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- Suit: Kennedy Center Knew Closure Estimate Was Wrong
Good Morning,
The Kennedy Center’s board voted to close the building for two years after being told phased renovation would double the cost. A lawsuit filed Friday says officials had a revised estimate, about $41 million more, and never showed it to the board (CNN).
Archive of Our Own, the important fan fiction site with 11 million users, is down after a security incident and may take four weeks to restore. Fans are sharing Google Docs of saved stories (Wired).
Before Trump’s Dubuque rally, the White House advance team hung a tarp over the city’s 2020 “Solidarity” mural, ten raised fists. The city, which owns the building, hadn’t approved it and had it removed (KCRG).
A Times essay says predictive algorithms are making culture the same everywhere (The New York Times). Searches for CD players at John Lewis, the UK retailer, are up 96% since July (The Guardian).
All of our stories below.
- Why Hasn’t MoMA Kicked A Disgraced Epstein Buddy Off Its Board?
“Leon Black’s board position at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is one of the starkest examples of institutional ignorance — a head-in-the-sand, look-the-other-way mentality that will inevitably give abuse of power a dark corner to grow and fester in.” – Hyperallergic
- Solidarity Mural In Iowa, Covered By Blue Tarp In Advance Of Trump Visit, Ordered By The City To Be Uncovered
A spokesperson from the building’s management company: “The goal of the White House in covering the mural was to provide exterior branding and put up a U.S. flag.” But the city had not authorized any exterior modifications. – Des Moines Register (MSN)
- Algos Are Ruining Music, Young People Say
Hence: CDs are making a dramatic comeback. – The Guardian (UK)
- The La Brea Tar Pits Renovation Requires Packing, Moving, And Unpacking 3.5 Million Fossils
“Buried in the bones are clues about how plants and animals lived and died. Understanding why some of those species became extinct could help us.” – The New York Times
- You Don’t Know What The Algorithms Are Doing To Us Until You Walk Away
“Here’s the thing about spending a month off grid and overseas: … You are more relaxed than you have ever been, and you have forgotten the way nearly every news story of the past decade grabs hold of your heart and squeezes, twists, strangles. That constant, low-level dread.” – Slate
- Predictive Algorithms Are Flattening Culture Everywhere In The World
“At ‘temperature zero,’ the [large language] model always chooses the most likely next token and gives the same answer every time” – down to the music and menus in every restaurant or pub. – The New York Times
- How Will A24 Handle Four Oscar Contenders?
This used to be the frontrunner for A24 (before You Can See Everything): “Though The Invite wasn’t a huge blockbuster, one thing its fans keep mentioning is that it was, in its own way, a movie where the theatrical experience was paramount.” – Vulture
- A Third-Generation Opera Costumer Closes Down The Shop
Robert Stivanello: “The opera costume business has changed a lot. … Covid killed a lot of opera companies.” Now the knock-on effect has killed his company as well. – The New York Times
- How To Write Fictional AI In An Age Of Tech Bros
“Silicon Valley has become adept at repurposing science fiction as building blocks of its fantastical hype machine. When authors try to imagine a future in which machines have thoughts and feelings, their work instantly seems to get woven into a tapestry of bullshit.” – Happy Dancing
- The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Gets A Whole New Look
“While the music never stops and its doors didn’t close, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is undergoing the largest renovation and expansion since it was built in 1995 — a $195 million, nine-year effort.” – The New York Times
- Taika Waititi Says He Never Reads Reviews, But Reacts Badly To The Bad Reviews Of His Most Recent Movie
“Let’s spare a thought for those sad lost souls who couldn’t achieve their dreams of becoming artists, and thus became critics. The same people who also hated Jojo Rabbit. Irrelevant. Out of touch. Obsolete. In the bin.” – Variety
- As AI Infiltrates Scholarly Writing, The Value Of A Journal Article Is Collapsing
“Unfortunately, the scholars submitting papers aren’t the only ones using AI. So are many of their peer reviewers. One recent peer review that my journal received—from a senior scholar—read like an unedited cut-and-paste job from an LLM.” – The Atlantic
- Dems Cite Internal Pressure To Cover Decline Under Trump In Lawsuit Over Kennedy Center
“‘Defendants are shuttering the Kennedy Center to hide the ongoing mismanagement of this once vibrant institution and to placate its current chairman,’ they wrote in the filing.” – The New York Times
- How Is It That All Books Have Suddenly Become ‘Gothic’?
It’s not just Spooky Season. “The Gothic label, once applied primarily to horror and dark romance, has been used to describe space operas, literary works and fantastical hybrids of all kinds.” – The New York Times
- Why We Like To Be Scared
“Because of horror’s position as a sandbox for misfortune, consumers tend to reward horror films that reflect their generation’s anxieties.” – Time
- Behind The Scenes With Alisa Weilerstein’s Cello
“It is a tragic situation, after all, for a piece of wood to have to plead with us for decency, love, and justice. It was the cello’s purest act of superheroism, to play Bach’s solo suites to a civilization sunk into depravity.” – Paris Review
- The Queen Of Fairy Smut, With A New Book And Loads Of Merch, Rises Again
“Maas hysteria gripped the Bell House in the hours before the book dropped. Fans traded conspiracy theories about future plot twists, got temporary tattoos and face paint, drank themed cocktails, posed for photos behind a giant cauldron and bought branded candles, bag charms and other memorabilia.” – The New York Times
- This Is How Users Are Dealing With AO3 Going Down
It’s … intense. “Fans are compiling Google Docs of links to downloaded stories, touting them as ‘survival guides’ for the ‘AO3 apocalypse’ and organizing them by fictional character pairings, or ships.” – Wired
- The Internet’s Most Wide-Open Site For Fan Fiction Goes Down After A Security Breach
Archive of Our Own, or AO3 as it’s known to many of its millions of users, may be down for up to a month. “A surge in traffic to archived versions of the site [is] now ‘putting a heavy load on the Wayback Machine.’” – The New York Times
- MoMA, Pompidou and M+ Now Share Collection
This Week’s Highlights:
MoMA, the Centre Pompidou and Hong Kong’s M+ will treat their holdings as one collection curated across three continents, starting with M+ works on long-term loan in MoMA’s galleries in late 2027 (ARTnews). The Bayeux Tapestry, on view in England for the first time since the 11th century, drew first-hour ticket spending at the British Museum 48 times a normal Wednesday’s, 55 percent of it from buyers under 35 (The Guardian). CD sales are up 16 percent (The Guardian).
The Phoenix Symphony plays its last concert Sunday and lays off 66 musicians, citing rising costs and donations that fell short (AZFamily). Minnesota Opera moved its Halloween world premiere of The Many Deaths of Laila Starr to late 2027 after its orchestra authorized a strike and the union refused a no-strike deal; Opera president Ryan Taylor said he couldn’t risk opening night (MPR News).
Elvis Presley’s rights holders are suing Anthropic over 274 songs, seeking up to $41.1 million and the destruction of copies in its training data (Fox 11). Sanxingdui: Future Past, China’s first wide-release AI-generated feature, grossed $198,000 from 10,000-plus opening-day screenings, about 12 percent of its $1.5 million budget (The Hollywood Reporter).
Philadelphia voters decide Tuesday whether to write the city’s arts office into the charter, so no mayor can close it by executive order, as Mayor John Street did (Broad Street Review).
All this week’s stories below, organized by topic.
- Emanuel Maxwell shares strategies that drive EDI work
Emanuel Maxwell, Chief People Officer of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, shares his philosophy and strategies that drive their EDI work.
- What It’s Like To Be A Professional Scare Actor During Halloween Season
Lyndon Laveaux is one of around 400 scare actors working at the Queen Mary’s Dark Harbor in Long Beach. He plays the Captain, the undead master of ceremonies. “I just love it,” he says. “It’s like an adult summer camp and I appreciate the fans, I appreciate this community.” – Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
- Horror Books And Bookstores Are Proliferating
Horror book sales are up 39 percent this year over last, according to Circana BookScan. The market is growing: 5.1 million books were sold in 2025, up from 3.2 million in 2021. – The New York Times
- Despite Taliban’s Prohibition, Masters Hope To Keep Traditional Afghan Music Alive
“For many, music is in their blood. It has flowed through their families for generations, and the thought of never playing again is unbearable. Every so often, some pull out their instruments and play in secret. A knock at the door could mean danger. Still, they play.” – AP
- American Pavillion At The Venice Biennale Is $1M Short. Art Transport Now A Problem
Despite months of controversy, the United States managed to get Alma Allen‘s enormous sculptures to Venice for this year’s Biennale. Getting them home, however, is proving more difficult. – ARTnews
- House Republicans Demand Details Of Smithsonian Museum Curation
“The Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency is concerned that the Smithsonian Institution (Smithsonian) does not properly review proposed exhibits in its museums,” says a letter to outgoing Smithsonian secretary Lonnie Bunch III, penned by subcommittee chairman Tim Burchett of Tennessee along with Georgia’s Brian Jack. – ARTnews
- The Shockingly Fantastic Imagery Of The Met’s New “Lincoln” Opera
At a moment when film or TV versions of novels often end up, at best, as decent airplane watches, opera, as the excellent Lincoln in the Bardo illustrates, has the potential to create something bolder and more bizarre. – The Atlantic
- The Kennedy Center’s Perplexing Choice Of Architect For $257M Renovations
The firm — which employs just 50 people, including eight architects, according to an industry database — generally does work that is a fraction of the scale and expense of the job. One if its most ambitious projects, according to its online portfolio, was a high school renovation completed in 2016 that cost about $40 million. – Washington Post
- Meet The People Who Choose The Poems In New York Subway Cars
Anyone who has taken the subway has likely come across Poetry in Motion, which pairs poems with artwork. … Tina Vaz, the head of the MTA’s Arts & Design team, and Matt Brogan, the executive director of the Poetry Society of America, are the big decision makers behind the Poetry in Motion program. – Literary Hub
- Inside The Books Of The Mega-Galleries
Even for the biggest blue-chip galleries, selling art is a tough business. – Artnet
- $6.5M Donation To Phoenix Symphony In Jeopardy
A new $6.5 million donation to the financially troubled Phoenix Symphony is in legal jeopardy after the orchestra announced last week it would suspend its season. – Arizona Republic
- Northern Arkansas Has Become A Cultural Destination. The Culture Is Changing
Bentonville’s population has nearly doubled. The town is bursting with new activity: award-winning restaurants, shopping, boutique hotels, condominiums, offices and arguably the most sophisticated bike trail network in the country. But prices are bursting too: A single-family home now hovers around $490,000. The average rent has nearly tripled, to $2,000 a month from about $800. – The New York Times
- Orlando Ballet Artistic Directors Jorden And Lisa Morris Announce Retirement
Jorden Morris, a choreographer and former principal dancer at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, joined Orlando Ballet as in 2020 Artist-in-Residence and was named Artistic Director at the end of 2021. Lisa Thorn Morris, currently associate artistic director, joined the company in 2015 and served in several leadership roles. – WESH (Orlando)
- Music Giant UMG Posts Big Revenue Growth
According to UMG, its Q3 growth was primarily driven by “subscription revenue growth, including pricing benefits from Streaming 2.0 agreements”, “strong physical sales”, “higher ad-supported streaming revenue”, and “increased Music Publishing digital revenue”. – Music Business Worldwide