Stories

What Might Have Been: Gaudí’s Design For A New York Skyscraper

A supertall skyscraper, no less, topping out at 360 meters/1180 feet. The great Barcelona architect did a speculative design of a hotel complex in 1908 for a pair of Manhattan businessmen. AI artist Thierry Lechanteur has used Gaudi’s surviving drawings to create renderings of the project. - Dezeen

Have Our Devices Dulled Our Sensory Experiences?

"The way we consume such content, by swiping idly on a glass screen, stands in stark contrast with the content of the content, the skillful manipulation of resolutely tangible material. It’s ironic, and a bit dystopian, this disjuncture, but I’m entranced by the videos anyway." - The New Yorker

Movie Theatre Box Office Has Surged This Year. So What Next?

“When we recognized that people want to go out, that they want to be treated with good service in a good theater with good product, when we recognized that and gave them that, they just came back in hordes more than any other generation." - Deadline

Gaudí Was A Superstar. Why Didn’t He Have More Influence On Future Architects?

Architectural history and Antoni Gaudí just weren’t headed in the same direction. - Dezeen

The Obama Center: The Difference Between Libraries And Monuments

There is no question about its monumentality. It is at once colossal, haughty and ultimately inscrutable—as a great monument should be. The question is whether it should have been a monument in the first place. - The Wall Street Journal

Why All The Conspiracy Movies Right Now?

Is this a trend? Are all these pictures related? Common sense, our trusted friend, tells us that life is random and arbitrary and that we’re mostly making it up as we go along. But the conspiracy theory is like a seductive interloper, sidling up to assure us that, actually, that’s not true at all. - The Guardian

A New Center For Playwrights On Cape Cod Bay

“Pulitzer-winning playwright Paula Vogel has teamed up with former Huntington Theatre Managing Director Michael Maso and philanthropist Grace Nordhoff on a new center for playwrights and theatrical composers that will open in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, in 2028. Bards on the Bay will be housed in The Nancy Nordhoff Theatre Center.” - Playbill

Last Remaining Chinese Theatre In America Seeks Emergency Funding

City records describe it as a 410-seat performing arts and film theater and the last remaining Chinese theater in any Chinatown in the United States. The theater at 636 Jackson St. opened in 1925 as the Great China Theater for Chinese opera. Over the decades, it also became a movie house and community gathering place. - San Francisco Chronicle

Study: Should News Organizations Label AI Use?

Audiences see journalism as a profession that requires specialized training and ethical integrity, making AI seem to some like a “cop out.” One said about the use of AI: “You can do that as an 11-year-old. You don’t need the training for that if you’re going to use AI to generate your entire article.” - NiemanLab

Why Writers Should Embrace AI

AI may well be terrible news for software engineers, but I think it’s an intriguing development for people who care about language and ideas – precisely the people who currently reject it the most. - Aeon

Joyce Carol Oates Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop

“In one day this May, for instance, she tweeted 36 times about the following subjects: boxing, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, shortened attention spans, Jonathan Swift, Madame Bovary, Jude the Obscure, people who read works of classic literature too quickly, her late husband, the Elizabeth Taylor Cleopatra, the Unabomber, and her cats.” - Vulture (MSN)

An Expedition To Preserve The Sounds Of Church Organs

The show up at old churches in remote communities, preparing their solar-powered mobile studio, and recording instruments both humble and monumental, whose complex systems of keys, stops, hand cranks, foot pedals, bellows and reeds were designed to vibrate the air around them until it approximates the sound of God. - The Guardian

High Ticket Prices Are Keeping Fans Away From Concerts This Summer

Post Malone, Meghan Trainor and the Pussy Cat Dolls have all cancelled shows or entire tours in recent months — and while some of them have cited other reasons for doing so, fans have still pointed to their tours as part of the trend. - CBC

Art Galleries Are Not Okay

What went wrong? The short answer is: The art world expanded wildly, but the art market — the total dollar volume of art sales — did not. In fact, if you read the Art Basel/UBS Art Market Report for 2026 carefully, and adjust for inflation, the data shows that the art market has stagnated. - The New York Times

So, If The Obama Presidential Center Isn’t A Library Or Archive, Then What Exactly Is It?

The Obama Foundation opted not to have the National Archives and Records Administration, which keeps presidential archives, involved in the Center; it will make Obama’s papers available digitally. So what is the Obama Center? Part museum, part public park, with a branch of the Chicago Public Library. - The Christian Science Monitor

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