AJ Four Ways:
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- The Consequences Of Losing Physical Media
“For decades, the premise behind buying games, VHS tapes, DVDs, and other media was simple. You handed over money, and in return you got the game, show, or movie to keep. That bargain is now breaking down.” – Fast Company
- What’s Going On With Omnipresent ‘Traditional’ And ‘Handcrafted’ Discussion?
Two words: Skills nostalgia. – Aeon
- What, Truly, Does The Statue Of Liberty Stand For?
Many, many artists have thoughts. – Hyperallergic
- Why ‘Trashy’ Ballet Is Actually Good, At Least For Bringing In Audiences
“Call it ballet-qua-haunted house. … Audiences came in-kind on opening night, sporting black lace, corsets, velour, brocade and, in at least a couple cases, a top hat and a waxed mustache.” – San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo)
- The Grim Economics Of Video Game Studios
“It is a testament to the state of the industry that trophies won’t keep the lights on. Still, the huge success of South of Midnight makes Compulsion’s potential [closure] stand out as a real head-scratcher.” – CBC
- 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
- Mike Wallace, Who Wrote ‘Gotham’ And Gave New York A Textured, Bottom-Up History, Has Died At 83
Wallace was “a self-proclaimed radical historian whose magisterial, unvarnished biography of New York, Gotham, written with Edwin G. Burrows, won the Pulitzer Prize and inspired two more door-stopper volumes about the city.” – The New York Times
- How Executives At Anime Streaming Service Crunchyroll Figure Out What’s Working
It all depends on cosplay at L.A.’s Anime Expo – and this year, many attendees showed signs of devotion to the relatively new series Witch Hat Atelier. – Variety
- 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
- Comedy, Says This Comedian, Can Save Lives
“’After the show, people come to me in person and through messages,’ [Teruko Nakijima] said. ‘A lot of people said, ‘I felt like I am not alone.’ That gives me so much hope and unity.’” – Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)
- Trump’s White House Excoriates The Smithsonian National Museum Of American History
“The White House condemned the [museum] for what it said was a failure to celebrate the nation’s heritage, arguing it had become a political tool intent on denigrating the American story.” No First Amendment red flags here at all. – The New York Times
- How AI Is Changing Human Language
Supposed AI tells – “are also characteristic of human writing, which, after all, the large language models (LLMs) that produce them were trained on.” – The Guardian (UK)
- That’s Right, Actor And Director Olivia Wilde Took That Last Name To Honor Oscar
She’s from the US, but her family (like a whole lot of people in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and other diaspora landing spots) also claim Ireland. – Irish Times
- Can Anyone Save Wikipedia?
Elon Musk and a MAGA army, not to mention AI, not to mention (other) authoritarian governments, are sure coming for the little nonprofit that could. – The New York Times
- Go Ahead, Touch The Art
Good Morning,
The V&A’s new East Storehouse lets visitors order objects up from the collection and actually handle them (The New York Times). Museums have traditionally erected barriers between people and things; now one of the world’s great collections is betting on removing them.
It’s not alone in rediscovering that authentic presence is the asset. Americans are falling back in love with independent cinemas (The Guardian) — thriving not by competing with streaming but by selling what streaming can’t do, a room full of strangers. Mexico’s World Cup run is reviving mariachi (NPR) — “People are drinking. They’re happy. They’re paying for music.” And Wales’s Green Man festival has spent ten years training refugees for real careers (The Guardian), a music festival can double as civic infrastructure.
My AJ Chronicles essay this week takes a look at some of the culture that is working well and what they have in common. Some trends emerge
All of our stories below.
Doug
- American Classical Music at 250 – Take Two: The BAM ExperimentThe “New World” Symphony visual presentation created by Peter Bogdanoff for the Brooklyn Philharmonic’s 1994 Dvorak festival. Building on
- Turkish Comedian Imprisoned For Insulting Erdogan
“A Turkish court on Friday ordered a comedian jailed pending trial on charges of insulting religious values and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after his stand‑up routine included references to him as a ‘dictator.’” (This is what the some might call Erdogan “not beating the charges.”) – Seattle Times (AP)
- Take A Deep Breath: Music Fans Vs Music Critics Discourse Surfaces Again
“America’s obsession with celebrity has morphed into this really weird, parasocial thing, where people feel incentivized to be deputized defenders of that person and are there to attack anybody who says anything at least a little bit negative about them.” – Washington Post
- The Men’s Team World Cup Run May Be Helping Revive Mexico’s Mariachi Traditions
“People are drinking. They’re happy. They’re paying for music.” – NPR
- What’s Going On With Theatre Leadership Isn’t Exactly Hidden Or Mysterious
“Call it what you want: colonialism, toxic workplace culture, oppression, patriarchy, the result is the same: power in the hands of a few who extract all the benefit they can from the many while trying to convince us that we should be thankful for the honor of the extraction.” – Amy Wratchford
- While ‘ER’ Made Noah Wyle’s Career, It Probably Also Stifled Him
The actor, currently famous thanks to his project The Pitt, says he “missed out on roles in Saving Private Ryan and Good Night, and Good Luck because he couldn’t get out of filming” ER. – Variety
- 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
- After Some Grim Times, The US Is Back In Love With Independent Cinemas
You can thank the young ones: there’s “a gen Z-led wave fueling a fresh resurgence of indie movie houses.” – The Guardian (UK)
- Fifty Years Ago, The NEA Funded Orchestras Celebrating The Nation’s Big Anniversary
In 1976, “the centerpiece was the National Endowment for the Arts Bicentennial Orchestra Commissioning Project. That funded America’s six top orchestras to each commission a major work that all six would play.” – Los Angeles Times (MSN)
- The Green Man Music Festival In Wales Does A Lot More Than Simply Entertain
Javid from Afghanistan “said the festival in the idyllic Bannau Brycheiniog national park had been his first ever experience of a music concert. Under the Taliban, he said, ‘There is no music, and it’s banned to listen to any music.’” – The Guardian (UK)
- The Empty, Vacuous Promises Of The New LACMA
“There is nothing emancipatory, nor original, about creating a luxury venue that privileges sensibility over scholarship, allure over accessibility, and fine dining over gallery square footage.” – E-Flux
- All The Burning TV Questions That Wednesday’s Emmy Nominations Should Answer
“I still don’t think anyone actually likes Euphoria, but it’s big and expensive and full of movie stars, and at this moment in time Hollywood needs all three of those things to remain viable.” – Vulture
- Everything Digital We’ve ‘Bought’ Is Actually Rented
And Sony’s email to Playstation UK customers was simply a reminder of that uncomfortable, horrifying fact. – Wired
- The Most American Movie Of All Is Quite Bleak
There Will Be Blood “both celebrates American cinema and inverts it.” – The New York Times
- Pride And Pain: The United States At 250 As Seen In Its Performing Arts Scene
“Who are ‘our people,’ broadly defined? Can we even talk about a common American experience or identity, to which we can all attach a full-throated patriotism? We might look to the example of New York City’s Lincoln Center.” – American Theatre
- If You Need Some Incredible Photographs, Not Only Of Space, NASA Probably Has Them
But how to search them up? Google won’t help as much (if at all) anymore, but there are ways. – Wired
- Hollywood’s Output Has Always Been About Defining The USA
But now? “More and more, the space of American cinema is defined by one word: fantasy. … The fantasy worlds where our movies increasingly take place add up, in both philosophy and sensation, to a kind of abstract no-man’s land.” – Variety
- Ordering Up, And Then Touching, The Objects At The V&A East Storehouse
“When you open these cardboard frames up and look at the edges of the paper and see they’re stained and old, you can really picture Beatrix Potter’s hand. … It’s such a privilege to be this close and be trusted.” – The New York Times
- The Fanfiction Community Is At Internal War Over Generative AI
“Fandom communities are still mostly relying on vibes. Most fanfics aren’t judged by a tool like the AO3 skin, but by tells’ that could include anything from specific sentence structures — like the notorious ‘it’s not X, it’s Y’ — to overuse of flowery metaphors.” – The Verge (Archive Today)
