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- The Phoenix Symphony Closes
Good Morning,
The Phoenix Symphony will lay off its 66 musicians on November 2 though revenues rose more than 50 percent in two years; endowment gifts are restricted and can’t pay operating costs (Fox 10). San Francisco’s artist grants normally arrive within four weeks of July agreements; in October documentary filmmaker Susannah Smith was still borrowing from her mother for rent (San Francisco Chronicle).
Caryl Churchill’s Triumph, 20 minutes long at London’s Almeida Theatre, takes its emperor’s cruelties from Suetonius and gives his press officer a blond wig and an American accent (The Guardian). Lucy Guerin, who founded Melbourne’s Lucy Guerin Inc 25 years ago, danced publicly for the first time in 13 years before handing the company to Melanie Lane; she thought she could still do the arabesque (The Guardian).
Elliott Management, the hedge fund that owns Barnes & Noble and Waterstones, is expected to take both public next year at $3 billion or more, fifteen years after Amazon was supposed to devour chains like them; James Daunt runs both (The New Yorker).
All of today’s stories below.
- A Maverick Pedagogical Proposition
- Is Caryl Churchill’s Latest Play About One Of Trump’s Succession Of Blonde Press Secretaries?
“Triumph, which has opened at London’s Almeida Theatre, is Churchill’s latest piece of explosive minimalism. Running at just 20 minutes, it skewers contemporary barbarism (via) historical analogy and is a reminder that Churchill … has in recent years developed a form of elliptical drama for which the apt word might be compressionism.” – The Guardian
- Broadway Has A Strong Week
Hamilton was the top grossing show of the week with $2.8 million, followed by The Lion King with $2 million. MJ was the fourth highest grossing with $1.76 million, followed by the Bowen Yang-led Oh, Mary! with $1.5 million. – The Hollywood Reporter
- Hong Kong Overhauls Its System For Performing Arts Funding, And Groups Are Nervous
Since 2008, the territory’s government has funded nine designated major performing arts groups, including the Hong Kong Ballet, Philharmonic, and Repertory Theatre. The city’s chief executive has announced a planned change to a more flexible, “merit-based” system which would make room for more organizations. – South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)
- Arundhati Roy On The AI End Game
Remember how, in Thailand and Indonesia, the ocean drew back from the coastline? People ran out to marvel at the miles of pristine new beach that suddenly emerged, not realising that, far out at sea, a wall of water was building up and would come crashing over them. – Equator
- Listeners Are Turning Against AI Music
Streaming services, notable musicians and fans are confronting the growing presence of AI-generated music and drawing lines in the sand. On Tuesday, Spotify announced it had removed about 50m songs considered AI slop from its recommendations to users over the past year. – The Guardian
- Did Hollywood Really Need Netflix?
“The movie business needed Netflix to wake up. They needed a real disruptor… Maybe we are now entering a period where the relationship works the other way around, with Netflix being inspired by the movie business. I think the two worlds are additive.” – Deadline
- To Say Goodbye To Her Dance Company, Lucy Guerin Performs Onstage For First Time In 13 Years
“I have found it incredibly confronting, to be honest,” she says, hours before the premiere. “Part of me thought I could still do all those things if I just got back in the studio and trained a bit. But I’m afraid that wasn’t the case.” – The Guardian
- Netflix Is Making Money. That’s Not Enough
For the year, Netflix said, it expects revenue growth to be 13 percent, roughly in line with its previous estimates. Shares dropped more than 5 percent in after-hours trading. The company acknowledged the undercurrent that led to the recent tumult: concern about stagnating attention time on its service. – The New York Times
- The Battles Over Jimmy Buffet’s Estate
Three years after Jimmy’s death, the family is locked in a legal dispute over that Margaritaville fortune. It has upended the fun-loving vibes the musician spent his life cultivating, with the family seeming rudderless without Jimmy as their figurehead, according to court documents and interviews. – The Wall Street Journal
- Remember This When Voting in the Midterms . . .<a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2026/10/remember-this-when-voting-in-the-midterms.html" title="Remember This When Voting in the Midterms .
- Will Wikipedia Survive AI?
It was neither the first online encyclopedia—Britannica had a web presence by 1999—nor even the first that users could edit. Rather, its vitality arose from the community of obsessives whom it attracted, and its decline has coincided with the market’s capture of their creativity. – The New Yorker
- Harry Houdini Did Not Die The Way Most People Think He Did
The received wisdom has been that a Montreal student named Joscelyn Gordon Whitehead punched Houdini in the stomach several times without warning, and the blows led to a ruptured appendix and peritonitis. Now a 77-year-old retired urologic surgeon has done a forensic medical investigation which challenges that narrative. – The New York Times
- Jeffrey Daunt And The Culture Of Reading
Actually, in America, the reading of books is up. Sales of print books have increased nearly twenty-five per cent from a decade ago. The number of independent bookstores in the United States has climbed steeply since 2009, with a seventy-per-cent increase since 2020. – The New Yorker
- When Music Teachers Are Gods
I have known countless music students who have gone on to distinguished careers who have described their teachers in God-like terms and continue to do so long after their student days. Often these descriptions are laced with affection and continued adulation. – Thomas Wolf
- Phoenix Symphony Cancels Season And Shuts Down
Phoenix Symphony leaders announced today they are suspending programs and performances after their show on Nov. 1 due to ongoing operational deficits. They say they do not have the finances to continue the season. – Fox (Yahoo)
- Two Out Of Three Microdramas Released In Past Three Months Were AI-Generated: Study
“Two-thirds of vertical drama releases outside China in the third quarter of 2026 from 20 top platforms were AI generated, according to the consulting firm Owl & Co.’s latest ‘What We Watched on Vertical’ report.” (In China, the figure is thought to be 95%.) – The Hollywood Reporter
- Could AI Help Identify The Unknown Subjects Of Centuries-Old Portraits?
“Identifying a sitter in a portrait is a tricky art-historical task that involves a study of provenance, inscriptions, archival documentation, iconographic juxtaposition, collection history, and costume and jewelry. Could present-day technologies be another item in the researcher’s tool kit?” A project in Switzerland is giving it a try. – ARTnews
- France Gets A New Literary Prize Specifically For Books Written With AI
“The Prix Pascal will open for submissions on 2 November, inviting French-language writers to submit manuscripts alongside an initial prompt of no more than 100 words and a technical account of the language model and generation process used. The competition is open to non-professional writers and those working in the literary sector.” – Firstpost
- San Francisco Has Not Paid Artists The City Grants They Were Awarded This Year
“In typical years, grant agreements are sent in early July, with artists getting money in hand within four weeks. As of October, multiple artists still haven’t received a dime, and at least two received their grant agreements only after the Chronicle wrote the commission to ask about the delay.” – San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)
- Philadelphia Orchestra Raises $344 Million
“The Philadelphia Orchestra and Ensemble Arts has coasted past the dollar goal in one of the city’s largest-ever fundraising campaigns for a cultural organization, … bringing in $344 million to support operations, build endowment, and fund special artistic initiatives.” One couple anonymously donated $55 million. – The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
- Historic City Hall Is Burned Down During French Riots
In Limoges, the 19th-century Hôtel de Ville, which had historic landmark status, was destroyed by arson during the violence that has convulsed much of France in recent days. One suspect has been arrested. – Euronews
- BBC Three And BBC Scotland To Be Taken Off The Air
As the Corporation tries to save £500 million ($670 million) over the next two years, it is ending over-the-air transmission of these two television stations as well as BBC Radio 4 Extra. As of next spring, programming from those outlets will be made for streaming only. – The Guardian
- The Washington Ballet At 50
“Go-Go 50,” the upcoming mixed-bill program assembled to celebrate the anniversary, “exemplifies some of the company’s hallmarks: a willingness to gamble on new work, an embrace of diverse repertoire, and an ability to capitalize on the culture and cachet of its hometown.” – The Washington Post (MSN)
- Donors Are Trying To Save Artworks At The Kennedy Center
Donors who have given artwork to the institution are trying to reclaim their gifts, fearing for their safety amid a renovation and in the wake of layoffs. They are not convinced that the leadership, largely appointed by Trump, values the artworks as part of the institution’s holdings. – ARTnews
- What Got The Hollywood Establishment To Join The Vertical Microdrama Boom? SAG-AFTRA
“SAG-AFTRA’s independent Verticals Agreement helped open the door for producers to hire union performers for the format’s notoriously small-scale productions. They’ve also brought some structure and legitimacy to the medium. … Bigger-name talent is now more open to verticals thanks to the protections the agreement brings.” – TheWrap (MSN)
- How Intuition Works
The key is to see that intuition works in much the same way as perception, in that both can directly present something to us as actual. Once we understand what gives perception this feature, we can see why intuitions might involve exercising the same basic kind of cognitive capacity. – Aeon
- Shakespeare And The Work Of Black Women
In the Folger’s newest exhibition To Hear Her Speak: Black Women and Shakespeare, curated by Akhimie, more than 400 years of Black women’s engagement with Shakespeare is collectively explored for the first time, illuminating the ways in which Black women have claimed and reimagined the works of Shakespeare through scholarship and craft. – The Guardian
- Scholars Conclude That Shakespeare Was Primary (But Not Sole) Author Of “Edward III”
The history play was published without a named author in 1596, and it was long believed that Shakespeare had written a few scenes. New analysis shows “beyond doubt” that he wrote “the lion’s share,” 23 segments of the script, while Christopher Marlowe wrote nine. – The Guardian
- Why Has Netflix Hit A Wall?
The ousters of two of the company’s top creative executives are a sign that the streaming giant’s leaders feel the service needs to overhaul its content offerings. – The Wall Street Journal
- Brewster Kahle: Why The Internet Needs A Memory
Many people assume that once something is published online, it will remain forever retrievable. The saying that “the internet never forgets” has produced a dangerously false sense of permanence. In reality, the internet forgets continuously. Websites are constantly revised, deleted, and abandoned altogether. – The Atlantic
- The Harms Of Zombie Copyright
Fifty years ago today, copyright law in America changed fundamentally. That change was an accidental disaster for both creators and the culture they create. – Lawrence Lessig
- What’s Behind The Current Wave Of Theater, Film, Literature, And Other Art About AIDS
Much of the new work being done has a sense of mission — a feeling that, 45 years after the epidemic first broke out, something many gay people today are too young to remember — a struggle that changed our world cannot be permitted to recede into mere abstraction. – T — The New York Times Style Magazine
- Did Drought Really Cause The Collapse Of Ancient Maya? New Studies Cast Doubt
Taken together, the research is part of a shift in how researchers have come to consider one of antiquity’s great mysteries, awakening yet another fierce debate in academia over the effects of climate on civilizations, and why they fray. – Washington Post
