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- Yes, This Is Toy Story 5, And Yes, It’s Still Devastating For Parents
Why? Because the toys are – this is not a secret – pretty much a stand-in for parents. And you know what happens to the toys. – Slate
- Smart Phones Enable An Awful Lot Of Fact-Checking – Sometimes To Our Detriment
“There is something thrilling about a document dump, and picking through boxes and boxes of government files. We have often associated these habits with conspiracy theorists, … but in the modern era of digitized records, anyone can jump down a rabbit hole anywhere, anytime, even on their phone.” – The Atlantic
- Mark Singer, Longtime New Yorker Writer And Profile Expert, Has Died At 75
Singer “extended the magazine’s franchise of rich reporting and witty prose about offbeat, complicated and quintessentially American characters,” including a certain current president. – The New York Times
- Oh, Bose, What Are You Thinking?
A speaker company wants to do what now? “What the company is undeniably great at is marketing. But selling mediocre Bluetooth speakers at inflated prices is very different from discovering talent and promoting artists.” – The Verge
- Basel’s Art Before Art Basel
For one thing, Basel “is a city of nearly 200,000 residents and nearly 40 museums — or about one museum for every 5,000 locals.” – The New York Times
- A Musician Points Out Some Racial Disparities In AI Scraping And Use
SZA on Instagram “If your [sic] a musician and you support this degenerate shit? Your [sic] DISGUSTING and there’s NOTHING YOU COULD EVER SAY TO ME TO MAKE THIS OKAY. … I hope u have the life u deserve.” – Variety
- Ireland, In The Midst Of A Real Housing Crisis, Is Seeing Huge Cinema Numbers
Some people think they’re linked (and, after all, what better way to escape the house than to go to the ice-cold cinema?). – Irish Times
- Can You Pass This British Museum Quiz?
Sample question: Where was JMW Turner born: – The Guardian (UK)
- If Hollywood won’t bite, Make it Yourself
Good Morning,
Two writers this week set their own terms. Hayley Kiyoko wanted her song “Girls Like Girls” turned into a film; when Hollywood dragged its feet, she just wrote the book first, and the movie followed (The New York Times). Judy Blume, 50 years in, has decided she’s said enough and now runs a bookstore instead (NPR).
The movie Obsession has grossed $300 million on a $750,000 budget, yet its art director cleared $6,741 for three weeks’ work (The New York Times). The Atlantic, meanwhile, maps the mountain of music quietly pulled into AI training sets that was never “supposed to be free” (The Atlantic).
With Roku going to Fox, right-leaning owners now sit astride much of what reaches the living-room screen (Salon).
All of our stories below.
- Judy Blume, She Says, Has Written Enough
The author says, “You’re living with [your characters] for months, sometimes years. And you’re locked up in a little room all day with them. That’s why 50 years is enough. I was ready to come out into the world. Now, she owns and runs a bookstore. – NPR
- Have Movies Doomed Us All?
Seriously: Movies have “proved to be a tool of dictators, an instrument of propaganda and the weapon of ruthless, unaccountable corporate interests.” – The New York Times
- With The Roku Sale To Fox, Not To Mention The Paramount Deal, Right-Wing Interests Dominate Streaming
“The scale of this quiet coup is staggering. … In practical terms, Roku controls the television home screen.” – Salon
- Apparently, There’s Such A Thing As ‘Dad Cinema,’ So Happy Father’s Day
The number one movie in Dad Cinema is, of course, a Kevin Costner classic. But there are many others, including classic Mel Brooks fare. – The New York Times
- Experimental Composer Hainbach On Patreon, YouTube, And His Best Tools
“I am just about to drive to East Germany to get a set [of passive Bandpass Filters] that used to belong to Deutsche Reichsbahn, the GDR train service. These filters often sound wonderful, and I have quite the collection now.” – The Verge
- In New York, The City’s Oldest Museum Celebrates An Expansive View Of Democracy
The New York Historical’s new wing features a show that’s “historically broad, thematically loose, unabashedly polemical, made up of equal then and now.” – The New York Times
- David Hockney Wanted, And Got, Only Two Mourners At His Funeral
But “his publicist, Erica Bolton, announced that his life and work would be celebrated in a series of memorial services to be held in places he has lived around the world, including London and Yorkshire.” – The Guardian (UK)
- How Exhausting Is It To Voice A Minion?
Also, can one simply voice one Minion? No: French animator Pierre Coffin has co-written and co-directed most of the movies with the small mumbling crew, and he also “voices every last one of the yellow creatures himself.” – Variety
- A Former Disney Teen Turns A Hit Song Into A Book And Now A Movie
Hayley Kiyoko was “resolute that a film version should hit on ‘all the classic tropes’ that she had watched in straight coming-of-age stories and also reflect her own experiences as a closeted teenager.” The film world was slow, so she simply wrote a book. – The New York Times
- Burned By AI, Granta Will No Longer Publish External Award Winning Short Stories
Ouf. “For the sake of our own editorial integrity, the Granta Trust board has now taken the decision that we will no longer engage in external publishing partnerships. We … wish our former partner, the Commonwealth Foundation, all the best in its work.” – The Guardian (UK)
- Norway Had Its Own John Singer Sargent
“Asta Norregaard was a sought-after portrait painter among the rich and famous in Norway at the turn of the 20th century, but when she exhibited her work in the country’s capital, critics were quick to dismiss her pictures as decorative and frivolous.” – The New York Times
- Did The Pitt Put Forward Enough Of Its Actors For Emmys?
“Particularly curious is Irene Choi, who isn’t on the ballot for her performance as med student Joy Kwon, even though her character was essentially on a parallel track to Iverson as med student James Ogilvie.” What gives? – Vulture
- The Fierce Dance That’s An Ode To Sinead O’Connor
“O’Connor was 56 when she died and still making music – she had almost completed a new album. To be a middle-aged woman in the music industry is a rarity, but dance isn’t so different.” – The Guardian (UK)
- What Should Ghosts Look Like In Children’s Books?
“What children know of ghosts, and at what age they know it, is murky territory. … And if you show even a very young child a picture of a ghost, in my experience they can often tell you that it is, indeed, a ghost.” – The New York Times
- All Of The Music That’s Been Fed Into ‘Generative’ (Read: Theft-Based) AI
“Companies often claim to use only content that is freely available online, but the datasets reveal the quantity of downloadable music that developers can access even though it is not supposed to be free.” – The Atlantic
- The Movie ‘Obsession’ Is Raking In The Money, But Who’s Seeing The Profits?
“The art director of Obsession disclosed her paycheck for about three weeks of work: $6,741.36, after taxes.” The movie has now made $300 million on a budget of $750,000. – The New York Times
- About Cannes, A Lot Of Alcohol, And Getting Sober
“The first film I was able to get into after that meeting was an anniversary screening of The Shining (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1980). I’d seen the film before, but this time I realized that it was about an alcoholic who tries to dry out.” – Paris Review
- When Your First Book Sells Like Hotcakes And Gets A TV Adaptation, Writing The Sequel Can Be Tough
“Queenie is not polished, nor noble or aspirational. She makes bad choices repeatedly, has terrible sex, and sends regrettable messages. She is self-sabotaging and self-involved. Readers either adore her or cannot stand her.” – The Guardian (UK)
- Corie Benton talks about the critical role of diverse voices in music training
Corie Benton, President-Elect of the American String Teachers Association, shares the critical role of diverse voices in music training.
- What Might Have Been: Gaudí’s Design For A New York Skyscraper
A supertall skyscraper, no less, topping out at 360 meters/1180 feet. The great Barcelona architect did a speculative design of a hotel complex in 1908 for a pair of Manhattan businessmen. AI artist Thierry Lechanteur has used Gaudi’s surviving drawings to create renderings of the project. – Dezeen
- Have Our Devices Dulled Our Sensory Experiences?
“The way we consume such content, by swiping idly on a glass screen, stands in stark contrast with the content of the content, the skillful manipulation of resolutely tangible material. It’s ironic, and a bit dystopian, this disjuncture, but I’m entranced by the videos anyway.” – The New Yorker
- Movie Theatre Box Office Has Surged This Year. So What Next?
“When we recognized that people want to go out, that they want to be treated with good service in a good theater with good product, when we recognized that and gave them that, they just came back in hordes more than any other generation.” – Deadline
- Gaudí Was A Superstar. Why Didn’t He Have More Influence On Future Architects?
Architectural history and Antoni Gaudí just weren’t headed in the same direction. – Dezeen
- The Obama Center: The Difference Between Libraries And Monuments
There is no question about its monumentality. It is at once colossal, haughty and ultimately inscrutable—as a great monument should be. The question is whether it should have been a monument in the first place. – The Wall Street Journal
- Why All The Conspiracy Movies Right Now?
Is this a trend? Are all these pictures related? Common sense, our trusted friend, tells us that life is random and arbitrary and that we’re mostly making it up as we go along. But the conspiracy theory is like a seductive interloper, sidling up to assure us that, actually, that’s not true at all. – The Guardian
- A New Center For Playwrights On Cape Cod Bay
“Pulitzer-winning playwright Paula Vogel has teamed up with former Huntington Theatre Managing Director Michael Maso and philanthropist Grace Nordhoff on a new center for playwrights and theatrical composers that will open in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, in 2028. Bards on the Bay will be housed in The Nancy Nordhoff Theatre Center.” – Playbill
