AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Scanned, Shredded, Then Sold Back To Us
Good Morning,
404 Media tracked a shipment of rare books to its final destination: an Amazon AI training facility, where the spines come off, the pages get scanned, and the originals don’t come back (404 Media). The trade is explicit now — the physical record converted into training weight, one direction only.
That’s not an isolated act of vandalism. A Missouri PBS station is suing to get back 70 years of its own archives, locked behind a dispute with the company storing them (Current). British booksellers are watching the used-book supply disappear into the same maw as their American counterparts (BBC). And our ability to find what’s left is degrading in parallel (The Walrus). Culture’s raw material is being consumed faster than we can keep track of what’s gone.
“Hand-designed” is now a selling point — and the label is already crowded with people who haven’t earned it (Fast Company). Provenance is becoming the product, but who verifies it is what it says?
Elsewhere: Mamdani is handing thousands of free Broadway tickets to New York high schoolers (Playbill), and Portland’s newest dance company skipped the theater entirely to perform for tens of thousands at the Moda Center (Oregon ArtsWatch). Access in action.
All of our stories below.
- The End Of Nostalgia?
What if businesses become too good at selling nostalgia? Research I carried out with colleagues suggests that digital technology is changing nostalgia itself. Ironically, by making the past permanently available, companies may be weakening the very notion they are trying to sell. – The Conversation
- All Novels Are Boring Until They’re Not
I call this point in a novel its volta. The term comes from poetry, where it denotes a shift that sonnets exhibit between their opening octave and concluding sestet or between their first 12 lines and final couplet. – Public Books
- Missouri PBS Channel Fears It’s Lost 70 Years Of Archival Data
Nine PBS in St. Louis filed a lawsuit against information management corporation Iron Mountain Data Centers July 28, seeking to recover over 50 terabytes of archival materials stored in one of the company’s Denver-based data centers. – Current
- Mamdani Announces Free Broadway Tickets For Students
“There are so many kids growing up in our city for whom Broadway feels as if it is a world away, like something that only belongs to other people. We are together today to prove differently, to make it possible for kids from Sheepshead Bay to Morrisania (no matter how much money their parents make) to enter that different world. – Playbill
ISSUES
- As Some Paintings Are Found, Art Thieves Hit A Sicilian Museum
In the morning, good news about an art theft from March. Then came the evening. “Thieves got past the alarm system at Messina’s Museo Interdisciplinare Regionale (MuMe), and broke open a security case. They soon left with four wooden panels.” – NPR
- Massive Art Thefts, Massive Recoveries This Week In Italy And Brazil
“The recovered works are Cézanne’s Still Life with Cherries, which authorities said was valued at about $7m (£5.2m), Renoir’s Fish, valued at $3.5m, and Matisse’s Odalisque on the Terrace.” – The Guardian (UK)
- Celebrating “Other” Washingtons
In Chicago, a lone statue of George Washington is now surrounded by “Other Washingtons,” which take the form of blue flags bearing the faces of Black Americans who bear the same last name. – CNN
- History Is Being Erased In Gaza, Iran And Ukraine
Of international bodies, Unesco is active in keeping a record of the fate of cultural heritage worldwide, but a record is just a record. Its listing of Russia’s and Israel’s devastation of their hated foes is like watching a historic tragedy unfold in real time. – The Guardian
- Eight Matisses Stolen From São Paulo Library Are Found By Brazilian Police
The Matisse illustrations, made for a limited-edition art book, were taken last December from the Biblioteca Mário de Andrade, where they were part of an exhibition presented jointly with the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art. Also stolen were five engravings by Brazilian artist Candido Portinari; they have not yet been located. – BBC
MEDIA
- Close The Kennedy Center? It Might Be The Best Option
Given how thoroughly Trump’s leadership has destroyed the center’s viability as a presenting organization, that is probably the best of a slew of bad options. – Washington Post
- Confirmed: Amazon Is Scanning And Then Ripping Up Rare Books
Wow, OK, way to be just obviously evil. “The printed book is destroyed in the process. The logo of the Amazon team that works at this warehouse, called VGT3, is a dinosaur, brandishing its teeth and with a book in its hands.” – 404 Media
- The Current Guy Uses AI To Claim Ballroom Approval From A Long-Dead Leader
The 47th president shared “a series of seemingly AI-generated images … and a short video in which Trump and Washington stroll through the still-unbuilt ballroom. ‘Thank you, George, for some of your brilliant ideas on this great Military Complex/Ballroom!’ Trump captioned the 10-second video.” – Salon
- The Dream Of A ‘Red State Hollywood’ Usually Founders On A Couple Of Things
“No one wants more uncertainty, and certainly no one wants this chaos. And let’s face it, no one really wants to move from Beverly Hills to Nashville.” – The New York Times
- Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Gets To Tell Your Family’s Story?
“The trauma of the Holocaust has lived beneath the surface of daily life for decades, too painful to confront. But now second- and third-generation family members are getting access to archives of collaboration. In some cases, it’s opening old wounds.” – The New York Times
MUSIC
- All Novels Are Boring Until They’re Not
I call this point in a novel its volta. The term comes from poetry, where it denotes a shift that sonnets exhibit between their opening octave and concluding sestet or between their first 12 lines and final couplet. – Public Books
- AI Has Plunged Publishing Into Chaos
The spectacular implosions of big book deals over suspected AI use—and fears about who might be next—are forcing a reckoning over the nature of authorship, the relationship between writers and publishers and the industry’s long-term survival. – The Wall Street Journal
- It’s Not Just US Booksellers Noticing A Gaping Maw Coming For Used Books
The booksellers are wondering how they’re supposed to feel. Tey’re “are “uncomfortable with the idea of books being destroyed – even if they admit not every title needs to be saved.” – BBC
- Founding Literary Publications As One’s Home Is Shelled To Rubble
“I began asking myself: what will remain of this experience if it is not written down?” – LitHub
- Not Only Is The Rumpus Alive, But It’s Launching A Spanish-Language Literary Magazine
From the editors: “Rather than translating existing work from The Rumpus, El Alboroto will commission and publish original Spanish-language writing spanning cultural criticism, personal essays, interviews, fiction, poetry and comics.” – LitHub
PEOPLE
- Scanned, Shredded, Then Sold Back To Us
Good Morning,
404 Media tracked a shipment of rare books to its final destination: an Amazon AI training facility, where the spines come off, the pages get scanned, and the originals don’t come back (404 Media). The trade is explicit now — the physical record converted into training weight, one direction only.
That’s not an isolated act of vandalism. A Missouri PBS station is suing to get back 70 years of its own archives, locked behind a dispute with the company storing them (Current). British booksellers are watching the used-book supply disappear into the same maw as their American counterparts (BBC). And our ability to find what’s left is degrading in parallel (The Walrus). Culture’s raw material is being consumed faster than we can keep track of what’s gone.
“Hand-designed” is now a selling point — and the label is already crowded with people who haven’t earned it (Fast Company). Provenance is becoming the product, but who verifies it is what it says?
Elsewhere: Mamdani is handing thousands of free Broadway tickets to New York high schoolers (Playbill), and Portland’s newest dance company skipped the theater entirely to perform for tens of thousands at the Moda Center (Oregon ArtsWatch). Access in action.
All of our stories below.
- The End Of Nostalgia?
What if businesses become too good at selling nostalgia? Research I carried out with colleagues suggests that digital technology is changing nostalgia itself. Ironically, by making the past permanently available, companies may be weakening the very notion they are trying to sell. – The Conversation
- All Novels Are Boring Until They’re Not
I call this point in a novel its volta. The term comes from poetry, where it denotes a shift that sonnets exhibit between their opening octave and concluding sestet or between their first 12 lines and final couplet. – Public Books
- Missouri PBS Channel Fears It’s Lost 70 Years Of Archival Data
Nine PBS in St. Louis filed a lawsuit against information management corporation Iron Mountain Data Centers July 28, seeking to recover over 50 terabytes of archival materials stored in one of the company’s Denver-based data centers. – Current
- Mamdani Announces Free Broadway Tickets For Students
“There are so many kids growing up in our city for whom Broadway feels as if it is a world away, like something that only belongs to other people. We are together today to prove differently, to make it possible for kids from Sheepshead Bay to Morrisania (no matter how much money their parents make) to enter that different world. – Playbill
PEOPLE
- Scanned, Shredded, Then Sold Back To Us
Good Morning,
404 Media tracked a shipment of rare books to its final destination: an Amazon AI training facility, where the spines come off, the pages get scanned, and the originals don’t come back (404 Media). The trade is explicit now — the physical record converted into training weight, one direction only.
That’s not an isolated act of vandalism. A Missouri PBS station is suing to get back 70 years of its own archives, locked behind a dispute with the company storing them (Current). British booksellers are watching the used-book supply disappear into the same maw as their American counterparts (BBC). And our ability to find what’s left is degrading in parallel (The Walrus). Culture’s raw material is being consumed faster than we can keep track of what’s gone.
“Hand-designed” is now a selling point — and the label is already crowded with people who haven’t earned it (Fast Company). Provenance is becoming the product, but who verifies it is what it says?
Elsewhere: Mamdani is handing thousands of free Broadway tickets to New York high schoolers (Playbill), and Portland’s newest dance company skipped the theater entirely to perform for tens of thousands at the Moda Center (Oregon ArtsWatch). Access in action.
All of our stories below.
- The End Of Nostalgia?
What if businesses become too good at selling nostalgia? Research I carried out with colleagues suggests that digital technology is changing nostalgia itself. Ironically, by making the past permanently available, companies may be weakening the very notion they are trying to sell. – The Conversation
- All Novels Are Boring Until They’re Not
I call this point in a novel its volta. The term comes from poetry, where it denotes a shift that sonnets exhibit between their opening octave and concluding sestet or between their first 12 lines and final couplet. – Public Books
- Missouri PBS Channel Fears It’s Lost 70 Years Of Archival Data
Nine PBS in St. Louis filed a lawsuit against information management corporation Iron Mountain Data Centers July 28, seeking to recover over 50 terabytes of archival materials stored in one of the company’s Denver-based data centers. – Current
- Mamdani Announces Free Broadway Tickets For Students
“There are so many kids growing up in our city for whom Broadway feels as if it is a world away, like something that only belongs to other people. We are together today to prove differently, to make it possible for kids from Sheepshead Bay to Morrisania (no matter how much money their parents make) to enter that different world. – Playbill
THEATRE
VISUAL
- The End Of Nostalgia?
What if businesses become too good at selling nostalgia? Research I carried out with colleagues suggests that digital technology is changing nostalgia itself. Ironically, by making the past permanently available, companies may be weakening the very notion they are trying to sell. – The Conversation
- Warning: Screen Time Is Having An Impact On Kids’ Cognitive Abilities
“Our children are less cognitively capable than we were at their age. For nearly two centuries, the west experienced steady generational progress. Each new cohort of children grew up, on average, healthier, happier, and better educated than the last. Until now.” – The Guardian
- How AI Will Damage Children’s Brain Development
During the most foundational period of brain development, social interaction of the sort that AI can now emulate isn’t entertainment for the developing brain. It’s nutrition. Once you see it that way, the right parallel snaps into focus. A more apt comparison than social media is food—more precisely, processed food. – The Atlantic
- Our Ability To Search The Internet Is Dying
Search can no longer pretend to be a neutral gateway to a stable body of knowledge. While the web has always been organized around intermediaries that shape what survives online and who sees it, the internet’s archival function is today breaking down under relentless pressure from stakeholders with very different—and often conflicting—priorities. – The Walrus
- The Anti-AI ‘Hand-Designed’ Trend Is Big, But Also Filled With Grift
“Most telling is Claude’s branding, incorporating hand-drawn illustrations and details that attempt to tell the world, ‘Hey, we’re the more human AI.’” – Fast Company