AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- 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
- Television And Theatre Aren’t Oil And Water, But They Don’t Mix Well, Either
“Despite so much practice, television still manages to get a few things wrong, specifically the process, the product and the people. (It occasionally manages to nail the excitement.)” – The New York Times
- Reed Hastings Is Leaving Netflix, But Is It Because They Didn’t Get Warner Bros., Or Because They Ever Tried?
Bizarrely, Netflix would up in a much stronger place: “The company did not say how it plans to spend the $2.8-billion US termination fee it received after losing the Warner Bros. movie studio, including HBO, and lifted its earnings per share.” – CBC
- It Takes Many Artisans To Create A Lady Gaga-Level, But Fake, Pop Star
The Mother Mary gang has been finding out over the past couple of years. – Variety
- We Are Weirdly Quick To Believe That Actors Simply Improvise In Movies
“Audiences clearly crave these stories – but why? Isn’t a movie more impressive if it’s so well rehearsed that it seems real? Isn’t it better that an actor’s pained scream sounds authentic because they’re an elite professional, not because they stubbed their toe?” – The Guardian (UK)
ISSUES
- 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
- Trump’s Arts Commission Approves Preliminary Design Of Arch
The Commission of Fine Arts, which is filled with Mr. Trump’s appointees, has an advisory role on the design of the project, but no enforcement power. It asked the administration to return with updated drawings before a final vote on the project. – The New York Times
- Architect Peter Zumthor On Criticism Of His New Building At LACMA
On the fact that there’s less exhibition space than in the previous building: “What is this with bigness? What kind of a hang-up is this? You don’t have to be big. It has the right scale. … Small museums are beautiful, big museums tend to be really difficult.” – Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
- As V&A Museum’s Newest Branch Opens, Staffers Campaign For Living Wage
“On Saturday, V&A East will open its doors in Stratford, east London, showcasing stunning fabrics, photos and black British music. … While the V&A complies with all legal minimum-wage requirements, … campaigners say some of the lowest-paid staff and contractors in London are not in receipt of the living wage.” – The Guardian
- Trump’s Plan For A Supersized Arch Alienates Even Supporters
Trump’s push to build the giant arch — more than quadrupling its size from original plans — has alienated early proponents of the project, classical architects and veterans groups who say it will diminish nearby Arlington Cemetery. – The New York Times
MEDIA
- 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
- New Hope For The Arts In Hungary After The Fall Of Viktor Orbán?
“A key question is what will happen to … the ‘ideologically burdened’ Hungarian Academy of Arts, an institution given significant funding powers by (Orbán’s party) that is seen as having been an instrument of the government’s conservative agenda. More broadly, members of the art scene hope to see increased institutional autonomy.” – The Art Newspaper
- The End Of The Internet As We Know It
Now, thanks to new A.I. tools, anyone can write code. Soon, bad actors could use those same tools to find out what’s wrong with code. The détente is over. – The New York Times
MUSIC
- Children’s Author Jon Klassen Is The First Canadian To Win This Huge Children’s Literature Prize
“The Winnipeg-born children’s book author and illustrator of I Want My Hat Back, has won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, which is worth nearly $750,00” (Canadian). – CBC
- How A Few Simple TikToks Or A Viral Insta Reel Can Lead To A Poetry Contract
“A century ago, the democratization of poetry was only a dream. Today, everyone can be a poet thanks to social media.” – Los Angeles Times
- Has The Anecdotal Lede Outlived Its Journalistic Utility?
For many years, this tactic served us well, and it’s deeply embedded in the toolkits of generations of writers and editors. But I wonder if its time is quickly passing. – Second Rough Draft
- When AI Can Write Like Me
That a machine might use my writing not only to learn about my subject matter, but also to analyze and ultimately mimic my authorial voice, points to a future that George Orwell envisioned with eerie prescience. – The Conversation
- Trusted Book Publisher In Paris Is Forced Out By Right-Wing Owner; Over 100 Authors Are Following Him
“More than 100 writers have quit the historic French publishing house Grasset in protest at its billionaire owner, Vincent Bolloré, whose media empire has been accused of promoting reactionary and far-right ideas. … The protest was sparked by the departure of Grasset editor Olivier Nora, who had run the imprint for 26 years.” – The Guardian
PEOPLE
- 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
- Television And Theatre Aren’t Oil And Water, But They Don’t Mix Well, Either
“Despite so much practice, television still manages to get a few things wrong, specifically the process, the product and the people. (It occasionally manages to nail the excitement.)” – The New York Times
- Reed Hastings Is Leaving Netflix, But Is It Because They Didn’t Get Warner Bros., Or Because They Ever Tried?
Bizarrely, Netflix would up in a much stronger place: “The company did not say how it plans to spend the $2.8-billion US termination fee it received after losing the Warner Bros. movie studio, including HBO, and lifted its earnings per share.” – CBC
- It Takes Many Artisans To Create A Lady Gaga-Level, But Fake, Pop Star
The Mother Mary gang has been finding out over the past couple of years. – Variety
- We Are Weirdly Quick To Believe That Actors Simply Improvise In Movies
“Audiences clearly crave these stories – but why? Isn’t a movie more impressive if it’s so well rehearsed that it seems real? Isn’t it better that an actor’s pained scream sounds authentic because they’re an elite professional, not because they stubbed their toe?” – The Guardian (UK)
PEOPLE
- 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
- Television And Theatre Aren’t Oil And Water, But They Don’t Mix Well, Either
“Despite so much practice, television still manages to get a few things wrong, specifically the process, the product and the people. (It occasionally manages to nail the excitement.)” – The New York Times
- Reed Hastings Is Leaving Netflix, But Is It Because They Didn’t Get Warner Bros., Or Because They Ever Tried?
Bizarrely, Netflix would up in a much stronger place: “The company did not say how it plans to spend the $2.8-billion US termination fee it received after losing the Warner Bros. movie studio, including HBO, and lifted its earnings per share.” – CBC
- It Takes Many Artisans To Create A Lady Gaga-Level, But Fake, Pop Star
The Mother Mary gang has been finding out over the past couple of years. – Variety
- We Are Weirdly Quick To Believe That Actors Simply Improvise In Movies
“Audiences clearly crave these stories – but why? Isn’t a movie more impressive if it’s so well rehearsed that it seems real? Isn’t it better that an actor’s pained scream sounds authentic because they’re an elite professional, not because they stubbed their toe?” – The Guardian (UK)
THEATRE
VISUAL
- Study: The Antidote To Mindless Phone Rot — A Surprising Finding
The results after doing so were eye-opening even to them: among a totally random population, levels of creativity for the people watching the experimental films were immediately higher compared to those watching YouTube videos, which didn’t move much at all. So was openness to seeing the world in new ways. – The Hollywood Reporter
- AI’s Are Beginning To Get Emotional Intelligence
Emotions are the AI industry’s new fixation. Not only are growing numbers of start-ups such as Amotions AI promising tools that interpret feelings; the major AI companies are developing chatbots that apparently aren’t just smarter—they get you. – The Atlantic
- The Pressure To Go Viral: These Days You Can’t Be An Artist Without It
All of a sudden, chefs, lawyers, podcasters, critics – all people with jobs once associated with an off-camera existence – are turning the lens on themselves. Even film director Werner Herzog, a once proud non-social media user, is now sizzling steaks and doing unboxing videos to camera. – The Guardian
- How AI Will Kill Content Platforms
Not only will AI agents compete away the revenue streams of the giant digital platforms, but they will also render irrelevant the data on which the platforms built their competitive advantage. – Harvard Business Review
- Why Has Culture Gone Flat?
Capitalism—and then late capitalism, and then late, late capitalism—has been identified as the culprit for culture’s flattening for at least a century. David Marx borrows heavily from Fredric Jameson’s account of postmodernism. – LA Review of Books
