AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Who Stole 200 Gold Mozart Statues In Salzburg?
More than 200 gold-colored Mozart figures have vanished from a public art installation in Salzburg, forcing organizers to end part of the exhibition early. – Deutsche Welle
- David Ellison Is Making Himself The Best Argument Against The Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger
“So that’s how Ellison wants to prove that he will be a steward of (Hollywood’s) flailing entertainment industry — by threatening to rip out a big part of its still-beating heart and implant it in Texas or Tennessee?” – Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
- Kennicott: How DC’s Freedom Plaza Became A Battleground
The statuary ensemble, which also includes a new 23-foot rendering of a female figure dubbed “The Spirit of Liberty,” is one of the most cogent and confrontational expressions of the Trump administration’s views on race, urban design and public space. – Washington Post
- WGA: Ellison’s Threat To Relocate Paramount From California Proves Its Outsized Power
“By threatening to leave the state because it doesn’t want the government to enforce the law, Paramount further proves the danger of its outsized power over the industry and what that will mean for writers and the creative community.” – Deadline
- Documenting The Harms To The National Symphony In The Past Year
They reveal that even as expenses ticked downward, donations fell 25 percent short of expectations last year, and that this year’s ticket revenue is on pace to earn about half of what the orchestra budgeted. – Washington Post
ISSUES
- Who Stole 200 Gold Mozart Statues In Salzburg?
More than 200 gold-colored Mozart figures have vanished from a public art installation in Salzburg, forcing organizers to end part of the exhibition early. – Deutsche Welle
- Kennicott: How DC’s Freedom Plaza Became A Battleground
The statuary ensemble, which also includes a new 23-foot rendering of a female figure dubbed “The Spirit of Liberty,” is one of the most cogent and confrontational expressions of the Trump administration’s views on race, urban design and public space. – Washington Post
- Layoffs At San Diego Museum Of Art
“The San Diego Museum of Art laid off nearly a dozen employees Wednesday in what it described as an effort to stay sustainable as it contends with rising operating costs and an uncertain funding future.” – The San Diego Union-Tribune (MSN)
- Tower Of Colombia’s Tallest Cathedral Collapses In Earthquake
At the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, a 1939 building in the city of Manizales and the tallest neo-Gothic church in the Americas, one of the side towers toppled onto the center of the building following the 7.4 magnitude quake which struck Colombia on Monday. – The Art Newspaper
- Disastrous Finances At New York’s School Of Visual Arts, Where Enrollment Is Down By One-Third
“Amid a broad crisis in higher education in the US …, enrollment at New York’s School of Visual Arts is down some 34% since 2019, and the school faces a $22 million structural budget deficit. … SVA is largely dependent on tuition; full-time tuition is $55,270 annually for the coming school year.” – ARTnews
MEDIA
- Move Over, Tilly Norwood: AI Companies Are Creating A New Crop Of Characters, Hoping They’ll Become Stars
One company, Inception Point AI, has “a cohort of more than 100 personas, each with its own market-friendly niche, that could be deployed to host podcasts, star in YouTube videos, converse with followers and — in the company’s loftiest vision — one day navigate the physical world in a robotic body.” – The New York Times
- The New Performing Arts Center In Morocco’s Capital Is One Of Zaha Hadid’s Last Projects
The Royal Theatre of Rabat, which includes an 1,800-seat main auditorium, a 520-seat performance space, and a 7,000-seat outdoor amphitheater, was largely completed in 2021 but only opened this year. It’s planned as an international platform for Moroccan, Arabic and African music, dance and theater — and Western pop. – The New York Times
- StubHub And Its Customers’ Battles For Tickets
Complaints about StubHub to the Better Business Bureau rose 47% from 2024 to 2025, and climbed 63% in the eight months leading up to the company’s September 2025 initial public offering. – The Wall Street Journal
- Germany’s Resurgent Far-Right Party Threatens To Defund “Anti-German” Culture
Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) stands a good chance of winning a majority in the state legislature of Saxony-Anhalt, home to the birthplaces of Martin Luther and George Frideric Handel as well as the Bauhaus. The latter is a particular target of AfD, which says it will refuse to fund “anti-German art.” – Deutsche Welle
- American Universities Are In Parlous Shape. Here’s Why
Though elite colleges profess a faith in meritocracy and insist that they are engines of class mobility, in practice they reward the already rewarded. – The Nation
MUSIC
- Publishing Industry Sold $32.5 Billion Worth Of Books In 2025
Looking at trends in the trade category, which includes religion books, sale rose 2.7% overall to $21.7 billion. The increase was led by religious presses, whose sales rose 9.3%, to $2.2 billion. Adult fiction sales had the second biggest sales increase, with revenue up 3.9%, to $7.1 billion. – Publishers Weekly
- Canada’s Top Literary Award Broke With Its Sponsor. Now A Foundation Has Come To Its Rescue.
Early last year the Giller Prize broke ties with its longtime sponsor Scotiabank — leaving it without the means to support the C$100,000 award and other programs. Now the foundation which stepped up with C$! million in bridge funding has made a C$4 million donation to keep the Giller going longer-term. – The Canadian Press (MSN)
- Judging Books By Their Covers
We can thank the Preraphaelite coterie for this tendency. ” – LitHub
- Companies Using AI To Create Writing Are Missing The Entire Point Of Books
“It speaks about the creative process as though it were something getting in the way of our creativity, slowing us down, rather than being the path that leads us to it. Then again, it’s no surprise that a capitalist venture focuses on the product and speed to market.” – Irish Times
- Millennials Miss Their Childhood Book Program So Much That They’ve Recreated It For Adults
Personal pan pizzas for reading? Yes: “Pizza Hut’s Book It! program is part of the lore of countless childhood readers turned adults. According to Pizza Hut, over 70 million children have participated since the program was founded in 1984, a Reagan-era initiative.” – Slate
PEOPLE
- Who Stole 200 Gold Mozart Statues In Salzburg?
More than 200 gold-colored Mozart figures have vanished from a public art installation in Salzburg, forcing organizers to end part of the exhibition early. – Deutsche Welle
- David Ellison Is Making Himself The Best Argument Against The Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger
“So that’s how Ellison wants to prove that he will be a steward of (Hollywood’s) flailing entertainment industry — by threatening to rip out a big part of its still-beating heart and implant it in Texas or Tennessee?” – Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
- Kennicott: How DC’s Freedom Plaza Became A Battleground
The statuary ensemble, which also includes a new 23-foot rendering of a female figure dubbed “The Spirit of Liberty,” is one of the most cogent and confrontational expressions of the Trump administration’s views on race, urban design and public space. – Washington Post
- WGA: Ellison’s Threat To Relocate Paramount From California Proves Its Outsized Power
“By threatening to leave the state because it doesn’t want the government to enforce the law, Paramount further proves the danger of its outsized power over the industry and what that will mean for writers and the creative community.” – Deadline
- Documenting The Harms To The National Symphony In The Past Year
They reveal that even as expenses ticked downward, donations fell 25 percent short of expectations last year, and that this year’s ticket revenue is on pace to earn about half of what the orchestra budgeted. – Washington Post
PEOPLE
- Who Stole 200 Gold Mozart Statues In Salzburg?
More than 200 gold-colored Mozart figures have vanished from a public art installation in Salzburg, forcing organizers to end part of the exhibition early. – Deutsche Welle
- David Ellison Is Making Himself The Best Argument Against The Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger
“So that’s how Ellison wants to prove that he will be a steward of (Hollywood’s) flailing entertainment industry — by threatening to rip out a big part of its still-beating heart and implant it in Texas or Tennessee?” – Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
- Kennicott: How DC’s Freedom Plaza Became A Battleground
The statuary ensemble, which also includes a new 23-foot rendering of a female figure dubbed “The Spirit of Liberty,” is one of the most cogent and confrontational expressions of the Trump administration’s views on race, urban design and public space. – Washington Post
- WGA: Ellison’s Threat To Relocate Paramount From California Proves Its Outsized Power
“By threatening to leave the state because it doesn’t want the government to enforce the law, Paramount further proves the danger of its outsized power over the industry and what that will mean for writers and the creative community.” – Deadline
- Documenting The Harms To The National Symphony In The Past Year
They reveal that even as expenses ticked downward, donations fell 25 percent short of expectations last year, and that this year’s ticket revenue is on pace to earn about half of what the orchestra budgeted. – Washington Post
THEATRE
VISUAL
- Are We Close To Locating Where Consciousness Lives In The Brain?
Most discussions of AI and consciousness ask whether machines can experience anything. But maybe the real mystery is: If consciousness is not fundamentally related to higher cognition, then what kind of phenomenon is it? – Noema
- Do We Lose Our Minds In Big Crowds?
In popular culture and pop psychology, crowds are often associated with strong emotions, excessive emotional expression and the uncritical spread of emotions. Commentators often link that crowd emotion in turn with uncontrolled behaviour and, in some cases, mindless violence. – Psyche
- Unlocking The Mysteries Of Hegel
In both its depth and breadth, Hegel’s philosophy is perhaps rivalled only by that of Aristotle. – Psyche
- When Is Stereotyping Useful?
Generalising comes so naturally that few of us are at any risk of undergeneralising, so we give it little thought. The focus on overgeneralising is understandable given its potential costs, such as the child assuming that a dangerous dog is just like the friendly dogs they’ve encountered to date. – Aeon
- The Complications Of Proving You’re Human
Now the problem is how to let in the good bots (like the avatar you send to the Gap to buy you a new pair of pants) and keep out the bad bots (like the thief trying to scrape the data of every Gap customer). The rest of us have to be our own bot detectors. – The New Yorker