AJ Four Ways:
Text Only (by date) | headlines only
- Catching Up With Art Dealer Inigo Philbrick, Now That He’s Out Of Prison
“I’ve done my time, and all that I ask is that people give me the benefit of the doubt. I may not be given a second chance — but at least recognize that I’ve suffered a lot from what happened.” – Artnet
- Survey: How Libraries Are Using AI
Respondents were most likely to use AI for enhancing staff productivity (57.7%), supporting student learning (55.8%), and improving content discovery (53.3%). They were less likely to use AI tools for digital preservation (21.3%) or collection management (27.5%). – Publishers Weekly
- Atlanta Ballet Cuts Way Back On Its Orchestra, And Musicians Picket
Members of the pit orchestra protested outside the theater last weekend at performances of the company’s season-opening program, which was danced to recorded music. Atlanta Ballet management says it can afford a live orchestra this season only for its stagings of The Nutcracker and Swan Lake. – ArtsATL
- A Convicted Prolific Publishing Scammer Seems To Be Back In Business
Over more than five years, Bernardini created some 160 fraudulent internet domains, prosecutors argued, and impersonated hundreds of publishing professionals to obtain more than a thousand unpublished manuscripts. – The New York Times
- Steve Reich At 90: Most Music Isn’t Very Good
Born in New York in 1936, Reich has spent the last six decades producing music that has changed the soundtrack of modern life in Europe and North America, and inspired superlatives from a wide array of music critics. The New Yorker has called him “the most original musical thinker of our time”. – The Guardian
- Political Ad Money Has Flooded Into Podcasts. Has The Medium Overtaken TV?
Ad spending on political podcasts jumped 42% in the first half of 2026 after rising 36% during the same period last year, according to Magellan AI estimates provided to TheWrap. Taken together, spending increased approximately 93% over two years. – The Wrap (MSN)
- A New Streaming Platform Where Indie Filmmakers Keep Their IP (And Money)
“The Drive-In, a TVOD service that will operate within independent film and TV discovery app RecDek, … will stream directly from the filmmaker’s library within the platform, which means that ‘nothing is handed over, re-uploaded or locked away.’ Producers will also set their own prices and keep receipts from first sale.” – Variety
- Wikipedia Is 25 Years Old
In 25 years Wikipedia has transformed from a new and provocative innovation to a stalwart of the internet age. That journey reflects persistent anxieties about credibility, expertise, and user-generated content that have continually haunted our relationship with the online. – History Today
- The Crazy Story Breaking Readership Records At The Boston Globe
“Per a note to Boston Globe staff today, the lesbian bar story generated 1,000 subscriptions to the paper yesterday. The Globe’s managing editor said it was ‘by far our best performing story of the year,’ and appears to be ‘on pace to shatter all sorts of Globe records.’” – Mediaite
- Correcting The Record On Lee Krasner
Krasner and Pollock were, in mid-20th-century New York, at the heart of the artistic movement that would become Abstract Expressionism. At that time, the only label more detrimental to a talented artist’s career than “woman” was the handle “wife.” – The New York Times
- America’s Largest Young-Adult Book Festival Is Adding Adult Programming
YALLFest, held each fall in Charleston, is adding ROMFest, a parallel programming track for actual grownups, focusing on romance novels. Why are they doing this? Because it turns out that the majority of YALLFest attendees are full-fledged adults. – Publishers Weekly
- Habermas’ Ideas On Public Debate
He explained the three types of discourse that characterise deliberation – moral, ethical, and pragmatic – and was clear that when it comes to the moral, there are no experts: only individuals working out, together, what’s right in a given context. – Aeon
- A Bookseller Confronts The AI Company Trying To Buy His Rare Books
Brandon DiSabatino quickly became concerned that Blue Angel might be trying to buy his books for a similar ulterior—and to him, sinister—purpose. In so doing, he joined the ever-expanding crowd of people who the AI rush has forced to constantly reconsider their reality. – Mother Jones
- Hearing From The New LA Phil And SF Symphony Music Directors
Conversations with the newly minted music directors quickly reveal two distinct, dynamic personalities ready to embark on their next musical journeys. – NPR
- Shakespeare’s Globe Opens London’s First Dedicated Shakespeare Library And Research Centre
“The library sits underground, beneath the Globe in London’s South Bank, and is accessible to the public, containing more than 6,000 books about Shakespeare, early modern literature and the history of dramatic performance around the world. A digital performance archive is also available to the public by appointment.” – The Bookseller (UK)
- There’s About To Be A Bidding War For The Movie-Fan Website Letterboxd
“A number of suitors, … enamored by the site’s obsessive audience and the subscription and advertising revenue streams it provides, … have submitted expressions of interest, including The New York Times Company, Sony Pictures Entertainment and (indie studio) A24. … Any deal is expected to value Letterboxd at more than $300 million.” – The New York Times
- Mark Swed’s Farewell Column As L.A. Times Classical Music Critic
“When I accidentally stumbled into music criticism with an academic penchant for music analysis, my crutches for writing about music were technical and of little use in a newspaper. I had to find a way to simply listen. It gave me new ears, and I was hooked.” – Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
- In Colombia, Arts Workers Of All Sorts March To Protest Cuts To Culture Budget
“Hundreds of artists, students and cultural workers gathered outside of (the) Ministry of Culture in Bogotá on Monday, protesting a proposed 30% cut to the cultural budget in 2027 and a suspension of national arts awards.” – The Art Newspaper
- At Long Last, MOCA In L.A. Has Its New Director
“After almost two decades of high leadership turnover and a more than year-long search, the Museum of Contemporary Art has appointed Jonathan Abbott as its new director and chief executive.” He comes from Boston’s PBS affiliate, GBH, where he was CEO for 15 years. – Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
- Mamdani And The Met To Give Away 70,000 Free Opera Tickets A Year
The program, which the mayor said would continue indefinitely, will draw from the pool of unsold tickets, which will be distributed by lottery via the Metropolitan Opera app. The catch: you’re not eligible if you’ve bought Met tickets any time since fall 2018. – The New York Times
- Cleveland Orchestra Musicians On Strike
“Violinist Elayna Duitman, head of the (musicians’ negotiating) committee, said their pay lags both inflation and the other ‘Big Five’ orchestras in Boston, Philadelphia, New York and Chicago, while upper management is well-compensated. … Their most recent contract extension expired earlier this week.” – Ideastream Public Media (Cleveland)
- Creative Markets are being SwampedA flood of books, music and images is overwhelming creative markets. Some of it is democratization of tools. Some of it is pure AI. Is this a crisis or an opportunity?
- 4,200 Library Books, Three Months, No Phones
Good Morning,
Students at Pleasure Ridge Park High School in Louisville have checked out 4,200 library books in the first three months of this school year, twice last year’s total, since the school district locked phones away “bell to bell.” Noah Berry, a senior, says he had never borrowed a book there before (Aging Untold).
Davi Ramos, now the Australian Ballet’s first Black principal, started ballet at 12 in Rio’s Vidigal favela. His school waived the fees, friends’ mothers helped pay his way to the Prix de Lausanne, and Lausanne brought him 12 offers (Dance Australia).
Thélyson Orélien, a Haitian-Canadian writer, has sold 35,000 copies in France of his first novel, C’était ça ou mourir, a Goncourt contender. An anonymous X account says the detector Pangram scored it 94 percent AI-written; when AFP ran the excerpts through other detectors, one called them “very probably” human and seven others disagreed. Orélien denies using AI (Euronews).
In distressed institutions news: Kanal, Brussels’ new Centre Pompidou partner museum in a former Citroën garage, gave away all 30,000 opening-weekend tickets in a day. Its director, Yves Goldstein, leaves two days after the November 28 opening, and a budget once promised at €35 million a year is headed toward €10 million by 2029 (Artforum). The Nashville Symphony says it lacks the cash to keep operating at its current level, a month after the death of Martha Ingram, who took on its $20 million mortgage in 2013 (Nashville Scene).
All of our stories below.
- Australian Ballet Gets Its First Black Principal
Davi Ramos grew up in a Rio favela and didn’t start ballet lessons until he was 12. Only two years later, he competed in Youth America Grand Prix and, subsequently, the Prix de Lausanne; he studied in London and apprenticed in Amsterdam before coming to Melbourne, drawn by AD David Hallberg. – Dance Australia
- Schools Report Surge In Library Book Checkouts After Cellphone Bans
Students at Pleasure Ridge Park High School are checking out books at a rate librarians say hasn’t been seen before, coinciding with a districtwide cell phone ban that took effect at the start of the 2025 school year. – Aging Untold
- Lucas Museum Architects And The Building Of Fantasies
MAD Architects is a team that has completed major cultural and residential projects in 16 countries and counting. Their signature is hard-to-believe designs that do all of the shouting — etched towers churning like hula-hooping women; a museum honed like an ancient stone; an opera house resembling a mountain, bursting from the ground. – The New York Times
- BBC Is Preparing To Shut Down Some Radio And TV Channels: Report
“Deadline hears that the BBC is expected to unveil what one source described as ‘audience-facing’ closures next week, as the UK broadcaster ramps up efforts to save £500 million ($660M) over the coming years. … Speculation (is) rife that youth network BBC Three is at risk of being unplugged for a second time.” – Deadline
- Chicago Symphony Rebrands
The changes come as the CSO prepares to welcome its new, buzzy music director, Klaus Mäkelä, who will officially step into the role next fall. – WBEZ
- Australia’s Performing Arts Sector Is In Crisis
Too many of our finest performers and musicians feel compelled to leave Australia. Productions, concert seasons and festivals are being cancelled or scaled back. – ArtsHub
- Author Of One Of France’s Biggest Hit Novels Of The Year Accused Of Using AI
C’était ça ou mourir (It Was That Or Die) by Thélyson Orélien has sold over 35,000 copies and been hailed in France’s literary mediasphere as a revelation. On Monday, an anonymous X (Twitter) account claimed the AI-spotting software Pangram found that “this novel was written almost entirely by an artificial intelligence.” – Euronews
- How AI Is Changing The Art Of Translation
Many literary translators fear that if machine-assisted translation becomes the norm in book publishing, it could fundamentally change the nature of their profession. – Publishers Weekly
- Judge Granted Last-Minute Pause On Paramount/Warner Deal
With an 11 am PT virtual hearing before Judge Martinez-Olguin widely viewed as a rubber stamping of the September 21 antitrust settlement and hence the mega-merger itself, the granting of Block the Merger’s move makes it almost certain the deal won’t be formally approved today. – Deadline
- Is AI Above The Law? Outside? Under?
At least for now, then, robots legally are things, not persons. But neither category quite fits. Instead, robots are outlaws: they lie outside the protection of the law, and their actions are not answerable to it. – The New Yorker
- Former Microsoft CEO Repairs Damaged Calder Mobile In U.S. Senate Building
When Kim and Jon Shirley visited Alexander Calder’s Mountains and Clouds (1976/1986) in the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building, the stabile portion of the sculpture (the mountains) was there, but the mobile part (clouds) had been removed due to structural damage. Ten years and $10 million later, the clouds are back. – ARTnews
- The Powers Of Bibliotherapy
Today, bibliotherapy takes many different forms, from literature courses run for prison inmates to reading circles for elderly people suffering from dementia. Sometimes it can simply mean one-on-one or group sessions for “lapsed” readers who want to find their way back to an enjoyment of books. – The New Yorker