AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- The Problem With Philadelphia Ballet’s New Home
Architecture critic Inga Saffron observes that, if the company wants to be welcoming to the community and engage potential new fans, their new headquarters does exactly the wrong thing. – The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
- North American Tour Of “The Lion King” Will Close While Julie Taymor Retools It
The current touring production, which dates from 2002, will close on August 15 of next year, allowing director Taymor and the rest of the creative team to reimagine and update elements of the staging. – Playbill
- New Philadelphia Orchestra Contract Will Take Musicians’ Pay Past $200K Mark
“Musicians and management of the Philadelphia Orchestra have struck a tentative agreement on a new three-year labor deal. The pact … would, if ratified, put the base minimum salary of orchestra members at $200,008 annually by the end of the contract.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
- Both Its Stars Having Pulled Out, West End’s “Sunday In The Park With George” Is Called Off
There was a lot of excitement when Ariana Grande and Jonathan Bailey (who co-starred in the Wicked films) confirmed they would headline a London revival of the musical next summer. Without them, the producers have evidently concluded there’s no way forward. – The Hollywood Reporter
- “Widow’s Bay,” “The Pitt,” And “DTF St. Louis” Dominate 2026 Emmy Awards
“Apple TV’s new horror comedy Widow’s Bay led the way, … winning a leading 14 trophies out of 19 nominations. … HBO’s medical drama The Pitt followed with seven awards out of 25 nominations, the most for any series this year. … In the limited series race, DTF St. Louis also led with seven wins.” – Variety
ISSUES
- George Lucas’ New Temple To Storytelling
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which opens this month in Exposition Park, just south of downtown Los Angeles, is a swooping, brain-beggaring, super-sexy, twin-bodied leviathan of a megastructure, white as the gown of Princess Leia, half spaceship, half cetacean, all curves, Shangri-la for skateboarders if they could ever get inside. – The Atlantic
- David Salle On Museum Politics
Is it possible to make qualitative judgements in an unbiased way? Maybe not. Some people feel that the whole idea of making judgements is just another form of cultural oppression. On one level, aesthetic preferences are all cultural. Take for one example the preference for consonant music over dissonant—it’s cultural, not intrinsic. – Artnet
- Restored Giotto Frescoes Unveiled
The newly vibrant “Stories of St. Francis” were shown to the public last week in the Basilica of Santa Croce, just in time for the 800th anniversary of the saint’s death on Oct. 4. – AP News
- Desecrating DC To Own The Libs
The Trump Arch is just the latest in a series of architectural and visual crimes committed on the capital city. – The Guardian (UK)
- Solving Divisions On The Mall Or Campus With, Maybe, Architecture?
“In recent decades, debates over the architecture of the American college and university campus have been nearly as fraught as battles over the National Mall.” – The New York Times
MEDIA
- More Dance Clubs Prohibit Cameras And Smart Glasses
That desire to disconnect comes as technology has fundamentally changed what it means to go out. In the 1990s rave scene, there was no smartphone in your pocket and no expectation that a night out would be documented and shared online. – CBC
- The Current US President May Be Winning His War On The Smithsonian’s Independence
Director Lonnie G. Bunch III “realized that — one way or another — he was probably not going to last through this administration, that the White House was intent on taking over the Smithsonian.” So he resigned, in part to save the institutions. – The New York Times
- Trump’s Kennedy Center Appointees Say The Way To Avoid Bankruptcy And Closure Is To Put His Name On The Building
“Center officials say they could be unable to make payroll or pay routine maintenance contracts ‘within a matter of weeks’ and argue that publicly recognizing Trump could secure his help raising enough money to keep the institution afloat.” – Washington Post (Yahoo)
- Anime Reaction YouTubers Are At War With Their Platform
You see, reaction videos are based on copyrighted material. You’d think that fair use applied here, and, well, yes, but some reaction vid makers say “the way Remove Your Media has been going after creators is abusive and unrelated to any legitimate interest in protecting copyrighted IP.” – The Verge
- How, Exactly, Will AI Transform Capitalism?
We know AI is going to change everything, but how? “We face a choice: delay and obstruct AI adoption in the name of social justice, or embrace it in a radically altered form.” – The Guardian (UK)
MUSIC
- Four Million Books Were Published In The US Last Year. 3.5M Of Them Were Self-Published
U.S. title output reached roughly four million in 2025, up about 32 percent in a single year, and around 3.5 million of those were self-published titles with ISBNs, up nearly 39 percent on the year before. Self-published books outnumbered traditionally published ones by more than five to one. – Rachel Alterberry
- That Time When Russian Printers Went On Strike Over Commas
“At the time, printers were paid by the letter set, but this didn’t include punctuation.” The workers were not having it. – LitHub
- Young Africans Are Sparking A Renewal Of Interest In African Languages
“Experts say the revival in some of them is driven partly by second- and third-generation Africans in the diaspora finding it easier to reconnect with their roots and communicate with older relatives, thanks to social media, online learning and entertainment.” – AP
- A New Survey Of Readers To Find Out How They Discover Books
The survey will talk to 5,000 book buyers and profile them by genre, covering how they discover books across every channel—including social media and other digital tools—where and how they buy, and their mix of print, e-book, and audio, with a deeper look at audio habits, subscription behavior, etc. – Publishers Weekly
- 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
PEOPLE
- The Problem With Philadelphia Ballet’s New Home
Architecture critic Inga Saffron observes that, if the company wants to be welcoming to the community and engage potential new fans, their new headquarters does exactly the wrong thing. – The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
- North American Tour Of “The Lion King” Will Close While Julie Taymor Retools It
The current touring production, which dates from 2002, will close on August 15 of next year, allowing director Taymor and the rest of the creative team to reimagine and update elements of the staging. – Playbill
- New Philadelphia Orchestra Contract Will Take Musicians’ Pay Past $200K Mark
“Musicians and management of the Philadelphia Orchestra have struck a tentative agreement on a new three-year labor deal. The pact … would, if ratified, put the base minimum salary of orchestra members at $200,008 annually by the end of the contract.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
- Both Its Stars Having Pulled Out, West End’s “Sunday In The Park With George” Is Called Off
There was a lot of excitement when Ariana Grande and Jonathan Bailey (who co-starred in the Wicked films) confirmed they would headline a London revival of the musical next summer. Without them, the producers have evidently concluded there’s no way forward. – The Hollywood Reporter
- “Widow’s Bay,” “The Pitt,” And “DTF St. Louis” Dominate 2026 Emmy Awards
“Apple TV’s new horror comedy Widow’s Bay led the way, … winning a leading 14 trophies out of 19 nominations. … HBO’s medical drama The Pitt followed with seven awards out of 25 nominations, the most for any series this year. … In the limited series race, DTF St. Louis also led with seven wins.” – Variety
PEOPLE
- The Problem With Philadelphia Ballet’s New Home
Architecture critic Inga Saffron observes that, if the company wants to be welcoming to the community and engage potential new fans, their new headquarters does exactly the wrong thing. – The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
- North American Tour Of “The Lion King” Will Close While Julie Taymor Retools It
The current touring production, which dates from 2002, will close on August 15 of next year, allowing director Taymor and the rest of the creative team to reimagine and update elements of the staging. – Playbill
- New Philadelphia Orchestra Contract Will Take Musicians’ Pay Past $200K Mark
“Musicians and management of the Philadelphia Orchestra have struck a tentative agreement on a new three-year labor deal. The pact … would, if ratified, put the base minimum salary of orchestra members at $200,008 annually by the end of the contract.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
- Both Its Stars Having Pulled Out, West End’s “Sunday In The Park With George” Is Called Off
There was a lot of excitement when Ariana Grande and Jonathan Bailey (who co-starred in the Wicked films) confirmed they would headline a London revival of the musical next summer. Without them, the producers have evidently concluded there’s no way forward. – The Hollywood Reporter
- “Widow’s Bay,” “The Pitt,” And “DTF St. Louis” Dominate 2026 Emmy Awards
“Apple TV’s new horror comedy Widow’s Bay led the way, … winning a leading 14 trophies out of 19 nominations. … HBO’s medical drama The Pitt followed with seven awards out of 25 nominations, the most for any series this year. … In the limited series race, DTF St. Louis also led with seven wins.” – Variety
THEATRE
VISUAL
- Angela Duckworth Takes On Will Power
High-profile authors are obviously under pressure to offer novel frameworks, but rarely do these second acts feel like an about-face. Duckworth insists that “Situated” is not a reversal but an expansion of her earlier research; as an account of individual success, grit is “necessary but not sufficient,” and must be complemented by the larger picture. – The New Yorker
- What Hollywood Has Done To Our Ideas Of Sex In Ancient Egypt
A lot of sexual positions are “practically only for the gods,” not for regular people, or even non-deified monarchs. – El País English
- Is Talk Of Extinction Simply Meant To Distract Us From The True Threats Of AI?
Timnit Gebru: Sometimes “I read quotes to people about artificial intelligence that I’ve gathered in my research, and I ask, What decade was this statement made in? Sometimes people get it right, but a lot of times they do not, because it all sounds the same.” – Wired
- Cockroach Milk, Underpants Soil Testing, A Scientific Definition Of Kissing: The 2026 Ig Nobel Prizes
“Winning work highlighted during the 36th annual award ceremony” (which was in Zurich this year rather than Boston) “included hilarious research on the aerodynamics of nose blowing, gently stepping on venomous snakes, confirming that teenagers do indeed smell worse than babies and other side-splitting scientific undertakings.” – Smithsonian Magazine
- Flock’s Vision Of Surveillance Everywhere
Flock was reported to have a valuation of more than eight billion dollars, with its biggest investor being the venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Around forty per cent of the United States’ law-enforcement agencies now have contracts with the company, and a reported hundred and thirty thousand cameras monitor roads in every state but Alaska. – The New Yorker