“Behind-the-scenes workers need to feed our families and have neither participated in any decisions relating to booked content, nor have we considered social issues as a matter of whether we service a production in the history of our relationship at the Kennedy Center.” - Deadline
On Thursday night, the Kennedy Center concert hall was awash in nearly a minute of howling, passionate booing. It started with one or two boos and caught on fast, roaring from the rows. I’ve never heard anything quite like it — let alone before a note was played. - Washington Post
In its proposal, OpenAI urged the federal government to enact a series of “freedom-focused” policy ideas, including an approach that would no longer compel American AI developers to “comply with overly burdensome state laws.” Copyright in particular is an issue that has plagued AI developers. - NBC News
“You need only look at some of the biggest stories of the past decade to realise popular culture from the late 2010s had a love affair with trauma. … It was the use of trauma as a ballast for plot, not just as a technique to illustrate character, that was so striking." - The Guardian
“The show” — Song of the North, adapted from the medieval Persian epic poem Shahnameh — “is mind-dizzyingly complex, involving 483 puppets, 208 animated backgrounds, 16 character masks and costumes and nine performers who follow more than 2,300 separate cues.” - The New York Times
“What is red-chip art? … (It) comes in many guises, but certain visual patterns predominate: super-flat cartoons, a street art/graffiti aesthetic, and multi-colored chrome. Crucially, red-chip art is defined by its refusal to revere art history, perhaps as a part of a broader rejection of elite, specialized knowledge.” - Artnet
Mayor Steven Meiner has asked the City Council to terminate the lease of, and end a $40,000 grant to, nonprofit movie theater O Cinema after it screened the documentary No Other Land, about life in a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank. - Deadline
The Legislature’s appropriations committee voted unanimously to reject the line in the Governor’s budget cutting $3.61 million — 65% of the network’s total general funds — to South Dakota Public Broadcasting. - USA Today
A 32-year-old Briton (and a direct descendant of Konstantin Stanislavsky), Prior became assistant conductor of the Seattle Symphony at age 17 and music director of the Edmonton Symphony at 25. He begins his initial term in Eugene next October. - KLCC (Eugene, OR)
A house called RiverRock, based on the design plans that were on Wright’s drawing board when he died, was completed early this year in a Cleveland suburb, and the owner charges $800 a night for short-term rentals. Is this a legitimate Wright creation? The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation says no. - Artnet
A full-time sportswriter for The Washington Post for 14 years and steady contributor thereafter, he became known to national audiences through regular appearances on NPR and ESPN. Feinstein wrote or co-write more than 40 books, including the bestseller A Season on the Brink, about basketball coach Bobby Knight. - The Washington Post (MSN)
While it’s been clearly demonstrated that plants respond to sound, the evidence about whether they’re affected by music, let alone which genres, is far from definitive. Nevertheless, there’s plenty of music for plants around; several streaming services even offer specially-programmed plant channels. - The Washington Post (MSN)
The cancellation of Big Bird and co. would be a loss, but there’s something bigger going on. Sesame Street’s fate is symptomatic of a larger shift in how corporations, governments, and, increasingly, citizens have lost faith in the spirit of solidarity that made initiatives like the PBS show possible. - The Walrus
“Archaeologists in Cambodia are celebrating an unexpected find at the country’s centuries-old Angkor temple complex: the torso of a statue of Buddha that matches a head found nearly a century ago at the same site. The torso, believed to be from the 12th or 13th century, was discovered ... last month.” - AP
The Italia Nostra heritage group warned that “downgrading interest in landscape” posed a “serious risk to the heritage of the widespread community”. - The Art Newspaper
