AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Trump Says Kennedy Center Will Be “Ripped Down” If He Can’t Put His Name On It
“I think that the Trump administration should certainly have recognition. Because frankly, if we don’t do that, it’s going to close. It’ll end up being ripped down,” he told reporters. He said the previous day that he won’t spend congressionally-designated money for the center’s renovation unless the building bears his name. – ABC News
- After A False Start, Salzburg Festival Chooses Director To Replace Fired Markus Hinterhäuser
Austrian media were reporting that there would be two leaders: stage director Barrie Kosky (artistic) and Dutch National Opera chief Sophie de Lint (administration). Negotiations with that pair collapsed at the last minute, so the Festival board turned to Peter de Caluwe, until last year director of La Monnaie in Brussels. – Moto Perpetuo
- Some Surprises In This Season’s List Of Most-Produced Plays And Playwrights
There’s a new play atop the list: Kimberly Belflower’s John Proctor Is the Villain, followed by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Purpose and Bess Wohl’s Pulitzer-winning Liberation. Among playwrights, once-perennial leader Lauren Gunderson is down to fourth place; the late August Wilson is number one, followed by Belflower and Jacobs-Jenkins. – American Theatre
- Peter Max, Whose Day-Glo Art Epitomized The ‘60s, Has Died At 88
“Through savvy marketing, his … color-saturated, almost hallucinatory depictions of stars, sun rays and people in profile showed up on walls and coffee mugs, on clothing, clocks, stationery, and even airplanes and cruise ships. In some ways, Mr. Max created the graphic equivalent of the rock-and-roll revolution in music.” – The Washington Post (Yahoo!)
- (no title)
Good Morning,
Two hours a day. That’s the average screentime of the 700 million people now watching microdramas — cheap, vertical, minute-long episodes — and the case is being made that they are the artform of our time (New Left Review). The sophisticated science programming legacy media used to produce now draws tens of millions on YouTube, made by individuals (TheWrap). Whatever else those stories say, demand for culture isn’t the problem.
Institutions, meanwhile, are arguing about who pays. Staff at the Whitney, Brooklyn Museum and American Folk Art Museum voted to strike over wages below what a single adult needs to live in New York (ARTnews). San Francisco Opera is dark through Sunday as its orchestra strike continues (San Francisco Chronicle). The Louvre’s new director is in Tokyo and Hong Kong passing the hat for a €1 billion renovation (South China Morning Post). And a proposal to privatize the Smithsonian as its cleanest defense against political interference (The Wall Street Journal) assumes donors want less control than governments do.
The generative exception: MoMA has handed its atrium to choreographer Sarah Michelson for four weeks, and her piece’s animating question — what is a dance? — is the one institutions should be asking about their own forms (The New York Times).
Ruben Santiago-Hudson says he and August Wilson fought constantly; every time the cast predicted he’d be fired, Wilson wrote him another role instead (The New York Times). Note to managements.
All of our stories below.
ISSUES
- The Problem With Museum Wall Texts – And How To Fix Them
Good texts take time. The field of visitor studies even recommends workshopping texts with an audience. Curators working on relentless deadlines don’t have that kind of luxury. Yet the particular genre of bad text I am thinking of, paradoxically, seems worst at the most elite levels of the industry. – Artnet
- Russia’s Most Famous Medieval Icon Has Suffered Exactly The Damage Conservators Warned About
In 2023, on Putin’s personal orders, the 15th-century icon of the Trinity by Andrei Rublev, Russia’s most revered icon painter, was moved from Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery and is now at the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery. Conservators said that, without museum-quality climate controls, the piece could be severely damaged. Well, guess what’s happened. – Meduza (Moscow/Riga)
- Is It Time To Privatize The Smithsonian?
The surest way for the Smithsonian to free itself from the unwanted attentions of the current administration or any future one would be to adopt a business model that doesn’t involve government funding. – The Wall Street Journal
- Louvre Looks To Asia For Donors To Help Fund Its Very Expensive Renovation
The overhaul, badly needed to ease overcrowding, remedy deferred maintenance, and improve security, is expected to cost well over €1 billion (US$1.2 billion). Christophe Leribault, who became the museum’s director in February, went to Tokyo and Hong Kong to talk about the necessity of the project. – South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)
- Unions At The Whitney, Brooklyn Museum, And American Folk Art Museum Vote To Strike
“In a statement on behalf of the unionized staff, Local 2110 UAW said all three museums must raise their minimum pay rates, noting that average wages for their staff fall below … the minimum required for a single adult to afford to live in New York City.” – ARTnews
MEDIA
- Trump Says Kennedy Center Will Be “Ripped Down” If He Can’t Put His Name On It
“I think that the Trump administration should certainly have recognition. Because frankly, if we don’t do that, it’s going to close. It’ll end up being ripped down,” he told reporters. He said the previous day that he won’t spend congressionally-designated money for the center’s renovation unless the building bears his name. – ABC News
- The Village Bistros Of Rural France Are Disappearing
“In 1900 there were an estimated 500,000 such establishments; by the 1960s more than half had closed. Today, only about 30,000-40,000 remain and even they are reportedly shutting at a rate of two a day. … The reasons for the closures … are economic and sociological.” – The Guardian
- Trump Calls In To Kennedy Center Board Meeting, Rants, And Board Votes To Shut Down Indefinitely
An unnamed board member described Trump’s phone call as “fucking crazy” to CNN, while another source told the news outlet that Trump screamed throughout the call. – The New Republic
- Burning Man Is Now Middle-Aged — In More Ways Than One
It’s not just that the festival itself has been happening for 40 years, or that people have been complaining that it’s not what it used to be for decades. It’s that Burners themselves are older, with 40% of them over 40 last year and only 10% of them in their 20s. – The Guardian
- How To Repurpose All Those Centuries-Old Japanese Temples?
There are around 77,000 temples across the country, but as many as 17,000 no longer have a full-time resident priest as congregations have shrunk — particularly in rural districts experiencing rapid depopulation — and financial pressures have taken their toll. – Deutsche Welle
MUSIC
- Barnes & Noble Buys Another Distressed Indie Bookseller
Joseph-Beth Booksellers, which has two locations in metro Cincinnati, is the third independent retail business that B&N has acquired in three years. The chain bought Denver’s Tattered Cover in 2024 and the Bay Area’s Books Inc. last year; both companies had filed for bankruptcy. – Publishers Weekly
- Bookstores Warn Of Threats To Publishers Of Left-Wing Literature
The criminalization of left-wing literature and those who publish or distribute it, the booksellers said, should also concern mainstream bookstores, which should be able to carry “a broad range of viewpoints without fear of government scrutiny or interference. – Publishers Weekly
- Writers Are Going To Extreme Lengths To Prove Their Work Is Human
As AI-generated writing floods the internet, more people are trying to detect which creators are using such tools to spin up copy. That means writers penning all their own work—and people who acknowledge using chatbots for help—are trying to master something they never worried about before: how to sound human. – The Wall Street Journal
- Alabama Moves To Force Its Public Libraries To Keep Books About Trans Issues Away From Young People
“Under the amended administrative code, books that discuss gender-transition procedures or ‘gender ideology,’ or that ‘promote’ the existence of more than two biological genders, must be removed from youth sections and relocated to sections for adults.” Noncompliant libraries will lose their state funding. – The Advocate
- Four Million Books Were Published In The US Last Year. 3.5M Of Them Were Self-Published
U.S. title output reached roughly four million in 2025, up about 32 percent in a single year, and around 3.5 million of those were self-published titles with ISBNs, up nearly 39 percent on the year before. Self-published books outnumbered traditionally published ones by more than five to one. – Rachel Alterberry
PEOPLE
- Trump Says Kennedy Center Will Be “Ripped Down” If He Can’t Put His Name On It
“I think that the Trump administration should certainly have recognition. Because frankly, if we don’t do that, it’s going to close. It’ll end up being ripped down,” he told reporters. He said the previous day that he won’t spend congressionally-designated money for the center’s renovation unless the building bears his name. – ABC News
- After A False Start, Salzburg Festival Chooses Director To Replace Fired Markus Hinterhäuser
Austrian media were reporting that there would be two leaders: stage director Barrie Kosky (artistic) and Dutch National Opera chief Sophie de Lint (administration). Negotiations with that pair collapsed at the last minute, so the Festival board turned to Peter de Caluwe, until last year director of La Monnaie in Brussels. – Moto Perpetuo
- Some Surprises In This Season’s List Of Most-Produced Plays And Playwrights
There’s a new play atop the list: Kimberly Belflower’s John Proctor Is the Villain, followed by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Purpose and Bess Wohl’s Pulitzer-winning Liberation. Among playwrights, once-perennial leader Lauren Gunderson is down to fourth place; the late August Wilson is number one, followed by Belflower and Jacobs-Jenkins. – American Theatre
- Peter Max, Whose Day-Glo Art Epitomized The ‘60s, Has Died At 88
“Through savvy marketing, his … color-saturated, almost hallucinatory depictions of stars, sun rays and people in profile showed up on walls and coffee mugs, on clothing, clocks, stationery, and even airplanes and cruise ships. In some ways, Mr. Max created the graphic equivalent of the rock-and-roll revolution in music.” – The Washington Post (Yahoo!)
- (no title)
Good Morning,
Two hours a day. That’s the average screentime of the 700 million people now watching microdramas — cheap, vertical, minute-long episodes — and the case is being made that they are the artform of our time (New Left Review). The sophisticated science programming legacy media used to produce now draws tens of millions on YouTube, made by individuals (TheWrap). Whatever else those stories say, demand for culture isn’t the problem.
Institutions, meanwhile, are arguing about who pays. Staff at the Whitney, Brooklyn Museum and American Folk Art Museum voted to strike over wages below what a single adult needs to live in New York (ARTnews). San Francisco Opera is dark through Sunday as its orchestra strike continues (San Francisco Chronicle). The Louvre’s new director is in Tokyo and Hong Kong passing the hat for a €1 billion renovation (South China Morning Post). And a proposal to privatize the Smithsonian as its cleanest defense against political interference (The Wall Street Journal) assumes donors want less control than governments do.
The generative exception: MoMA has handed its atrium to choreographer Sarah Michelson for four weeks, and her piece’s animating question — what is a dance? — is the one institutions should be asking about their own forms (The New York Times).
Ruben Santiago-Hudson says he and August Wilson fought constantly; every time the cast predicted he’d be fired, Wilson wrote him another role instead (The New York Times). Note to managements.
All of our stories below.
PEOPLE
- Trump Says Kennedy Center Will Be “Ripped Down” If He Can’t Put His Name On It
“I think that the Trump administration should certainly have recognition. Because frankly, if we don’t do that, it’s going to close. It’ll end up being ripped down,” he told reporters. He said the previous day that he won’t spend congressionally-designated money for the center’s renovation unless the building bears his name. – ABC News
- After A False Start, Salzburg Festival Chooses Director To Replace Fired Markus Hinterhäuser
Austrian media were reporting that there would be two leaders: stage director Barrie Kosky (artistic) and Dutch National Opera chief Sophie de Lint (administration). Negotiations with that pair collapsed at the last minute, so the Festival board turned to Peter de Caluwe, until last year director of La Monnaie in Brussels. – Moto Perpetuo
- Some Surprises In This Season’s List Of Most-Produced Plays And Playwrights
There’s a new play atop the list: Kimberly Belflower’s John Proctor Is the Villain, followed by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Purpose and Bess Wohl’s Pulitzer-winning Liberation. Among playwrights, once-perennial leader Lauren Gunderson is down to fourth place; the late August Wilson is number one, followed by Belflower and Jacobs-Jenkins. – American Theatre
- Peter Max, Whose Day-Glo Art Epitomized The ‘60s, Has Died At 88
“Through savvy marketing, his … color-saturated, almost hallucinatory depictions of stars, sun rays and people in profile showed up on walls and coffee mugs, on clothing, clocks, stationery, and even airplanes and cruise ships. In some ways, Mr. Max created the graphic equivalent of the rock-and-roll revolution in music.” – The Washington Post (Yahoo!)
- (no title)
Good Morning,
Two hours a day. That’s the average screentime of the 700 million people now watching microdramas — cheap, vertical, minute-long episodes — and the case is being made that they are the artform of our time (New Left Review). The sophisticated science programming legacy media used to produce now draws tens of millions on YouTube, made by individuals (TheWrap). Whatever else those stories say, demand for culture isn’t the problem.
Institutions, meanwhile, are arguing about who pays. Staff at the Whitney, Brooklyn Museum and American Folk Art Museum voted to strike over wages below what a single adult needs to live in New York (ARTnews). San Francisco Opera is dark through Sunday as its orchestra strike continues (San Francisco Chronicle). The Louvre’s new director is in Tokyo and Hong Kong passing the hat for a €1 billion renovation (South China Morning Post). And a proposal to privatize the Smithsonian as its cleanest defense against political interference (The Wall Street Journal) assumes donors want less control than governments do.
The generative exception: MoMA has handed its atrium to choreographer Sarah Michelson for four weeks, and her piece’s animating question — what is a dance? — is the one institutions should be asking about their own forms (The New York Times).
Ruben Santiago-Hudson says he and August Wilson fought constantly; every time the cast predicted he’d be fired, Wilson wrote him another role instead (The New York Times). Note to managements.
All of our stories below.
THEATRE
VISUAL
- Doomsday Days: The Growing Awareness Of AI Dangers
Jacob Coxon, the engineer who recently resigned from Anthropic to protest its safety policies, says A.I. could “kill us all by the end of the decade.” But if A.I. is so outrageously dangerous, why should we accept modest proposals to “pace” its development? Why not call in the Turing cops, and pull the plug? – The New Yorker
- How Threats Of A Dismal Future Are Shaping Gen Z
Their perception is that jobs that feel meaningful are being slashed by government or stolen by AI. As a result, she reported, members of Gen Z may just need to find meaning in their hobbies and interests outside of work and pursue jobs that allow them to fully check out at the end of the day. – 3 Quarks Daily
- Why Italianness Is A State Of Mind
Descendants of Italian migrants generally express an intense pride in their heritage, and many continue to live by its sociocultural tenets in spite of decades, or more, of absence. It is as if time away from Italy, and geographical distance, only amplify a yearning for it. – Aeon
- Study: Why Our Brains Mix Up Memories
Scientists already know that confusing memories happens more often than forgetting them altogether. What’s less clear is how the brain gets confused. – The Conversation
- Angela Duckworth Takes On Will Power
High-profile authors are obviously under pressure to offer novel frameworks, but rarely do these second acts feel like an about-face. Duckworth insists that “Situated” is not a reversal but an expansion of her earlier research; as an account of individual success, grit is “necessary but not sufficient,” and must be complemented by the larger picture. – The New Yorker