Today’s AJ highlights: In Washington, the Kennedy Center’s employment situation has become something of a farce: the newly hired VP of artistic programming has resigned after just two weeks on the job. (The New York Times). And the manager of artistic planning has been fired (reports the Kennedy Center). Former CNN anchor Don Lemon was arrested by federal agents in Los Angeles, an escalation that followed a judge’s prior rejection of charges against him while covering a demonstration in Minneapolis (AP). The former general manager of Sacramento’s Capital Public Radio has been arrested for allegedly embezzling more than $1.3 million (The Sacramento Bee).
A “resistance of the analog” is taking hold. Yale professors are increasingly requiring students to read on paper, banning screens to force a direct, unmediated encounter with texts in an age of AI (Yale Daily News). And there are new arguments that while AI can mimic competence, it cannot replicate the “uniqueness” of human memory and memoir (Aeon). Continuing the analog thread, psychologists are arguing for more “pockets of serenity” in cities to counteract the sensory overload of modern life (Psyche).
Finally, institutions are getting creative—and populist—to survive. Palo Alto Players has begun offering free childcare to lower barriers for audiences (San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)) , while the Detroit Opera is welcoming George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic for a full symphonic collaboration (AP). And in a twist of market irony, public television is being buoyed not by high art, but by the “happy little trees” of Bob Ross, whose paintings are now fetching nearly $800,000 at auction in benefit of public media (Artnet).
All of today’s stories below.
