AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Brent Ott talks about developing exhibits and programming to celebrate America 250
Brent Ott, Chief Operating Officer of The Henry Ford, talks about their historic exhibits and programming celebrating America 250.
- The battle for humanity
This Week’s Highlights:
With AI flooding the zone, the literary world is struggling to figure out an infrastructure to certify what’s human. The Commonwealth Short Story Prize ran its winners through a forensic review and publicly cleared them as AI-free (The Bookseller), while Granta, rattled by the same anxiety, said it will stop publishing outside prize winners it can’t vet (The Guardian). Meanwhile, The Atlantic produced a map (The Atlantic) of what music has been subsumed into the GenAI models.
Some unexpectedly good news in funding this week. Manhattan’s borough president routed his entire $50 million discretionary budget to the arts (The New York Times); Eugene Ballet woke to an unsolicited $1 million gift (Oregon ArtsWatch). And four small colleges added dance majors even while others have been cutting the humanities (Dance Magazine).
Then there was an account of Smithsonian chief Lonnie Bunch’s diplomacy at lunch with Trump while he spent the week working to keep the Smithsonian functional under political pressure (The Atlantic). Sadly, despite judicial decisions, the poor Kennedy Center still isn’t out of the wood. Leadership declared that while it will stay open (as the judge decreed, it isn’t required to book anyone at all (AP).
All this week’s stories below, organized by topic.
- Why Ballet Is A Natural Subject For Horror Movies
“Anyone who spends even a day with a professional dancer or a ballet troupe could likely come away and already have the core of a body horror flick ready just from seeing all the injuries strapped up and ignored, or hearing the stories of cut-throat auditions.” – Far Out
- A New Print-On-Demand Books Program For Libraries
Ingram Library Services and Penguin Random House have announced a print-on-demand program designed to supply libraries with popular backlist titles. – Publishers Weekly
- How A24 Blew Its Cool Factor With One Corporate Announcement
The indie movie studio was, for a sizable set of Americans under 40 or so, about as cool as a studio could get. (You never saw anyone wearing a Focus Features hoodie, right?) Then A24 announced a $75 million deal with Google’s AI venture, DeepMind. The fan base is furious. – The Hollywood Reporter
ISSUES
- Crystal Bridges Gets a New Chief Curator
Courtenay Finn is currently chief curator and director of programs at the Orange County Museum of Art, which merged with the University of California, Irvine last year. She has previously served as the chief curator at moCa Cleveland in Ohio, senior curator at the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado, and curator at Art in General in New York.
- After 83 Years, Norman Rockwell’s White House Painting Is Finally On Public View
In 1943, Rockwell painted a four-panel portrait of people waiting to see President Roosevelt. The artwork, called So You Want to See the President!, spent 40 years hanging in the West Wing; last year the White House Historical Association purchased the piece, which is now in a nearby museum. – USA Today
- Ancient Roman “Curse Tablet” Translated
Dutch archaeologists found this curse tablet in a pit beneath Heerlen‘s town hall square. Archaeologists often frequent this area situated amid the former site of Coriovallum, a Roman military settlement along the Via Belgica, which once connected Belgium’s Tongeren region to Cologne. – Artnet
- Archaeologists Discover Intact Ancient Mayan City
Located deep within the jungles of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, the city—which the researchers have named “Minanbé,” a Maya Yucatec phrase meaning “there is no road”—had been hidden by vegetation for over a thousand years. – ARTnews
- NYC’s Street-Scaffolding Sheds Are Ugly. Can We Design Something Better?
The city wants structures that will go up smoothly, look good while they last, and go away quickly. Those are separate goals, none of them easy to achieve. – New York Magazine (MSN)
MEDIA
- Report: Chicago’s Creative Sector Is The City’s Third-Largest Industry
The creative sector is Chicago’s third-largest industry and accounts for nearly 213,000 jobs, according to a new economic impact study released Thursday by Arts Alliance Illinois, a statewide advocacy organization. – WBEZ
- Royal Ballet And Opera In London To Eliminate 64 Staff Positions
“The reductions amount to roughly five percent of the organization’s current workforce of 1,169 staff. Nine of the cuts will involve compulsory redundancies, with the remainder expected to come from unfilled vacancies, voluntary departures, and natural turnover.” – OperaWire
- Southbank Center Chairman To Step Down After Social Media Controversy
In May, Misan Harriman was accused by the Telegraph of sharing a social media post that contained a conspiracy theory about the Golders Green attack because it questioned the amount of coverage given to the Muslim victim, Ishmail Hussein. – The Guardian
- The New Republic’s 15 Most Important Artworks In U.S. History
The editors have chosen four movies, six books, two songs, a piece of classical music, a painting, and a monument “whose impact extended beyond culture to society as a whole.” – The New Republic
- Revamp Of Philadelphia’s “Avenue Of The Arts”: The Beta Test Is Complete
“A landscaped median under construction for months in front of the Kimmel Center has reached completion — the down payment on a promised major redo of the Avenue of the Arts streetscape. The leafy ribbon down the middle of Broad Street from Spruce to Pine Streets was officially unveiled Wednesday.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
MUSIC
- A New Print-On-Demand Books Program For Libraries
Ingram Library Services and Penguin Random House have announced a print-on-demand program designed to supply libraries with popular backlist titles. – Publishers Weekly
- How Commonwealth Short Story Prize Determined That This Year’s Winners Are All AI-Free
“The Commonwealth Foundation asked writers to provide drafts, story outlines, manuscripts and other evidence of their creative process when investigating allegations of AI use surrounding this year’s Commonwealth Short Story Prize, director-general Razmi Farook has (said).” – The Bookseller (UK)
- Commonwealth Short Story Prize Determines That None Of This Year’s Winners Were Written By AI
“The Commonwealth Foundation dismissed accusations that the short stories which won its literary prize this year were generated with artificial intelligence, saying a month-long review had found ‘AI wasn’t used’ to write them.’” – The Independent (UK)
- Too Many Books, Too Quickly: Australia’s Publishing Industry Is Too Prolific For Its Own Good
“Talk to authors, talk to prize judges, talk to critics and to editors and you hear versions of the same story. … What might have been excellent books are marred by shoddy copy editing, flat-out errors, cursory proofreading — and, in some cases, an obvious lack of revision.” – The Guardian
- The Next Bookstore?
Samir Pail argues that the publishing industry is fundamentally flawed insofar as publishers and authors generate consumer demand, then hand buyers off to companies like Amazon, which takes a significant cut and then owns the customer relationship. – Publishers Weekly
PEOPLE
- Brent Ott talks about developing exhibits and programming to celebrate America 250
Brent Ott, Chief Operating Officer of The Henry Ford, talks about their historic exhibits and programming celebrating America 250.
- The battle for humanity
This Week’s Highlights:
With AI flooding the zone, the literary world is struggling to figure out an infrastructure to certify what’s human. The Commonwealth Short Story Prize ran its winners through a forensic review and publicly cleared them as AI-free (The Bookseller), while Granta, rattled by the same anxiety, said it will stop publishing outside prize winners it can’t vet (The Guardian). Meanwhile, The Atlantic produced a map (The Atlantic) of what music has been subsumed into the GenAI models.
Some unexpectedly good news in funding this week. Manhattan’s borough president routed his entire $50 million discretionary budget to the arts (The New York Times); Eugene Ballet woke to an unsolicited $1 million gift (Oregon ArtsWatch). And four small colleges added dance majors even while others have been cutting the humanities (Dance Magazine).
Then there was an account of Smithsonian chief Lonnie Bunch’s diplomacy at lunch with Trump while he spent the week working to keep the Smithsonian functional under political pressure (The Atlantic). Sadly, despite judicial decisions, the poor Kennedy Center still isn’t out of the wood. Leadership declared that while it will stay open (as the judge decreed, it isn’t required to book anyone at all (AP).
All this week’s stories below, organized by topic.
- Why Ballet Is A Natural Subject For Horror Movies
“Anyone who spends even a day with a professional dancer or a ballet troupe could likely come away and already have the core of a body horror flick ready just from seeing all the injuries strapped up and ignored, or hearing the stories of cut-throat auditions.” – Far Out
- A New Print-On-Demand Books Program For Libraries
Ingram Library Services and Penguin Random House have announced a print-on-demand program designed to supply libraries with popular backlist titles. – Publishers Weekly
- How A24 Blew Its Cool Factor With One Corporate Announcement
The indie movie studio was, for a sizable set of Americans under 40 or so, about as cool as a studio could get. (You never saw anyone wearing a Focus Features hoodie, right?) Then A24 announced a $75 million deal with Google’s AI venture, DeepMind. The fan base is furious. – The Hollywood Reporter
PEOPLE
- Brent Ott talks about developing exhibits and programming to celebrate America 250
Brent Ott, Chief Operating Officer of The Henry Ford, talks about their historic exhibits and programming celebrating America 250.
- The battle for humanity
This Week’s Highlights:
With AI flooding the zone, the literary world is struggling to figure out an infrastructure to certify what’s human. The Commonwealth Short Story Prize ran its winners through a forensic review and publicly cleared them as AI-free (The Bookseller), while Granta, rattled by the same anxiety, said it will stop publishing outside prize winners it can’t vet (The Guardian). Meanwhile, The Atlantic produced a map (The Atlantic) of what music has been subsumed into the GenAI models.
Some unexpectedly good news in funding this week. Manhattan’s borough president routed his entire $50 million discretionary budget to the arts (The New York Times); Eugene Ballet woke to an unsolicited $1 million gift (Oregon ArtsWatch). And four small colleges added dance majors even while others have been cutting the humanities (Dance Magazine).
Then there was an account of Smithsonian chief Lonnie Bunch’s diplomacy at lunch with Trump while he spent the week working to keep the Smithsonian functional under political pressure (The Atlantic). Sadly, despite judicial decisions, the poor Kennedy Center still isn’t out of the wood. Leadership declared that while it will stay open (as the judge decreed, it isn’t required to book anyone at all (AP).
All this week’s stories below, organized by topic.
- Why Ballet Is A Natural Subject For Horror Movies
“Anyone who spends even a day with a professional dancer or a ballet troupe could likely come away and already have the core of a body horror flick ready just from seeing all the injuries strapped up and ignored, or hearing the stories of cut-throat auditions.” – Far Out
- A New Print-On-Demand Books Program For Libraries
Ingram Library Services and Penguin Random House have announced a print-on-demand program designed to supply libraries with popular backlist titles. – Publishers Weekly
- How A24 Blew Its Cool Factor With One Corporate Announcement
The indie movie studio was, for a sizable set of Americans under 40 or so, about as cool as a studio could get. (You never saw anyone wearing a Focus Features hoodie, right?) Then A24 announced a $75 million deal with Google’s AI venture, DeepMind. The fan base is furious. – The Hollywood Reporter
THEATRE
VISUAL
- The Thinking Style That’s Susceptible To Extremism
I’ve found that some of the most rigid thinkers describe themselves as spectacularly flexible while the most flexible people are often unaware of their own adaptability. This is why, instead of relying on asking people how rigid they think they are, I began studying people’s unconscious thinking styles. – Psyche
- The Elusive Illusion Of Utopia (And Its Uses In Our Imagination)
Some patterns emerge: many utopias employ a framing device in which the narrator is accidentally or fantastically transported to a new land, and then subjected to reams of expository monologue about how it all works. – The Guardian
- What To Make Of The US Constitution When The Country Is In Turmoil?
How should we remember the American Revolution when millions march in the streets and shout “No Kings!”? When squads of masked thugs invade homes without warrant, kangaroo immigration “courts” deport hundreds of thousands without due process, and an executive agency buys up warehouses to use as internment camps? – Boston Review
- How AI Prompting Poses The Classic Writer’s Challenge
This is one novel frustration of the AI age, yet millions of users searching for the “right prompt” are engaging in an old literary practice: turning mental images, vague desires and atmospheric intuitions into precise language. – The Conversation
- Has Blogging Ceased To Matter?
Anyway, the reason I’m writing all of this is not to brag, but to complain. Over the last two years, I’ve felt like my job has become a bit less important than it used to be, for three reasons. – Noahpinion
