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How fascinating to read this week about the A.I.-generated travel influencers that are taking gigs away from real-life, flesh-and-blood influencers. People whose job it is to take trips to far-flung locales and post about it on social media fear they’re being elbowed out by computer-created personae that can do the job for much less. For those of us who are still in awe that “travel influencer” is a job that exists, for which one might be paid $100,000 or more for a single post about a vacation, the news that this relatively newfangled position may be endangered by artificial intelligence is sort of dizzying. We were just getting accustomed to the fact that we are being…
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How fascinating to read this week about the A.I.-generated travel influencers that are taking gigs away from real-life, flesh-and-blood influencers. People whose job it is to take trips to far-flung locales and post about it on social media fear they’re being elbowed out by computer-created personae that can do the job for much less. For those of us who are still in awe that “travel influencer” is a job that exists, for which one might be paid $100,000 or more for a single post about a vacation, the news that this relatively newfangled position may be endangered by artificial intelligence is sort of dizzying. We were just getting accustomed to the fact that we are being “influenced” at all, and now the robots are taking over the task?
Ponder this strange screen-born economy long enough and you start craving the real world, a world in which influence comes from the things and people you encounter as your body moves and acts and reacts in space. Thank goodness for an equally intriguing recent story in The Times, by Margaret Fuhrer, about the uninhibited way that children dance. It delivered just the reminder I, and maybe you, needed that there’s excessive delight to be found on the physical plane.
Babies and toddlers are un-self-conscious when they dance. They’re spontaneous, present, unconcerned with who’s watching them. This approach “brings us back to our own intelligent bodies, our own basic understanding of what it is to be alive,” a movement therapist told Margaret. “Babies don’t perform movement — they discover it.”
Do adults perform movement when they dance? They do. We do. We have no choice — we’ve done it before, so each time we dance we’re re-enacting the remnants of every time we’ve danced previously. We try and fail and try again to catch the rhythm; we think about how we’re being perceived. But what a privilege it is to move, even if it’s awkward, to be embodied and expressing and trying to be responsive to a beat, to be more subject and less object.
Social media is, we all know, pure performance — whether you’re an influencer or not. But it’s etheric, as in taking place in the ether. An Instagram post is a conceptual performance, projected images of real action. And the whole point of a social media post is the audience: Who’s looking, who’s watching, what do they think of us? Our posting selves are the very opposite of a child dancing; we’re a million miles away from the grounded reality of “our own intelligent bodies.”
The last time I wrote about dancing, I wondered why we don’t dance more and made a commitment to do so. It’s been two years since then, and I’ve half-kept my promise. I’ve tried to “go out dancing” whenever I’ve found willing accomplices — maybe three times in two years. I dance in my building’s elevator at the end of most days; I always have headphones on, and I like the final exertion of energy before arriving and winding down.
But it wasn’t until I read Margaret’s story, and watched adults try to follow the unscripted moves of a baby, that I remembered why I’d wanted to dance more in the first place. So much of our movement is just using our bodies like reliable vehicles to get ourselves from one place to another. Dancing is an act of remembering that, once, when we were small, everything was new. Once, we moved our bodies primarily in order to play, express and discover. The more online we become, the farther we drift from what Margaret calls “our earliest soundtrack,” the rhythm that’s in us before we’re born, “the basslike thump-thump of our mother’s heartbeat and the oontz-oontz of her circulating blood.”
There’s an old PBS interview with Kurt Vonnegut in which he says: “The moral of the story is, we’re here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don’t realize — or they don’t care — is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.” I’m not sure what he meant by “we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore” — maybe he felt, as so many of us do, that dancing is unserious or frivolous. Let’s do it anyway. Let’s remind the “computer people,” which is really all people, ourselves included, that we’re dancing animals, and shake our tail feathers accordingly.
THE LATEST NEWS
Venezuela
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Skipper, the oil tanker that the U.S. seized this week.Credit...Vantor, via Associated Press
The oil tanker seized by the U.S. this week was part of the Venezuelan government’s effort to finance Cuba, according to documents and people inside the Venezuelan oil industry.
For Marco Rubio, a primary architect of the U.S. campaign against Venezuela, pushing out Nicolás Maduro could help fulfill another decades-long dream of his: crippling Cuba.
The tanker’s seizure may squeeze Venezuela’s government, experts say, but it’s unlikely to significantly disrupt the big business of oil smuggling.
The U.S. military commander who initially oversaw the Pentagon’s attacks on boats off Venezuela’s coast retired. Several officials say he had raised concerns about the attacks.
Politics
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The White House this week.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed a lawsuit to stop President Trump’s construction of a new White House ballroom.
House Democrats released dozens of new images collected as part of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, including photos of Epstein with Trump, Bill Clinton and Woody Allen.
The Trump administration is sharing air travelers’ names with immigration officials to find people with deportation orders.
The Trump administration is investigating whether Boston’s affordable housing policies prioritized people of color and, in doing so, discriminated against white residents.
International
The Thai government on Saturday disputed President Trump’s announcement that Thailand and Cambodia had agreed to a cease-fire.
Elon Musk is daring Europe to take him on. The billionaire has lashed out after E.U. regulators fined X, his social media site, roughly $140 million.
Myanmar’s military bombed a hospital in a rebel-held area, killing 34 people and injuring dozens more. It was the 67th attack on a health care facility in Myanmar this year, according to the W.H.O.
Other Big Stories
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Flooding in Burlington, Wash.Credit...Grant Hindsley for The New York Times
Heavy flooding in western Washington swamped roads and sent people fleeing to rooftops, but as of last night, no one had died, officials said.
Sherrone Moore, who was fired as the University of Michigan’s football coach this week, was arraigned on charges of stalking and home invasion.
King Charles III, 77, said doctors plan to scale back his cancer treatments.
THE WEEK IN CULTURE
Film and TV
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Emma Mackey as the title character in “Ella McCay.”Credit...20th Century Studios
“Ella McCay,” the first new film from James L. Brooks in 15 years, shares some DNA with other beloved entries in his filmography. But “Broadcast News” it is not: “This is one weird flick,” our critic writes.
With fewer films made on site in Los Angeles, visitors to Hollywood are passing on studio tours.
Next month will be the last Sundance in Park City, Utah, before the film festival relocates to Colorado. Expect debuts, reunions and three Charli XCX titles.
Video Games
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a role-playing game from France, took home the biggest prizes at this year’s Video Game Awards.
The Times’s Zachary Small traveled to Paris to report on how a small team, working with a relatively small budget, made a bold artistic statement with Clair Obscur.
Music
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The swooping interior of Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.Credit...View Pictures/Universal Images Group, via Getty Images
Frank Gehry’s halls and amphitheaters sound as marvelous as they look. The architect, who died this month, had the ear of a passionate fan, our critic Joshua Barone writes.
Timbaland’s latest protégée is a pink-haired pop singer called TaTa Taktumi. The producer created her — and her music — with a little help from artificial intelligence.
More Culture
Why go see “A Christmas Carol” or “It’s a Wonderful Life” one more time? Tradition and nostalgia, sure. But revisiting these classics also offers an opportunity to reflect on different stages in life.
Today is SantaCon, a debaucherous bar-crawl-slash-fund-raiser in New York City. Readers shared their craziest stories of SantaCons past.
Zohran Mamdani’s sharp sense of humor was an asset as he ran for mayor of New York City. Maybe it was the result of the improv classes he took in his 20s.
This year has been a big one for comedy, our columnist writes: Late-night came roaring back to life; Roy Wood Jr. delivered a must-see special; and Amy Poehler made a must-listen podcast.
CULTURE CALENDAR
🎬 “Avatar: Fire and Ash” (Friday): There’s a new “Avatar” movie on the way, the third film in James Cameron’s sci-fi fantasy series about the alien moon Pandora. While the original “Avatar” was a cultural tidal wave, the second film, subtitled “The Way of Water,” seemed to make a smaller splash. But it was still a box-office hit, bringing in more than $2 billion globally. The new film, “Fire and Ash,” was nominated for a Golden Globe in “cinematic and box office achievement” — interesting, considering it’s not even out yet. Perhaps the jury simply assumed that anything with “Avatar” in the title was bound to make a lot of money.
RECIPE OF THE WEEK
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Credit...Aya Brackett for The New York Times
Tomato sauce
When was the last time you simmered a big pot of classic tomato sauce? Samin Nosrat’s recipe hits all the right notes: hearty, full of onions and garlic and plenty of olive oil, and spiced with basil and red chile flakes. It does involve a fair amount of chopping (all those alliums) and over an hour of simmering to make. But when tossed with your favorite pasta and maybe a meatball or two, it will be worth every moment. And the recipe makes enough for dinner tonight plus extra to freeze for up to three months. It’s a boon for your future self — and your current one, too.
REAL ESTATE
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Kyle Weekes and Nigel Campbell.Credit...Clark Hodgin for The New York Times
**The Hunt: **A dancer and a vocalist looked for a place to put down roots in New York with space to entertain guests. Which home did they choose? Play our game.
**What you get for $4 million in California: **A compound in Ojai, a contemporary home in Los Angeles or a Spanish-style house in Santa Barbara.
**Small scale: **Frank Gehry was known for his museums and concert halls. But the small bungalow he called home was also a masterpiece.
LIVING
**Click ‘yes’ on the dress: **Sarah Diamond, a Times reporter, let thousands of people on the internet choose her wedding gown.
Vows: She’s in Gaza. He’s in Cairo. Separated by a closed border, they married remotely.
Tripped up: You may be surprised to learn the little-known (and sometimes nonsensical) rules that govern air travel.
ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER
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Credit...Michael Murtaugh/NYT Wirecutter
The best stocking stuffers
Stocking stuffers are often the final piece of the gift-giving puzzle. Yet this assortment of small gifts needn’t be scraped together during an 11th-hour mad dash to the drugstore. Petite presents can be as meaningful, thoughtful and memorable as the big stuff. The best stocking stuffers for kids — many of which would make great small Hanukkah gifts, too — range from the classics, like socks and lip balm, to the whimsical, like temporary tattoos and bath bombs. For the grown-ups, seek out more unusual items that have the potential to spark a little joy and last beyond Christmas morning. Our favorite stocking stuffers for adults run the gamut from the lovely (a tiny, colorful set of bud vases) to the practical (rose gold nose hair trimmer, anyone?).
GAME OF THE WEEK
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Mikal Bridges of the Knicks shoots over the Magic’s Desmond Bane.Credit...Wendell Cruz/Imagn Images, via Reuters Connect
New York Knicks vs. Orlando Magic, N.B.A. Cup semifinals: A few years back, the N.B.A. introduced a midseason tournament modeled after those of European soccer leagues. While some players initially bristled at the idea, the tournament has steadily grown more popular. “I think it’s a perfect shot in the arm at this point in the early start of the season,” Chris Finch, the head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves, told The Athletic recently.
And this semifinal matchup has some juice. The Knicks have the top-rated offense in the East, and they’ve torn through most teams they have faced — except the Magic, who are responsible for the two worst losses of the Knicks’ season. Both teams are among the best in the conference, and there’s a good chance that they meet in the playoffs. This game could offer a preview of how they’ll fare when the pressure is on.
Tonight at 5:30 p.m. Eastern on Prime Video
For more: The most divisive part of the N.B.A. Cup? The gaudy, Technicolor courts. The Athletic ranked them here.
NOW TIME TO PLAY
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Melissa Kirsch covers wellness and lifestyle and writes The Morning newsletter on Saturdays.
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