Arts - Newslocker

The Deadly Dancing Plague Of 1518

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 20:50:00 +0200

“Five centuries later, the dancing plague of 1518 remains one of history’s strangest medical mysteries. Historical records confirm that a bizarre episode turned a medieval city” — Strasbourg — “into a very unwilling dance floor that summer, but exactly why it happened remains a matter of debate.” – Popular Science

Chatbots May Be Bad Writers. But So Are Most Humans

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 20:31:00 +0200

After all, we’ve been producing particle board for a long time. As Orwell observed (in pre-chatbot 1946!), “prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house.” – The Walrus

Jonathan Groff’s Next Broadway Project Will Be A Solo Show About A School Shooting

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 20:03:00 +0200

“The play, The Amish Project, will be Groff’s first nonmusical production on Broadway, and it’s strikingly personal for him: It’s a work of fiction inspired by a 2006 shooting at a one-room Amish schoolhouse in rural Pennsylvania, just a few minutes from Groff’s childhood home.” – The New York Times

The Art Of Attention

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 19:44:00 +0200

“You can’t talk about aesthetics,” he wrote, “without talking about the principle of hope and the existence of evil.” Attention, for him, was a matter of life and death, or at least of their cultural equivalents, remembering and forgetting. – The New York Times

Dealers Scramble To Get Work Out Of Art Basel Paris After Surprise Early Closing

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 19:31:00 +0200

Multiple dealers told ARTnews they’d received an email announcing the decision at around 3:30 p.m. on Thursday. By then, many had already suspected Saturday’s opening might be canceled. The loss of Sunday came as more of a surprise. – ARTnews

How One Donor Came To Give $10.5 Million To The Philadelphia Orchestra

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 19:15:00 +0200

David Cohen said that after his return, he “very quickly circled around arts and culture as the space where I thought I could make a real difference, a place where obviously Philadelphia has prominence and wonderful organizations, but where I still felt were a little under-appreciated.” – Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)

How “Star Trek” Was Saved By, Of All People, Lucille Ball

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 19:04:00 +0200

Most people who know Ball only through her crazy-redhead I Love Lucy character don’t realize that she was a savvy TV mogul, and it was her company, Desilu Productions, that saved Star Trek from oblivion after NBC cancelled it at the end of its third season in 1969. – The Hollywood Reporter

Canadian News Orgs Sue Anthropic Over Copyright

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 18:44:00 +0200

The statement of claim says Anthropic breached the news media websites’ terms of service and circumvented technological protection measures they put in place to restrict copying of their content. – Canadian Press News

Why Friction Is Necessary For Making Progress

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 18:31:00 +0200

The reality is that friction, despite seeming so antagonistic, is necessary and even productive. The force that resists motion has, since humans first struck a spark from a stone, been the very thing that propels us forward. – Aeon

Legendary LA Recording Studio For Sale

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 18:13:00 +0200

The list of household names who have recorded at Conway Recording Studios spans generations and genres. Burt Bacharach, Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Wonder, U2, Guns N’ Roses, Daft Punk, Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar are just a few of the artists who have recorded there. – Los Angeles Times

“Why Satire Is No Laughing Matter”: An Essay By Sacha Baron Cohen

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 18:02:00 +0200

“Satire doesn’t just needle politicians or regimes — it occasionally helps bring them down. … Historian Ben Lewis credits Soviet joke-telling with helping to topple communism, by making it impossible for even the system’s own enforcers to take it seriously. … ‘Every joke,’ George Orwell observed, ‘is a tiny revolution.’” – Time

Bard College Investigating Explosive Epstein Email

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 17:44:00 +0200

Someone writing from the Bard president’s email address asks Mr. Epstein whether a young woman was “for me, or are you keeping her for yourself.” The contention over the email is the latest, and perhaps most intense, dispute over the former Bard president’s ties to Mr. Epstein. – The New York Times

Inside Shanghai’s Striking New Opera House

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 17:31:00 +0200

“Our initial thought wasn’t about what the building should look like, but rather: How can an important cultural institution be integrated into everyday public life in one of the world’s most vibrant cities?” – Architectural Digest

Might Live Nation Be Broken Up After Losing Court Battle?

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 17:15:00 +0200

Across the country, some 480 independent venues and 240 music festivals have shut since 2020, with 160 shuttering so far this year, according to the National Independent Venue Assn., a trade group for the industry. – Los Angeles Times

Another Guy Who Didn’t Read His Release Form Threatens To Sue Sacha Baron Cohen

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 17:01:00 +0200

The chair of the El Paso (Texas) County Republican Party, Michael Aboud, says he intends to sue Baron Cohen over footage shown in the latter’s latest guerrilla mockumentary, Ali G: Who Iz I? Unwitting subjects in Baron Cohen’s films have sued several times in the past; none has ever won. – The Guardian

How Politics Has Hollowed Out Scientific American, The Oldest Magazine In The US

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 16:33:00 +0200

“Interviews conducted this summer and fall with a over a dozen current and former Scientific American employees depict a magazine that, especially over the past two years, has struggled to protect its editorial independence in the face of sometimes overwhelming pressure from its corporate ownership.” – The Nation

Financial Fraud Discovered At Luxembourg’s Main Concert Hall

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 16:05:00 +0200

“Luxembourg’s Philharmonie has uncovered fraudulent transactions within the organisation totalling €160,000 following internal inspections, the concert hall said on Monday. … The concert hall said it is cooperating ‘fully with the authorities to establish the facts and determine any potential liability’.” – Luxembourg Times

Noah Adams, Longtime Host Of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” Dead At 84

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 15:36:00 +0200

“He guided listeners through major events like Ronald Reagan’s landslide electoral victories, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the September 11 terrorist attacks. But to the people who worked alongside him in the newsroom, Adams’s journalism shone through in the softer features he reported.” – NPR

Man Arrested For Beheading Iwo Jima Memorial Statue At Quantico Marine Base

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 15:04:00 +0200

“Officers responding to a report of destruction of property at the Marine Corps Base Quantico around 10:31 p.m. saw a man ‘actively damaging the statue with a sledgehammer’ and detained him without incident, Prince William County police said.” – CNN

Art Basel Paris Is Closing Early Because Of France’s Violent Demonstrations

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 14:32:00 +0200

The art fair had been schedule to run through the weekend, but organizers have decided to shut it down on Friday evening “in light of potential demonstrations across Paris this weekend, and in the interest of safeguarding our visitors.” – Artnet

Actor Tom Skerritt Has Died At 93

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 14:00:00 +0200

“(He) embodied a solid, wry authority figure, whether as a flight instructor in Top Gun, a tough-but-fair sheriff on TV’s Picket Fences” — for which he won an Emmy in 1993 — “or the doomed captain of Alien.” – AP

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco seeks Director of Digital Experience

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 01:11:00 +0200

OrganizationFine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprised of the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public art museum in San Francisco. FAMSF welcomes more than 1.5 million visitors annually and is among the most visited museums in the United States with the third largest membership base in the country. Highlighting over 5,000 years of global art history, the de Young Museum and Legion of Honor showcase world-class exhibitions acro

The Phoenix Symphony Closes

Thu, 22 Oct 2026 04:23:00 +0200

Good Morning,The Phoenix Symphony will lay off its 66 musicians on November 2 though revenues rose more than 50 percent in two years; endowment gifts are restricted and can’t pay operating costs (Fox 10). San Francisco’s artist grants normally arrive within four weeks of July agreements; in October documentary filmmaker Susannah Smith was still borrowing from her mother for rent (San Francisco Chronicle).Caryl Churchill’s Triumph, 20 minutes long at London’s Almeida Theatre, takes its em

A Maverick Pedagogical Proposition

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 23:04:00 +0200

Today’s crisis in humanities education takes many forms, and many are the proposed remedies.
One such is a brave new

Is Caryl Churchill’s Latest Play About One Of Trump’s Succession Of Blonde Press Secretaries?

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 21:02:00 +0200

“Triumph, which has opened at London’s Almeida Theatre, is Churchill’s latest piece of explosive minimalism. Running at just 20 minutes, it skewers contemporary barbarism (via) historical analogy and is a reminder that Churchill … has in recent years developed a form of elliptical drama for which the apt word might be compressionism.” – The Guardian

Broadway Has A Strong Week

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 20:31:00 +0200

Hamilton was the top grossing show of the week with $2.8 million, followed by The Lion King with $2 million. MJ was the fourth highest grossing with $1.76 million, followed by the Bowen Yang-led Oh, Mary! with $1.5 million. – The Hollywood Reporter

Hong Kong Overhauls Its System For Performing Arts Funding, And Groups Are Nervous

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 20:04:00 +0200

Since 2008, the territory’s government has funded nine designated major performing arts groups, including the Hong Kong Ballet, Philharmonic, and Repertory Theatre. The city’s chief executive has announced a planned change to a more flexible, “merit-based” system which would make room for more organizations. – South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)

Arundhati Roy On The AI End Game

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 19:44:00 +0200

Remember how, in Thailand and Indonesia, the ocean drew back from the coastline? People ran out to marvel at the miles of pristine new beach that suddenly emerged, not realising that, far out at sea, a wall of water was building up and would come crashing over them. – Equator

Listeners Are Turning Against AI Music

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 19:31:00 +0200

Streaming services, notable musicians and fans are confronting the growing presence of AI-generated music and drawing lines in the sand. On Tuesday, Spotify announced it had removed about 50m songs considered AI slop from its recommendations to users over the past year. – The Guardian

Did Hollywood Really Need Netflix?

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 19:15:00 +0200

“The movie business needed Netflix to wake up. They needed a real disruptor… Maybe we are now entering a period where the relationship works the other way around, with Netflix being inspired by the movie business. I think the two worlds are additive.” – Deadline

To Say Goodbye To Her Dance Company, Lucy Guerin Performs Onstage For First Time In 13 Years

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 19:03:00 +0200

“I have found it incredibly confronting, to be honest,” she says, hours before the premiere. “Part of me thought I could still do all those things if I just got back in the studio and trained a bit. But I’m afraid that wasn’t the case.” – The Guardian

Netflix Is Making Money. That’s Not Enough

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 18:44:00 +0200

For the year, Netflix said, it expects revenue growth to be 13 percent, roughly in line with its previous estimates. Shares dropped more than 5 percent in after-hours trading. The company acknowledged the undercurrent that led to the recent tumult: concern about stagnating attention time on its service. – The New York Times

The Battles Over Jimmy Buffet’s Estate

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 18:29:00 +0200

Three years after Jimmy’s death, the family is locked in a legal dispute over that Margaritaville fortune. It has upended the fun-loving vibes the musician spent his life cultivating, with the family seeming rudderless without Jimmy as their figurehead, according to court documents and interviews. – The Wall Street Journal

Remember This When Voting in the Midterms . . .

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 18:16:00 +0200