AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- David Sedaris Confesses His Duolingo Addiction
“My problem arose when I discovered Duolingo’s competitive aspect, when I learned that it is essentially a game. … This means forgoing any real learning, and earning easy points by simply reading sentences out loud.” An excerpt from his latest book, The Land and Its People. – The Guardian
- What Makes A Rhythm Propulsive
What makes a rhythm distinctive or catchy? The answer lies in the pattern that underlies the structure. Much of human creativity beyond rhythm and music is also shaped by the math underneath the patterns. – The Conversation
- Ballet Costumes Are Shockingly Labor-Intensive
“Beading and sequins, silk bodices and boning, plus 10 layers of pleated net, all painstakingly cut and dyed by hand before being sewn together. … ‘If you break it down to five days a week, 40 hours, it’s usually about two weeks. To make one tutu.’” – The i Paper
- It’s Expensive To Enter Australia’s Art Prize Competitions. But Hard To Give Them Up
In today’s landscape, prizes are no longer a nice little extra, or a back pat that arrives at the end of a long and successful career. They’re a serious part of the machinery. – ArtsHub
- Do We Have A Facts Problem Or An Interpretation-Of-Facts Problem?
Citizens can agree on verifiable facts and still inhabit different worlds, because facts do not interpret themselves. To see why, we need to look beyond narrow factual disagreements to the competing systems of interpretation through which people select, categorize, frame, connect, explain, and narrate facts. – Persuasion
ISSUES
- It’s Expensive To Enter Australia’s Art Prize Competitions. But Hard To Give Them Up
In today’s landscape, prizes are no longer a nice little extra, or a back pat that arrives at the end of a long and successful career. They’re a serious part of the machinery. – ArtsHub
- DePaul Museum Just Closed. But Its Collection Will Stay On Campus
The DePaul Art Museum announcement came two months after the university laid off 114 full-time and part-time staff. Administrators referenced financial troubles due to a significant drop in international graduate student enrollment, increased demand for financial aid and the rising costs of benefits. – WBEZ
- Zelenskyy Suggests A Replacement For The Long-Toppled Lenin Monument In Kyiv
The statue of the father of the USSR was pulled down by demonstrators during the Euromaidan demonstrations in 2013; the pedestal has stood empty ever since. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy has officially proposed that a bust of Ivan Mazepa, who led the Cossack state from 1687 to 1709, should go in that spot. – ARTnews
- As Many Traditional Museums Struggle, The Museum Of Ice Cream And Museum Of Balloons Are Raking The Visitor Dollars In
“When audience levels have plateaued at many traditional museums, the ability of entertainment companies styled as arts institutions to siphon away visitors poses a new challenge to the industry.” As one think-tank director said, “The culture has diverged, and museums could have done more to seem relevant to people.” – The New York Times
- New Seizures Of Looted Met Museum Art: Total Now $95M
Investigators since 2017 have seized more than 120 artifacts from the Met ranging in value from $20,000 to $26 million, plus hundreds of smaller items, such as rare pottery fragments, belt clasps, ax heads, safety pins and goddess figurines, according to an inventory by the office of Manhattan district attorney Alvin L. Bragg. – The New York Times
MEDIA
- The Think Tank Leading Trump’s War On Education
The think tank has crafted model legislation to remake colleges and universities as race-blind institutions, fueled the campaign to oust Claudine Gay as president of Harvard, and turned City Journal, its quarterly magazine, into a platform for attacking diversity programs, grade inflation, and university presidents’ capitulation to the demands of left-leaning students and faculty. – Chronicle of Higher Education
- Trump Administration Wiped All Mention Of Slavery From Two More Historic Sites In Philadelphia
In addition to the much-litigated case of the George Washington house site, all references to enslaved people were quietly removed from Independence Hall and from the wall panel text for the Thomas Jefferson portrait at the nearby Second Bank of the United States. – The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
- General Custer And The Changing Cultural Record
Artists and writers have interpreted and reinterpreted George Armstrong Custer, who died in a storied battle that just had a major anniversary. – The New York Times
- Philadelphia Cultural Fund And Mural Arts Philadelphia To Make Deep Cuts After Funding Reductions From City
“The Cultural Fund will be forced to reduce the number of grants it had been expecting to distribute in the coming year, from 332 to 232. It has changed its eligibility requirements, eliminating grants to a pool of midsize organizations.” Mural Arts, meanwhile, is reducing its budget by 26%. – The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
- New York’s Little Island Has Cut Its Performance Schedule In Half
Last summer the outdoor venue on stilts in the Hudson River presented 100 performances over four months; this year’s season is offering 56 performances over six weeks. The stated reason for the change is that funder Barry Diller “wants to take programming in a different direction.” – The New York Times
MUSIC
- Tween Girls Read A Variety Of Books While Tween Boys Stick With Grade-School-Age Fiction: Study
“Among the boys aged 11 to 14 who were surveyed, eight of the 10 most read books were from Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Girls’ reading was spread across a wider range of authors and genres including Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper … and Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games.” – The Guardian
- What I Learned About Myself Through Translating
“Translators like to say, we discover our authors,” writes translator and novelist Anton Hur. “But maybe we’re wrong. Maybe the books choose us.” – American Scholar
- For The First Time, The Complete Text Of A Vesuvius Scroll Has Been Deciphered
These 1,800 papyrus scrolls from Herculaneum, the only such library collection from ancient Rome to survive, were carbonized by the Vesuvius eruption; the scrolls would crumble if physically unrolled, so scientists are using X-ray and AI technology to decipher them. The first scroll to be completely readable is a text about Stoicism. – Smithsonian Magazine
- Mounting Scientific Evidence That Reading On Screens Results In Lower Comprehension
Reading comprehension was significantly lower when the students read on screens. The researchers also found that the number of “transitions,” where students would go back and re-read the text before submitting their answers, more than doubled—and in some cases tripled—when kids read on screens. – Time
- Why You Need To Be A Better Reader
Navigating today’s digital information landscape requires strong critical evaluation skills. Reading plays a central role in this process by serving not only as a means of acquiring information but also of distinguishing credible claims from misinformation. But only a specific kind of reading builds that capacity. The difference is between passive and active reading. – The Conversation
PEOPLE
- David Sedaris Confesses His Duolingo Addiction
“My problem arose when I discovered Duolingo’s competitive aspect, when I learned that it is essentially a game. … This means forgoing any real learning, and earning easy points by simply reading sentences out loud.” An excerpt from his latest book, The Land and Its People. – The Guardian
- What Makes A Rhythm Propulsive
What makes a rhythm distinctive or catchy? The answer lies in the pattern that underlies the structure. Much of human creativity beyond rhythm and music is also shaped by the math underneath the patterns. – The Conversation
- Ballet Costumes Are Shockingly Labor-Intensive
“Beading and sequins, silk bodices and boning, plus 10 layers of pleated net, all painstakingly cut and dyed by hand before being sewn together. … ‘If you break it down to five days a week, 40 hours, it’s usually about two weeks. To make one tutu.’” – The i Paper
- It’s Expensive To Enter Australia’s Art Prize Competitions. But Hard To Give Them Up
In today’s landscape, prizes are no longer a nice little extra, or a back pat that arrives at the end of a long and successful career. They’re a serious part of the machinery. – ArtsHub
- Do We Have A Facts Problem Or An Interpretation-Of-Facts Problem?
Citizens can agree on verifiable facts and still inhabit different worlds, because facts do not interpret themselves. To see why, we need to look beyond narrow factual disagreements to the competing systems of interpretation through which people select, categorize, frame, connect, explain, and narrate facts. – Persuasion
PEOPLE
- David Sedaris Confesses His Duolingo Addiction
“My problem arose when I discovered Duolingo’s competitive aspect, when I learned that it is essentially a game. … This means forgoing any real learning, and earning easy points by simply reading sentences out loud.” An excerpt from his latest book, The Land and Its People. – The Guardian
- What Makes A Rhythm Propulsive
What makes a rhythm distinctive or catchy? The answer lies in the pattern that underlies the structure. Much of human creativity beyond rhythm and music is also shaped by the math underneath the patterns. – The Conversation
- Ballet Costumes Are Shockingly Labor-Intensive
“Beading and sequins, silk bodices and boning, plus 10 layers of pleated net, all painstakingly cut and dyed by hand before being sewn together. … ‘If you break it down to five days a week, 40 hours, it’s usually about two weeks. To make one tutu.’” – The i Paper
- It’s Expensive To Enter Australia’s Art Prize Competitions. But Hard To Give Them Up
In today’s landscape, prizes are no longer a nice little extra, or a back pat that arrives at the end of a long and successful career. They’re a serious part of the machinery. – ArtsHub
- Do We Have A Facts Problem Or An Interpretation-Of-Facts Problem?
Citizens can agree on verifiable facts and still inhabit different worlds, because facts do not interpret themselves. To see why, we need to look beyond narrow factual disagreements to the competing systems of interpretation through which people select, categorize, frame, connect, explain, and narrate facts. – Persuasion
THEATRE
VISUAL
- Do We Have A Facts Problem Or An Interpretation-Of-Facts Problem?
Citizens can agree on verifiable facts and still inhabit different worlds, because facts do not interpret themselves. To see why, we need to look beyond narrow factual disagreements to the competing systems of interpretation through which people select, categorize, frame, connect, explain, and narrate facts. – Persuasion
- Why It’s So Difficult To Calculate Benefits And Costs Of Technology Innovation
When a tool reliably performs a cognitive operation, the internal capacity for that operation tends to weaken with disuse. People who know they can look up something on Google develop weaker memory for the information itself, and habitual GPS users show measurable decline in hippocampal-dependent spatial navigation. – Aeon
- Why Leisure Is A Tough Gig
Give people an hour with nothing scheduled, and many fill it with thoughts of to-dos: the unanswered email, the errand that’s been put off, the project due next week. Free time is sometimes less a chance to rest than an opportunity to take inventory of our obligations. – The Atlantic
- Does Listening To Music While You Work Help You Focus?
Researchers generally agree that the relationship between music and learning is complex. The effects of music on studying and other cognitively demanding tasks appear to depend on the type of task performed, the kind of music and the students themselves. – The Conversation
- When Being A Critic Was Glamorous
If you look at these people—literally look at photos or watch footage—you discover that they were either beautiful or charismatic, or both. They all appeared on television. Among fiction writers of that time, maybe Philip Roth had some of that swagger, quick wit, amused air, though he also had a professorial, sweater-wearing side. – The Ideas Letter
