AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Whose Name Is On This, Anyway?
Good Morning,
Swap the name on a painting and does it make a difference in how you see it? Psyche digs into “prestige bias” — the well-documented tendency to value the who over the what. Apropos, the director of the Detroit Institute of Arts announces a rediscovered early Velázquez (ARTnews), and a canvas nobody was arguing about last week becomes news.
So today’s AI stories are really attribution stories. Tilly Norwood, the AI “actress,” gets her first feature — and her creators will label her as synthetic rather than pretend otherwise (Variety). And AI trained on human prose is now changing how humans write, a linguistic hall of mirrors in which nobody can say for certain whose name belongs on a sentence (The Guardian).
Getting back to the importance of names: Joe Hisaishi, who scored Studio Ghibli’s films, fills Madison Square Garden with orchestral music, and the Philadelphia Orchestra just made him composer-in-residence (The New York Times).
The highest-stakes version of this idea: the White House report alleging Smithsonian “bias” in the history it tells turns out to be riddled with errors of its own (Washington Post).
All of our stories below.
- The Longest-Running PBS Show In History Is, At 70, Older Than PBS Itself
“Richard Heffner’s The Open Mind, the gleefully eggheaded talk show on which Martin Luther King Jr gave his first sit-down televised interview — continues to soldier on,” with grandson Alexander Heffner hosting since Richard’s death in 2013. – The Hollywood Reporter
- Do We Listen/See/Read Differently When The Name Of The Artist Is Changed?
Why should a name matter so much? Psychologists have a term that might help explain what’s happening here: prestige bias. Developed by the cultural evolution theorists Joseph Henrich and Francisco J Gil-White, the concept describes the human tendency to preferentially attend to, learn from, and value the outputs of high-status individuals. – Psyche
- When Tamara Rojo Danced With Robots
Such an opportunity was bound to present itself to the director of San Francisco Ballet in the 2020s. It’s no surprise that she took the opportunity — but what she has to say about the experience, while quite perspicacious, isn’t much of a surprise either. – The Times (UK)
- Netflix Challenges France’s Requirement On What It Spends On Production In France
“These new rules cross a line,” claims the streaming giant. “They attempt to fix in law the exact genre balance of our slate, constrain our ability to back other types of French works – drama, comedy, unscripted – and do so only for streamers, while traditional broadcasters are spared.” – Deadline
ISSUES
- Thieves Steal $5.1 Million Worth Of Crystal And Jewelry From Lalique Museum In France
“Three thieves targeted the Lalique museum in Wingen-sur-Moder in northeastern France at around 5:30 am on Sunday, … (and) made off with 27 pieces of jewelry worth an estimated €4.5 million ($5.1 million), prosecutors said Monday.” – AFP (Yahoo!)
- Velázquez Portrait Rediscovered By Detroit Institute Of Arts Director
“Salvador Salort-Pons, the director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, recently revealed the discovery of a portrait by Diego Velázquez made during the artist’s earliest years as a court painter to King Philip IV. Salort-Pons, a specialist in Velázquez, published his findings in the current issue of ARS Magazine.” – ARTnews
- The Art World Really Is Unsustainable Now
It is extraordinarily difficult for most brick-and-mortar stores in any industry to survive, and that is especially true for art galleries. These large art shows may create a lot of foot traffic, but that doesn’t always translate to robust on-site sales for the galleries. – The New York Times
- The Best Architecture Of America’s 250 Years
From California bungalows to New York skyscrapers, from forest retreats to streamlined headquarters, what makes an architecture American, let alone the most significant example of such? – Architectural Record
- The MAGA-Reviled Smithsonian Museums Saved Many Lives On The Fourth
Did someone hit a big flashing “irony” button for our timeline? – The New York Times
MEDIA
- White House’s “Report” Criticizing Smithsonian History Is Riddled With Errors
The report often doesn’t even bother to engage with many of the claims it ridicules — like obvious and well-documented facts about anti-Chinese sentiment in post-Civil War America — or takes them as self-evident proof that the Smithsonian is misrepresenting history. – Washington Post
- The Congresswoman Who Sued Trump For Renaming The Kennedy Center — And Won
Joyce Beatty, a seven-term representative from Ohio, became an ex officio Congressional member of the Kennedy Center’s board in 2019. She says that the resolution to add Trump’s name to the complex was introduced without advance notice at a meeting in December, and she was muted when she objected. – The New York Times
- Historians Defend Smithsonian American History Museum Director From Trump Administration Attacks
“(Anthea) Hartig, director of the National Museum of American History since 2019, has commissioned exhibitions that … document the lived experiences of ordinary people, sometimes focusing on race, sexuality and colonialism. … Many historians support her goal of telling a more nuanced story of the United States.” – The New York Times
- What Exactly Does The Trump Administration Think Is Wrong With The Way The Smithsonian Depicts American History?
“Here are some of the report’s main charges, and how they relate to the administration’s broader push to promote what President Trump has called ‘patriotic’ history.” – The New York Times
- Trump White House Launches Scathing Attack On Smithsonian Over Its Portrayal Of History
The 162-page report, by the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, represents a sweeping attack on the museum’s presentation of American history. It is the latest step in the Trump administration’s campaign to pressure the Smithsonian into conforming to what President Trump has described as “patriotic” history.
MUSIC
- How AI Is Changing How Humans Write
The problem is that not only does AI train on human writing, but humans are stylistically influenced by AI, the interplay creating a kind of linguistic hall of mirrors. Short of an author admitting it, it’s hard to say for certain whether an individual piece of writing is AI or not. That uncertainty is a recipe for paranoia. – The Guardian
- New Hampshire Governor Vetoes Book-Banning Bill
“House Bill 434 would require school districts to establish formal policies for removing content from schools that is ‘obscene and harmful to minors,’ … (creating) a standardized removal process in which parents could challenge any book, magazine, film, video, web-based content, sound recording, or live performance offered to students.” – New Hampshire Bulletin
- Tell LitHub Your Favorite A24 Movie, And You’ll Get A Book Recommendation
For instance: “If The Brutalist, then Claire Messud’s This Strange Eventful History.” – LitHub
- Language For A Writer Who Some Days Barely Has Enough Energy To Lift Her Head
Susanna Clarke: “A narrative makes illness seem rational – and it gives the sufferer a measure of control – or at any rate the illusion of it. This is particularly true of the sort of chronic illness in the face of which poor doctors are often at a loss. – The Guardian (UK)
- A Volunteer Has Just About The Coolest Experience Ever In A Random Archive
True, the person writing this was a history major, but still: “A rare surviving copy of the Declaration of Independence has been discovered at The National Archives in Kew, the only known example of its kind outside the US.” Discovered by a volunteer. – BBC
PEOPLE
- Whose Name Is On This, Anyway?
Good Morning,
Swap the name on a painting and does it make a difference in how you see it? Psyche digs into “prestige bias” — the well-documented tendency to value the who over the what. Apropos, the director of the Detroit Institute of Arts announces a rediscovered early Velázquez (ARTnews), and a canvas nobody was arguing about last week becomes news.
So today’s AI stories are really attribution stories. Tilly Norwood, the AI “actress,” gets her first feature — and her creators will label her as synthetic rather than pretend otherwise (Variety). And AI trained on human prose is now changing how humans write, a linguistic hall of mirrors in which nobody can say for certain whose name belongs on a sentence (The Guardian).
Getting back to the importance of names: Joe Hisaishi, who scored Studio Ghibli’s films, fills Madison Square Garden with orchestral music, and the Philadelphia Orchestra just made him composer-in-residence (The New York Times).
The highest-stakes version of this idea: the White House report alleging Smithsonian “bias” in the history it tells turns out to be riddled with errors of its own (Washington Post).
All of our stories below.
- The Longest-Running PBS Show In History Is, At 70, Older Than PBS Itself
“Richard Heffner’s The Open Mind, the gleefully eggheaded talk show on which Martin Luther King Jr gave his first sit-down televised interview — continues to soldier on,” with grandson Alexander Heffner hosting since Richard’s death in 2013. – The Hollywood Reporter
- Do We Listen/See/Read Differently When The Name Of The Artist Is Changed?
Why should a name matter so much? Psychologists have a term that might help explain what’s happening here: prestige bias. Developed by the cultural evolution theorists Joseph Henrich and Francisco J Gil-White, the concept describes the human tendency to preferentially attend to, learn from, and value the outputs of high-status individuals. – Psyche
- When Tamara Rojo Danced With Robots
Such an opportunity was bound to present itself to the director of San Francisco Ballet in the 2020s. It’s no surprise that she took the opportunity — but what she has to say about the experience, while quite perspicacious, isn’t much of a surprise either. – The Times (UK)
- Netflix Challenges France’s Requirement On What It Spends On Production In France
“These new rules cross a line,” claims the streaming giant. “They attempt to fix in law the exact genre balance of our slate, constrain our ability to back other types of French works – drama, comedy, unscripted – and do so only for streamers, while traditional broadcasters are spared.” – Deadline
PEOPLE
- Whose Name Is On This, Anyway?
Good Morning,
Swap the name on a painting and does it make a difference in how you see it? Psyche digs into “prestige bias” — the well-documented tendency to value the who over the what. Apropos, the director of the Detroit Institute of Arts announces a rediscovered early Velázquez (ARTnews), and a canvas nobody was arguing about last week becomes news.
So today’s AI stories are really attribution stories. Tilly Norwood, the AI “actress,” gets her first feature — and her creators will label her as synthetic rather than pretend otherwise (Variety). And AI trained on human prose is now changing how humans write, a linguistic hall of mirrors in which nobody can say for certain whose name belongs on a sentence (The Guardian).
Getting back to the importance of names: Joe Hisaishi, who scored Studio Ghibli’s films, fills Madison Square Garden with orchestral music, and the Philadelphia Orchestra just made him composer-in-residence (The New York Times).
The highest-stakes version of this idea: the White House report alleging Smithsonian “bias” in the history it tells turns out to be riddled with errors of its own (Washington Post).
All of our stories below.
- The Longest-Running PBS Show In History Is, At 70, Older Than PBS Itself
“Richard Heffner’s The Open Mind, the gleefully eggheaded talk show on which Martin Luther King Jr gave his first sit-down televised interview — continues to soldier on,” with grandson Alexander Heffner hosting since Richard’s death in 2013. – The Hollywood Reporter
- Do We Listen/See/Read Differently When The Name Of The Artist Is Changed?
Why should a name matter so much? Psychologists have a term that might help explain what’s happening here: prestige bias. Developed by the cultural evolution theorists Joseph Henrich and Francisco J Gil-White, the concept describes the human tendency to preferentially attend to, learn from, and value the outputs of high-status individuals. – Psyche
- When Tamara Rojo Danced With Robots
Such an opportunity was bound to present itself to the director of San Francisco Ballet in the 2020s. It’s no surprise that she took the opportunity — but what she has to say about the experience, while quite perspicacious, isn’t much of a surprise either. – The Times (UK)
- Netflix Challenges France’s Requirement On What It Spends On Production In France
“These new rules cross a line,” claims the streaming giant. “They attempt to fix in law the exact genre balance of our slate, constrain our ability to back other types of French works – drama, comedy, unscripted – and do so only for streamers, while traditional broadcasters are spared.” – Deadline
THEATRE
VISUAL
- Do We Listen/See/Read Differently When The Name Of The Artist Is Changed?
Why should a name matter so much? Psychologists have a term that might help explain what’s happening here: prestige bias. Developed by the cultural evolution theorists Joseph Henrich and Francisco J Gil-White, the concept describes the human tendency to preferentially attend to, learn from, and value the outputs of high-status individuals. – Psyche
- When Innovation Scrambled Everything At The Turn Of The 20th Century
At the time, Americans did not understand that they were living through the largest energy transition in human history. Instead, they perceived a series of disconnected events. Unable to discern or conceptualize an underlying cause, they often declared the transformations around them were “kaleidoscopic.” – MIT Press
- Research: Learning From Short-Form Video Doesn’t Stay With You
Using social media applications to digest bite-sized educational content actually reduces a person’s ability to remember the information, according to new research. – Psypost
- AI Labs Are Recruiting Philosophers
A.I. labs, and the related nonprofits around them, have been recruiting workers as versed in Consequentialism and John Stuart Mill as in neural networks and reinforcement learning. – The New York Times
- The End Of A Cultural Era: “Hockey Night In Canada” Is No More
Some called for defunding the national public broadcaster and others bemoaned the failures of successive federal governments to properly invest in the CBC. Many other Canadians, however, mourned the loss while simultaneously breathing a sigh of relief. – The Conversation