Two stories this week add up to something important when placed side-by-side. Congressional Republicans introduced a bill to nationalize book banning, which would give federal authorities sweeping powers to purge school and public library collections of content they don't like. In the second, a volunteer group called Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian has spent thousands of hours photographing … [Read more...]

The Metropolitan Opera announced its 2026–27 season this week, and the headline takeaway is this: 17 productions. The fewest in a full season since the company moved into Lincoln Center in 1966. More than a third of all performances will be Aida, La Bohème, or Tosca. Peter Gelb, whose long tenure has been marked by entrepreneurial ambition and significant financial struggle, simultaneously … [Read more...]

This week there's a question that connects nearly every story. Who gets to decide what's real? A viral AI-generated video of Tom Cruise fighting Brad Pitt is racking up views. Neither actor consented or was paid. SAG-AFTRA is furious. Lawsuits await. Meanwhile, Tracey Emin is telling young artists to buy cameras, keep diaries, and send letters because everything on your phone already belongs … [Read more...]

First up, a visual metaphor for the culture this week: a 15-foot gold-leaf statue of the President commissioned by crypto investors, versus the empty desks at the Washington Post, where the entire photography staff and Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee were unceremoniously let go. Heavy-metal "boosterism" in its rawest form versus the sound of expertise leaving the building. This … [Read more...]

This week we collected 119 stories. Here's what I learned: Existential crises have a way of forcing clarity. Whether the arts and the larger creative world are in crisis I leave for you to decide. But with weekly news of financial and organizational meltdowns, political pressures and an almost primordial angst about threats of AI, some things may be becoming clearer about what matters and/or … [Read more...]

It’s probably a hazard of the job, but I tend to look at culture systemically. It’s not just the algorithms that steer our attention, but the often-unseen infrastructure we constructed that determines a large part of our culture diet: the systems that shape orchestras, theatres, dance companies, museums, the practical nuts-and-bolts and often mundane practicalities that determine what’s possible … [Read more...]