AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- If You Build A Small Cinema, Regulars Will Come
Carlos Costa, in São Paulo: “The movie theater is just me. I project the films, make the popcorn, sell the tickets, everything. For economic reasons, I can’t afford an employee. … But I also think that’s part of the charm.” – Seattle Times (AP)
- How To Win The Nobel Prize In Literature
First, book-length sentences are good. Also, well, “The Nobel Committee for a certain stretch of history, like the last 40 years, has had something of a bias against American writers, but I think it’s probably more true that they’ve had a bias towards European writers.” – NPR
- The Arts Column That The Washington Post Refused To Run
“Monuments are supposed to be collective tributes to shared ideals. Like Confederate statues, [Charlie Kirk memorials] would function as the opposite — broadcasting a one-way message.” – Aesthetic Insecurity
- The Cincinnati Symphony Gets Its New Music Director
Cristian Macelaru: “The work is a lot more complex and challenging here [than in Europe], but it’s also much more rewarding. … I’ve always had such strong beliefs about what I would do if I were a music director of an American orchestra.” – The New York Times
- Perhaps Because Its People Now Control All Branches Of The US Government And A Lot Of Media, The Parents Television Council Is Disbanding
Actually, the conservative watchdog group is bankrupt. – Los Angeles Times (MSN)
ISSUES
- The Arts Column That The Washington Post Refused To Run
“Monuments are supposed to be collective tributes to shared ideals. Like Confederate statues, [Charlie Kirk memorials] would function as the opposite — broadcasting a one-way message.” – Aesthetic Insecurity
- Why Is San Francisco About To Destroy This 96-Year-Old Artist’s Defining Work?
“Destroying the Vaillancourt Fountain, its supporters say, would be erasing history and modern architecture, and counter to the city’s reputation for being weird.” But wow, has the city neglected it for years. (The city says it just sort of aged out. Yup.) – The New York Times
- Pepperdine Suddenly Closes Art Show After Censorship Of Some Work Leads Other Artists To Withdraw
One artist wrote that the private university’s censorship of other artists’ work, mostly about immigrants, “is a loss for the students and for the art community, and it signals that the gallery, under current conditions, can no longer function as a place for art.” – Hyperallergic
- Rick Caruso’s Malls Are An Oddly Cold Version Of Urban Life
As the developer mulls a gubernatorial run, Carolina Miranda has some thoughts. “These places are rigidly controlled simulacra. … Collectively, these cloyingly tantalizing spaces offer an insightful read on his vision for real cities and the political points he likes to make about them.” – New York Review of Architecture
- Bernini’s Designs For The Louvre Were Too Much Even For Louis XIV
Yes, the favorite sculptor and architect of 17th-century Rome was the first designer whom the Sun King commissioned to make over the traditional Paris home of France’s monarchs. Yet construction was stopped and Bernini returned to Rome just a few days after the foundation stone was laid. Here’s why. – Artnet
MEDIA
- Apparently, Some People In The US Have A Deep Love For The Toppled Christopher Columbus Statues
“Many of the statues have been revived with the help of Italian American groups, who cherish Columbus as a figure their ancestors embraced as a hero of the diaspora.” But generally, they’re not being returned to public lands. – The New York Times
- Cleveland State University Just Closed A Decades-Old College Radio Station For No Apparent Reason
“A student-run radio station trains kids to do all sorts of things. It’s the engineering, it’s the on air, it’s the music, it’s the running it, the managing of it. And it’s all gone now.” – Cleveland Plain Dealer
- Smithsonian Museums, National Zoo Close Amid Federal Shutdown
The Smithsonian museums “had been able to keep their doors open for the first 11 days of the shutdown by relying on prior-year funds, but those coffers have since run dry.” – NPR
- After A Very Rough 2024-25, Nashville’s Arts Funding Agency Is Finding Its Way Back On Track
“As the Metro Arts Commission works its way back from several years of instability, it’s hoping the more than $3.2 million in grants it’s awarded for the 2026 fiscal year will be a sign of progress.” Most stakeholders seem to be relieved, though there’s one in particular which is still unhappy. – The Tennessean
- How Artists Are Incorporating AI Into Traditional Work (And Ideas)
While A.I. speeds along, upending any number of careers and lives, some in the art world have chosen to embrace it while also, in a sense, subverting it. These artists integrate A.I., gaming and other tech-heavy aesthetics into their work. – The New York Times
MUSIC
- Czech Writers, Including Ivan Klima, Created An Anti-Authoritarian Manifesto In 1977
In the U.S. (and other countries dealing with regimes antithetical to art), cultural workers could sure learn something from Charter 77. – LitHub
- Meet America’s New Poet Laureate
“You can’t speed-read a poem,” he explains. “You have to read it, hear the sounds, the rhythms, reread it, not be in a hurry. Slowing down helps us realize that for our speed, we sacrifice things.” – Christian Science Monitor
- Librarian Fired For Refusing To Remove Books, Wins $700,000 In Court
A library director in Wyoming who was fired two years ago because she refused to remove books with sexual content and L.G.B.T.Q. themes from a library’s children and young adult sections was awarded $700,000 in a settlement on Wednesday. – The New York Times
- How Did The Nobel Literature Committee Lose Its Sense Of Fun?
So: a victory for high literature, for inevitability, for oppositional culture, for men. But for the obsessives who have been attending to the saga of the Nobel Prize in literature over the past decade, it’s also something of a bummer. – The New Republic
- With Their Largest Distributor Gone, US Libraries Try To Figure Out Where To Turn
“With the announcement of Baker & Taylor’s imminent closure, … librarians are scrambling to find new wholesaling partners.” – Publishers Weekly
PEOPLE
- If You Build A Small Cinema, Regulars Will Come
Carlos Costa, in São Paulo: “The movie theater is just me. I project the films, make the popcorn, sell the tickets, everything. For economic reasons, I can’t afford an employee. … But I also think that’s part of the charm.” – Seattle Times (AP)
- How To Win The Nobel Prize In Literature
First, book-length sentences are good. Also, well, “The Nobel Committee for a certain stretch of history, like the last 40 years, has had something of a bias against American writers, but I think it’s probably more true that they’ve had a bias towards European writers.” – NPR
- The Arts Column That The Washington Post Refused To Run
“Monuments are supposed to be collective tributes to shared ideals. Like Confederate statues, [Charlie Kirk memorials] would function as the opposite — broadcasting a one-way message.” – Aesthetic Insecurity
- The Cincinnati Symphony Gets Its New Music Director
Cristian Macelaru: “The work is a lot more complex and challenging here [than in Europe], but it’s also much more rewarding. … I’ve always had such strong beliefs about what I would do if I were a music director of an American orchestra.” – The New York Times
- Perhaps Because Its People Now Control All Branches Of The US Government And A Lot Of Media, The Parents Television Council Is Disbanding
Actually, the conservative watchdog group is bankrupt. – Los Angeles Times (MSN)
PEOPLE
- If You Build A Small Cinema, Regulars Will Come
Carlos Costa, in São Paulo: “The movie theater is just me. I project the films, make the popcorn, sell the tickets, everything. For economic reasons, I can’t afford an employee. … But I also think that’s part of the charm.” – Seattle Times (AP)
- How To Win The Nobel Prize In Literature
First, book-length sentences are good. Also, well, “The Nobel Committee for a certain stretch of history, like the last 40 years, has had something of a bias against American writers, but I think it’s probably more true that they’ve had a bias towards European writers.” – NPR
- The Arts Column That The Washington Post Refused To Run
“Monuments are supposed to be collective tributes to shared ideals. Like Confederate statues, [Charlie Kirk memorials] would function as the opposite — broadcasting a one-way message.” – Aesthetic Insecurity
- The Cincinnati Symphony Gets Its New Music Director
Cristian Macelaru: “The work is a lot more complex and challenging here [than in Europe], but it’s also much more rewarding. … I’ve always had such strong beliefs about what I would do if I were a music director of an American orchestra.” – The New York Times
- Perhaps Because Its People Now Control All Branches Of The US Government And A Lot Of Media, The Parents Television Council Is Disbanding
Actually, the conservative watchdog group is bankrupt. – Los Angeles Times (MSN)
THEATRE
VISUAL
- New Studies Suggests That People With ADHD May Be More Creative
Researchers found “that those with ADHD may experience more frequent episodes of mind-wandering, and that that, in turn, could lead to greater creative thinking abilities.” – Fast Company
- Indiana’s Annual Three Day Blowout Honoring James Dean
“Dean was symbolic of the burgeoning country’s place in the world: rough-hewn and handsome, young and hungry, pure potential. That his potential was never realized transformed him from movie star to legend.” – Washington Post (MSN)
- Are We Having The Wrong Debates About The AI Actress?
The question isn’t whether the future will be synthetic; it already is. Our challenge now is to ensure that it is also meaningfully human. – The Conversation
- “Mad Max” Director: AI Will Change Art. Technology Always Does
Artificial intelligence, George Miller said, represents “the most dynamically evolving tool in making moving image.” “As a filmmaker, I’ve always been driven by the tools. AI is here to stay and change things. The balance between human creativity and machine capability, that’s what the debate and the anxiety is about.” – Variety
- This CEO Has Been Peddling An AI Companion. People Revile Him
The backlash has grabbed far more attention than the product itself, so I wondered: How does Avi Schiffmann, the 22-year-old founder and CEO of Friend, feel about being the most despised tech founder in America’s largest city? – The Atlantic
