AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- The Kids Are Fine. Check On Grandpa.
Good Morning,
Every few years America convenes a panic about young people abandoning culture. Today’s stories suggest we’ve been watching the wrong generation. Since 2003, daily reading time among older Americans has nearly halved. BUT it’s the young whose reading habits are growing (New York Times). And they’re not just holding: Gen Z is choosing culture that puts bodies in rooms together, movie theaters included (New York Times), buying novels by the pallet because BookTok said so (New Yorker), and nursing a curious nostalgia for decades they never lived in (Big Think). The generation raised on screens turns out to be the one hungriest for what screens can’t deliver. That’s not a paradox, it’s a market opportunity.
Governments, meanwhile, keep confirming culture’s power by trying to control it. Hong Kong authorities delivered an unsubtle warning to the city’s booksellers (AP), while the White House’s fixation on the Smithsonian’s version of American history is less about museums than about who gets to narrate the country (New York Times).
Fitting, then, that a Warsaw exhibition argues the Surrealists were the original anti-fascists (ARTnews).
All of our stories below.
- Surrealists Were The Original Antifa
“While Surrealism is figured as a style in popular imagination — trippy, dreamy, and escapist, detached from reality in every way — (the exhibition) ‘In the Very Bowels of Change: Surrealism and Antifascism’ reminds just how much the movement was formed in response to the politics of its time.” – Art in America
- AI-Created Music – What We Can Learn From Copyright History
AI can now generate songs, images, novels and artworks in seconds. Many of these works are already being streamed, licensed and sold. This raises an increasingly important question: should works produced without direct human authorship receive copyright protection? – The Conversation
- How The Pedant Became A Stock Character In Theater
Going all the way back to before 1600, the cantankerous, pompous, book-smart nincompoop has been a figure of mockery on European stages, a target for venting people’s dislike for know-it-all behavior. Some of the stereotypes associated with the character, however, were rather nasty. – The Public Domain Review
- We Should Worry About How AI Might Change Us With Its Use
How, then, could an automated oracle help? It cannot tell you what to feel, because feeling is not something you can summon by obedience. But neither can it settle the matter by telling you what to do. Reasons matter, and to be a morally responsible agent you must reason for yourself. – Humanist Review
ISSUES
- Surrealists Were The Original Antifa
“While Surrealism is figured as a style in popular imagination — trippy, dreamy, and escapist, detached from reality in every way — (the exhibition) ‘In the Very Bowels of Change: Surrealism and Antifascism’ reminds just how much the movement was formed in response to the politics of its time.” – Art in America
- Oh, Great — Now They’ve Found Legionnaires’ Disease Bacteria At The Met Museum, Too
“The Metropolitan Museum of Art has tested positive for traces of the bacteria linked to a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, health officials announced Tuesday. The bacteria were previously detected at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, as authorities continue searching for the source of the outbreak.” – ARTnews
- Tasmania’s “Provocative” Museum Of Old And New Art To Open Branch In Bangkok
MONA, owned and run (in famously quirky style) by gambling mogul David Walsh in Australia’s island state, is slated to open its first satellite museum on the banks of the Chao Phraya River in the Thai capital in 2029. – Artnet
- Six Decades After It Was First Performed, Yoko Ono’s “Cut Piece” Is Still Frightening
Ono debuted the work at Carnegie Hall in 1964, sitting motionless onstage as people took turns cutting off her clothes with scissors. The Broad in Los Angeles is presenting Cut Piece twice this weekend across the street at REDCAT. The performer, known as MPA, is scared — but not of the scissors. – The Guardian
- Why Did Toledo Museum Of Art Cancel Its Exhibition Of Bongs?
The museum began work on “High Style: The Art of Cannabis Pipes” three years ago, thinking that increasing legalization and acceptance of marijuana made the timing good. Yet the show was cancelled this spring; museum management says it was for logistical reasons. The question: the logistics of what exactly? – The New York Times
MEDIA
- Why Trump Is Fixated On Smithsonian History
People often joke about how Trumpism would like to return us to some version of the 1950s, when America supposedly was “great.” In this report, the administration has done just that. The report would prefer that nothing had ever happened since the ’50s to mar the White House’s polished, superficial, puerile version of America’s past. – The New York Times
- How Vanderbilt University Made Itself Competitive With The Ivy League
Twenty years ago, the school’s acceptance rate was 38%; now it’s under 5%, roughly equivalent to Yale’s, and its undergraduates are reportedly the happiest in the country. The change is the result of deliberate, planned effort by two successive presidents over 20 years. – New York Magazine (MSN)
- How Madrid Renters Are Using Art To Protest Landlords
When their homes came under threat, they instinctively reached for the tools they had to hand: their social and cultural capital. That’s how an apartment block in Madrid became a stage, broadcast on every news channel. – The Guardian
- Arts And Culture In Moscow Are Starting To Resemble The Late Soviet Years
Art shows in apartments or offices, open to friends only, featuring artists forbidden to exhibit publicly. Philosophy clubs in people’s kitchens and living rooms. Small theater companies careful to refer to sensitive topics (like the Ukraine war or Putin) obliquely or not at all. A pervasive climate of fear. – The New York Times
- Trump Administration Removes Mentions Of Slavery From Site Of George Washington’s House In Philadelphia
“The original panels” — removed on Wednesday following a court decision — “were put in place in 2010 and told the story of how nine slaves lived in the home along with George and Martha Washington in the 1790s, when Philadelphia was briefly the nation’s capital.” – AP
MUSIC
- Why TikTok Has Become A Force In Book Buying
One of the reasons TikTok’s book-review videos, known collectively as BookTok, have become so popular—and powerful in the publishing world—is that they offer a human-based, quasi-critical recommendation portal for fans and genre devotees to connect, commiserate, and promote their favorite work. – The New Yorker
- Who’s Reading Less? It’s Older Americans, Not Younger
In 2003, older Americans read on average just under an hour each day — 58.5 minutes. By last year, that had fallen nearly by half, to roughly 32.4 minutes each day, a drop that represents the lion’s share of overall reading declines. – The New York Times
- Hong Kong Government Gives Ominous Warning To Booksellers
“Hong Kong’s top security official said Thursday that booksellers should ensure the titles they sell do not harm national security, a day after five people linked to two bookstores were arrested. The police operation on Wednesday was the third round of arrests targeting independent bookstores within four months.” – AP
- The Difference Between A Book And The Idea Of A Book
There is the book a writer writes, which is to say the actual words on the page, and then there is what I call its hologram—the shimmering, ethereal version of the book that the author must pitch to their publisher, and which their publisher then pitches to the public. – LitHub
- The Future Of Writing In The Age Of AI
“It reminded me of what happened when the internet came of age and you saw a difference in the texture of novels: something about the research process that had become expansive and yet somehow just a little more hollow than the pre-internet novel.” – Yale Review
PEOPLE
- The Kids Are Fine. Check On Grandpa.
Good Morning,
Every few years America convenes a panic about young people abandoning culture. Today’s stories suggest we’ve been watching the wrong generation. Since 2003, daily reading time among older Americans has nearly halved. BUT it’s the young whose reading habits are growing (New York Times). And they’re not just holding: Gen Z is choosing culture that puts bodies in rooms together, movie theaters included (New York Times), buying novels by the pallet because BookTok said so (New Yorker), and nursing a curious nostalgia for decades they never lived in (Big Think). The generation raised on screens turns out to be the one hungriest for what screens can’t deliver. That’s not a paradox, it’s a market opportunity.
Governments, meanwhile, keep confirming culture’s power by trying to control it. Hong Kong authorities delivered an unsubtle warning to the city’s booksellers (AP), while the White House’s fixation on the Smithsonian’s version of American history is less about museums than about who gets to narrate the country (New York Times).
Fitting, then, that a Warsaw exhibition argues the Surrealists were the original anti-fascists (ARTnews).
All of our stories below.
- Surrealists Were The Original Antifa
“While Surrealism is figured as a style in popular imagination — trippy, dreamy, and escapist, detached from reality in every way — (the exhibition) ‘In the Very Bowels of Change: Surrealism and Antifascism’ reminds just how much the movement was formed in response to the politics of its time.” – Art in America
- AI-Created Music – What We Can Learn From Copyright History
AI can now generate songs, images, novels and artworks in seconds. Many of these works are already being streamed, licensed and sold. This raises an increasingly important question: should works produced without direct human authorship receive copyright protection? – The Conversation
- How The Pedant Became A Stock Character In Theater
Going all the way back to before 1600, the cantankerous, pompous, book-smart nincompoop has been a figure of mockery on European stages, a target for venting people’s dislike for know-it-all behavior. Some of the stereotypes associated with the character, however, were rather nasty. – The Public Domain Review
- We Should Worry About How AI Might Change Us With Its Use
How, then, could an automated oracle help? It cannot tell you what to feel, because feeling is not something you can summon by obedience. But neither can it settle the matter by telling you what to do. Reasons matter, and to be a morally responsible agent you must reason for yourself. – Humanist Review
PEOPLE
- The Kids Are Fine. Check On Grandpa.
Good Morning,
Every few years America convenes a panic about young people abandoning culture. Today’s stories suggest we’ve been watching the wrong generation. Since 2003, daily reading time among older Americans has nearly halved. BUT it’s the young whose reading habits are growing (New York Times). And they’re not just holding: Gen Z is choosing culture that puts bodies in rooms together, movie theaters included (New York Times), buying novels by the pallet because BookTok said so (New Yorker), and nursing a curious nostalgia for decades they never lived in (Big Think). The generation raised on screens turns out to be the one hungriest for what screens can’t deliver. That’s not a paradox, it’s a market opportunity.
Governments, meanwhile, keep confirming culture’s power by trying to control it. Hong Kong authorities delivered an unsubtle warning to the city’s booksellers (AP), while the White House’s fixation on the Smithsonian’s version of American history is less about museums than about who gets to narrate the country (New York Times).
Fitting, then, that a Warsaw exhibition argues the Surrealists were the original anti-fascists (ARTnews).
All of our stories below.
- Surrealists Were The Original Antifa
“While Surrealism is figured as a style in popular imagination — trippy, dreamy, and escapist, detached from reality in every way — (the exhibition) ‘In the Very Bowels of Change: Surrealism and Antifascism’ reminds just how much the movement was formed in response to the politics of its time.” – Art in America
- AI-Created Music – What We Can Learn From Copyright History
AI can now generate songs, images, novels and artworks in seconds. Many of these works are already being streamed, licensed and sold. This raises an increasingly important question: should works produced without direct human authorship receive copyright protection? – The Conversation
- How The Pedant Became A Stock Character In Theater
Going all the way back to before 1600, the cantankerous, pompous, book-smart nincompoop has been a figure of mockery on European stages, a target for venting people’s dislike for know-it-all behavior. Some of the stereotypes associated with the character, however, were rather nasty. – The Public Domain Review
- We Should Worry About How AI Might Change Us With Its Use
How, then, could an automated oracle help? It cannot tell you what to feel, because feeling is not something you can summon by obedience. But neither can it settle the matter by telling you what to do. Reasons matter, and to be a morally responsible agent you must reason for yourself. – Humanist Review
THEATRE
VISUAL
- AI-Created Music – What We Can Learn From Copyright History
AI can now generate songs, images, novels and artworks in seconds. Many of these works are already being streamed, licensed and sold. This raises an increasingly important question: should works produced without direct human authorship receive copyright protection? – The Conversation
- We Should Worry About How AI Might Change Us With Its Use
How, then, could an automated oracle help? It cannot tell you what to feel, because feeling is not something you can summon by obedience. But neither can it settle the matter by telling you what to do. Reasons matter, and to be a morally responsible agent you must reason for yourself. – Humanist Review
- What If Smartphones Are Not Responsible For What Ails Our Kids?
Which change that happened 15 years ago was the real source of so much misery for children? “You can’t run experiments on history,” Haidt said, so we’ll never be able to prove that smartphones and social media caused the steep decline in youth mental health. – The Atlantic
- Gen Z Has Big Nostalgia For Eras Before They Were Born
- Culture Shift: Why Young People Are Choosing Culture That Brings Them Together
We human beings remain stubbornly, beautifully starving for one another. More surprising — and heartening — we are looking upward and outward, and returning to one another after being tethered for so long to our screens. This all portends well for the entertainment business, no doubt. – The New York Times