The network understands that contributions from major donors – such as the Hewlett Foundation, which gave NPR a two-year, $1.2 million grant in 2024 – will go a long way to make up for the federal cuts. - Inside Radio
“In short, the vision is to create a thriving and inclusive creative ecosystem in western Sydney that celebrates its diverse communities, drives cultural innovation and delivers social and economic value for everyone,” Arts Minister John Graham will say. - Sydney Morning Herald
People are now using AI to create “grief bots,” which are simulations of deceased loved ones that the living can converse with. There has even been a case where an AI-rendered video of a deceased victim has appeared to deliver a court statement asking for the maximum sentence for the person who took their life. - The Conversation
“I decided to put the central, existential question to (my students) directly: was it still necessary or valuable to learn to write? The choice would be theirs. We would look at the evidence, and at the end of the semester, they would decide by vote whether A.I. could replace me.” - Literary Hub
Some Republicans would no doubt be happy if PBS and NPR went away entirely, as they are upset by the networks’ left-wing bias. They should be rooting for their success instead. It would be proof that, contrary to constant scaremongering from interest groups, cutting federal spending doesn’t end in disaster for citizens. - Washington Post
"I’m not interested in participating in consensus culture. The way I understand art to function and the function that it carries out in culture is about provoking something that’s harder to understand.” - The Guardian
The images, bookended by posts cheering the administration’s deportation campaign, have been widely shared by conservatives and sparked alarm among the artists, their families and some historians, who see their use as part of an effort to rewrite the past with an exclusionary view of American history. - Washington Post
Because, writes Bilge Ebiri, “everywhere we look, numbers reign supreme. Metrics determine our life and work in ways that were inconceivable ten or 15 years ago. … The movies aren’t warning us about seeing ourselves as numbers so much as they are reflecting the sad simple fact that we already do.” - Vulture (MSN)
One simple reason his songs endure is that, for all that they are written for their words, it’s hard to stop humming their tunes. His brilliance as a pianist kept him from becoming repetitive, particularly because he had such a remarkable talent for musical pastiche. - The New Yorker
The trouble started when Jackson, who was the founding editor of the journal, invited music theorists with expertise in Schenkerian theory to write rebuttals to a plenary talk by music theorist Philip Ewell, who is Black, given at a Society for Music Theory conference in 2019. - KERA
A play is political if its subject is taboo and its story mirrors, exposes, and critiques the suppression and repression that interferes with the treatment of a cultural disease. A political play is a problem that is ignored, denied, maligned. A political play is, by definition, unpopular. - American Theatre
New York magazine’s Kathryn VanArendonk knows it’s not tenable to prevent her kids from doing what she does all day. “But my (policy is) the result of … how I want them to learn to think about screens and storytelling, and my desire to give them agency over their own brains.” - Vulture (MSN)
The art world’s consensus has been that the painting was inspired by the African masks Picasso saw on a visit to Paris’s first ethnographic museum in 1907. Collector/researcher Alain Moreau argues that Demoiselles was completed before then and Picasso inspiration came instead from medieval Catalan frescoes. - The Times (UK)
Remember Alberto Vilar? What Matthew Christopher Pietras did might have been worse. Or it might not, since the victims of the theft may not have noticed that they were being robbed. - New York Magazine
The future of the world’s largest fully-functional musical instrument was in doubt when Macy’s vacated the Wanamaker space earlier this year. Now the building’s new owner is partnering with Opera Philadelphia for a four-month series featuring concerts, ballet, bearded ladies, horror movies, and, of course, the organ. - Broad Street Review (Philadelphia)
