AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- The New LACMA: Architectural Drama At The Expense Of Art

Carolina Miranda: “In some ways, this freeway-like building could not be more LA: messy, sprawling, too big to take in from a single vantage point. In others — its embrace of the road and its relentless horizontal-ness — it seems stuck in a vision of the past.” – Bloomberg
- AI Can Make Anyone An “Influencer”

Across social media, an influx of A.I.-generated avatars is reshaping what it means to be an influencer. A Facebook group called Baddies in AI, geared toward women who are using A.I. to either augment their own social-media presence or create entirely new figures from scratch, has more than three hundred thousand members. – The New Yorker
- Who Does Trump Want To Hire To Redo The National Mall Reflecting Pool? His Pool Guy

Trump originally envisioned the pool being topped with turquoise so that it would look like the Bahamas, but was convinced by the contractor to choose “American flag blue” instead. – Artnet
- Former LiveNation Exec Says He Was Fired After Raising Concerns Over Business Practices

In his new position, Rumanes said, he raised “serious and legitimate alarm” over the company’s business practices. As a result, he says, he was “unlawfully terminated,” according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. – Los Angeles Times
- What Did It Take To Put Together The Met’s Epic Raphael Show?

The largest survey dedicated to the Renaissance master in the U.S. includes 33 of his paintings and 142 works on paper. About 60 public institutions from 11 countries sent their treasures by the man born Raphael Sanzio da Urbino (1483–1520). Private loans include his two most expensive works at auction. – Artnet
ISSUES
- The New LACMA: Architectural Drama At The Expense Of Art

Carolina Miranda: “In some ways, this freeway-like building could not be more LA: messy, sprawling, too big to take in from a single vantage point. In others — its embrace of the road and its relentless horizontal-ness — it seems stuck in a vision of the past.” – Bloomberg
- Who Does Trump Want To Hire To Redo The National Mall Reflecting Pool? His Pool Guy

Trump originally envisioned the pool being topped with turquoise so that it would look like the Bahamas, but was convinced by the contractor to choose “American flag blue” instead. – Artnet
- What Did It Take To Put Together The Met’s Epic Raphael Show?

The largest survey dedicated to the Renaissance master in the U.S. includes 33 of his paintings and 142 works on paper. About 60 public institutions from 11 countries sent their treasures by the man born Raphael Sanzio da Urbino (1483–1520). Private loans include his two most expensive works at auction. – Artnet
- Instagram Commenters Went Wild When Boston’s Museum Of Fine Arts Posted Nudes Online

But the museum was expecting – even welcoming – the commentary. – Boston Globe
- The Rocky Statue Has Entered The Building

That is to say, the Rocky Balboa statue is no longer on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art – it’s actually inside. Wild, because “when the bronze statue was left on the steps after filming the Rocky movies, the museum fought to have it removed.” – CBS News
MEDIA
- Ireland’s Artist Basic Income May Not Account For Artists With Disabilities
“Ó Ceallacháin says many artists with disabilities feel as though they need to “]exist between ‘professional enough’ to be a ‘real’ artist for the Department of Culture and ‘disabled enough’ to receive support from the Department of Social Protection.” – Irish Times
- The Deep, Inescapable Unease Of The New Michael Jackson Biopic
And ‘unease’ is too kind a way to put it: “Everything left unsaid still lingers between the lines, sandwiched between the formidable melodies of his greatest hits, like toxic ooze leaking out from the middle of two slices of Wonderbread.” – Salon
- News Publishers Are Trying To Prevent AI Scraping, But They’re Killing A Valuable History Service
Talk about the baby and the bathwater: “History needs stewards. The people of the Internet Archive do an outstanding job of preserving irreplaceable work and making it available to journalists and researchers.” – Nieman Lab
- A Binational $1.3 Million Program To Fund Individual Creatives In San Diego And Tijuana
“At its core, Artists Count consists of a $1.3 million fund, available to active artists in both San Diego and Tijuana. In addition, a companion study will focus on communities with the least access to resources, examining ‘the realities, challenges, and economic impact of working artists’ on both sides of the border.” – SanDiegoRed
- Send In The Pool Guy: Trump Wants To Replace The Capitol Mall Reflecting Pool
He complained that the 2,030-foor by 167-foot pool, which was built in 1922 between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, “never looked great” because the stone on the bottom of the pool was “not really meant to be a stone that’s underwater for that much of a period of time.” – The Independent
MUSIC
- Did Shakespeare Bring Down McCarthy?
Or was it Kit Marlowe, getting some long-delayed revenge on conservatives in government? – The Atlantic
- As Anyone With Literary Chops Knows, This Is A Big Deal
Haruki Murakami has a new novel coming out, and the narrator is … what? A woman?! – LitHub
- The German Government Really Isn’t Happy About This Guy’s Popular Novella
A fiction author gets a phone call from the government: “Jügler was asked to explain what historical source material he had consulted for Mayfly Season and which period he was planning to tackle in his next book.” – The Guardian (UK)
- How Are U.S. Libraries Doing Amid Book Bans And Culture Wars?
It’s rough in these reading streets. “Librarians across the country are fighting to maintain students’ access to books and to keep their jobs amid cuts to library programs and persistent efforts to restrict reading materials.” – Salon
- It’s Been A Century Since The Term ‘Scientifiction’ Was Coined
That was for Amazing Stories, a magazine that published Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and other stories driven both by ideas and some possibly limited characters (who could, however, fill science books with their thoughts). – NPR
PEOPLE
- The New LACMA: Architectural Drama At The Expense Of Art
Carolina Miranda: “In some ways, this freeway-like building could not be more LA: messy, sprawling, too big to take in from a single vantage point. In others — its embrace of the road and its relentless horizontal-ness — it seems stuck in a vision of the past.” – Bloomberg
- AI Can Make Anyone An “Influencer”
Across social media, an influx of A.I.-generated avatars is reshaping what it means to be an influencer. A Facebook group called Baddies in AI, geared toward women who are using A.I. to either augment their own social-media presence or create entirely new figures from scratch, has more than three hundred thousand members. – The New Yorker
- Who Does Trump Want To Hire To Redo The National Mall Reflecting Pool? His Pool Guy
Trump originally envisioned the pool being topped with turquoise so that it would look like the Bahamas, but was convinced by the contractor to choose “American flag blue” instead. – Artnet
- Former LiveNation Exec Says He Was Fired After Raising Concerns Over Business Practices
In his new position, Rumanes said, he raised “serious and legitimate alarm” over the company’s business practices. As a result, he says, he was “unlawfully terminated,” according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. – Los Angeles Times
- What Did It Take To Put Together The Met’s Epic Raphael Show?
The largest survey dedicated to the Renaissance master in the U.S. includes 33 of his paintings and 142 works on paper. About 60 public institutions from 11 countries sent their treasures by the man born Raphael Sanzio da Urbino (1483–1520). Private loans include his two most expensive works at auction. – Artnet
PEOPLE
- The New LACMA: Architectural Drama At The Expense Of Art
Carolina Miranda: “In some ways, this freeway-like building could not be more LA: messy, sprawling, too big to take in from a single vantage point. In others — its embrace of the road and its relentless horizontal-ness — it seems stuck in a vision of the past.” – Bloomberg
- AI Can Make Anyone An “Influencer”
Across social media, an influx of A.I.-generated avatars is reshaping what it means to be an influencer. A Facebook group called Baddies in AI, geared toward women who are using A.I. to either augment their own social-media presence or create entirely new figures from scratch, has more than three hundred thousand members. – The New Yorker
- Who Does Trump Want To Hire To Redo The National Mall Reflecting Pool? His Pool Guy
Trump originally envisioned the pool being topped with turquoise so that it would look like the Bahamas, but was convinced by the contractor to choose “American flag blue” instead. – Artnet
- Former LiveNation Exec Says He Was Fired After Raising Concerns Over Business Practices
In his new position, Rumanes said, he raised “serious and legitimate alarm” over the company’s business practices. As a result, he says, he was “unlawfully terminated,” according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. – Los Angeles Times
- What Did It Take To Put Together The Met’s Epic Raphael Show?
The largest survey dedicated to the Renaissance master in the U.S. includes 33 of his paintings and 142 works on paper. About 60 public institutions from 11 countries sent their treasures by the man born Raphael Sanzio da Urbino (1483–1520). Private loans include his two most expensive works at auction. – Artnet
THEATRE
VISUAL
- AI Can Make Anyone An “Influencer”
Across social media, an influx of A.I.-generated avatars is reshaping what it means to be an influencer. A Facebook group called Baddies in AI, geared toward women who are using A.I. to either augment their own social-media presence or create entirely new figures from scratch, has more than three hundred thousand members. – The New Yorker
- What Is Truth?
That, basically, is what’s at stake in the low-grade shots fired (culturally speaking) across the internet about Michael. – Wired
- A Cultural Critic Admits They Were Very Wrong About A 2010s Flashpoint
“There was something very intentional to Girls, something that spoke to me. I could’ve connected with it. Instead, I rejected it dramatically. I wasn’t the only one.” – Slate
- The Deep, Strange Comfort Of A Rewatch
“Familiar things require less from us; they deliver the emotional payoff we expect. But repetition is also a way of revisiting earlier versions of ourselves.” – The Atlantic
- I Am Anti-AI. How Do We Get It Out Of Schools?
At times, I find myself speaking with my kids about A.I. in the same terms that we might discuss a creepy neighbor who lives down the block: avoid eye contact, cross the street when you walk past his house, and, when in doubt, call on a trusted adult. – The New Yorker



















