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- Eight Million Books Burned in Kharkiv
Good Morning,
A Russian drone strike in August destroyed 8 million books at a Kharkiv warehouse belonging to Ranok, a Ukrainian publisher, more than 85% of its stock, including 628,000 new schoolbooks. The government estimates 13 million Ukrainian books were destroyed this summer, a third of everything printed in the country this year (The Guardian).
The British Museum, which has the Bayeux Tapestry on loan from France until July 2027, will now run an audio-described tour after Yusuf Ali Osman, who has no sight in either eye, filed an Equality Act claim. The museum had said light limits on the tapestry meant self-guided visits took priority (BBC).
Robert Lazzarini, the sculptor known for distorted American symbols, has shown the work planned for the Venice Biennale’s US pavilion, which went to Alma Allen after the University of South Florida couldn’t raise $5 million. It’s at MassArt’s museum in Boston (The New York Times).
And David Fincher’s six-year Netflix deal is over; Mank cost $25 million and spent one day on the streamer’s top 10, while The Killer took $452,000 at the box office against a $175 million budget (The Verge). Lenny Pearce, an Australian DJ, is selling out North American venues with raves for children under 5, home by 8 p.m. (NPR).
Told on X that the AI generator Suno has “solved infinite personalized music,” a Salon writer recalls sorting college-radio mail by its RIYL stickers and finding Fleet Foxes that way (Salon).
All of our stories below.
- Digital Lists Are Destroying The Fabric Of Society
“The issue goes deeper than presents. I have four kids from elementary to high-school age, and as hard as I try to expose them to life’s realities, they remain sheltered from disappointment and dissatisfaction at every turn.” – Slate
- The British Museum Adds An Audio Tour To The Bayeux Tapestry in Response To Blind Man’s Lawsuit
The museum apparently hadn’t thought of adding an audio description to its app, or having more audio description tours, before the lawsuit – despite saying they worked with specialists on accessibility. – BBC
- We’re In A Gross ‘Great Man’ Statuary Backlash, But Look At Ancient Egypt
“The great public efforts—the colossal statuary, the expansive propaganda programs, the image campaigns, the attempts to remake the world of living people—have been shattered, defaced, and refaced.” – The Atlantic
- The Joys Of Music Discovery Don’t Include Robots
With AI-generated “music,” “It’s not just the lack of discovery. … It’s more about the lack of anything personal behind the music. No history, no struggle, no catharsis, no exploration, no humanity. I listen to music because it’s flawed, raw and human.” – Salon
- Turning Millennial Nostalgia For Raves Into A Big Business
But this one’s for the real kids (of Millennials and older Gen-Zers): “We wanted to get the baby into the rave scene,” says one set of parents. – NPR
- As A New Show Opens, It’s Past Time To Reevaluate Our Reactions To Lee Krasner’s Work
“Her response to life with a mean and desperate drunk was to cannibalize her old canvases and explode into the pugnacious scale, audacious color, and thrusting verticles of collages.” – The New York Times
- Russia’s War On Ukraine’s Books
“In total, this summer, 13 [million] Ukrainian books have been destroyed by Russian missiles or drones – a third, estimates the government, of all books printed in Ukraine this year.” – The Guardian (UK)
- So Now There’s Apparently ‘Weird Girl Lit’?
Emerging from Reddit, the subgenre is not fully defined, but “books that get called weird girl lit tend to deal in uncanny or dreamlike circumstances.” – The New York Times
- Netflix Had A Little Pivot Toward Prestige, But That’s Ending
Prestige movies don’t reliably make money on streaming. “It seems like Netflix’s main game plan is to put an increased focus on producing lower-budget series, live events, and sports programming.” – The Verge
- When Will We Know The Answers To AI’s Most Important Questions?
“Several of the most fundamental debates about the future and safety of AI remain unresolved. I believe we can’t expect these disagreements to be resolved until it’s too late to change course.” – Time
- Eugenia Errazuriz, Who Made Picasso Possible
Errázuriz was “a patron, adviser, connector and tastemaker whose influence expanded beyond Picasso and Stravinsky to fashion and interior design. She … opened doors, offered criticism and used her considerable wealth to steer artists toward the work that would make them famous.” – The New York Times
- What It’s Like For Musician And Filmmaker Hayley Kiyoko To Be Called ‘Lesbian Jesus’ By Her Fans
She’s felt a pretty big responsibility, honestly, and she’s proud of the film Girls Like Girls. “We go to watch movies to dream and to fantasise and to see representation that maybe we lack in our lives.” – The Guardian (UK)
- This Administration Is Moving The Kennedy Center Honors To Capital One Arena
“As Mr. Trump pushes to close the center for two years of renovations, he is trading the ruby-red Opera House for the 20,000-seat home of the N.B.A.’s Washington Wizards and the N.H.L.’s Washington Capitals.” – The New York Times
- A Reminder For All Of Us – And Something New For The Young Ones – Who Love Music
When CDs are seen more as merch, something to buy to help out the artists rather than to hear the music, then you get a first tip like “Get a CD player.” – Wired
- Is 3D, As Film Tech, Finally Worth It?
“Almost every 3D technology cuts something you care about in half, whether it’s resolution … or the refresh rate and flicker you get with active shutter glasses. But what if you had a full screen for each eye? That’s what video glasses can provide.” – The Verge
- What Venice Could Have Been
At least, what the U.S. pavilion could have been. – The New York Times
- Kennedy Center Honors Moving to an Arena
This Week’s Highlights:
The Kennedy Center’s board voted last month to close its building, and this week the center said the Honors will be held December 7 at Capital One Arena instead (AP). A Washington Post analysis found ticket sales on pace to fall by two-thirds, donations down 40% in four months, and a development staff cut from 96 to 14 (The Washington Post). And on Monday Utah Republican Mike Lee blocked a bill co-sponsored by his colleague Lisa Murkowski barring demolition of a congressional memorial without Congress’s approval (CNN).
The Nashville Symphony suspended its season effective October 18, furloughing all 77 musicians and half its staff against a $10 million deficit (The Tennessean). The Cleveland Orchestra’s players, backed by a $329 million endowment, struck for three days and won 5% annual raises and a rule that the music director can’t hire anyone the audition committee’s majority hasn’t approved (Ideastream).
The Third Circuit Federal Court held that Ross Intelligence, a legal-research startup, can’t claim fair use for training its AI on Westlaw’s editorial headnotes, the first appeals ruling of its kind (Nieman Lab).
Banned Books Week begins Sunday, and Seattle Public Library’s Books Unbanned, an e-card for readers 13 to 26 anywhere in the country, has passed 1.1 million checkouts on nearly $900,000 in donations (KOMO). Xander Parish, the first British principal at the Mariinsky Ballet, opens the Nouveaux Ballets Russes in Florence on March 14 with a Swan Lake set in Belle Époque Paris (Pointe).
We collected handfuls of stories this week. You can see all of them below, organized by topic.
See you next week.
Doug
- Roberto Kalb shares key strategies to incorporate diversity into casting
Roberto Kalb, Music Director of Detroit Opera, shares his philosophy of incorporating diversity into casting and programming.
- Kennedy Center Honors To Be Moved To An Arena
The 49th annual awards are set to take place at Washington’s downtown arena, a Kennedy Center spokesperson said Friday. Few other details were immediately available, and an explanation for the change wasn’t given. – AP (Yahoo)
- What Laurie Anderson Knows Now That She Wishes She’d Known At Age 18
Nothing, actually. “No, I’m happy with what I knew then and what I didn’t know, and I was glad to get a chance to be an idiot. … You know, I don’t mind making these blunders. I learned a lot through blunders.” – The Nerve (UK)
- What’s Behind The Amazing Starchitect Building Boom In… Albania?
Sixty top architecture firms from around the world have mooted 500 eye-catching projects across Albania, sparking fury and protests. – The Guardian
- When A Financial Tech Company Stages An Industrial Musical On Broadway
“Bill Pay itself was extremely meta and self-aware, a post-postmodern pageant that would have given David Foster Wallace an aneurysm. … (It) felt like an indicator of where the broader cultural zeitgeist is headed: back to a not-so-recent past where wealthy companies devoted heaping shares of their budgets toward sheer pandering.” – Slate (Yahoo!)
- Opera Is Increasingly Expensive To Make. So How Will We Pay For It?
You can look at the finances of San Francisco Opera and what has changed in the last 45 or so years to understand what the company is dealing with. – San Francisco Classical Voice
- Court Upholds Thomson Reuters’ Landmark AI Copyright Win
The ruling marks the first federal appeals case to reject a fair use argument for using publisher content, without permission or compensation, to train a commercial AI product. – NiemanLab
- Chicago’s WBEZ And The Sun-Times Merged Four Years Ago. How’s It Going?
There’s that real energy of the live report of the Chicago Sun-Times, whereas WBEZ has always been a little bit more of an experience. You want to sit down and you want to capture those driveway moments where you really are connecting with people. – Medill Local News Initiative
- How An Old Warehouse Furnished With Scavenged Everything Became London’s Coolest Theatre
The Yard opened in an old industrial estate in July 2011; it was supposed to be a three-month pop-up but stayed for 14 years, presenting edgy stagings of classics and new work — and occasionally sending a production on to the National Theatre. Now it’s reopening after a £7 million renovation. – The Nerve (UK)
- Let’s Get Real: Intelligence Is About More Than Optimization
That slide from engineering model to human anthropology is easy to miss. We begin by saying: this is how machines work. Then, almost without noticing, we say: this is what intelligence is. And then, more dangerously still: perhaps this is what we are. – Aeon
- Calder Sculpture (His Last Work) Is Restored To US Senate Office Building
The piece was the only one created by Calder to have a separate stabile and a mobile. Set against Hart’s white marble walls and filling nearly the entire nine-story atrium, it was the kind of avant-garde, modern sculpture that defined Calder’s final works. – The New York Times
- Trump Explores Landmarking The Oval Office So Future Presidents Can’t Reverse His Changes
In the Time interview, the president said he was exploring the possibility of a new federal designation for the Oval Office, which he suggested could protect the office from being torn down and preserve his changes to it. – Washington Post
- Here Are The 2026 Dance Magazine Award Recipients
“This year’s Dance Magazine Awards will honor Germaine Acogny; Ayodele Casel; Final Bow for Yellowface; Cleo Parker Robinson; and Alice Sheppard. The Lydia Joel Award — recognizing behind-the-scenes dance leaders — will go to Alicia Adams, formerly of the Kennedy Center.” – Dance Magazine
- Is Writing Really The Best Way To Learn?
Writing can be useful cognitive scaffolding for memory and self-regulated learning, but the notion that it is the best process for developing thinking skills is a fairly recent idea, traceable to the 1970s writing-across-the-curriculum movement. – The New York Times
- Seattle Public Library Program To Make Banned Books Available Anywhere Hits 1M Checkouts
Books Unbanned is designed to give young people multiple ways to access digital books regardless of where they live or what their local library can provide. The library said some participants sign up because their local libraries have been censored or underfunded. – KOMO Seattle
- An Alternative Explanation Of Consciousness
Antonio Damasio argues, we “possess the celebrated gift of consciousness because of the continued presence and abundance of your homeostatic feelings.” According to Damasio, the conventional theories of consciousness have it backwards. – Undark
- Wave Of Robberies Has Europe’s Museums Wondering What Is And Isn’t Worth Displaying
“Replicas have long been used by museums when originals are too fragile, valuable or difficult to travel, and the recent spate of thefts has encouraged some to consider this practice more widely. … Visitors are finding more stand-ins and, in some cases, an empty space where a treasure used to be.” – BBC (Yahoo!)