In the past (autism became a diagnostic category only in 1943), the ‘idiot savant’ was a paradox, who confounded categorisation because there was no unified way of comprehending how such exceptional musical and numerical skills might co-exist alongside their polar opposite: profound disability. - Aeon

The idea of a permanent underclass has recently been embraced in part as an online joke and in part out of a sincere fear about how A.I. automation will upend the labor market and create a new norm of inequality. - The New Yorker

The thing is, “music classes require ukuleles, recorders, and sheet music for every student. Visual arts classes require painting supplies –– easels, paper, paint brushes, paint. Dance classes require mirrors and bars.” How’s the $35 arts tax doing? - Oregon ArtsWatch

At least, at the University of Minnesota: “Students come to our courses not only for practical career training but to fulfill their love of reading, passion for writing, and hunger to reflect on essential questions about who we are as individuals and communities.” - Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Eliza was worth a lot more than her quick summing up in two minutes at the end of a 165-minute musical. "Eliza’s widowed years a kind of breakout,” actually, and the U.S. (and Washington, D.C.) would have looked quite different without her.  - The Atlantic

Researchers found “that those with ADHD may experience more frequent episodes of mind-wandering, and that that, in turn, could lead to greater creative thinking abilities.” - Fast Company

“My hope is that the administration continues to recognize how important artists and culture workers are to telling the story of Chicago and to making Chicago the kind of beautiful, vibrant place that we’re all fighting for.” - Chicago Sun-Times

“Many of the statues have been revived with the help of Italian American groups, who cherish Columbus as a figure their ancestors embraced as a hero of the diaspora.” But generally, they’re not being returned to public lands. - The New York Times

“A student-run radio station trains kids to do all sorts of things. It’s the engineering, it’s the on air, it’s the music, it’s the running it, the managing of it. And it’s all gone now.” - Cleveland Plain Dealer

The Smithsonian museums “had been able to keep their doors open for the first 11 days of the shutdown by relying on prior-year funds, but those coffers have since run dry.” - NPR

“As the Metro Arts Commission works its way back from several years of instability, it’s hoping the more than $3.2 million in grants it’s awarded for the 2026 fiscal year will be a sign of progress.” Most stakeholders seem to be relieved, though there’s one in particular which is still unhappy. - The Tennessean

While A.I. speeds along, upending any number of careers and lives, some in the art world have chosen to embrace it while also, in a sense, subverting it. These artists integrate A.I., gaming and other tech-heavy aesthetics into their work. - The New York Times

As AI becomes more embedded in music creation, the challenge is balancing its legitimate creative use with the ethical and economic pressures it introduces. Disclosure is essential not just for accountability, but to give listeners transparent and user-friendly choices in the artists they support. - The Conversation

A team led by Dr. Shinichi Furuya at the NeuroPiano Institute and Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc. has provided the first scientific evidence showing how pianists’ touch on the keys can actually change a piano’s timbre—the tonal character of its sound. - SciTech Daily

Cristian Macelaru: "The work is a lot more complex and challenging here , but it’s also much more rewarding. … I’ve always had such strong beliefs about what I would do if I were a music director of an American orchestra.” - The New York Times

In Britain, after December 31st, MTV will be no more - for the most part. “The flagship channel, MTV HD, will remain on air, showing reality series including Naked Dating UK and Geordie Shore.” - BBC

US District Judge Eumi Lee on Monday ruled that Universal Music Group, Concord Music Group and ABKCO can press forward with claims that Anthropic bears legal responsibility when users of its Claude chatbot generate copyrighted lyrics. - Music Business Worldwide

Andrés Orozco-Estrada, who was in Houston from 2014 to 2022, will become music director of the Swedish Radio Symphony next fall. He is also music director of the orchestra and opera house in Cologne and is now in his last season as chief conductor of the RAI National Symphony in Turin. - Moto Perpetuo

An estimated one-third of Navajo Nation members make and sell art for a living, and in Zuni Pueblo, as many as 85 percent of households include a working artist. Yet for more than a century, Native artists have been subject to a marketplace that undervalues their work and rips off their designs. - Mother...

The Smithsonian manages 21 museums around Washington, DC, and in New York, as well as the National Zoo and 14 research facilities. It had previously said it could rely on remaining funds from past fiscal years to remain open, originally for “at least” five days past the 1 October shutdown. - The Art Newspaper

In Australia, that dream — borne of the pandemic — appears to have died. - The Guardian (UK)

The actor “had a very genuine passion for historic preservation, not only for the buildings or the cultural landscapes, but for what they mean to people and what they would mean in the future.” - Variety

“Monuments are supposed to be collective tributes to shared ideals. Like Confederate statues, would function as the opposite — broadcasting a one-way message.”  - Aesthetic Insecurity

“Destroying the Vaillancourt Fountain, its supporters say, would be erasing history and modern architecture, and counter to the city’s reputation for being weird.” But wow, has the city neglected it for years. (The city says it just sort of aged out. Yup.) - The New York Times

My entire future rested on a few essays written in the school hall under a three-hour time constraint? Really? In the nineties, this was what we called “the meritocracy.” - The New Yorker

Given the complicated nature of library wholesaling and its existing position in the market, Ingram is well positioned to pick up a sizable chunk of B&T’s business.  - Publishers Weekly

The CEO of Simon & Schuster has some thoughts about what will be going on a decade from now: "I fearlessly predict that the average book will be shorter.” - Boston Globe (Archive Today)

Quiara Alegria Hudes: "I think there is more space for our different communities in literature than in theater. It costs less, and you can get books for free at the library, that makes it easier.” - El País English

In the U.S. (and other countries dealing with regimes antithetical to art), cultural workers could sure learn something from Charter 77. - LitHub

“You can’t speed-read a poem,” he explains. “You have to read it, hear the sounds, the rhythms, reread it, not be in a hurry. Slowing down helps us realize that for our speed, we sacrifice things.” - Christian Science Monitor

Tilly, you never had to be 14, so I’ll tell you what Google can’t. It feels like your soul gets a broken glass enema. You go from curious about this marvelous world to drowning in un-marvelous you. Who am I? How should I be? Am I alone? Your human brain answers “no one,” “invisible”...

Chat, is this less than ideal? “The merger would lead to the elimination of one of the original Hollywood film studios, and could see the consolidation of CNN with Paramount-owned CBS News.” - Los Angeles Times

"This issue of right-wing men attacking minority creatives and characters in video games has been going on for well over a decade at this point, and is unlikely to fade away any time soon.” Could gaming execs make a damn plan? - Slate

Zhao, at the London premiere of her new Hamnet, said, “In Hollywood, in the film industry, we are not very good at preserving the language of ambiguity. If logos and mystery are in harmony, we would be living in a much better world.” - Variety

“It’s been over a decade since the New York Film Festival has deployed a ‘Secret Screening’ of a major Oscars contender — not since Martin Scorsese brought an unfinished Hugo to the festival in 2011, followed by Steven Spielberg premiering Lincoln to, appropriately, the Lincoln Center audience in 2012.” - Vulture

Yes, Bond, the action hero who famously solves problems without guns … er, sorry, that's Doctor Who. "Unsurprisingly fans went into a tizzy about the alteration.” - The Verge

They did the evening’s performance — fulfilling their contract obligations, as they pointedly mentioned — but skipped the red-carpet photo ops and left vacant their places alongside wealthy patrons at the dinner tables. The quasi-strike comes amid contract negotiations, with dancers insisting that their pay reflect New York’s soaring cost of living. - Page...

He hasn’t danced for nearly a decade. He has damaged bones and tendons and claims to know all his vertebrae by name. But he’s still fiendishly driven. - The Guardian

After 25 years, the Bangladeshi-British choreographer is closing down his touring troupe to pursue new creative directions. In a Q&A, he discusses the Akram Khan Company’s final project: Thikra: Night of Remembering, which uses dancers trained in Bharatanatyam for a ritual work inspired by the ancient Nabataean culture of Petra and AlUla. - ArtReview

“I was thinking, she’s the mother of modern dance,” said English National Ballet artistic director Aaron S Watkin. “She’s so iconic and famous, but hardly anyone is doing (her work in the UK).” His company and a few others may be changing that. - The Guardian

“By now I’ve spent upward of 5,000 hours in ballet classes, and roughly 1,600 hours more in other, non-ballet dance classes. …  I dance as if it were my job.” - Slate

Walsh helped Scarlett create several scenes for the London premiere in 2016, then danced the title role in the 2017 revised version at San Francisco Ballet. Walsh was injured for the 2018 revival, so he helped stage it, and he has restaged it several times since Scarlett’s death in 2021. - L.A. Dance Chronicle

To get into Masquerade, you must go through Dylan’s door. Masquerade’s creative director, Shai Baitel, says that Phantom of the Opera and Dylan’s work have shared themes. For instance: “Bob is very connected to Paris. This is something that has influenced his entire career.”- Vulture

“Building these moments for the stage entailed leaps of imagination and acts of faith among the collaborators. ‘I’d say to the team, ‘Trust Zora.’ It’s in the play, it’s in the script, we just have to be able to see it.’” - The New York Times

Playwright Bess Wohl: “I wanted to make a play that I wished existed: a good, interesting, complicated play. How many plays are there really about this time and this movement? Not that many, when you consider what a big deal it was.” - American Theatre

Put simply, “Chess,” first produced in the U.S. in 1988, didn’t work on Broadway. So remounting the show, even though it’s become a cult favorite, is risky at a time when the box office is largely driven by long-running, big-brand musicals like “Wicked” and “Mamma Mia!” - Variety

Of course, some will argue that performing in authoritarian or oppressive countries is a means of reaching the masses; opening up art to those underserved. And while that may be true on occasion, it is a different thing entirely from being sponsored by the state itself to launder its sovereignty.  - The Guardian

More than any other artists, comedians are alert to how language reveals meaning, and what all the explanations have in common is a maddening vagueness. What does this specific festival represent? - The New York Times

The Oscar-winning director and actor with the most iconic American screen presence since Gary Cooper is now brawling with his castmates, getting sued by his crewmembers and, in recent months, giving paid keynote speeches at bakery and veterinarian conventions. - The Hollywood Reporter

Griffin was “an influential poet, playwright and prolific feminist author who pioneered a unique form of creative nonfiction, blending propulsive, poetic prose with history, memoir and myth.” - The New York Times

Keaton was the star of Annie Hall, for which she won an Oscar, and many other Woody Allen movies; she was also an Oscar nominee for Reds, Marvin’s Room, and Something’s Gotta Give. And then there were her iconic roles in the Godfather movies. - The Hollywood Reporter

“(He) enjoyed a wide-ranging career as a theatre and opera director without any of the obvious attributes for being so – no university or musical education, no artistic background, no connections – yet he succeeded over many decades in opera houses around the world, and for 10 years at the Royal Shakespeare Company.” - The...

Among the arts folks who won this year’s $800,000 no-strings grants are playwright Heather Christian, photographers Tonika Lewis Johnson and Matt Black, artist/filmmakers Garrett Bradley and Tuan Andrew Nguyen, artist/curator Gala Porras-Kim, composer Craig Taborn, author Tommy Orange, cartographer Margaret Wickens Pearce, and traditional Wabanaki basket weaver Jeremy Frey. - NPR

Esterow purchased ARTnews in 1972 from Newsweek, which at the time was a division of the Washington Post Company, and owned it until 2014, when ARTnews was sold in 2014 to Sergey Skaterschikov. - ARTnews