AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- How Much Does Jeff Hiller’s Emmy Win Mean To Him?
- Actors, Dancers, Other Performers Worry They’re Being Replaced By Their Own Bodies
“A friendly assistant director who is already known to you, who brings you tea and holds your phone while you’re acting, says that the VFX [visual effects] team are in today – and just after you finish the scene, could you pop over to the VFX bus? And off you go.” – The Guardian (UK)
- After Funding Cuts, A DC-Area Book Vending Machine Provides A Small Boost For Local Authors
The founder: “I had friends who wrote award-winning books and couldn’t get their books into D.C. bookstores because they were smaller presses, or they didn’t have a mass appeal. … And that always seemed wrong to me.” – NPR
- Why This Young Copywriter Left The Kennedy Center
“Just as Trump is trying to legally redefine what it means to be ‘American,’ he is also attempting to redefine which Americans can make and see art. Our work as Americans right now, as citizens and artists, is to continually expand the definition of ‘our people.’” – American Theatre
- Why Thousands Of People Are Converging On A Museum In Germany
Museum Wiesbaden is seeing an uptick – a rather large uptick – in visitors thanks to none other than Taylor Swift. – BBC
ISSUES
- Why Thousands Of People Are Converging On A Museum In Germany
Museum Wiesbaden is seeing an uptick – a rather large uptick – in visitors thanks to none other than Taylor Swift. – BBC
- Thieves Break Into The Louvre, Steal Napoleonic Crown Jewels
“The thieves used a basket lift to access the room directly, forced a window and broke display cases to steal the jewels, before escaping on two-wheelers.” What is believed to be the Empress Eugénie’s crown, broken, was later found outside the museum. – Euro News (Yahoo)
- Why There Was A Surge Of Art Heists In The 1970s
According to art historian Tom Flynn, the surge in heists in the 1970s “coincides with the boom of the art market”. – BBC
- The Rise Of France’s Private Art Foundations
‘Luxury needs this link to the world of culture, because that is what gives it its nobility, its legitimacy, its roots,’ says Jean-Michel Tobelem, a professor of management at the Sorbonne and expert in cultural policy. – Apollo
- Senior Housing Designed To Fight Loneliness Wins Britain’s Top Architecture Award
The Stirling Prize for the country’s best new building of the year, awarded by the Royal Institute of British Architects, has gone to the Appleby Blue Almshouse, a project providing affordable housing for seniors in London’s Southwark borough. It’s the second Stirling Prize for architects Witherford Watson Mann. – Dezeen
MEDIA
- UK’s Opposition Greens And Reform Parties Are Running On (Very Different) Culture Issues
Support for both parties is defined by cultural issues. In the case of Reform, by the culture war around immigration and national identity; in the case of the Green Party by the wider picture of the linked issues of social justice and climate change. – The Art Newspaper
- How Artists Are Mobilizing A Resistance
Among them is The People vs Project 2025, a new nationwide movement to mobilise artists and cultural workers through co-ordinated live and streaming performances. – The Art Newspaper
- Data: Humanities Graduates Do Very Well In The Job Markets
Humanities majors in Minnesota are as likely to be employed as are engineering or business majors, according to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators Project. And humanities BAs earn 64% more than workers with only a high school diploma. – The Star-Tribune (Mpls)
- One Of Britain’s Major Foundations Restricts Its Arts Fund Despite Its Endowment Growing Past $1 Billion
The Paul Hamlyn Foundation — whose endowment has grown steadily since 2020 and now stands at £916 million ($1.28 billion) — has closed its £6.5 million ($8.7 million) Arts Fund to any new applicants. The Foundation says applications have wildly exceeded available grant money and blocking new applicants is necessary for long-term stability. – Arts Professional (UK)
- Trump Refiles $15 Billion Lawsuit Against Penguin Random House And New York Times
The case — which charges that, with the book Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success, the publishing house and the newspaper disparaged Trump and undermined his 2024 campaign — was thrown out last month by a Federal judge who called it “improper and impermissible.” – Publishers Weekly
MUSIC
- After Funding Cuts, A DC-Area Book Vending Machine Provides A Small Boost For Local Authors
The founder: “I had friends who wrote award-winning books and couldn’t get their books into D.C. bookstores because they were smaller presses, or they didn’t have a mass appeal. … And that always seemed wrong to me.” – NPR
- Another Nobel-Winning Author Turns Out To Have Been A God-Awful Person
Most observers knew that Saul Bellow was no saint, especially after reading his greatest novel, the quasi-autobiographical Herzog. Bellow’s portrait of his protagonist’s wife, a stand-in for his soon-to-be-ex, is very unflattering, but evidence now shows that Bellow himself was far more cruel and violent toward her in real life. – Slate (Yahoo!)
- The Archaeology Of Unearthing The World’s Oldest Stories
Nowadays, we can unearth bones, extract DNA, even map ancient migrations, but only in myths can we glimpse the inner lives of our forebears—their fears and longings, their sense of wonder and dread. Linguists have reconstructed dead languages. Why not try to do the same for lost stories? – The New Yorker
- Los Angeles Times Is Losing Horrifying Amounts Of Money
“The business made a loss from operations of $41.8m in the year ending 29 December 2024 and a total net loss before taxes of $48.1m. This followed a reported loss of more than $30m in 2023. In the (first half of) this year, the (newspaper) made a further $17.3m loss from operations.” – Press Gazette (UK)
- Study: Libraries Draw People To Downtown
A recent study published by the Urban Libraries Council explores the idea that libraries can draw people to city centers that have been suffering from the lingering effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. – Bloomberg
PEOPLE
- How Much Does Jeff Hiller’s Emmy Win Mean To Him?
- Actors, Dancers, Other Performers Worry They’re Being Replaced By Their Own Bodies
“A friendly assistant director who is already known to you, who brings you tea and holds your phone while you’re acting, says that the VFX [visual effects] team are in today – and just after you finish the scene, could you pop over to the VFX bus? And off you go.” – The Guardian (UK)
- After Funding Cuts, A DC-Area Book Vending Machine Provides A Small Boost For Local Authors
The founder: “I had friends who wrote award-winning books and couldn’t get their books into D.C. bookstores because they were smaller presses, or they didn’t have a mass appeal. … And that always seemed wrong to me.” – NPR
- Why This Young Copywriter Left The Kennedy Center
“Just as Trump is trying to legally redefine what it means to be ‘American,’ he is also attempting to redefine which Americans can make and see art. Our work as Americans right now, as citizens and artists, is to continually expand the definition of ‘our people.’” – American Theatre
- Why Thousands Of People Are Converging On A Museum In Germany
Museum Wiesbaden is seeing an uptick – a rather large uptick – in visitors thanks to none other than Taylor Swift. – BBC
PEOPLE
- How Much Does Jeff Hiller’s Emmy Win Mean To Him?
- Actors, Dancers, Other Performers Worry They’re Being Replaced By Their Own Bodies
“A friendly assistant director who is already known to you, who brings you tea and holds your phone while you’re acting, says that the VFX [visual effects] team are in today – and just after you finish the scene, could you pop over to the VFX bus? And off you go.” – The Guardian (UK)
- After Funding Cuts, A DC-Area Book Vending Machine Provides A Small Boost For Local Authors
The founder: “I had friends who wrote award-winning books and couldn’t get their books into D.C. bookstores because they were smaller presses, or they didn’t have a mass appeal. … And that always seemed wrong to me.” – NPR
- Why This Young Copywriter Left The Kennedy Center
“Just as Trump is trying to legally redefine what it means to be ‘American,’ he is also attempting to redefine which Americans can make and see art. Our work as Americans right now, as citizens and artists, is to continually expand the definition of ‘our people.’” – American Theatre
- Why Thousands Of People Are Converging On A Museum In Germany
Museum Wiesbaden is seeing an uptick – a rather large uptick – in visitors thanks to none other than Taylor Swift. – BBC
THEATRE
VISUAL
- As Ireland Institutes Basic Income For Some Artists, Canadian Artists Wonder If Their Country Could Also Come Through
Canadian artists aren’t just advocating for themselves, but for everyone in Canada to have a universal (hence the name) basic income. – CBC
- Just How Do We Measure The Complexity Of AI?
How do we assess whether AI is “reasoning” like humans do? Is it “truly intelligent”—but what does that mean? Even if we don’t understand its inner workings, could we still accurately predict its impact before unleashing it on the world? – The Point
- Our Long History Of Artificial Intelligizing
If philosophy formalized reasoning, literature explored its consequences. Stories about artificial beings reveal the hopes and terrors of living with intelligent doubles. Western traditions gave us the myth of Pygmalion, who fell in love with his statue, and Ovid’s tales of moving statues and enchanted beings. – 3 Quarks Daily
- Abundance Of Choice Is Our Modern Religion. It Has Some Serious Downsides
Philosophers and political theorists say it promotes selfish individualism and discourages collective action around issues that affect us all. And sociologists add that societies that prize choice too much tend to blame those with only poor or limited options for their own misfortunes. So much for choice as consistently synonymous with freedom. – Aeon
- AI Has Been Trained With What’s Online. Not All Knowledge Is Online
These systems may appear neutral, but they are far from it. The most popular models privilege dominant epistemologies (typically Western and institutional) while marginalising alternative ways of knowing, especially those encoded in oral traditions, embodied practice and the languages considered ‘low-resource’ in the computing world. – Aeon
