AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- The Cost of being Average
Good Morning,
Two stories today work the same question from opposite ends: what’s worth paying for once competence is free? Fast Company makes the blunt case that average-quality work — the reliable professional output most careers are built on — now carries close to zero market value (Fast Company). Nature takes up the other half, asking whether a machine that has mastered competence could ever produce the leap that produced relativity (Nature). If the answer stays no, the premium doesn’t vanish. It moves.
Institutions are having a parallel argument about whose currency they’re valued in. The BBC has to renegotiate the terms of its own existence every decade, and the charter process now underway will be settled largely out of public view (The Guardian). Netflix, which spent years insisting box office was a dead metric, will report grosses for the first time — for an Oscar contender (The Wrap).
Underneath, the middle keeps thinning: Detroit’s symphony has cut three staff positions (Encore Michigan), and Bristol Old Vic is offering buyouts (Bristol Live).
In Nairobi, acrobats have worked out that the city’s traffic jams are a venue (AP). No discovery problem, no ticketing problem, and the audience can’t leave.
All of our stories below.
- The Acrobats Who Entertain Drivers Stuck In Nairobi’s Horrendous Traffic Jams
“Nairobi’s street acrobats first began appearing in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, and they have since become normalized at traffic stops in and around the city, with acrobats taking advantage of gridlocks to perform in exchange for cash tips. It is how they earn a living.” – AP
- What Jonathan Swift Warned Us About Reading
“Far from merely raising a reactionary fist in the air at the new science, Swift identified an attitude that is still around today — and one that has created many of the greatest challenges now facing educators.” – The Dial
- How, And Why, The BBC Must Renegotiate The Terms Of Its Existence Every Decade
The BBC’s charter, the legal document which enables the national broadcaster’s existence, must be renewed every ten years. That renewal results from a multi-year negotiation, with plenty of public participation, between the network and the national government — a process largely hidden from public view. – The Guardian
- For The First Time, Netflix Will Report Box Office Numbers
Netflix will start reporting box office grosses with its upcoming expected Oscar contender, “La Bola Negra,” a queer drama from directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi that the mega-streamer acquired after its acclaimed premiere at Cannes earlier this year. – The Wrap
ISSUES
- Louisville’s Speed Museum Gets A New Leader
The Speed Art Museum, which is Kentucky’s oldest and largest museum with around 15,000 objects in its collection, will celebrate its 100th anniversary next year. – ARTnews
- Brussels’s Big, Contentious, Expensive New Contemporary Art Museum Has Set Its Opening Date
“After a crisis-ridden decade of planning and renovations and more than €250 million ($290 million), the 430,000-square-foot Kanal-Centre Pompidou complex is set to open on November 28, when it will become the Belgian capital city’s only major modern and contemporary art museum.” – ARTnews
- London’s Bayeux Mania
When it arrived at the British Museum in mid-July from its home in Bayeux, northern France, news channels covered the tapestry’s return as though it were a returning war hero rather than an embroidery inside a crate in the back of a truck. The interest has barely let up since. – The New York Times
- Getty Center In L.A. Temporarily Closed Due To Brush Fire
The fire, which was reported around 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, apparently broke out near the Getty Center parking lot and progressed along the 405 Freeway. The blaze was contained later that evening and evacuation orders have been lifted, but the museum will remain closed on Thursday. – Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
- Will The Lucas Museum Disrupt Museums?
The museum calls it “narrative art,” defined as art “created to tell stories through images.” George Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson, have also described their collection as “the people’s art.” – Los Angeles Times
MEDIA
- Arts Centre Melbourne Workers’ Conflicts To Win Better Pay
Where in most other industries bargaining occurs between workers and employers, in subsidised cultural institutions wage negotiations are often inseparable from questions of government support. – The Conversation
- Can The 9/11 Museum Keep Going Like This?
“As one of New York’s most popular cultural destinations, it faces a number of challenges: how to evolve its sensitive content, reach a generation with no memory of the tragedy, and secure its financial future as former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, its primary benefactor, ages.” – The New York Times
- The Making Of American Sophistication
Sophistication, one begins to think, is a thing won against the grain of privilege—a substitute for it, a social sleight of hand. A “classy” entertainer is almost never someone from the upper classes; sophisticated people are mostly smart people passing as rich people. – The New Yorker
- The Meaning Of Lonnie Bunch Leaving The Smithsonian
What this administration cannot capture directly of the country’s culture, it destroys with chaos, making life intolerable for people who persevere in the audacious belief that things like “the increase and diffusion of knowledge” actually matter. – Washington Post (Yahoo)
- Appalled Eiffel Tower Staffers Strike After Their Female Colleagues Are Told To Make Themselves Scarce
“The Eiffel Tower closed Monday due to strikes over outrage that female workers were allegedly ordered to leave and stay out of sight to comply with a special request from a traditional Hindu delegation that visited the monument over the weekend.” – ARTnews
MUSIC
- The Market For Non-Fiction Is Collapsing
The nonfiction collapse has profound implications for the industry. Nonfiction, historically, has always been seen as the more stable part of the business for logical reasons. The demand for nonfiction has always felt more predictable than fiction. – Dear Head of Mine
- Helen Vendler On Inhabiting Poetry
Vendler spent a lifetime – which ended in April 2024 – writing about lyric poetry. She believed literary criticism was about the pleasure of describing complex things and conveying the joy of understanding them to others. – London Review of Books
- Robert Pinsky Wins Poetry Foundation’s $100,000 Ruth Lilly Prize
“Pinsky, an acclaimed poet and translator who served as U.S. laureate under the auspices of the Library of Congress from 1997-2000, won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. He has long enjoyed recognition beyond the poetry world, even making public appearances with fellow New Jersey native Bruce Springsteen.” – AP
- How Allen Ginsburg’s “Howl” Became A Free-Speech Landmark
In 1957, undercover police bought a copy of the poetry collection which featured “Howl” at City Lights bookstore in San Francisco — and proceeded to arrest owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti and manager Shig Murao for selling obscene material. Their trial set a major precedent in First Amendment case law. – BBC (MSN)
- We Need Word Detectives
We appreciate that each of us is a link in a millennia-long chain of language, connected to people over the centuries by the words they bequeathed us. Following where, and through whom, that chain has passed is the business of etymology. – Psyche
PEOPLE
- The Cost of being Average
Good Morning,
Two stories today work the same question from opposite ends: what’s worth paying for once competence is free? Fast Company makes the blunt case that average-quality work — the reliable professional output most careers are built on — now carries close to zero market value (Fast Company). Nature takes up the other half, asking whether a machine that has mastered competence could ever produce the leap that produced relativity (Nature). If the answer stays no, the premium doesn’t vanish. It moves.
Institutions are having a parallel argument about whose currency they’re valued in. The BBC has to renegotiate the terms of its own existence every decade, and the charter process now underway will be settled largely out of public view (The Guardian). Netflix, which spent years insisting box office was a dead metric, will report grosses for the first time — for an Oscar contender (The Wrap).
Underneath, the middle keeps thinning: Detroit’s symphony has cut three staff positions (Encore Michigan), and Bristol Old Vic is offering buyouts (Bristol Live).
In Nairobi, acrobats have worked out that the city’s traffic jams are a venue (AP). No discovery problem, no ticketing problem, and the audience can’t leave.
All of our stories below.
- The Acrobats Who Entertain Drivers Stuck In Nairobi’s Horrendous Traffic Jams
“Nairobi’s street acrobats first began appearing in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, and they have since become normalized at traffic stops in and around the city, with acrobats taking advantage of gridlocks to perform in exchange for cash tips. It is how they earn a living.” – AP
- What Jonathan Swift Warned Us About Reading
“Far from merely raising a reactionary fist in the air at the new science, Swift identified an attitude that is still around today — and one that has created many of the greatest challenges now facing educators.” – The Dial
- How, And Why, The BBC Must Renegotiate The Terms Of Its Existence Every Decade
The BBC’s charter, the legal document which enables the national broadcaster’s existence, must be renewed every ten years. That renewal results from a multi-year negotiation, with plenty of public participation, between the network and the national government — a process largely hidden from public view. – The Guardian
- For The First Time, Netflix Will Report Box Office Numbers
Netflix will start reporting box office grosses with its upcoming expected Oscar contender, “La Bola Negra,” a queer drama from directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi that the mega-streamer acquired after its acclaimed premiere at Cannes earlier this year. – The Wrap
PEOPLE
- The Cost of being Average
Good Morning,
Two stories today work the same question from opposite ends: what’s worth paying for once competence is free? Fast Company makes the blunt case that average-quality work — the reliable professional output most careers are built on — now carries close to zero market value (Fast Company). Nature takes up the other half, asking whether a machine that has mastered competence could ever produce the leap that produced relativity (Nature). If the answer stays no, the premium doesn’t vanish. It moves.
Institutions are having a parallel argument about whose currency they’re valued in. The BBC has to renegotiate the terms of its own existence every decade, and the charter process now underway will be settled largely out of public view (The Guardian). Netflix, which spent years insisting box office was a dead metric, will report grosses for the first time — for an Oscar contender (The Wrap).
Underneath, the middle keeps thinning: Detroit’s symphony has cut three staff positions (Encore Michigan), and Bristol Old Vic is offering buyouts (Bristol Live).
In Nairobi, acrobats have worked out that the city’s traffic jams are a venue (AP). No discovery problem, no ticketing problem, and the audience can’t leave.
All of our stories below.
- The Acrobats Who Entertain Drivers Stuck In Nairobi’s Horrendous Traffic Jams
“Nairobi’s street acrobats first began appearing in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, and they have since become normalized at traffic stops in and around the city, with acrobats taking advantage of gridlocks to perform in exchange for cash tips. It is how they earn a living.” – AP
- What Jonathan Swift Warned Us About Reading
“Far from merely raising a reactionary fist in the air at the new science, Swift identified an attitude that is still around today — and one that has created many of the greatest challenges now facing educators.” – The Dial
- How, And Why, The BBC Must Renegotiate The Terms Of Its Existence Every Decade
The BBC’s charter, the legal document which enables the national broadcaster’s existence, must be renewed every ten years. That renewal results from a multi-year negotiation, with plenty of public participation, between the network and the national government — a process largely hidden from public view. – The Guardian
- For The First Time, Netflix Will Report Box Office Numbers
Netflix will start reporting box office grosses with its upcoming expected Oscar contender, “La Bola Negra,” a queer drama from directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi that the mega-streamer acquired after its acclaimed premiere at Cannes earlier this year. – The Wrap
THEATRE
VISUAL
- What Jonathan Swift Warned Us About Reading
“Far from merely raising a reactionary fist in the air at the new science, Swift identified an attitude that is still around today — and one that has created many of the greatest challenges now facing educators.” – The Dial
- When “Average-Level” Work Is Worth Nothing
When competent work is available at nearly zero cost, it provides little competitive advantage. We have seen versions of this value shift before: Cloud computing changed the skills required to manage infrastructure and GPS reduced the value of navigational skills. AI brought on a similar reset across a broader range of knowledge work. – Fast Company
- Could AI Ever Make a Relativity-Level Discovery?
As philosophers of science have long recognized, that such advances require not inductive reasoning that derives a general rule from the accumulation of data or examples, but abductive reasoning: “a creative leap that invents a cause for a singular phenomenon”. – Nature
- Many Students Are Sick Of AI
“Obviously, failing and struggling is not fun, but the sense of pride and succeeding afterwards is very, very motivating for me. And I don’t think you’d get that same kick or that same hit from getting a ninety from ChatGPT versus getting a ninety over an essay where you spent six hours in a basement.” – The Walrus
- How Knowledge Is Assembled
Just because something makes sense doesn’t mean that it’s true. Even valid reasoning cannot establish that its starting premises are correct. Even today, science continues to rely on experience, reasoning, and knowledge passed down by others. Much of the scientific process comes down to how we check our knowledge. – 3 Quarks Daily