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- Tenor Antonello Palombi, 58, Found Dead In Hotel Room
Though he had an active career spanning four continents, he’s best known for stepping in mid-performance as Radames in Aida at La Scala after Roberto Alagna stormed off the stage because he was booed. Palombi’s body was found during a wellness check after he failed to show up for rehearsal in Mainz, Germany. – OperaWire
- Postcards Were Social Media Before Social Media
People themselves made the choices. They selected the postcards they bought, the people they wrote to, and the images they collected. More than a century before platforms started automating this process, political communities were already creating selective environments of their own. – Eurozine
- Alden Ehrenreich’s Huron Station Playhouse Is The “Coolest New Theater Venue” In L.A.
“Artistic director Alden Ehrenreich turned a historic 1906 Pacific Electric Railway power station into an artistic playground with hipster vibes, alluring music, a younger-than-usual audience and high-end soap in the bathroom.” – Los Angeles Times (MSN)
- The Connections Between Rock Music And Fascism
Such a superhuman magnification of the individual is unsettling to behold at close range. I witnessed the internal mechanics when I followed Radiohead on tour in 2000. Members of the band were variously thrilled, unnerved, and scared by what they were unleashing—a healthily complex reaction. – The New Yorker
- In Medieval Times, Curiosity Was A Negative
Curiosity was seen as a largely vacuous interest in novel or forbidden information. The curious person was thought to reach for what was hidden and secret, beyond their proper purview, and thereby isolate themselves from spiritual and social community. – MIT Reader
- On Poets And Reputations
The maker of an anthology can’t help being aware of the contemporary reputation of poets. But he knows, too, that this enterprise, this book, will be a chance to amend that reputation. – Hudson Review
- San Francisco Ballet Is Releasing A Virtual-Reality “Nutcracker”
In a partnership with Google, immersive media company YB and augmented reality company XREAL, SFB is presenting Nutcracker: The Immersive Experience, a specially recorded performance of the company’s production (choreography by Helgi Tomasson) for home viewing on VR platforms. – San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
- Why Do Things Exist?
This very obvious fact about the world – that things exist – can shift from seeming mundane and trivial to very surprising, even downright weird. – Aeon
- How America Developed A Culture Of The Telephone
Advertising could turn people into customers, but helping phone owners form what Bell called a “telephone habit” required a different tool. – JStor
- New Play Festival Says It Will Now Program Year-Round
The South Carolina New Play Festival (SCNPF) announced that it will move from a summer-only festival to a year-round festival with a summer and winter season. – Greenville Business Magazine
- Phoenix Symphony Is Back Onstage For Now, But Its Problems Aren’t Over
The $2 million raised in an emergency campaign after the orchestra was abruptly furloughed last month is only enough, according to the musicians, to keep the Symphony running through the end of 2026. An 11-member commission of musicians, management, and civic leaders is trying to develop a “sustainable” plan to keep the PSO operating. – Phoenix New Times
- Broadway Box Office Rebounds
Overall the industry gross rose 24 percent and attendance 15 percent thanks to the addition of the two new shows, as well as the rebound from Halloween and marathon weekend. – The Hollywood Reporter
- Can These Economists Build A Better Case For Public Arts Support?
These discussions, championed by at least one economics research and advisory firm in partnership with a major Australian arts festival, are instead thinking about the arts activities as powerful economic ‘enablers’ and strategic assets which help facilitate wider cultural, economic and social objectives. – ArtsHub
- The Case For Humanities
Encompassing history, literature, philosophy, art, and more, the humanities provide a lens through which one can view one’s personal experiences—making the universal personal and the personal universal. – Jstor
- Russia Is Requiring Theaters To Hire Ukraine War Veterans As Ballet Dancers And Choir Singers
Laws passed in various regions of the country are requiring state-funded employers such as schools, universities, and performing arts institutions to hire veterans of the “special military operation” as instructors ranging from kindergarten to college-level, ballet dancers, choristers, and piano accompanists. (And they’re forbidden to ask about PTSD.) – Meduza
- Losing Candidate For U.S. Senate Seat Sues Two Leading Radio Hosts
Yoshi D. Matthews, who came 9th of 10 candidates in the Tennessee race won by GOP incumbent Bill Hagerty, is suing nationally syndicated hosts Steve Harvey and D.L. Hughley, alleging that comments on their shows damaged her business career and political ambitions. But she’s got a big problem in proving her case. – Inside Radio
- The Onion Is Looking To Sponsor A College Football Bowl Game (Yes, Really)
The satirical publication is looking to break the 100,000-subscriber mark, which would make it, by circulation, the fourth-largest print newspaper in the U.S. As a marketing effort, it’s looking to buy naming rights to one of the numerous bowl games that happen around New Year’s. Wouldn’t you watch The Onion Bowl? – Nieman Lab
- Influential CEO Of Poetry Foundation To Step Down At End Of Next Year
Michelle T. Boone, at one time the city of Chicago’s cultural commissioner, became head of the nonprofit in 2021. Under her leadership, the Foundation (which also publishes Poetry magazine) extended its grantmaking portfolio by millions of dollars. – WBEZ (Chicago)
- Art Basel Paris To Partially Refund Gallerists For Early Closure
“All exhibitors who participated in the most recent edition of Art Basel Paris, which closed two days early because of planned protests, will get a 20 percent reduction on their final invoices. … Additionally, tickets purchased for that weekend have already been refunded.” – ARTnews
- After Sentencing For Rape, Russell Brand Is Accused Of Domestic Violence
“Jemima Goldsmith, executive producer of movies including The Voice of Hind Rajab and The Bibi Files, has alleged that Russell Brand was abusive during their relationship. … Goldsmith (who also goes by Jemima Khan) accused Brand of ‘violence, coercive control and abuse’ during their relationship in 2013-14.” – Deadline
- Duncan Sheik’s Final Musical To Close Early
Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen, the last project by the late songwriter of Spring Awakening, began previews Off-Broadway in late September in the converted former venue of Sleep No More and had been scheduled to run through New Year’s weekend. – Playbill
- Bill T. Jones Will Close His Dance Company
Good Morning,
The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company will stop performing at the end of 2027, after 45 years and creating more than 140 works. Jones, nearly 75, says he wants to ask “new questions about how I want to create” (BroadwayWorld).
The Vatican Museums hold about 80,000 objects that missionaries sent to Rome for a 1925 exhibition, and this month is the museum’s centenary. A Vatican source says the plan is to lie low; a McGill art historian says missionaries looted Canadian graves to fill the show (The Guardian).
In September France’s Goncourt prize dropped Haitian-Canadian writer Thélyson Orélien’s best-seller from contention over claims that AI wrote it. Kyle Berlin, a Paris magazine editor, compares it to 1972, when Yambo Ouologuem, the first African winner of the Prix Renaudot, was accused of copying Graham Greene; the writer never published again (The Atlantic).
The Met will stream the sold-out final performance of Lincoln in the Bardo, Missy Mazzoli’s opera, free on YouTube Saturday, asking viewers to donate in the live chat toward its $1.5 billion campaign (Playbill).
Two Italian scholars announced authentication of two early Caravaggios in two days. One, a portrait of a young man, sold at a Vienna auction in 2017 as Tuscan school for €3,810 (Artnet).
All of today’s stories below.
- NY Phil’s First European Tour With Dudamel Hit Some Bumps In The Road, But It Was A Hit
“The tour … was striking in its ambitions: 17 days, four countries, 10 performances and an army of 147 musicians, backup conductors, sound technicians, librarians, stagehands, donors, executives and a tour doctor. They traveled on trains, bus caravans, and chartered and commercial airplanes.” – The New York Times
- Art Basel To Discount Gallery Fees After Paris Show Closed Early
“We will exceptionally be extending a 20 percent reduction on booth fees to all galleries that participated in the Paris fair, in recognition of the closure,” on October 24–25, Art Basel chief executive Noah Horowitz told ARTnews in an interview. – ARTnews
- AI Has Become The Next Generation’s Way Into The Film Biz
While it can seem like a daunting time for students to enter an industry grappling with contraction and AI-driven shifts, many educators who have embraced AI remain optimistic. They choose to focus on the emerging opportunities for the next generation of talent. – Los Angeles Times
- The Vatican Has A Huge, Little-Known Collection Of Indigenous Art. Should It All Be Repatriated?
“The Anima Mundi, formerly the Ethnological Museum, (is) home to around 80,000 objects from across the globe, many of which were ‘gifted’ to the Catholic church in Rome by Indigenous peoples at a time when its missionaries were powerful, and sometimes dubious, figures in their far-flung communities.” – The Guardian
- The Worst Thing About Using AI To Write?
Above the chaos is a question: Why did this novel, thematically rote and stylistically bland as it is, receive such acclaim in the first place? – The Atlantic
- Why We Are Not Our Brains
Remember that the brain itself is merely another object in the world. To talk about it at all is to have already accepted a level of objective existence which cannot be reduced to sensory experience. – 3 Quarks Daily
- Rethinking What Biographies Are For
On its face, biography is the genre of the integral subject—a person interacting with others but distinct from them, not dissolving in a sea of substance. For Carlisle, though, the “metaphysical selfishness” of a world composed of discrete human beings “reinforces moral selfishness, and vice versa.” – The New Yorker
- Could Chicago’s South Side Become The Hub Of Black Theater It Used To Be?
Some of the first Black theater companies in the country were in South Side Chicago, and the scene flourished into the 1970s. Then, for economic and systemic reasons, the drama mostly dried up. Now, with some fresh talent and an influx of grant money, a revival is tentatively emerging. – WBEZ (Chicago)
- The Death Of Online Search?
Even Google may not be too big to fail, as pessimism mounts about the possibility of Search ever again working the way it used to. – The New Yorker
- We Need To Change Our Approach To Digital Life
It’s increasingly clear to me that we will not survive as a society without some seismic intervention that separates us from our screens, our algorithms, and our little simulacra of social life. – The New Yorker
- Waves Of CNN, CBS Veterans Take Skydance Buyouts
At CNN, according to two of these people, buyouts were offered to people who were in vice president roles or levels below and had more than 15 years of service. – Variety
- Gary Fisketjohn, One Of American Fiction’s Most Influential Editors, Is Dead At 72
“Fisketjon stayed with Knopf for 29 years, where he worked with many of the novelists who would come to define the American literary canon of the late 20th century” — among them Don DeLillo, Donna Tartt, Cormac McCarthy, Annie Dillard, Bret Easton Ellis, Patricia Highsmith, and Tobias Wolff. – Publishers Weekly
- Skydance Disses Warner Performance, Says It Will Be More Selective With Projects
“Warner Bros film has underperformed this year and will weigh on Q4 results. We’ll apply the same playbook we did at Paramount: greenlighting more selectively, prioritizing profitable streaming growth over subscriber count, optimizing linear and driving efficiency through the cost structure.” – Deadline