Stories

“Needless to say, this was not a situation Webster expected to encounter as an up and coming artist.” - The New York Times

A personalized tour of the Library of Congress “included original manuscripts from composers Béla Bartók, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky and Johannes Brahms. … But it was American composer George Gershwin's manuscript for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess that moved Sondheim to tears." - CBC

The letter “asks them to refrain from publishing books written using AI tools built on copyrighted content without authors' consent or compensation, to refrain from replacing publishing house employees wholly or partially with AI tools, and to only hire human audiobook narrators.” - NPR

With each recording, “we’re atrophying our memory a little and trusting that it will work autonomously. But it’s like an engine: if we give it a boost, it keeps working, but if we don’t, it gets worse and worse.” - El País

For instance, take New York: “Amid growing competition from nearby states like New Jersey, New York has spent more than $5.5 billion since 2017 to woo Hollywood productions.” - The New York Times

Thanks to Elon Musk and DOGE, of course - and no one knows when that might improve. - Wired

One person who watched the heartbroken response video: “This is why animation is so important too. AI slop won’t make you feel emotions like this.” - Fast Company

What’s up with movie directors? Well: “Making a film is a battle. ... The process is such a slog that, when a film-maker dies, the likelihood is that several unrealised movies die with them. Wouldn’t you keep going to the bitter end?” - The Guardian (UK)

A Dudamel test, and also, well, New York has awesome music in the parks in the summer, basically. - The New York Times

“Arts and cultural organizations in Portland face a double whammy: in addition to cuts in the city’s budget, the proposed elimination of the NEA, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has left organizations scrambling.” - Oregon ArtsWatch

Oh was "a glitter-dusted experimental artist-activist whose theater works intertwined political provocation with profound compassion in rituals of communion with audiences,” beloved by theatre folk in New York and across the country. - The New York Times

Maybe! “Although the £100,000 target has been reached, the has said extra money will strengthen its bid when the piece is sold at Sotheby’s.” - BBC

One of the bookstores writes, “Author JK Rowling publicly committed to using her private wealth from the Harry Potter series to develop the ‘JK Rowling Women's Fund,’ an organization dedicated to removing transgender rights. … With this announcement, we've decided to stop carrying her books.” -LitHub

“The celebration, which drew arts and civic leaders for the first of three preview nights, was far grander than the concert on March 26,1965, that opened LACMA’s Leo S. Bing Theatre the night before the doors opened to the museum’s original galleries.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

The police bust of an all-women party she hosted in 1925 was the subject of Ma Rainey’s 1928 record “Prove It on Me Blues.” Rainey and her contralto voice were part of a wider lesbian blues counterculture that included Gladys Bentley, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters and Alberta Hunter. - BBC