AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- LACMA – A pancake? A bunker? A maze?
Good Morning,
The verdicts on LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries are being written fast and furious after last week’s press tours, and “formless maze” is the kinder reading. The Wall Street Journal calls Peter Zumthor’s concrete-and-glass building a pancake out for a 900-foot stroll. A Eric Gibson’s WSJ review says the cavernous architecture overwhelms the art itself — a Georges de La Tour “doesn’t stand a chance.” LA Material runs the long backstory on how we got here. Twenty years, half a billion in private money, and the question isn’t whether the thing is audacious. It’s whether audacious architecture is still the answer when it competes with art.
Three AI-and-creativity pieces today, pulling opposite directions: Berklee music composition students describe the “five stages of grief” as AI enters their classrooms (WBUR). Fast Company is cheerleading AI as creativity accelerator. And Wired counters that letting AI do the writing misses the point of the exercise entirely. Pick your camp.
But you can’t replace we humans so quickly as that. At the Walker, the museum restaurant that replaced servers with QR codes is closing within 90 days of its opening (ArtNews). Turns out diners missed the humans.
All of our stories below.
- Inside The Martha Graham 100th Anniversary Party
Actors, musicians and politicians in sequined ball gowns and floral off-the-shoulder dresses ascended the steps of the New York Public Library’s regal main branch on Friday night to pose between the lions before the Martha Graham Dance Company’s 100th anniversary gala. – The New York Times
- A History Of Controversy Over LACMA’s New Building
Enter Michael Govan, who joined LACMA in 2006. He wooed Swiss architect Peter Zumthor to conceive of a better LACMA, convinced the county to put in $125 million, and raised more than $500 million in private funds. Now, nearly 20 years later, Los Angeles has a new museum. What could be wrong with that? – LA Material
- The New LACMA: Audacious But Confusing
It is a free-form essay in concrete and glass, with no formal entrance, no front or back. Its undulating form has earned its share of abuse, and it has been compared to a pancake or an amoeba. If anything, it is a playful building, out for a 900-foot stroll. – The Wall Street Journal
- The New LACMA: Art V. Architecture
The Geffen’s architecture overwhelms its objects. Entombed in a concrete bunker—one of the stand-alone galleries—and battling hulking walls and cavernous space, one of LACMA’s greatest masterpieces, Georges de La Tour’s “The Magdalen With the Smoking Flame” (c. 1635-37), doesn’t stand a chance. – The Wall Street Journal
ISSUES
- A History Of Controversy Over LACMA’s New Building
Enter Michael Govan, who joined LACMA in 2006. He wooed Swiss architect Peter Zumthor to conceive of a better LACMA, convinced the county to put in $125 million, and raised more than $500 million in private funds. Now, nearly 20 years later, Los Angeles has a new museum. What could be wrong with that? – LA Material
- The New LACMA: Audacious But Confusing
It is a free-form essay in concrete and glass, with no formal entrance, no front or back. Its undulating form has earned its share of abuse, and it has been compared to a pancake or an amoeba. If anything, it is a playful building, out for a 900-foot stroll. – The Wall Street Journal
- The New LACMA: Art V. Architecture
The Geffen’s architecture overwhelms its objects. Entombed in a concrete bunker—one of the stand-alone galleries—and battling hulking walls and cavernous space, one of LACMA’s greatest masterpieces, Georges de La Tour’s “The Magdalen With the Smoking Flame” (c. 1635-37), doesn’t stand a chance. – The Wall Street Journal
- Museums Are For Kids
There’s a “national wave of new children’s museums, expansions of existing institutions and a broadened lineup of programming aimed at young visitors.” – The New York Times
- How Do You Secure A Museum From Heists Without Closing It Off Entirely?
“Transparency, porousness — all the buzzwords of architecture today are antithetical to security. It’s a paradox implicit to museum design today.” – The New York Times
MEDIA
- Faculty Are Exiting Texas Universities, Claiming Censorship
The University of Texas ordered faculty in February to refrain from teaching ill-defined “controversial” topics in class. Nearly all Texas public university systems have conducted some kind of course-review process that screens instructional materials for gender and sexuality content. – InsideHigherEd
- This RAM Shortage Thing Isn’t Going Away
Yikes: “Everything from phones and laptops, to VR headsets and gaming handhelds have seen price increases due to the RAM shortage.” – The Verge
- Some Companies You Probably Love Are Taking Trademarks Too Far
“If you have a granola group, seed society, cherry circle, or risotto ring, and a lawyer league owns a trademark on one of them, they might just airdrop cease-and-desist letters like leaflets over a city in World War II.” – Slate
- Yale Report: Universities Themselves Are To Blame For Lowered Trust Of Higher Ed
High costs, murky admissions practices, uneven academic standards and fears about free speech on campuses, the committee said, are among the reasons for widening discontent over higher education’s worthiness. – The New York Times
- Inside The Kennedy Center Dumpster Fire (OMG!)
Richard Grenell, told me to “get rid of everything” in the permanent collection because we needed all new art for the reopening. Although I had slow-walked this demand for several weeks by pretending I was waiting on another colleague for updates, I now had only two hours to tie up loose ends. – The Atlantic
MUSIC
- Book Clubs Are Bringing GenZ Into Reading
Reading is experiencing a resurgence among Gen Z and millennials, many of whom are actively seeking alternatives to “doomscrolling” and the mental fatigue associated with constant social media use. – The Conversation
- Letters That Keats Sent His Beloved, Stolen In The 1980s, Are Found
“The customer told them that the books had been bequeathed to him by his grandfather, who had kept them in a box at his retirement home in South Carolina.” – The New York Times
- At The LA Times Book Festival, Prizewinners Tout The Power Of The People
One winner: “The people banning books are never the good guys in history, and it’s up to us in this room and beyond — as readers, as book lovers — to fight back.” – Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)
- Writers Who ‘Use’ AI Are Truly Missing The Point
“The hard work of writing is, for people like me, a critical aspect of the whole effort, bringing one’s self to the task of communicating effectively and clearly.” – Wired
- Authors Are Leaving This Venerable French Publisher In Droves, All Together
“In an open letter, the ‘resigning’ authors explain that they refuse ‘to allow our ideas and our work’ to become the property of the ultraconservative billionaire [Vincent Bolloré], who has taken control of the Hachette Livre group, Grasset’s parent company, in 2023.” – Euronews
PEOPLE
- LACMA – A pancake? A bunker? A maze?
Good Morning,
The verdicts on LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries are being written fast and furious after last week’s press tours, and “formless maze” is the kinder reading. The Wall Street Journal calls Peter Zumthor’s concrete-and-glass building a pancake out for a 900-foot stroll. A Eric Gibson’s WSJ review says the cavernous architecture overwhelms the art itself — a Georges de La Tour “doesn’t stand a chance.” LA Material runs the long backstory on how we got here. Twenty years, half a billion in private money, and the question isn’t whether the thing is audacious. It’s whether audacious architecture is still the answer when it competes with art.
Three AI-and-creativity pieces today, pulling opposite directions: Berklee music composition students describe the “five stages of grief” as AI enters their classrooms (WBUR). Fast Company is cheerleading AI as creativity accelerator. And Wired counters that letting AI do the writing misses the point of the exercise entirely. Pick your camp.
But you can’t replace we humans so quickly as that. At the Walker, the museum restaurant that replaced servers with QR codes is closing within 90 days of its opening (ArtNews). Turns out diners missed the humans.
All of our stories below.
- Inside The Martha Graham 100th Anniversary Party
Actors, musicians and politicians in sequined ball gowns and floral off-the-shoulder dresses ascended the steps of the New York Public Library’s regal main branch on Friday night to pose between the lions before the Martha Graham Dance Company’s 100th anniversary gala. – The New York Times
- A History Of Controversy Over LACMA’s New Building
Enter Michael Govan, who joined LACMA in 2006. He wooed Swiss architect Peter Zumthor to conceive of a better LACMA, convinced the county to put in $125 million, and raised more than $500 million in private funds. Now, nearly 20 years later, Los Angeles has a new museum. What could be wrong with that? – LA Material
- The New LACMA: Audacious But Confusing
It is a free-form essay in concrete and glass, with no formal entrance, no front or back. Its undulating form has earned its share of abuse, and it has been compared to a pancake or an amoeba. If anything, it is a playful building, out for a 900-foot stroll. – The Wall Street Journal
- The New LACMA: Art V. Architecture
The Geffen’s architecture overwhelms its objects. Entombed in a concrete bunker—one of the stand-alone galleries—and battling hulking walls and cavernous space, one of LACMA’s greatest masterpieces, Georges de La Tour’s “The Magdalen With the Smoking Flame” (c. 1635-37), doesn’t stand a chance. – The Wall Street Journal
PEOPLE
- LACMA – A pancake? A bunker? A maze?
Good Morning,
The verdicts on LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries are being written fast and furious after last week’s press tours, and “formless maze” is the kinder reading. The Wall Street Journal calls Peter Zumthor’s concrete-and-glass building a pancake out for a 900-foot stroll. A Eric Gibson’s WSJ review says the cavernous architecture overwhelms the art itself — a Georges de La Tour “doesn’t stand a chance.” LA Material runs the long backstory on how we got here. Twenty years, half a billion in private money, and the question isn’t whether the thing is audacious. It’s whether audacious architecture is still the answer when it competes with art.
Three AI-and-creativity pieces today, pulling opposite directions: Berklee music composition students describe the “five stages of grief” as AI enters their classrooms (WBUR). Fast Company is cheerleading AI as creativity accelerator. And Wired counters that letting AI do the writing misses the point of the exercise entirely. Pick your camp.
But you can’t replace we humans so quickly as that. At the Walker, the museum restaurant that replaced servers with QR codes is closing within 90 days of its opening (ArtNews). Turns out diners missed the humans.
All of our stories below.
- Inside The Martha Graham 100th Anniversary Party
Actors, musicians and politicians in sequined ball gowns and floral off-the-shoulder dresses ascended the steps of the New York Public Library’s regal main branch on Friday night to pose between the lions before the Martha Graham Dance Company’s 100th anniversary gala. – The New York Times
- A History Of Controversy Over LACMA’s New Building
Enter Michael Govan, who joined LACMA in 2006. He wooed Swiss architect Peter Zumthor to conceive of a better LACMA, convinced the county to put in $125 million, and raised more than $500 million in private funds. Now, nearly 20 years later, Los Angeles has a new museum. What could be wrong with that? – LA Material
- The New LACMA: Audacious But Confusing
It is a free-form essay in concrete and glass, with no formal entrance, no front or back. Its undulating form has earned its share of abuse, and it has been compared to a pancake or an amoeba. If anything, it is a playful building, out for a 900-foot stroll. – The Wall Street Journal
- The New LACMA: Art V. Architecture
The Geffen’s architecture overwhelms its objects. Entombed in a concrete bunker—one of the stand-alone galleries—and battling hulking walls and cavernous space, one of LACMA’s greatest masterpieces, Georges de La Tour’s “The Magdalen With the Smoking Flame” (c. 1635-37), doesn’t stand a chance. – The Wall Street Journal
THEATRE
VISUAL
- How AI Will Accelerate Human Creativity
The most successful organizations of 2026 and beyond will not be those that simply use AI to do more things faster. Instead, they will be the ones that use AI as a creativity accelerator, freeing up human capacity for the work that only we can do: imagining, connecting, and creating meaning. – Fast Company
- The Board That Built Apple – And A Personal Computing Revolution – Is Turning Fifty
“The Apple I marked a great leap forward in convenience by coming already assembled, albeit without a monitor, a keyboard, or even a case; the purchase price of USD $666.66 (closer to $4,000 today) just got you the board. But what a board.” – Open Culture
- What It Means That Hampshire College’s ‘Experimental’ Liberal Arts Education Is Saying Goodbye
“The shuttering of Hampshire College … feels different, not so much another liberal arts domino falling as the symbolic end of a whole tradition of progressive education in the US.” – New York Review Of Books
- This Absolutely Unhinged Theme Park Presaged The Rise Of Silicon Valley
“From elephants to enterprise software — is there a better metaphor for the last half-century of radical change in San Mateo County? But mostly we should mark this anniversary so we don’t forget perhaps the most bonkers destination in Bay Area history.” – San Francisco Chronicle
- One Restaurant Decided To Replace Its Workers With QR Codes, And Then It Found Out What That Would Mean
Oops. The Walker Art Center is not happy: “Cardamom is slated to shutter within the next 60 to 90 days. The museum is now seeking proposals for a replacement restaurant.” – ArtNews
