AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Oracle Pays $10 Million for Nashville Symphony’s Season
Good Morning,
Oracle is giving the Nashville Symphony $10 million, reinstating a season the orchestra cancelled a week earlier and ending furloughs of 77 musicians and 27 staff that were to begin Oct. 18 (The New York Times). Music director Leonard Slatkin, who had just conducted three sold-out concerts, was as surprised as anyone.
Adults and teens are now 40 percent of Build-A-Bear’s customers, and its stock rose more than 2,000 percent between 2020 and 2025 (The New Yorker). The NHL is courting a different crowd with 60-to-90-second romance-novel teasers about players like the Flyers’ Trevor Zegras. Emily Rath, a best-selling hockey romance novelist the league approached, says she never turned down an offer so fast (Wired).
At the South Sound Powwow in Graham, Washington, Shawn Reynolds, a Puyallup Tribe member, persuaded organizers to hold a dance where participants could skip regalia, keep headphones on and bring caregivers. His 11-year-old autistic twin sons led the procession (OPB).
In 1926 Edison told the New York Times that radio was a fad and the phonograph would win listeners back. The BBC began broadcasting the Proms the next year, when the festival’s finances were threatening its survival (Classical Music). They’ve going ever since.
All of our stories below.
- Oracle Gives $10M To Help Save The Nashville Symphony
The gift will allow the symphony to resume the season, which runs through June 2027, and to retain staff, Mark Tillinger, Nashville Symphony’s president and chief executive, said in a news release on Sunday. – The New York Times
- Why More Adults Are Playing With Kids Toys
“People just stay very playful for a longer period of time. And it’s cross-brand. You know, it might be Teddy bears. It might be Lego bricks. It might be Transformers. It might be Barbie dolls.” – The New Yorker
- Will We Still Need Punctuation When Machines Are Writing?
What are those commas doing there, anyway? By modern usage, they should mark off a non-restrictive clause, but they don’t. Nor are they marking items in a series or natural pauses in speech. – The New Yorker
- Musical Instruments Are Getting More Expensive
The consequences have reverberated across the country. Higher instrument prices are a particular threat to lower-income districts where enrollment and budgets are shrinking. – The New York Times
ISSUES
- Smithsonian Is Using AI To Help Interpret Its Collection
The goal is to allow the public and scholars to both search the institution’s collection and draw connections across the Smithsonian and other organizations, such as the Library of Congress, to gain a deeper sense of how communities formed and functioned at the nation’s birth. – AP News
- How AI Might Help Humanize Museums
In addition to museum workers, of course, the public and artists are already using AI, which means that AI is already affecting any museum’s digital strategy, ability to attract visitors, understanding of the ever-changing art world, and capacity to fulfill its mission. Avoidance is not an option. – ReMuseum
- The British Museum Adds An Audio Tour To The Bayeux Tapestry in Response To Blind Man’s Lawsuit
The museum apparently hadn’t thought of adding an audio description to its app, or having more audio description tours, before the lawsuit – despite saying they worked with specialists on accessibility. – BBC
- We’re In A Gross ‘Great Man’ Statuary Backlash, But Look At Ancient Egypt
“The great public efforts—the colossal statuary, the expansive propaganda programs, the image campaigns, the attempts to remake the world of living people—have been shattered, defaced, and refaced.” – The Atlantic
- As A New Show Opens, It’s Past Time To Reevaluate Our Reactions To Lee Krasner’s Work
“Her response to life with a mean and desperate drunk was to cannibalize her old canvases and explode into the pugnacious scale, audacious color, and thrusting verticles of collages.” – The New York Times
MEDIA
- If You Can’t Hold It, You Don’t Own It
Physical media are really making a comeback in the era of streaming services removing series and movies at (seemingly) random, book censorship, and AI music. – The Guardian (UK)
- Authoritarian Politics Are Threatening Culture Worldwide
In addition to established understandings of intrinsic esthetic and historic values of heritage, new emphasis on development reconceptualizes heritage as a resource that can generate economic development, tourism, employment and social cohesion. – The Conversation
- How Ravinia Reconfigured Itself
The pavilion reopened partway through the 2026 summer season after two seasons of design and construction, then quickly began demonstrating its newfound flexibility. – Architect Magazine
- Philadelphia’s Beloved Academy Of Sciences Almost Made It To 200
“When they announced the one month notice it was a surprise for everybody. … It’s like the leadership didn’t even try to keep it open, and that’s why there’s a lot of frustration around what’s happening. It’s just not right.” – NPR
- Protesters In Culver City Demand That Media Companies Commit To Democracy
“Spotlighting Sony Pictures Studios, Apple, Pinterest and Amazon MGM Studios, all with local offices, protesters demanded that the companies sign on to the ‘Business for Democracy Pledge’ ahead of the elections in November.” – Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)
MUSIC
- Will We Still Need Punctuation When Machines Are Writing?
What are those commas doing there, anyway? By modern usage, they should mark off a non-restrictive clause, but they don’t. Nor are they marking items in a series or natural pauses in speech. – The New Yorker
- The NFL Is Trying To Woo New Fans With Its Own Romance Writing
That is … not going well (though romance readers are still gaga for M/M, W/W, and M/W hockey tales from more traditional channels). Fans “see the stories as cheap pandering that fails to engage with female and LGBTQ hockey fans’ concerns about homophobia and toxic masculinity in the sport.” – Wired
- What, Exactly, Is Literary Substack?
As Substack has become a more respectable platform and mainstream academics have begun to join in some numbers, they have encountered a strange simulacrum of fields they thought they knew intimately. Cultural and symbolic capital seem to work differently here. – Paroxysms
- In Censor-Happy Texas, School Librarians And Teachers Are Afraid To Discuss Books
“When you put your finger on every single book in order to type it into a spreadsheet, you really do think, ‘Am I willing to lose my job over this particular book?’ … I think that is a real concern for teachers around the state.” – The 74
- Russia’s War On Ukraine’s Books
“In total, this summer, 13 [million] Ukrainian books have been destroyed by Russian missiles or drones – a third, estimates the government, of all books printed in Ukraine this year.” – The Guardian (UK)
PEOPLE
- Oracle Pays $10 Million for Nashville Symphony’s Season
Good Morning,
Oracle is giving the Nashville Symphony $10 million, reinstating a season the orchestra cancelled a week earlier and ending furloughs of 77 musicians and 27 staff that were to begin Oct. 18 (The New York Times). Music director Leonard Slatkin, who had just conducted three sold-out concerts, was as surprised as anyone.
Adults and teens are now 40 percent of Build-A-Bear’s customers, and its stock rose more than 2,000 percent between 2020 and 2025 (The New Yorker). The NHL is courting a different crowd with 60-to-90-second romance-novel teasers about players like the Flyers’ Trevor Zegras. Emily Rath, a best-selling hockey romance novelist the league approached, says she never turned down an offer so fast (Wired).
At the South Sound Powwow in Graham, Washington, Shawn Reynolds, a Puyallup Tribe member, persuaded organizers to hold a dance where participants could skip regalia, keep headphones on and bring caregivers. His 11-year-old autistic twin sons led the procession (OPB).
In 1926 Edison told the New York Times that radio was a fad and the phonograph would win listeners back. The BBC began broadcasting the Proms the next year, when the festival’s finances were threatening its survival (Classical Music). They’ve going ever since.
All of our stories below.
- Oracle Gives $10M To Help Save The Nashville Symphony
The gift will allow the symphony to resume the season, which runs through June 2027, and to retain staff, Mark Tillinger, Nashville Symphony’s president and chief executive, said in a news release on Sunday. – The New York Times
- Why More Adults Are Playing With Kids Toys
“People just stay very playful for a longer period of time. And it’s cross-brand. You know, it might be Teddy bears. It might be Lego bricks. It might be Transformers. It might be Barbie dolls.” – The New Yorker
- Will We Still Need Punctuation When Machines Are Writing?
What are those commas doing there, anyway? By modern usage, they should mark off a non-restrictive clause, but they don’t. Nor are they marking items in a series or natural pauses in speech. – The New Yorker
- Musical Instruments Are Getting More Expensive
The consequences have reverberated across the country. Higher instrument prices are a particular threat to lower-income districts where enrollment and budgets are shrinking. – The New York Times
PEOPLE
- Oracle Pays $10 Million for Nashville Symphony’s Season
Good Morning,
Oracle is giving the Nashville Symphony $10 million, reinstating a season the orchestra cancelled a week earlier and ending furloughs of 77 musicians and 27 staff that were to begin Oct. 18 (The New York Times). Music director Leonard Slatkin, who had just conducted three sold-out concerts, was as surprised as anyone.
Adults and teens are now 40 percent of Build-A-Bear’s customers, and its stock rose more than 2,000 percent between 2020 and 2025 (The New Yorker). The NHL is courting a different crowd with 60-to-90-second romance-novel teasers about players like the Flyers’ Trevor Zegras. Emily Rath, a best-selling hockey romance novelist the league approached, says she never turned down an offer so fast (Wired).
At the South Sound Powwow in Graham, Washington, Shawn Reynolds, a Puyallup Tribe member, persuaded organizers to hold a dance where participants could skip regalia, keep headphones on and bring caregivers. His 11-year-old autistic twin sons led the procession (OPB).
In 1926 Edison told the New York Times that radio was a fad and the phonograph would win listeners back. The BBC began broadcasting the Proms the next year, when the festival’s finances were threatening its survival (Classical Music). They’ve going ever since.
All of our stories below.
- Oracle Gives $10M To Help Save The Nashville Symphony
The gift will allow the symphony to resume the season, which runs through June 2027, and to retain staff, Mark Tillinger, Nashville Symphony’s president and chief executive, said in a news release on Sunday. – The New York Times
- Why More Adults Are Playing With Kids Toys
“People just stay very playful for a longer period of time. And it’s cross-brand. You know, it might be Teddy bears. It might be Lego bricks. It might be Transformers. It might be Barbie dolls.” – The New Yorker
- Will We Still Need Punctuation When Machines Are Writing?
What are those commas doing there, anyway? By modern usage, they should mark off a non-restrictive clause, but they don’t. Nor are they marking items in a series or natural pauses in speech. – The New Yorker
- Musical Instruments Are Getting More Expensive
The consequences have reverberated across the country. Higher instrument prices are a particular threat to lower-income districts where enrollment and budgets are shrinking. – The New York Times
THEATRE
VISUAL
- Why More Adults Are Playing With Kids Toys
“People just stay very playful for a longer period of time. And it’s cross-brand. You know, it might be Teddy bears. It might be Lego bricks. It might be Transformers. It might be Barbie dolls.” – The New Yorker
- Freaked Out About Artificial Intelligence?
Look to Kant. – Aeon
- Digital Lists Are Destroying The Fabric Of Society
“The issue goes deeper than presents. I have four kids from elementary to high-school age, and as hard as I try to expose them to life’s realities, they remain sheltered from disappointment and dissatisfaction at every turn.” – Slate
- When Will We Know The Answers To AI’s Most Important Questions?
“Several of the most fundamental debates about the future and safety of AI remain unresolved. I believe we can’t expect these disagreements to be resolved until it’s too late to change course.” – Time
- Let’s Get Real: Intelligence Is About More Than Optimization
That slide from engineering model to human anthropology is easy to miss. We begin by saying: this is how machines work. Then, almost without noticing, we say: this is what intelligence is. And then, more dangerously still: perhaps this is what we are. – Aeon