Stories

Weird Idea Spreads On Chinese Internet That Tang Dynasty Never Existed

The Tang era (618-907 CE) is considered a golden age, a period of territorial expansion, prosperity and high culture which every Chinese schoolchild learns about. Claiming it never happened is like telling Brits there was no Norman Conquest. Yet the bogus idea has caught on widely enough that China’s government is weighing in. - CNN

How The COVID Crisis Shifted Culture Funding

In 2019, arts organizations in BIPOC-majority neighborhoods of a major U.S. city received 16% less median grant funding than those in white-majority neighborhoods. By 2022, they were receiving 289% more. - SMU Cultural Data

Study: More Than One-Third Of Web Pages Created Since 2022 Show Signs Of AI

Over one-third of web pages published after the release of ChatGPT show signs of being written by AI, according to a new study from Pew Research released on Thursday. - TechCrunch

Christian Band Demon Hunter Sues Netflix Over Megahit “KPop Demon Hunters” Movie

KPop Demon Hunters was the sleeper hit of 2025, dominating Netflix's streaming numbers. The musical-fantasy produced by Sony Pictures Animation has over 600 million views since its debut in June of last year. - Movieweb

Lenny Bruce And His Endless Battles With The Vice Cops

Working in the 1960s, when most standup was a succession of one-liners, Bruce used profanity, political satire, and sexual material which comedians today consider a basic right. Yet in his day he was regularly arrested and tried for obscenity; Phil Spector ultimately said Bruce died from “an overdose of police.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

How “Hadestown: The Musical” Became A Movie Hit

Billed as a “five night only” event, “Hadestown: The Musical” has extended its run in theaters for four weeks, thanks to popular demand. In the process, the filmed stage show has become an indie blockbuster, grossing $20.7 million.  - Indiewire

More Schools Are Teaching Cursive Again. Should They Be?

Pennsylvania and Florida legislators argue, for example, that an informed citizenry needs to be able to read historical documents, which are often written in cursive script. - Washington Post

The Growing Threat Of Cyberattacks On Museums

We live in a time when digital systems underpin everything from ticketing to surveillance and building access. Sidelining cybersecurity leaves museums vulnerable to attacks that could threaten both their finances and their collections. - The Conversation

Four Comics At Edinburgh Fringe Explain How They Developed Their Very Odd Characters

For instance, Sam Eley gives the background on his Basil Crumbwick, whose papier-mâché head makes him seven feet tall, while Katie Pritchard recounts the origin story of her Sir Elton Scone, who hosts a Great British Bake Off-style show which uses no ovens. - The Guardian

How The Kennedy Center Plans To Put Trump’s Name Back

In a status report submitted late Tuesday to a federal court, the Kennedy Center outlined its plans to put President Trump's name back on the arts complex. - NPR

Research: Large AI Datasets Obscure Authorship

It feels counterintuitive, but at sufficiently large scales, they find, you can often remove any single image from the training data, or every image by a given artist, or every photograph of a given person, and the generated sample doesn't change. - MIT

What’s Changed In Classical Music Over 50 Years

What has surprised me, looking back to 1976 (when I started writing for a tiny magazine that sadly went out of business this year) is how much of the classical music landscape has survived, despite the economic pressures that you don’t need reminding about. - BBC Music

Paul Simon’s “Graceland” At 40

Hard as it may be to believe today, Graceland was not an instant hit when it came out, and Simon received criticism for what’s now called cultural appropriation and for violating sanctions against apartheid-era South Africa. Now its influence is widespread enough that it can be hard to perceive these decades later. - The Guardian

How Adam Sklute Transformed Salt Lake City’s Ballet West

The ways that the company’s skill level, repertoire, national and international reputation, budget, and especially school (a ten-fold increase in enrollment) have grown during Sklute’s 20 years as artistic director are extraordinary. - The Utah Review

Scammers Are Posing As Terry Gross To Catfish Authors And Media Figures

Comedy writer Brice Vilanch and psychologist Steven Pinker are among those who’ve been contacted by someone claiming to be not a producer but NPR host Gross herself or co-host Tonya Mosley, offering an interview on Fresh Air, displaying deep knowledge of the target’s work, then asking for “contributions.” - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)

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