AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Thieves Carted Off a 330-Pound Dalí
Good Morning,
Thieves took the 330-pound bronze cover of Dalí’s Livre de l’Apocalypse, inlaid with precious stones and seashells, from a museum in Issoire, France, overnight Sunday, and police can’t say how they moved it unnoticed. Its owner, the restorer Christian Karoutzos, told local radio, “They assassinated France” (The Telegraph).
The Justice Department is citing executive privilege to withhold records from Rep. Joyce Beatty’s suit over the Kennedy Center’s planned two-year closure (Forbes). Beatty, a center board member, says the “one-year review” Trump cited never happened; what the center turned over were four reports from 2021 to 2024, none contemplating a full closure.
Leon Botstein left the Bard College presidency after 51 years, following a WilmerHale review that counted 25 visits to Jeffrey Epstein’s townhouse; he is on sabbatical writing a book on Mahler and still runs the Bard Music Festival and The Orchestra Now (The New York Times). Elaina Richardson, leaving Yaddo, the Saratoga Springs artist retreat, after 26 years, grew its endowment from $8 million to about $40 million (Hyperallergic).
London’s V&A will open a voluntary exit scheme with no savings target or terms published, though its latest accounts show staff costs up 13 percent to £57.5 million (Art in Context). James and Kathryn Murdoch paid more than $300 million for New York magazine and Vox; James says human authorship gets more valuable as AI rises (Vanity Fair).
All of our stories below.
- 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 McKenzie 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
- Marin Alsop Takes Another Conducting Job
She is now artistic director of the Webern Kammerphilharmonie, the training orchestra of Vienna’s University of Music and Performing Arts. Currently, she is also artistic director of the Polish National Radio Symphony, chief conductor of the Chicago Symphony at Ravinia, and principal guest conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra and London’s Philharmonia Orchestra. – Gramophone
- Finalists For This Year’s National Book Awards
The winners in each of the five categories—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature—will be announced at an awards ceremony on November 18. – Publishers Weekly
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
- 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
- Plans Revealed For $250 Million Arts District In Historically Black Neighborhood In Chicago
The Bronzeville Legacy Collective says it has already raised $75 million toward its goal: a campus with museums dedicated to the gospel music, blues legend Muddy Waters, and Emmett Till; a center for Black dance; a theater with a resident company; a recreational trail; and an arts and culture center. – WBEZ (Chicago)
MUSIC
- 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 McKenzie 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
- Finalists For This Year’s National Book Awards
The winners in each of the five categories—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature—will be announced at an awards ceremony on November 18. – Publishers Weekly
- Audible Introduces Interactive Features To Its Audiobooks
“On Thursday, the Amazon-owned company introduced three new features that will allow listeners to explore a book’s characters, engage in interactive stories, and view additional imagery and bonus information about landmarks or places mentioned in the book.” Unfortunately, for now this all is available with only one title. – TechCrunch
- Is The Reason The Voynich Manuscript Is So Confounding Because The Pages Are Out Of Order?
“In … peer-reviewed journal Digital Medievalist, (two researchers) argue that the manuscript’s folded sheets may have originally been piled on top of each other as ‘singulions’ – like a stack of Christmas cards – but were mis-bound in a more typical ‘nested’ arrangement at some point in the mid-to-late 15th century.” – The Guardian
PEOPLE
- Thieves Carted Off a 330-Pound Dalí
Good Morning,
Thieves took the 330-pound bronze cover of Dalí’s Livre de l’Apocalypse, inlaid with precious stones and seashells, from a museum in Issoire, France, overnight Sunday, and police can’t say how they moved it unnoticed. Its owner, the restorer Christian Karoutzos, told local radio, “They assassinated France” (The Telegraph).
The Justice Department is citing executive privilege to withhold records from Rep. Joyce Beatty’s suit over the Kennedy Center’s planned two-year closure (Forbes). Beatty, a center board member, says the “one-year review” Trump cited never happened; what the center turned over were four reports from 2021 to 2024, none contemplating a full closure.
Leon Botstein left the Bard College presidency after 51 years, following a WilmerHale review that counted 25 visits to Jeffrey Epstein’s townhouse; he is on sabbatical writing a book on Mahler and still runs the Bard Music Festival and The Orchestra Now (The New York Times). Elaina Richardson, leaving Yaddo, the Saratoga Springs artist retreat, after 26 years, grew its endowment from $8 million to about $40 million (Hyperallergic).
London’s V&A will open a voluntary exit scheme with no savings target or terms published, though its latest accounts show staff costs up 13 percent to £57.5 million (Art in Context). James and Kathryn Murdoch paid more than $300 million for New York magazine and Vox; James says human authorship gets more valuable as AI rises (Vanity Fair).
All of our stories below.
- 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 McKenzie 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
- Marin Alsop Takes Another Conducting Job
She is now artistic director of the Webern Kammerphilharmonie, the training orchestra of Vienna’s University of Music and Performing Arts. Currently, she is also artistic director of the Polish National Radio Symphony, chief conductor of the Chicago Symphony at Ravinia, and principal guest conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra and London’s Philharmonia Orchestra. – Gramophone
- Finalists For This Year’s National Book Awards
The winners in each of the five categories—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature—will be announced at an awards ceremony on November 18. – Publishers Weekly
PEOPLE
- Thieves Carted Off a 330-Pound Dalí
Good Morning,
Thieves took the 330-pound bronze cover of Dalí’s Livre de l’Apocalypse, inlaid with precious stones and seashells, from a museum in Issoire, France, overnight Sunday, and police can’t say how they moved it unnoticed. Its owner, the restorer Christian Karoutzos, told local radio, “They assassinated France” (The Telegraph).
The Justice Department is citing executive privilege to withhold records from Rep. Joyce Beatty’s suit over the Kennedy Center’s planned two-year closure (Forbes). Beatty, a center board member, says the “one-year review” Trump cited never happened; what the center turned over were four reports from 2021 to 2024, none contemplating a full closure.
Leon Botstein left the Bard College presidency after 51 years, following a WilmerHale review that counted 25 visits to Jeffrey Epstein’s townhouse; he is on sabbatical writing a book on Mahler and still runs the Bard Music Festival and The Orchestra Now (The New York Times). Elaina Richardson, leaving Yaddo, the Saratoga Springs artist retreat, after 26 years, grew its endowment from $8 million to about $40 million (Hyperallergic).
London’s V&A will open a voluntary exit scheme with no savings target or terms published, though its latest accounts show staff costs up 13 percent to £57.5 million (Art in Context). James and Kathryn Murdoch paid more than $300 million for New York magazine and Vox; James says human authorship gets more valuable as AI rises (Vanity Fair).
All of our stories below.
- 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 McKenzie 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
- Marin Alsop Takes Another Conducting Job
She is now artistic director of the Webern Kammerphilharmonie, the training orchestra of Vienna’s University of Music and Performing Arts. Currently, she is also artistic director of the Polish National Radio Symphony, chief conductor of the Chicago Symphony at Ravinia, and principal guest conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra and London’s Philharmonia Orchestra. – Gramophone
- Finalists For This Year’s National Book Awards
The winners in each of the five categories—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature—will be announced at an awards ceremony on November 18. – Publishers Weekly
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