Stories

What Are The Best Art Emojis? Getty Curators Have Thoughts…

Curators at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles have taken those variations as an invitation to judgment. In a series of recent social media posts, the museum is rating the appearances of art-adjacent emojis across different platforms and operating systems, leavening scholarly expertise with a liberal sprinkling of cheek. - The New York Times

Why Writing Detectors For AI Won’t Work

Either human speech and AI speech progressively assimilate, causing a collapse in any meaningful distinction, or language becomes a contested social signal. This second scenario would essentially be a game of whack-a-mole across the English language. - Washington Post

A Veteran Boston Critic On The Real Problem Behind The Boston Symphony Mess

“This crisis largely seems unconcerned with serious musical issues, such as the quality of the playing and the choice of repertoire.” Lloyd Schwartz reminds us that those issues are what really matter here — and that they don’t militate in Andris Nelsons’s favor. - WBUR (Boston)

A “Great Books” Professor Lets His Students Watch Him Struggle With “The Brothers Karamazov”

Matt Dinan, of St. Thomas University in New Brunswick, Canada, had somehow never read the Dostoevsky classic before last semester. He found himself completely consumed by the novel — and then found his students equally taken with it. The reasons they gave for being so excited were telling. - The New York Times

Sydney’s Biggest Cultural Project Since The Opera House Sets Its Official Opening Date

Powerhouse Paramatta, a 915 million AUD (US$650 million) museum of applied design and technology, will be Western Sydney’s first major cultural institution. It will open to the public this November 7. - Time Out Sydney

Bolshoi Ballet Could Lose Rights To Perform Its Most Popular Productions

“Audiences at the Bolshoi Theatre could find themselves without 11 of its most well-known productions – among them The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Giselle, Spartacus and Ivan the Terrible – after a dispute over the rights to Yuri Grigorovich‘s choreographic legacy escalated into a criminal fraud investigation.” - Gramilano

Finally! Regional Theaters May Now Produce “Les Miz”

After decades, the last US national tour of the Broadway production has ended, meaning that regional companies can get the rights to produce the show themselves and bring in that sweet. sweet, desperately needed box office revenue. And those companies have wasted no time getting started. - The New York Times

France’s Planned Ban On Social Media For Under-15s Ruled Unconstitutional

“The Constitutional Council … said the restrictions in the bill disproportionately infringe on minors’ right to freedom of expression and communication. Europe’s would-be first social media ban … had been a flagship policy of Macron's second and final term.” - Politico

No Foul Play Suspected In Death Of Actress Hayden Panettiere

First responders in Greenville, SC pronounced her dead at the scene after a 911 call by a friend who found her in cardiac arrest. An overdose is the suspected cause of death. - People

The End Of Nostalgia?

What if businesses become too good at selling nostalgia? Research I carried out with colleagues suggests that digital technology is changing nostalgia itself. Ironically, by making the past permanently available, companies may be weakening the very notion they are trying to sell. - The Conversation

All Novels Are Boring Until They’re Not

I call this point in a novel its volta. The term comes from poetry, where it denotes a shift that sonnets exhibit between their opening octave and concluding sestet or between their first 12 lines and final couplet. - Public Books

Missouri PBS Channel Fears It’s Lost 70 Years Of Archival Data

Nine PBS in St. Louis filed a lawsuit against information management corporation Iron Mountain Data Centers July 28, seeking to recover over 50 terabytes of archival materials stored in one of the company’s Denver-based data centers. - Current

Mamdani Announces Free Broadway Tickets For Students

"There are so many kids growing up in our city for whom Broadway feels as if it is a world away, like something that only belongs to other people. We are together today to prove differently, to make it possible for kids from Sheepshead Bay to Morrisania (no matter how much money their parents make) to enter that different...

Close The Kennedy Center? It Might Be The Best Option

Given how thoroughly Trump’s leadership has destroyed the center’s viability as a presenting organization, that is probably the best of a slew of bad options. - Washington Post

AI Has Plunged Publishing Into Chaos

The spectacular implosions of big book deals over suspected AI use—and fears about who might be next—are forcing a reckoning over the nature of authorship, the relationship between writers and publishers and the industry’s long-term survival.  - The Wall Street Journal

Our Free Newsletter

Join our 30,000 subscribers

Latest

Don't Miss