A flamenco guitarist and juggler explain why they're the antidote to our tech-flattened souls. Because apparently what civilization really needs is more passionate strumming and flying objects to remember we're human. - Aeon

But the movies keep on coming. - Salon

No, we’re not talking about Ryan Gosling. We’re talking about puppetry, and voices. - The New York Times

“The real Holmes - the one written by Conan Doyle - is endlessly fascinating. He is a genius but flawed because he is so supercilious that he gets bored too quickly and turns to drugs to keep him occupied. But he has a humanity to him.” - NPR

“Yes, we’re living through a political revolution, but it’s not the one you think. It’s not the fast-paced hurtle towards fascist necropolitics we wake up to every day.” - The Guardian (UK)

Once firms get consumers used to being sorted, profiled, and priced differently, the practice starts to feel inevitable. But it is not. It is a choice about what kind of business practices we expect. Personalized algorithmic pricing pulls together affordability, privacy, competition, consumer protection, and data extraction all at once. - The Walrus

To no one’s surprise, A Russian court banned the Oscar-winning documentary Mr Nobody Against Putin from several streaming platforms .., alleging it promoted ‘negative attitudes’ about the Russian government.” - The Guardian UK (Agence France-Presse)

Should that trust still exist, which is questionable. “With the rise of large language models, the problem of not-quite-right advice will only get worse. The quickly written, often shoddily verified content is going to become what the LLMs take as the truth.” - Slate

The problem is caused, but not solved, by technology: “There is currently no trusted technological solution for reliably identifying AI-generated content, or even human-made content, at scale.” Not great for this political moment! - The Verge

“Short-form video habituates the brain to rapid stimuli, reducing its capacity to stay focused on the slower and more demanding. There’s a popular term for it that’s pretty self-explanatory: ‘brainrot.’” - Boston Globe

An AI-generated LEGO movie mocking Trump as a pedophile “is the work of Iran-based propagandists called the ‘Explosive News Team’ and is just the latest in a long line of AI-generated LEGO videos aimed at mocking Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu.” - 404 Media

Maybe it was this: “The platform’s operational costs proved unsustainable, with each 10-second video costing OpenAI approximately $130 in compute expenses. With millions of users creating content daily, these costs escalated to $15 million per day.” - Geeky Gadgets

Sitting in the orchestra, the principals sound wonderful. But elsewhere, thanks to onstage tunnels: “Few lines of the libretto could be made out over the playing, which from the Balcony was often so loud it reduced the singers to textures, like instruments in the ensemble.” - The New York Times

It’s foundational: "Over the past three decades, music originating from Black genres has generated £24.5bn of the UK music industry’s £30bn recorded music market.” - The Guardian (UK)

Nominations for the Ivor Novello songwriting awards: “reveal the gender disparity in British and Irish music: there are more than twice as many male nominees (40) than female (19), with two non-binary artists making up the 61 songwriters and composers recognised.” - The Guardian (UK)

“One thing that could help turn things around is if opera companies offered audiences works in the language they speak (and) a musical language they can readily recognize and enjoy. … Too often composers and producers reject music that audiences can easily appreciate as insufficiently sophisticated or original.” - The New York Times

“The BLO has been something of a nomad after ending its relationship with the Shubert Theatre a decade ago. ... While the company steadily performs at historic Boston venues like the Emerson Colonial, preparing for their big productions has scattered the company around the city, and beyond, for years” — until now. - WBUR (Boston)

“An Austrian pianist who turns 68 on Monday, Hinterhäuser became artistic director on Oct. 1, 2016. The festival announced in April 2024 that he had been given a third five-year term from 2026-31, but his relationship with management became strained.” - AP

Slow War Against the Nuclear State excavates the visual complicity between art and annihilation. These cultural archaeologists prove that the camera didn't just capture history—it helped make the bomb possible. Click, boom. - Hyperallergic

The hurried reviews, with construction cranes already swiveling above the White House grounds, are an abrupt departure from how new monuments, museums and even modest renovations have been designed and refined in the capital for decades. And the ballroom will be worse off for it, architects warn. - The New York Times

“The Magnani Rocca Foundation, a private museum, lies in the heart of the countryside 20 kilometres from Parma. Local media reported that the thieves were able to nab the paintings in less than three minutes and escape across the museum gardens.” - CBC

“At the crux of the controversy is the fact that Tabouret’s new windows would push out Viollet-le-Duc’s undamaged ones. Advocates for the project argue that since the windows date to the 19th century, instead of the Middle Ages, they are fair game to be replaced.” - ARTnews

"Developers discovered the cultural value of place-making. Corporations embraced art as branding. Cultural nonprofits and academic institutions increasingly adopted the vocabulary of community engagement while operating within the same economic structures driving displacement.” What now? - Hyperallergic

“Angelus Novus is renowned not just in its own right, but for what its most famous owner made of it. … It was purchased in Munich in 1921 by the German-Jewish writer Walter Benjamin, a titanic figure in 20th-century letters.” Now, ironically, it’s represented by “an authorized facsimile.” - The New York Times

“It was a hotly debated thing, and it came to a head with Meryl Streep.” - The New York Times

Nobel laureate Han Kang won the fiction category for We Do Not Part, while Karen Hao took nonfiction honors for Empire of A.I. and Arundhati Roy received the autobiography prize for Mother Mary Comes to Me. Among other honorees were Quinn Slobodian for Hayek's Bastards (criticism) and Kevin Young for Night Watch (poetry). - AP

As more A.I.-generated writing is put out in the world, more readers will question whether the text they are poring over was penned by a human. We’re barreling toward a rapid erosion of trust between authors and readers, and the publishing industry is unprepared to deal with the consequences. - The New York Times

Everyone is trying to ­figure out who is LLM and who is human, and sometimes we’re getting it wrong. In particular, people who learned English as a second or third language, working hard to master the strange, unpredictable rules, are accused of using AI precisely because they follow those rules. - New York Magazine

The independently-owned title has seen sales decline from a post-pandemic high of 91,000 copies in 2021 to about 78,000 currently. But the LRB has increased income by an average of 6.8% year-on-year since the pandemic and is focusing on revenue per copy rather than discounting to increase circulation. - Press Gazette (UK)

Shipping costs are rising; freighters are being re-routed, interfering with schedules; one shipment was on a vessel struck by a missile. Perhaps worst: insurance policies usually exclude acts of war. - Publishers Weekly

Streaming's rebel phase is officially over. HBO Max's confused British debut—complete with licensing tangles, bundling mysteries, and consumer bewilderment—proves digital platforms have become everything they once promised to disrupt. — The Conversation

After seasons of pretty faces in period costumes, the Netflix hit discovers that meaningful representation requires more than just colorblind casting—it needs actual storylines that grapple with identity and belonging. — LitHub

“Many shows have not only endured, they’ve spawned universes, international adaptations and spinoffs. Bravo, a TV channel that used to focus on the performing arts, is now an unscripted powerhouse that even has its own convention, BravoCon.” - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)

The newest price increase includes a $27 a month premium (that is, not ad-supported; which was, one may remember, THE WHOLE POINT OF STREAMING) plan. Time to get out? - Decider (MSN)

“An audience member shouted to the stage that the movie was too violent. ‘Well, life is violent,’ Schnabel responded.” - San Francisco Chronicle

“It's the kind of television writing that you can see in the blueprints of everyone’s favorite shows nowadays. There’s a reason why Whedon was once admired for his craft. The long term, episode by episode plotting is just exquisite.” But there’s also a reason the remake failed. - Aftermath

Two Canadian sisters make polished, professional, joyous ballet breakdown videos every week - and they have won over ballet scholars and ballerinas alike. “The goal is to make viewers feel equipped to say, ‘I understand what’s going on, and I can appreciate it.’” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

Add it to the long, long list of cancellations. - The New York Times

“In its first official season, starting May 2 in New York City, the International Dance League is offering contracts to top-level dance teams and presenting huge arena competitions. ... It’s calling the format ‘the MMA of dance.’ And the dance community is reacting with both excitement and skepticism.” - Dance Magazine

“Rafael Bonachela will step down in the middle of 2028, marking 20 years at SDC. Under his leadership, the company has emerged as a significant player on the global dance stage and established extensive training programs for young dancers.” - The Sydney Morning Herald

"If I’m just talking about the work, I would say we have a very clear movement approach that has developed over time, a shared language that includes a lot of different modern dance techniques, a language that has become unique to us." - LA Dance Chronicle

“Since 1980, Val Caniparoli” — for decades SFB’s principal character dancer — “has dedicated most of his energies to a much-lauded choreography career, and rather than slowing down, he's building momentum as he enters an exciting new phase.” - San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)

“Even the fact that audiences were made up of Black and white South Africans mingling together was unheard of in a city where the law separated areas and people by race.” - NPR

“A narrative poem full of sex, drugs and violence, it tells the story of a crazy gathering hosted by a beautiful vaudeville singer named Queenie and her crass clown performer boyfriend, Burrs. The poem’s jazzy syncopated rhythms make it as lively and unpredictable as the action.” - The New York Times

“'There’s nobody I’d rather go to battle with,’ Bernthal said fervently of his co-star. And ‘if we do go down,’ Moss-Bachrach said, laughing, ‘it’ll be spectacular.’” - The New York Times

So … does the opening line really mean “Look, there’s a lion; oh my God”? Or is all of this just a big GoFundMe scam? - Vulture

To celebrate, theatre makers give video messages. Willem Dafoe (a founding member of the Wooster Group) in his message: “Our challenge as theatre-makers is to avoid the corruption of theatre solely as a commercial enterprise dedicated to entertain as distraction.” - American Theatre

West End theater tickets are regularly less expensive than on Broadway, even for the same shows. Last year, the average West End ticket price was about $81, while last season the average Broadway ticket price was roughly $129. - The New York Times

Hurt also "drew moviegoers to her array of emotionally impactful performances in such films as Interiors, Chilly Scenes of Winter and The World According to Garp.” - The Hollywood Reporter

“Kidder was careful to eschew focusing on his longtime loves like fishing or baseball, afraid that if he spent too much time in one of those realms, it might cause him to ‘feel sick of it.’” - The Guardian UK (AP)

“To imagine a hospital administrator agreeing to this sort of project in a post-Titicut world speaks to the devastating impact of Wiseman’s work; anyone who had seen anything like it before surely would’ve said, You can see yourself out.” - Paris Review

Italian authorities said Thursday they had seized €20 million of assets in Tuscany, including property, vineyards. and artworks, allegedly bought with money embezzled from Andress. The onetime Bond girl, now 90, had filed a complaint alleging a “progressive and significant depletion of her assets” by her financial managers. - AFP (Yahoo!)

“After The Atlantic cited anonymous sources saying he was, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called it ‘fake news.’ But today the Kennedy Center made it official.” - NPR

“(He) turned everything from computer engineering to life in a nursing home into unexpected bestsellers. … Kidder won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for his 1981 work The Soul of a New Machine, which (explored) a fledgling computer company long before most people cared about the inner workings of Silicon Valley.” -...