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Edinburgh International Festival Sees Best Ticket Sales In A Decade

“2025’s EIF season, themed ‘The Truth We Seek’, sold 88% of available tickets. The figure is up by 29% on last year, when EIF sold 59% of its ticket capacity, and 34% up on the 2023 festival.” - Arts Professional (UK)

Did Three Malevich Paintings Really Turn Up Under A Retiree’s Bed When She Moved?

So says the owner of the works, Yaniv Cohen, who claims he was given them by his wife’s grandmother, whose father acquired them secretly from Malevich in Odesa early in the Stalin era. That’s supposedly why there’s no previous record of the works’ existence. Scholars are unconvinced by this explanation. - BBC (MSN)

YouTube’s Sneaky AI Processing

“They’re training us, the audience, to get used to the AI look and eventually view it as normal.” - The Atlantic

Rethinking The US Art Market

In the space of just a few weeks, four prominent U.S. galleries announced they would cease operations in their current forms. - Artsy

Egypt Changes The Visitor Experience Around The Pyramids

In April, the government announced the pilot launch of the pyramids area development project, leading to changes at the world’s most famous archaeological site. - Smithsonian

Glasgow’s Leading Theatre Reopens After Seven-Year Renovation

The Citizens Theatre closed in 2018 for what was supposed to be a three-year rehabilitation.  The COVID pandemic, and the ensuing inflation, both delayed the completion of the project by years and caused expenses to soar; the final cost of the renovation will likely be double the original £20 million budget. - BBC (MSN)

The Secret To Teaching Students To Read?

After a few Fridays, I noticed that one of the most inveterate nonreaders was not only listening, but also looking at his book, even mouthing along. - Washington Post

How CPB Budget Cut Has Impacted Rural Public Broadcasting

Several station managers across Alaska said they worried their station would end up with nothing more than an antenna to rebroadcast content created in Juneau, Anchorage or elsewhere in the country. - The New York Times

Why Is The University Of Chicago Taking A Step Back From Humanities?

The move to scale back humanities doctoral programs is either a prudent acknowledgment of the cratered job market for tenure-track professorships... or it is a cynical effort, under cover of the Trump administration’s assaults, to transfer resources away from “impractical,” unprofitable, and largely jobless fields. - The Atlantic

John Williams Doesn’t Think Very Highly Of Film Music (Including His Own)

“Film music, however good it can be – and it usually isn’t, other than maybe an eight-minute stretch here and there … The music isn’t there. … Just the idea that film music has the same place in the concert hall as the best music in the canon is a mistaken notion, I think.” - The Guardian

Social Media Pulls Out Of Mississippi Over Age Verification Law

The company says that compliance with Mississippi’s law—which would require identifying and tracking all users under 18, in addition to asking every user for sensitive personal information to verify their age—is not possible with the team’s current resources and infrastructure. - Wired

Edinburgh International Festival Says Demand To Give Up Baillie Gifford As Sponsor “Threatens Our Ability To Function”

“The festival said (the) demand for it to end its commercial partnership with the Edinburgh-based fund manager ‘ultimately reduces the very spaces where difficult conversations, human stories, and critical ideas can be explored’.” - The Scotsman

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water Addresses Leaks

Particularly problematic are the flat roofs and terraces that make Fallingwater so indelible — and provide the perfect place for water to pool. - Washington Post

Is Edinburgh Fringe Being Compromised By Rising Costs

Fringe has long since eclipsed the original festival it was founded alongside. It typically sells upwards of 2.5 million tickets a year. But 80 years on, performers and spectators alike say rising costs threaten the Fringe's free-for-all vibe. - NPR

How To Talk (And Creatively Solve Problems) With A Chatbot

ChatGPT, as ever, was upbeat, inexhaustible, and, crucially, unfazed by failure. It made suggestions. It asked its own questions. Some avenues were promising; others were dead ends. - The New Yorker

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