Hello Thursday!

This issue of Thursday is coming out on my 53rd birthday, so I’m going to start with that. As an inadvertent birthday present, NMIXX (one my of favorite currently-active K-pop groups) is releasing a new album, Strange Muse, on 19 October, and the (first?) solo being promoted from it is called “Birthday Wish.” As part of the promos leading up to the album release, they’ve produced an a cappella highlight reel showcasing three of the songs.

It’s finally starting to feel like fall around here. Most of the time, at any rate — the weather can’t decide what it wants to do, so you’ll have two consecutive days where the highs have a difference of 30°F between them. Anyway, I hope you’re all doing well, and having whatever passes for good weather for mid-October wherever you are.

Things to check out online

• In my art  history classes we discussed the Niépce Heliograph, the oldest surviving photograph, which dates to 1826 (or 1827, there’s apparently some dispute). It’s a fascinating story, and (I think) it’s amazing to look at this hazy original photograph and think about how far the medium has progressed since then. I recently encountered this article about the photograph, which has a lot of information about it that I was unaware of. It will be traveling to France in April 2026, being transported (in its custom-built, argon-filled display case) to a museum at (or near — again, there’s some dispute) the site where it was made, where it will be on display until July, at which point it will return to its usual home at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Dallas (which has a page about the photograph here).

•  Masked robbers steal wine worth over $5m from top Italian vineyard — I love reading about heists with unusual targets. There was a $1 million Lego heist busted earlier this year in California. Organized cheese crime is a multimillion dollar a year industry. Since it seems we’re going to have crime no matter what, at least let’s have crime worth reading about.

• Going K-Global: BTS puts Latin America in focus — Being in America, it’s easy to forget that there are many paths to success in the music industry that don’t go through America. European metal band have been big in South America for a long time now, and now K-pop groups are heading that way. NMIXX (to bring it back to one my favorite currently-active groups) has done a lot of work in South America, including releasing a Spanish language version of one of their songs.

• Yet Another Literary Prizewinner Seems to Be AI — First off, a reminder that if you’re not a subscriber to The Atlantic, you can read their articles by copy/pasting the URL into the search bar at archive.ph. Now, on to the article: Another literary prizewinner (Zimbabwean writer Simbarashe Steyn Kundizeza) who maintains their innocence after their story is flagged by AI detection software. All the usual caveats about fallibility of AI detection software. This story is particularly interesting because the prize in question, the Caine Prize, is for writing by an African writer, so there’s an additional question of nationality and non-native speaker status here. The author of this article writes “I considered [Kundizeza’s] wariness of Silicon Valley well founded and reasonable—particularly because the writers implicated in three major literary scandals this year were all nonwhite and non-American.” I saw a link this week to an article about another writer-using-AI scandal (but couldn’t find it later when I had time to read it), where the author denied using AI but admitted to plagiarism. Apparently that’s where we are now: Plagiarism is a lesser crime than using AI. (Of course, if you know how large language models are trained, then you know that using AI is plagiarism as well, just on a wholesale scale.)

• The latest Gen Z insult is ‘You’re a Larper’ — so, are you? — (You’ll need archive.ph again, unless you subscribe to The Times.) “LARP,” in case you don’t know, is an acronym for “live action role-play.” Apparently it’s now being used in real life to describe people who are acting as something that they don’t actually have the credentials to be. The author gives the example of a friend who, having taken an interest in restaurant cooking, and in Anthony Bourdain in particular, presents himself as a professional chef, and another friend who, having traced a tenuous connection to Ireland, acts out a stereotype of Irish culture. The author makes the point that given the lack of opportunity faced by so many people today, LARPing is the best outlet available to people with creativity and ambition. I’m inclined to agree — it’s basically just the next step up from “dress for the job you want” and “fake it til you make it.”

• Women ‘more likely to be told autoimmune conditions are psychological’ — Being married to a woman with autoimmune conditions, I greeted this headline with the same degree of surprise as I would have an announcement that “water is wet.” Still, I recognize the necessity of scientific studies (such as the one being discussed in this article) to change systems, even when the studies are documenting things that are perfectly obvious to the people who’ve experienced them.

What I’ve been reading:

Since last week I’ve finished reading

• Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, vol. 23 (Yuto Tsukuda) 

• Once Broken Faith (Seanan McGuire) 

• Wanderhome RPG (Jay Dragon) 

I’ve continued reading

• The Turbulent Appearance of Brise Collier (Natalie Kelda) — I’m about halfway through this now, and I’m feeling some kind of way about it. I enjoy reading it while I’m reading it, but when I’m not reading it, I feel resistant to picking it up. Have any of you even felt that way about a book?

• Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear (Seanan McGuire) 

• Cozy Companion, vol. 28 

• Art in America, Fall 2026 

and I’ve started reading

• Africa's Struggle for Its Art: History of a Postcolonial Defeat (Bénédicte Savoy)

• Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, vol. 24 (Yuto Tsukuda) 

• A Dubious Clamor (Marissa Lingen) 

• ArtForum, April 2026 
  

If you missed any past Thursdays, you can access the archives here.

And as always, THIS NEWSLETTER CONTAINS 100% HUMAN-CREATED WORDS.

Have a great week, and I’ll see you next Thursday,

Jason