AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Culture Diplomacy like in Olden Days
Good Morning,
France is lending Britain the Bayeux Tapestry, and the interesting question isn’t conservation but motive. A thousand-year-old cloth stitched about a conquest is now the material argument for a relationship — proof, fiber by fiber, that England and the continent were never separable (The New York Times). Culture as diplomacy. Like in olden times.
That’s one way of deciding what heritage is for. Another: the president posting on Truth Social that the Smithsonian should install a colossus of George Washington — a request only in the sense that it isn’t yet an order (The Guardian). Meanwhile France’s actual custodians are less worried about symbolism than about crowbars: gangs are hitting small museums in daylight, and nobody is sure the country can protect what it owns (The New York Times).
The Music Hall of Williamsburg is closing, which prompts the question: what does a city lose when it loses a cheap room (The New York Times)? Not headliners — the place where people became headliners. And on YouTube, anime reaction creators say a copyright enforcer is wielding takedowns as a weapon rather than a shield (The Verge).
Finally, a labor story for the ages: 121 years ago, Russian printers went on strike because they were paid by the letter and punctuation didn’t count (LitHub). Every comma is somebody’s work.
All of our stories below.
- Anime Reaction YouTubers Are At War With Their Platform
You see, reaction videos are based on copyrighted material. You’d think that fair use applied here, and, well, yes, but some reaction vid makers say “the way Remove Your Media has been going after creators is abusive and unrelated to any legitimate interest in protecting copyrighted IP.” – The Verge
- A MacArthur Genius Leaves New York For Paris, But Can’t Resist A Return
Justin Vivian Bond “came back to see not only friends, but also her fans, who are increasingly Gen Z. ‘They’re learning about their queer elders, and their trans elders are really showing up for them.’” – The New York Times
- Do We Really Need A Four-Hour Documentary On Elon Musk?
“The penchant for treating founders as god-kings whose companies are mere extensions of their visionary genius is a large part of the story underlying Musk’s (and others’) precipitous rise, but it’s not only a credulous media and easily swayed investors who are to blame.” – Slate
- At The Venice Film Fest, ‘Woman Unknown’ Wins Big
“The film, a period drama set in Denmark, follows a servant about to marry her factory-owner employer in the uneasy years after World War II.” – The New York Times
ISSUES
- As More And More Small Museums Get Hit By Thieves, Can France Keep Its Art At All Safe?
“Museum workers, the police and government officials are rattled. They worry about how to protect France’s cultural patrimony in an era of increasingly violent criminal gangs, some of whom have broken into museums in broad daylight.” – The New York Times
- The Current President Of The United States Wants To Install A ‘Colossus’ Statue Of The First President
Of course, the “request” came on conservative social media site Truth Social. It “underscores a perception that he sees himself as curator-in-chief of the nation’s national museum.” – The Guardian (UK)
- Learning, Or Re-Learning, The Story Told By The Bayeux Tapestry
What could justify moving the fragile tapestry to Britain this year? Probably politics: “Foot by foot, fiber by fiber, this is the material proof of England’s entwinement with the continent 21 miles from its coast.” – The New York Times
- High Tension As Charlie Kirk Statue Unveiled In Times Square
Shouting and a shoving match erupted as Italian-American artist Sergio Furnari unveiled his unpermitted life-size bronze memorial to slain right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in Times Square on Thursday. – ARTnews
- Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Getting Ready To Open
All eyes are on the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi as it prepares for opening on December 11 after two decades of delays. – ARTnews
MEDIA
- Anime Reaction YouTubers Are At War With Their Platform
You see, reaction videos are based on copyrighted material. You’d think that fair use applied here, and, well, yes, but some reaction vid makers say “the way Remove Your Media has been going after creators is abusive and unrelated to any legitimate interest in protecting copyrighted IP.” – The Verge
- How, Exactly, Will AI Transform Capitalism?
We know AI is going to change everything, but how? “We face a choice: delay and obstruct AI adoption in the name of social justice, or embrace it in a radically altered form.” – The Guardian (UK)
- Parents, Children Sue Meta Over Their Images Being Used For AI Facial Recognition
“The proposed class action alleges that Meta violated Illinois and California privacy laws by extracting biometric information from people’s photos without notice or consent” for training smart glasses – and generative AI images. – Wired
- Just How Much Is Your TV Spying On You?
Oh, says the company doing the spying, not that much. “The word ‘continuously’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting here as Gamers Nexus demonstrated on LG TV keeping extensive logs of ambient conversations.” This seems fine. – The Verge
- Lonnie Bunch Resignation Throws Smithsonian Into Uncharted Leadership Waters
Previous searches have largely revolved around professional qualifications. This one begins after Trump has spent more than a year demanding changes to the Smithsonian’s exhibits and leadership — and as Republicans and Democrats are already staking out competing visions for Bunch’s successor. – Washington Post (MSN)
MUSIC
- That Time When Russian Printers Went On Strike Over Commas
“At the time, printers were paid by the letter set, but this didn’t include punctuation.” The workers were not having it. – LitHub
- Young Africans Are Sparking A Renewal Of Interest In African Languages
“Experts say the revival in some of them is driven partly by second- and third-generation Africans in the diaspora finding it easier to reconnect with their roots and communicate with older relatives, thanks to social media, online learning and entertainment.” – AP
- A New Survey Of Readers To Find Out How They Discover Books
The survey will talk to 5,000 book buyers and profile them by genre, covering how they discover books across every channel—including social media and other digital tools—where and how they buy, and their mix of print, e-book, and audio, with a deeper look at audio habits, subscription behavior, etc. – Publishers Weekly
- The Market For Non-Fiction Is Collapsing
The nonfiction collapse has profound implications for the industry. Nonfiction, historically, has always been seen as the more stable part of the business for logical reasons. The demand for nonfiction has always felt more predictable than fiction. – Dear Head of Mine
- Helen Vendler On Inhabiting Poetry
Vendler spent a lifetime – which ended in April 2024 – writing about lyric poetry. She believed literary criticism was about the pleasure of describing complex things and conveying the joy of understanding them to others. – London Review of Books
PEOPLE
- Culture Diplomacy like in Olden Days
Good Morning,
France is lending Britain the Bayeux Tapestry, and the interesting question isn’t conservation but motive. A thousand-year-old cloth stitched about a conquest is now the material argument for a relationship — proof, fiber by fiber, that England and the continent were never separable (The New York Times). Culture as diplomacy. Like in olden times.
That’s one way of deciding what heritage is for. Another: the president posting on Truth Social that the Smithsonian should install a colossus of George Washington — a request only in the sense that it isn’t yet an order (The Guardian). Meanwhile France’s actual custodians are less worried about symbolism than about crowbars: gangs are hitting small museums in daylight, and nobody is sure the country can protect what it owns (The New York Times).
The Music Hall of Williamsburg is closing, which prompts the question: what does a city lose when it loses a cheap room (The New York Times)? Not headliners — the place where people became headliners. And on YouTube, anime reaction creators say a copyright enforcer is wielding takedowns as a weapon rather than a shield (The Verge).
Finally, a labor story for the ages: 121 years ago, Russian printers went on strike because they were paid by the letter and punctuation didn’t count (LitHub). Every comma is somebody’s work.
All of our stories below.
- Anime Reaction YouTubers Are At War With Their Platform
You see, reaction videos are based on copyrighted material. You’d think that fair use applied here, and, well, yes, but some reaction vid makers say “the way Remove Your Media has been going after creators is abusive and unrelated to any legitimate interest in protecting copyrighted IP.” – The Verge
- A MacArthur Genius Leaves New York For Paris, But Can’t Resist A Return
Justin Vivian Bond “came back to see not only friends, but also her fans, who are increasingly Gen Z. ‘They’re learning about their queer elders, and their trans elders are really showing up for them.’” – The New York Times
- Do We Really Need A Four-Hour Documentary On Elon Musk?
“The penchant for treating founders as god-kings whose companies are mere extensions of their visionary genius is a large part of the story underlying Musk’s (and others’) precipitous rise, but it’s not only a credulous media and easily swayed investors who are to blame.” – Slate
- At The Venice Film Fest, ‘Woman Unknown’ Wins Big
“The film, a period drama set in Denmark, follows a servant about to marry her factory-owner employer in the uneasy years after World War II.” – The New York Times
PEOPLE
- Culture Diplomacy like in Olden Days
Good Morning,
France is lending Britain the Bayeux Tapestry, and the interesting question isn’t conservation but motive. A thousand-year-old cloth stitched about a conquest is now the material argument for a relationship — proof, fiber by fiber, that England and the continent were never separable (The New York Times). Culture as diplomacy. Like in olden times.
That’s one way of deciding what heritage is for. Another: the president posting on Truth Social that the Smithsonian should install a colossus of George Washington — a request only in the sense that it isn’t yet an order (The Guardian). Meanwhile France’s actual custodians are less worried about symbolism than about crowbars: gangs are hitting small museums in daylight, and nobody is sure the country can protect what it owns (The New York Times).
The Music Hall of Williamsburg is closing, which prompts the question: what does a city lose when it loses a cheap room (The New York Times)? Not headliners — the place where people became headliners. And on YouTube, anime reaction creators say a copyright enforcer is wielding takedowns as a weapon rather than a shield (The Verge).
Finally, a labor story for the ages: 121 years ago, Russian printers went on strike because they were paid by the letter and punctuation didn’t count (LitHub). Every comma is somebody’s work.
All of our stories below.
- Anime Reaction YouTubers Are At War With Their Platform
You see, reaction videos are based on copyrighted material. You’d think that fair use applied here, and, well, yes, but some reaction vid makers say “the way Remove Your Media has been going after creators is abusive and unrelated to any legitimate interest in protecting copyrighted IP.” – The Verge
- A MacArthur Genius Leaves New York For Paris, But Can’t Resist A Return
Justin Vivian Bond “came back to see not only friends, but also her fans, who are increasingly Gen Z. ‘They’re learning about their queer elders, and their trans elders are really showing up for them.’” – The New York Times
- Do We Really Need A Four-Hour Documentary On Elon Musk?
“The penchant for treating founders as god-kings whose companies are mere extensions of their visionary genius is a large part of the story underlying Musk’s (and others’) precipitous rise, but it’s not only a credulous media and easily swayed investors who are to blame.” – Slate
- At The Venice Film Fest, ‘Woman Unknown’ Wins Big
“The film, a period drama set in Denmark, follows a servant about to marry her factory-owner employer in the uneasy years after World War II.” – The New York Times
THEATRE
VISUAL
- Is Talk Of Extinction Simply Meant To Distract Us From The True Threats Of AI?
Timnit Gebru: Sometimes “I read quotes to people about artificial intelligence that I’ve gathered in my research, and I ask, What decade was this statement made in? Sometimes people get it right, but a lot of times they do not, because it all sounds the same.” – Wired
- Cockroach Milk, Underpants Soil Testing, A Scientific Definition Of Kissing: The 2026 Ig Nobel Prizes
“Winning work highlighted during the 36th annual award ceremony” (which was in Zurich this year rather than Boston) “included hilarious research on the aerodynamics of nose blowing, gently stepping on venomous snakes, confirming that teenagers do indeed smell worse than babies and other side-splitting scientific undertakings.” – Smithsonian Magazine
- Flock’s Vision Of Surveillance Everywhere
Flock was reported to have a valuation of more than eight billion dollars, with its biggest investor being the venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Around forty per cent of the United States’ law-enforcement agencies now have contracts with the company, and a reported hundred and thirty thousand cameras monitor roads in every state but Alaska. – The New Yorker
- Today’s Tech Billionaires Learned The Wrong Lessons From Science Fiction
As young people, the future billionaires were spending hours (under their covers with flashlights, I imagine) consuming stories about killer robots or Mars colonies. What they seemed not to get—maybe couldn’t get—was that these were cautionary tales, stories that projected deep societal worries into space or onto a future many millennia away. – The Atlantic
- What Jonathan Swift Warned Us About Reading
“Far from merely raising a reactionary fist in the air at the new science, Swift identified an attitude that is still around today — and one that has created many of the greatest challenges now facing educators.” – The Dial