Not really, but there will be “acoustic and jazz” concerts, poetry readings, dance performances and more — including possible “historical reenactments of gladiatorial battles.” - Seattle Times (AP)

Curing cancer? Hm, not so fast. “Slop, memes, and sex seem like such a comedown from OpenAI’s carefully cultivated reputation as an ambitious but responsible pioneer.” - Fast Company (Archive Today)

“My concern is not artificial intelligence, but natural stupidity. I think that's what drives most of the world's worst features. But I did want it to have the arrogance of Victor be similar in some ways to the tech bros. He's ... creating something without considering the consequences.” - NPR

 It seems wrongheaded to feel wistful for a time when students had far less information at their fingertips. And who can blame them for letting AI do much of the work that they are likely to let AI do anyway when they enter the real world? - The Atlantic

 There’s something about motion that triggers creative thoughts. This has been true for a long time. Charles Darwin’s budding theory of evolution jelled while he was riding in the back of a carriage. “I can remember the very spot on the road … when to my joy the solution occurred to me,” he wrote later. - The Walrus

The structure of our societies is such that when you’re wealthy, availability of The Commons is of negligible benefit. However, when your private command over resources is limited, i.e. you’re broke, the “cultural-infrastructure” determining which level of access to which resources is permissible, may set the entire course of your life. - 3 Quarks Daily

“Are all forms of de-skilling corrosive? Or are there kinds that we can live with, that might even be welcome?” - The Atlantic (MSN)

“The 42-seat luxurious movie theater a place where countless presidents, their families or staff have screened any movie of their choosing, whether the latest Hollywood blockbuster, an Oscar contender or a perennial classic.” - The Hollywood Reporter

Museums are not ready. “Censorship corrodes trust in complex ways. … Solidarity is mostly lacking in the museum world, where the strategy so far seems to be heads down and hope for the best.” (This is, let’s be clear, not a winning strategy.) - Washington Post (MSN)

Located about 70 miles north of Phoenix, Arcosanti is the only “arcology” — Paolo Soleri’s portmanteau for compact, self-sufficient communities that fuse architecture and ecology — to materialize in the real world. - Bloomberg

The White House was never meant to be a palace, nor the Oval Office a throne room. The East Wing was the living artery of the White House, the First Lady’s offices, the Social Office, the machinery of ceremonial democracy where symbolism gets translated into human scale. - Rick Wilson

“Overcoming the contradiction between dream and reality, (Breton and his fellow Surrealists) believed, would complement the class struggle between the global proletariat and its bourgeois oppressors. Surrealism was much more than a merely artistic project — it was also a means toward a larger political end.” - The Conversation

But small venues “should not be valued solely for their role in nurturing future superstars. Live music has an intrinsic value and venues can be part of a town’s identity. A scheme to put them into community ownership has had striking success, with five secured so far.” - The Guardian (UK)

Pitchfork has historically been a one-sided affair. While it ran the occasional reader poll, there was no way for readers to directly voice their opinion on the site. - The Verge

“Today’s $8 billion payout is a testament to the fact that the twin engine of ads and subscriptions is firing on all cylinders,” said YouTube’s Global Head of Music, Lyor Cohen, in a statement. - TechCrunch

“Isola Della Musica will be situated on a newly-built square island between Hanoi's West Lake and Đam Tri Lake. … Renzo Piano Building Workshop and PTW Architects conceived a bulbous concrete building (clad in pearlescent ceramic tile) that will contain a 1,800-seat opera hall and a 1,000-seat convention hall.” - Dezeen

“The San Antonio Philharmonic has postponed its Classics III concerts, scheduled for the weekend of Nov. 7-8, marking the second time one of the orchestra’s fall events has been rescheduled for a later date. The Catrina Ball, a United Way fundraiser …, was also postponed from its Nov. 1-2 dates.” - San Antonio Current

Eric Lu, a 27-year-old pianist from Massachusetts, won the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition, becoming the first American since 1970 to receive the top honor in a contest regarded by some as the Olympics of classical music. - Washington Post

The mystery of who that dapper person in the now famous photo might be, that is. The jewel theft, they’re working on. - AP

“The arrests were a major breakthrough for French investigators, who are racing to find the thieves before the jewelry is dismantled and the rare stones and metals can be sold or melted down, as many experts fear they will be.” - The New York Times

It was amazing at first. But “Mu says he doesn’t have any immediate plans to make another Sora imitation, partially because the video quality has gotten so good that it’s now almost impossible to create parodies.” - Wired

Some of the great ones — minus Ocean’s 8, which, hm, wonder why — are on this long list, for your autumn and winter amusement. - CBC

Joanna Koerten was regularly visited by nobles and even royalty; a contemporary poet compared her skill with paper to Michelangelo’s with paint; one of her pieces sold for over twice what Rembrandt got for The Night Watch. Her work is now on view at D.C.'s National Museum of Women in the Arts. - Artnet

Sotheby’s said the items to be sold are estimated to draw bids in excess of $50 million. Any extra proceeds not needed to retire the debt and any unsold artworks will be returned to Okada Fine Arts, which is controlled by Okada. - The New York Times

It can go badly — see “Khaleesi” as a name, for instance — or fine, but what a risky idea. - The New York Times

Mychal Threets “recalls the joy he felt as a young boy watching Burton on the show, taking viewers anywhere from an underwater world to the set of Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Now he’s the host, trying to create joy for other kids.  - San Francisco Chronicle

“A history of an “unruly appendage”, a look at the sadly neglected post-war Montreal erotic art scene and a scientific tome tackling whether fish can recognise themselves in a mirror are among the six shortlistees in The Bookseller’s Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year 2025.” - The Bookseller (UK)

“The Children’s Booker Prize, offering £50,000 (roughly $67,000) for the best fiction written for readers aged eight to 12, … will launch in 2026, with the first winner announced in early 2027. It will be decided by a mixed panel of adult and child judges, a first for a Booker award.” - The Guardian

“Poems from an Attic: Selected Poems, 1936–1995, to be published on 6 November, brings together decades of work that Murdoch largely kept private, stored for years in a chest in her Oxford home.” - The Guardian

“It would be hard to find another nation as serious about its language. In Lithuania, one misspelled word can turn a politician into a clown; a misplaced comma can be enough to cancel a date. … Yet people often say, ‘If only that book/song/movie were in English, it would be a hit.’” - Literary...

“At a news conference at Cannes, Coppola discussed the tremendous amount of his own money that he had sunk into the film, saying that he ‘never cared about money’ and that his children ‘don’t need a fortune.’” - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)

Boss Fight Entertainment was the studio behind the popular Squid Game: Unleashed, but that didn’t save the company. “Netflix’s next big gaming initiative is focused around party games you can play on your TV using your phone as a controller.” - The Verge

“Such a step has been years in the making. Mehiel, who lived in Puerto Rico until they were 5 years old, began their creative endeavors almost as soon as they arrived in New York City, first as a salsa dancer and later as an actor.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

“With his insistence on seeing only god’s will in the Catholic vs. Protestant religious wars of his Europe, Luther reminds me of nothing so much as the character Beverly Keane (played by Samantha Sloyan) in the 2021 Netflix horror series Midnight Mass.” - The Flytrap

Eight in ten listeners say the host is one of the main reasons they listen to their favorite show, and more than half would stop listening if the host left. - InsideRadio

By playing with metaphor, imagery and narrative, horror has always addressed hard truths about death, decay and the human condition that mainstream productions tend to shy away from as too disgusting, embarrassing or distressing. - The Guardian

No, seriously: This is snow dancing, with skis. "In 1988 and 1992, ski ballet featured as a demonstration sport in the Winter Olympics. At a high level, it was actually pretty bad ass.” Powder (Yahoo)

“The plaintiff, Taína Lyons, an Afro-Latina dancer, … alleges that (Morris) told her that her hair was ‘too big’ and a ‘distraction.’ ... Ms. Lyons, who started at the company in 2022 and was terminated in 2024, claimed that she had faced discrimination based both on race and on disability.” - The New York...

The opera house issued a public appeal to the Riigikogu Cultural Affairs Committee on Thursday, stating that if the current lack of funding continues as it is, the sustainability of the national opera is in serious danger. - ERR (Estonia)

“Misty Copeland took one last spin on her pointe shoes Wednesday, showered with golden glitter and bouquets as she retired from American Ballet Theatre after a trailblazing career in which she became an ambassador for diversity in an overwhelmingly white art form.” - AP

“If all potential legal cases are to proceed against An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha, it may not be able to continue as a going concern ‘to govern our beautiful art form’. That is the warning sounded by directors of Irish dancing’s largest and oldest governing body.” - The Irish Times

“In a world with fewer contracts than aspiring dancers, and a long history of training dancers to silently acquiesce, it can feel taboo to express discomfort or refuse an opportunity. But artists sometimes have to contend with a role that seems culturally insensitive, exacerbates an injury, or otherwise feels wrong.” - Dance Magazine

Good question, one that 1948’s biopic about Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart - Words and Music, starring Mickey Rooney as a heterosexual Hart - got very wrong. But: “That the ’40s biopics are so bad on the facts as well as the spirit doesn’t render them entirely worthless.” - The New York Times

“Circus Centre Melbourne, originally designed as a home for Circus Oz, has reopened as a home for the broader contemporary circus and physical theatre sectors — a space where circus artists can meet, create, train and perform.” - ArtsHub (Australia)

“Today, the Globe is thriving as San Diego’s oldest and largest theater organization, offering performances … for more than 250,000 people a year. … We spoke with its leaders, present and past, about the company’s legacy, and some of the goals in mind for the theater’s centennial in 2035.” - The San Diego Union-Tribune...

AFM Local 802 announced that a deal with the Broadway League at 4:30 Thursday morning, saying in a statement that “this three-year agreement provides meaningful wage and health benefit increases.” - The Hollywood Reporter

“We unfortunately are operating with a little bit of fear, as we continue to be the prominent immigrant community theater company in Chicago, let alone in our neighborhood." - WBEZ

AFM Local 802 and the Broadway League (representing producers) go into mediation on Wednesday, and Local 802 is prepared to strike immediately if no deal is reached by Thursday morning. The League and Actors’ Equity negotiated an agreement last weekend, but Equity could still strike in solidarity with the musicians. - Playbill

Valente “was acclaimed for the faultless technique and intelligence of her performances in operas, recitals and chamber music, but inexplicably failed to gain a wider following among classical music audiences.” - The New York Times

“The filmmaker announced he will auction off seven watches, ranging in value from $3,000 to $1 million, ...  in an effort to rebuild his wealth after investing $120 million into the 2024 box-office flop Megalopolis.” - San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)

“In an era when sculptors were turning out factory-fabricated objects with shiny metal surfaces, … (she) stacked lengths of wood into objects that resembled pyramids, stairways and towers, imbuing the sleek forms of Minimalism with an aura of ancient mystery.” - The New York Times

With then-business partner Nicholas Grimshaw, he rode Britain’s “high-tech Modernism” wave of the 1970s to prominence. But he tired of that movement’s austere aesthetic and went on to design landmarks of London’s postmodern architecture such as the headquarters of TV-am and the intelligence service MI6. - The New York Times

Naghma, despite the popularity she achieved early in her career, faced many difficulties in conservative Afghan culture even before the rule of the Taliban. In the 1990s, mujahideen rebels murdered her sister and she fled the country. She’s been a cultural treasure for the Afghan diaspora ever since. - The New York Times

Loves: Baroque music, textiles “from all over the world,” real estate listings from across the world. Oh, and candy. "Am I not human?” - The New York Times