Good Morning,
Nearly every Australian engaged with arts and culture last year, and live attendance hit its highest figure ever (ArtsHub). Contrast that to a clear-eyed argument that artistic greatness has never once guaranteed an orchestra’s survival (Philadelphia Inquirer). Demand isn’t the problem.
Which makes the improvised repairs worth watching. Travel writer Rick Steves bought the movie theatre in his hometown (KING 5) — one person deciding the civic use beat the real estate value. Berlin’s Volksbühne installed a working public swimming pool inside the theatre and got a culture war for its trouble (The New York Times). Both are institutions testing what a building is actually for.
Meanwhile, an Amazon warehouse worker describes cutting the spines off books and scanning them to train AI (404 Media).
Yayoi Kusama has died at 97 (Washington Post) — six decades of turning private obsession into public wonder.
And a history of Columbia House, which sold you eight records for a penny and spent the next twenty years on the fine print (Tedium). Every era gets the subscription model it deserves.
All of our stories below.
