have as many classics on the soundtrack as The Sound of Music.” - CBC

Theater makers have long depicted health struggles onstage, including the realities of living with H.I.V. and cancer, but the debate around this production, titled “Jeanne Dark” and running through May 22, has shown that ethical questions remain about how various conditions are portrayed theatrically — and who gets to shape those depictions. - The New York Times

As of early next year, the two-time Tony nominee (for her direction of Kimberly Akimbo in 2023 and Water for Elephants in 2024) will succeed Christopher Ashley, who is departing to lead the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York. - The San Diego Union-Tribune (MSN)

“If authentically delivered, the potential is colossal. India’s population of 1.4 billion includes a fast-growing urban middle class … (with) a rising appetite for theatre that blends storytelling, music and spectacle. The real question is whether India can find its own mainstream musical theatre voice, and cinema may offer some clues.” - The Stage (UK)

His powerful voice, authoritative presence and incisive musicianship led him to a major international career including the Met, Covent Garden, and La Scala. He had a 23-year relationship with the Bayreuth Festival, where he took the role of Wotan/the Wanderer in the landmark 1976 Chéreau/Boulez production of the Ring cycle. - Moto Perpetuo

“Two more former employees of the soul music star Smokey Robinson, both male and female, have alleged he sexually assaulted them, which he denies. Robinson is already facing similar allegations from four other former employees, who filed a ($50 million) joint lawsuit in May.” - The Guardian

A veteran who performed at the Metropolitan Opera 106 times and at many other companies, he was known for such challenging roles as Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Tristan, Parsifal, and Siegmund and Siegfried (at various times) in the Ring cycle, as well as Florestan in Beethoven’s Fidelio and Aeneas in Berlioz’s Les Troyens. - OperaWire

He was a guitar-playing folklorist who had run the Country Music Foundation in Nashville for 26 years, when President Clinton nominated him to chair the NEA in 1998. Congressional Republicans had repeatedly cut the agency’s budget following controversies over grantees; Ivey won the lawmakers over, and the NEA grew again. - The New York...

A "free spirit and nonconformist, often impetuous, the passionate lover of the 19th century left his mark on the Parisian museum from 2008 to 2017 with bold exhibitions." - Le Monde

Franz's “vibrant portrayal of Linda Loman, the wife of the piteous title character in the 1999 Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, earned her a Tony Award — and high praise from the playwright.” - The New York Times