AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- The Rise And Fall Of Columbia House And Its Odd Business Model (Eight Records For A Penny!)
“It was an innovation with a carrot and a stick for the artists who benefited from the extra exposure. … But the offering also came with a carrot for consumers … and the corresponding stick was particularly ugly.” – Tedium
- Study: To Get Employees to Use a Benefit, Make Signing Up a Little Harder
In some cases, you need to make it (ever-so-slightly) harder for people to sign up for the program to help them feel like it’s worth the effort, suggests research forthcoming in Management Science. – Harvard Business Review
- Where’s The Evidence That Colleges Are Committed To Teaching Writing?
AI has both clarified what we should be doing when we teach writing and made it much harder to teach writing than in the days prior to the technology’s existence. – InsideHigherEd
- Dudamel Says Goodbye With Four-Night Hollywood Bowl Extravaganza
In many ways, YOLA was the glory of the “¡Bienvenido Gustavo!” Bowl program 17 years ago, and it proved even more so for the goodbye Gustavo, or more accurately “hasta pronto,” see you soon. – Los Angeles Times
- What It’s Like To Go Through One Of Burning Man’s Dust Storms
“The next big gust tore the tarp from our shade structure. I scrambled to secure the flapping tent walls, using water jugs and costume bags as weight. Above the screaming wind, I heard poles clanging as neighboring camps were blown to smithereens. Then, in a lull, I heard a faint voice. ‘Help!’” – The Guardian
ISSUES
- State Department’s Removal Of Painting Is Another Attack On Artists
By choosing Kehinde Wiley as the opening act in what may be a systematic effort to deaccession art from official government collections, the administration has chosen an artist whose work has become formulaic and clichéd, who has made comments that can easily be parodied as reverse racism. – Washington Post (MSN)
- Ancient Gold Treasure In Spain Stolen In Four-Minute Raid
“Thieves in Spain have raided the Treasure of Villena – a stunning collection of Bronze Age gold artefacts that has been described as the most important prehistoric trove in Europe – in the latest high-profile smash-and-grab heist on the continent.” – The Guardian
- LACMA Hit With Class-Action Lawsuit Over Data Breach
“A former employee of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has filed a class action complaint against the institution over a 2025 data breach that he claims has compromised sensitive visitor and employee information, including Social Security numbers.” – ARTnews
- V&A Museum Workers Vote To Strike
A PCS ballot registered 95% in favour of industrial action. The union did not say how many workers would be striking. It called for better pay, a cross-site policy to close public spaces when temperatures reached 30C, and for V&A East Storehouse workers “to drink and carry water at work”. – BBC
- US State Department Wants To Sell Kehinde Wiley Painting: “Too Woke”
On Monday, the New York Times reported that the State Department wants to sell the painting. Campos said in her Instagram post that the “Trump Administration and under my leadership we are turning away from globalist and woke ideologies.” – ARTnews
MEDIA
- What It’s Like To Go Through One Of Burning Man’s Dust Storms
“The next big gust tore the tarp from our shade structure. I scrambled to secure the flapping tent walls, using water jugs and costume bags as weight. Above the screaming wind, I heard poles clanging as neighboring camps were blown to smithereens. Then, in a lull, I heard a faint voice. ‘Help!’” – The Guardian
- Numbers: The Percentage Of Australians Who Engage In Culture
The figures are growing. Live performance attendance has increased by 1.2 million since 2022, to the highest figures ever. Around three quarters of those surveyed had attended a live performance or festival in 2025. – ArtsHub
- Invoking Dolly Parton, Federal Judge Overturns Texas Law Banning Drag Shows
The law, Texas Senate Bill 12, would fine business owners up to $10,000 for hosting “sexually oriented performances”; performers would face up to a year in prison. The judge reaffirmed his ruling from three years ago that the law was an overly vague infringement on free speech. – The Texas Tribune
- Trump Administration Threatens To Demolish Kennedy Center If Renovations Don’t Proceed
“Without those efforts,” wrote administration attorneys in a court filing, “the Center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down, with a determination to follow on what to build on the site, such as a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River.” – The Guardian
- Seaside Towns In Brittany Are Fed Up With Parisian Tourists
“The anger is running high across Finistère, where local populations swell to triple their normal size every summer, and heatwave conditions in the south of France have added to the influx this year. … Hostile messages have been scratched on car doors, and holidaymakers from Paris have had insults hurled at them on the street.” – The Telegraph (UK) (MSN)
MUSIC
- Where’s The Evidence That Colleges Are Committed To Teaching Writing?
AI has both clarified what we should be doing when we teach writing and made it much harder to teach writing than in the days prior to the technology’s existence. – InsideHigherEd
- Cyber Attack On Australian Book Distributor
A cyber attack on one of the country’s major publishing distributors has left bookshops and authors struggling to fill their shelves in the lead-up to their busiest trading period. – ABC Australia
- The Warehouse Where Amazon Takes Apart And Scans Books To Train Its AI: An Employee Speaks
“The employee worked at Amazon’s VGT3 warehouse, which is housed in the same facility as LAS8, where Amazon operates its print-on-demand business. … The Amazon employee I talked to described what that operation looks like from the warehouse floor.” – 404 Media
- Why Is So Much New Literary Fiction So Boring?
The question driving these opening pages is not: “What does it mean to live a good life?” or “What do we owe to people?” or “What can be saved from the ravages of time?” The question I hear is: “Have I impressed you yet?” – Devon Halliday
- HarperCollins Now Has A Manga Imprint, Kazé
“The publisher is rolling out the imprint in partnership with the existing Kazé publishers in France and Germany, which distribute manga for the European market and were acquired by HarperCollins last year. Kazé US will build on that brand for American readers of all ages.” – Publishers Weekly
PEOPLE
- The Rise And Fall Of Columbia House And Its Odd Business Model (Eight Records For A Penny!)
“It was an innovation with a carrot and a stick for the artists who benefited from the extra exposure. … But the offering also came with a carrot for consumers … and the corresponding stick was particularly ugly.” – Tedium
- Study: To Get Employees to Use a Benefit, Make Signing Up a Little Harder
In some cases, you need to make it (ever-so-slightly) harder for people to sign up for the program to help them feel like it’s worth the effort, suggests research forthcoming in Management Science. – Harvard Business Review
- Where’s The Evidence That Colleges Are Committed To Teaching Writing?
AI has both clarified what we should be doing when we teach writing and made it much harder to teach writing than in the days prior to the technology’s existence. – InsideHigherEd
- Dudamel Says Goodbye With Four-Night Hollywood Bowl Extravaganza
In many ways, YOLA was the glory of the “¡Bienvenido Gustavo!” Bowl program 17 years ago, and it proved even more so for the goodbye Gustavo, or more accurately “hasta pronto,” see you soon. – Los Angeles Times
- What It’s Like To Go Through One Of Burning Man’s Dust Storms
“The next big gust tore the tarp from our shade structure. I scrambled to secure the flapping tent walls, using water jugs and costume bags as weight. Above the screaming wind, I heard poles clanging as neighboring camps were blown to smithereens. Then, in a lull, I heard a faint voice. ‘Help!’” – The Guardian
PEOPLE
- The Rise And Fall Of Columbia House And Its Odd Business Model (Eight Records For A Penny!)
“It was an innovation with a carrot and a stick for the artists who benefited from the extra exposure. … But the offering also came with a carrot for consumers … and the corresponding stick was particularly ugly.” – Tedium
- Study: To Get Employees to Use a Benefit, Make Signing Up a Little Harder
In some cases, you need to make it (ever-so-slightly) harder for people to sign up for the program to help them feel like it’s worth the effort, suggests research forthcoming in Management Science. – Harvard Business Review
- Where’s The Evidence That Colleges Are Committed To Teaching Writing?
AI has both clarified what we should be doing when we teach writing and made it much harder to teach writing than in the days prior to the technology’s existence. – InsideHigherEd
- Dudamel Says Goodbye With Four-Night Hollywood Bowl Extravaganza
In many ways, YOLA was the glory of the “¡Bienvenido Gustavo!” Bowl program 17 years ago, and it proved even more so for the goodbye Gustavo, or more accurately “hasta pronto,” see you soon. – Los Angeles Times
- What It’s Like To Go Through One Of Burning Man’s Dust Storms
“The next big gust tore the tarp from our shade structure. I scrambled to secure the flapping tent walls, using water jugs and costume bags as weight. Above the screaming wind, I heard poles clanging as neighboring camps were blown to smithereens. Then, in a lull, I heard a faint voice. ‘Help!’” – The Guardian
THEATRE
VISUAL
- Study: To Get Employees to Use a Benefit, Make Signing Up a Little Harder
In some cases, you need to make it (ever-so-slightly) harder for people to sign up for the program to help them feel like it’s worth the effort, suggests research forthcoming in Management Science. – Harvard Business Review
- A Case For Limiting AI In Culture
If we fail to think through and delimit the role of AI in our lives, we risk undermining the intelligibility of our own guiding cultural concepts, and thus initiating a period in our own society of which it may someday be possible to say that “nothing happened.” – The Point
- The Worst Year Ever To Be Alive
A massive volcanic eruption in AD536 has led historians to describe it as the “worst year to be alive”. Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia were plunged into darkness for 18 months. Temperatures in the summer months fell by 1.5˚C to 2.5˚C, initiating one of the coldest decades in the past two millennia. – The Conversation
- Our Misconceptions Of What Consciousness Is
Perceiving, experiencing and thinking are inherently embodied activities. The body is not just a physical object, it is a living organism that is in constant flux. It is also part of the social, cultural and material world. – Nature
- The Warnings From The Digital Age That Should Inform The AI Age
The adoption and diffusion of such technologies led to wild-eyed speculation about their possible social and political consequences, a discussion that, characteristically, ricocheted between dreams of a technological utopia and fears of an artificial state. – The Guardian