The early video store was often a place to talk as well as to shop, and the persona and expertise of retailers and clerks structured the consumer experience of home video as much as the shelves on the wall. - MIT Press
Justin Davidson on New York’s Perelman Arts Center and The Shed: “Now the boldest experimenters can take advantage of walls that move at the touch of a button, precision lifts, rooms that shrink and expand, projected images (on) moving surfaces. … Yet the revolution, now that it’s here, feels anticlimactic and overpriced.” - Curbed (MSN)
I want to build a company with the strength and resources to deliver for those audiences who turn to us, for the storytellers who rely on us and for the country that dreamed this all up. - The New York Times
It’s the year’s worst pop trend: fans paying the highest price to pre-order what is ostensibly the most desirable, collectible or elaborate edition of an album are instead receiving incomplete or unpolished versions of the music. - The Guardian
Pandji Pragiwaksono was a household name in Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most populous country. In a Netflix special last year, he made fun of the president and was interrogated on criminal charges. Now he’s in New York, working comedy clubs, learning which routines don’t translate, and preparing for his first English-language tour. - Variety
The difficulties of using AI in Africa are also linguistic. By the summer of 2025, only 42 languages in Africa were supported by an LLM, out of more than 2,000 found in the continent; 98 per cent of African languages have no meaningful AI support at all. - Aeon
As movies and shows like "Super Mario Galaxy Movie," "Sonic the Hedgehog 3" and "Fallout" prove Hollywood has finally figured out how to successfully adapt video games -- after years of failure so deep a "video game movie curse" moniker was coined -- the makers of those games are in disarray. - The Wrap (MSN)
Even now, as the museum complex continues to face a pressure campaign from the White House, public fondness for the Smithsonian—for its free entry and eclectic collections—is hard to break among those otherwise receptive to President Trump’s anti-institutionalism. - The Atlantic
Youngjun Choi, who has created dance routines for some of South Korea's biggest pop stars (including BTS), and Joon Jung, a choreographer-turned-tech exec, co-founded the startup MVNT to build an AI system for dance, much like Suno, the generative AI music platform. - Business Insider
ENB said some customer email address and business contact information "may have been included in the affected data" from the cyber attack and that it was taking the matter seriously. - The Standard
The author accused of using artificial intelligence to craft the debut novel that landed him a multimillion-dollar book deal said he was innocent and that the claims against him were racially motivated. - The Wall Street Journal
A decade ago, the average ticket to a top 100 tour went for $83.74, according to Billboard Boxscore. By 2024, that had risen to $130.36. That’s before taxes, fees and additional markups if tickets end up on the secondary market. - The Wall Street Journal
The Fiesole Altarpiece, painted in the 1420s, suffered its first damage during an updating in 1501; it was subsequently broken up, had some of its parts looted or sold off, and was gnawed by wood-boring insects. The work has now been restored to roughly its 1501 condition with an ingenious spring-fitted wood frame. - Artnet
In poems, short stories, novels, and two widely-praised (and occasionally censored) books of young-adult fiction, he drew on his gay identity and on life on the US-Mexico border around El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. He received the PEN/Faulkner Award in 2013 for his story collection Everything Begins & Ends at the Kentucky Club. - AP
Just since May 1, Russian drones and bombs have damaged or burned at least 9.65 million books. That equals 74% of the Ukrainian publishing industry’s output so far in 2026 and nearly 29% of books printed throughout the country in all of 2025. - United24 Media (Ukraine)
