AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Why Annie Dillard Deserved A Nobel
She deserved the prize, first of all, as the major practitioner of literary nonfiction. The committee has historically overlooked this genre. – 3 Quarks Daily
- The Growing Popularity Of Audiobook Walking Clubs
Audiobook walking clubs are now emerging around the country, turning an activity typically enjoyed solo into a low-pressure social event. For about an hour, everyone listens to a book of their choosing as they walk, then gathers afterward to compare notes, trade recommendations, and—in many cases—make plans to see each other again. – Time
- Maybe “The Jazz Singer” Wasn’t The First Talkie After All
“The 46-minute feature film (Till the Bells Ring), featuring spoken parts and synchronised sound throughout, premiered in Edinburgh in October 1926, a year before The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson, hit New York’s screens to widespread fanfare and took its place in the history books.” – The Guardian
- Despite Being Shut Down, Voice Of America Still Costs $1.6 Million Per Week
“It’s been more than a year since the Trump administration dismantled Voice of America, the largest U.S. international broadcaster, saying ‘taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda.’ Yet the agency is costing the government millions even as it stopped operations.” – Fortune
- UK Conservatives Plan To Cut £1 Billion From Culture Budget If Elected
“Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has revealed that her party plans to cut budgets extensively if it wins the next election, including slashing £1bn from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.” – The Stage (UK)
ISSUES
- A Way To Create Less Bland New Architecture?
As part of the £1.5 million research partnership, Humanise said it wants to “challenge the ‘blandemic’ of dull, soulless development” and improve the way the UK designs and builds its urban environments. – Dezeen
- Thieves Cart Off 330-Pound Book Cover By Salvador Dalí
The large bronze plate, inlaid with precious stones and seashells, was taken from the Centre d’art contemporain in Issoire in south-central France. The piece is the cover of the Livre de l’Apocalypse, a joint project of 14 painters and writers including Dalí, Cocteau, and Cioran, calligraphed and illuminated on parchment. – The Telegraph (UK) (Yahoo!)
- London’s V&A Museum Plans Staff Buyouts
The Victoria and Albert Museum is “planning to launch a voluntary exit scheme … open to staff across the museum. … (The plan) does not reveal how many employees will apply or be accepted. No savings target, opening date, closing date, departmental allocation, or exit terms have been published.” – Art in Context
- Bilbao Fine Arts Gets A High Profile Expansion
The striking, €45m project in which Foster + Partners has worked with the eminent Basque architect Luis María Uriarte, has been described as a “floating pavilion” and will double the current exhibition space in the museum, to around 6,000 sq. m, and will also remodel 8,000 sq. m of existing galleries. – The Art Newspaper
- Cleaning Up Our Conservation Harms
Conservators face a particular challenge: how to ensure that preserving the past does not compromise the future. – The Art Newspaper
MEDIA
- UK Conservatives Plan To Cut £1 Billion From Culture Budget If Elected
“Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has revealed that her party plans to cut budgets extensively if it wins the next election, including slashing £1bn from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.” – The Stage (UK)
- 100 Years Of A Storied Artist Retreat
After 26 years at the helm of Yaddo, the storied artist retreat currently celebrating its 100th anniversary, Elaina Richardson is moving on. She will be succeeded by Cyra Levenson, deputy director of Learning and Engagement at the Guggenheim Museum, as announced last week. – Hyperallergic
- “Executive Privilege”: Trump Administration Refuses To Turn Over Records In Kennedy Center Court Case
A motion from Congresswoman Joyce Beatty (D-OH), a member of the Center’s board who’s suing to prevent its closure, is requesting financial and other records as part of discovery. As Trump is chairman of the Kennedy Center board, the Justice Department argues that these records are protected by executive privilege. – Forbes
- What The Kennedy Center Was And Why It Closed
“I was a vice president at that arts center in Washington, and I can tell you that maintenance is almost certainly not why it closed its doors last month.” – Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)
- City Of New York Doubles Its Grants To Individual Artists
“Rising from $5,000 to up to $10,000, the increase … represents the first change in this funding stream in some 20 years. The funding comes from the Department of Cultural Affairs and is distributed to each borough’s arts councils, which act as regrant partners and dole out grants to individual artists annually.” – ARTnews
MUSIC
- Why Annie Dillard Deserved A Nobel
She deserved the prize, first of all, as the major practitioner of literary nonfiction. The committee has historically overlooked this genre. – 3 Quarks Daily
- The Growing Popularity Of Audiobook Walking Clubs
Audiobook walking clubs are now emerging around the country, turning an activity typically enjoyed solo into a low-pressure social event. For about an hour, everyone listens to a book of their choosing as they walk, then gathers afterward to compare notes, trade recommendations, and—in many cases—make plans to see each other again. – Time
- Anne Carson Wins 2026 Nobel Prize For Literature
The Canadian poet, essayist, and translator of ancient Greek drama was cited “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature.” – AP
- Behind The Scenes: How They Choose The Winner Of The Nobel Prize For Literature
The Swedish Academy does not discuss the criteria it uses for selecting Nobel laureates, but here are the basics of how the process works. – Deutsche Welle
- What MacKenzie Scott Bezos’ Serialized Book Says About How Amazon Has Changed Publishing
The former wife of a man who built a notorious empire by making other people’s books ever easier to buy and, eventually, ever easier to produce has herself produced a novel that seems to have stepped directly into the literary territory that Amazon helped make so fertile. – The New Yorker
PEOPLE
- Why Annie Dillard Deserved A Nobel
She deserved the prize, first of all, as the major practitioner of literary nonfiction. The committee has historically overlooked this genre. – 3 Quarks Daily
- The Growing Popularity Of Audiobook Walking Clubs
Audiobook walking clubs are now emerging around the country, turning an activity typically enjoyed solo into a low-pressure social event. For about an hour, everyone listens to a book of their choosing as they walk, then gathers afterward to compare notes, trade recommendations, and—in many cases—make plans to see each other again. – Time
- Maybe “The Jazz Singer” Wasn’t The First Talkie After All
“The 46-minute feature film (Till the Bells Ring), featuring spoken parts and synchronised sound throughout, premiered in Edinburgh in October 1926, a year before The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson, hit New York’s screens to widespread fanfare and took its place in the history books.” – The Guardian
- Despite Being Shut Down, Voice Of America Still Costs $1.6 Million Per Week
“It’s been more than a year since the Trump administration dismantled Voice of America, the largest U.S. international broadcaster, saying ‘taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda.’ Yet the agency is costing the government millions even as it stopped operations.” – Fortune
- UK Conservatives Plan To Cut £1 Billion From Culture Budget If Elected
“Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has revealed that her party plans to cut budgets extensively if it wins the next election, including slashing £1bn from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.” – The Stage (UK)
PEOPLE
- Why Annie Dillard Deserved A Nobel
She deserved the prize, first of all, as the major practitioner of literary nonfiction. The committee has historically overlooked this genre. – 3 Quarks Daily
- The Growing Popularity Of Audiobook Walking Clubs
Audiobook walking clubs are now emerging around the country, turning an activity typically enjoyed solo into a low-pressure social event. For about an hour, everyone listens to a book of their choosing as they walk, then gathers afterward to compare notes, trade recommendations, and—in many cases—make plans to see each other again. – Time
- Maybe “The Jazz Singer” Wasn’t The First Talkie After All
“The 46-minute feature film (Till the Bells Ring), featuring spoken parts and synchronised sound throughout, premiered in Edinburgh in October 1926, a year before The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson, hit New York’s screens to widespread fanfare and took its place in the history books.” – The Guardian
- Despite Being Shut Down, Voice Of America Still Costs $1.6 Million Per Week
“It’s been more than a year since the Trump administration dismantled Voice of America, the largest U.S. international broadcaster, saying ‘taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda.’ Yet the agency is costing the government millions even as it stopped operations.” – Fortune
- UK Conservatives Plan To Cut £1 Billion From Culture Budget If Elected
“Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has revealed that her party plans to cut budgets extensively if it wins the next election, including slashing £1bn from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.” – The Stage (UK)
THEATRE
VISUAL
- Our Billionaire Problem
Where billionaires in the past operated in the physical world, ushered in societal change as a byproduct of their innovation, and used their sizable largesses to try uplifting lives, today’s billionaires stretch the limits of technological reality (and law) with sheer glee, with a meagre spirit of altruism. – The Walrus
- The World Of Science Is Being Overwhelmed By New Studies
In 2025, academics worldwide published about 7 million scholarly articles – that’s more than 19,000 each day. On the surface, that might seem like a number to celebrate, but it also poses a problem. As the volume of research balloons, it can be hard to discern what these millions of papers actually tell us. – Aeon
- The Dazzling Physical Afterlife Of The Ancient Pharaohs
Of all the priorities that governed ancient-Egyptian life, perhaps the hardest for us to fathom is the expenditure on the afterlife, not merely as a place of immaterial spiritual reward, but as a world of material goods. – The Atlantic
- The People Who Resist New Technology
Call them legacy users, or upgrade holdouts. They’ve clung to iPhones with home buttons, Bush-era computers, and headphones older than some tech CEOs, even when doing so impedes their ability to complete everyday tasks like emailing or navigation. – The Atlantic
- Why More Adults Are Playing With Kids Toys
“People just stay very playful for a longer period of time. And it’s cross-brand. You know, it might be Teddy bears. It might be Lego bricks. It might be Transformers. It might be Barbie dolls.” – The New Yorker