AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Fifty Years Later, A Documentary About The Harlem Renaissance Gets Its Debut
“The documentary centres on a cocktail party [director William] Greaves hosted at Duke Ellington’s townhouse in Harlem in August 1972 – an attempt to capture the voices of artists, writers, musicians and organisers whose work had transformed Black American culture in the 1920s.” – The Guardian (UK)
- The Egyptian Mummy Buried With The Iliad
Was Greek literature a “cheat code” to the afterlife for Egyptian royals of Roman-era Egypt? – The New York Times
- Our Feeds Are Products Of Stealth Marketing — And Thus, Mostly Fake
The head of one viral marketing firm says 90 percent of what we see online is advertising. And of course, “the point of this kind of marketing is that nobody is supposed to notice it. But lately, the machinery has started to show.” – Vulture
- Seth Rogen Says If You Want To Use AI To ‘Write’ Your Scripts, You Should Simply Stop Working As A ‘Writer’ And Go Do Something Else
“Every time I see a video on Instagram that’s like, ‘Hollywood is cooked,’ what follows is the most stupid dog shit I’ve ever seen in my life.” – Variety
- Taking Broadway On The Road, But In Baseball
This Tony-nominated actor is finding more theatrical work – and, let’s face it, likely better pay – as a member of the Savannah Bananas, playing a relief pitcher who comes on dressed as, and singing, the Phantom of the Opera. – The New York Times
ISSUES
- The Problem With Venice
If you go to the Biennale, including this year’s intensely controversial edition, “Do you marshal skepticism or let the feelings flow? Whatever your preference, you’ll get a lot of practice.” – The Atlantic
- What Happens When The European Fine Art Foundation Comes To Town
“The pursuit of beautiful things is still a magical aspect of our world. … It is much more than finding the right art for your mantelpiece.” – The New York Times
- Police Find Stolen Skull Of Czech Saint Encased In Concrete
The suspect was about to throw the concrete, and the 800-year-old relic inside it, into a river. – Agence France-Presse (The Guardian UK)
- It Took Way Too Long For Art From The Asian Pacific Rim To Gain Interest In Britain
Why? For one thing, “conservation specialists … have been navigating the practical challenge of safely transporting the works across the globe.” – The Guardian (UK)
- A Rothko Sells For $86 Million
The seller of the 1957 work, “Brown and Blacks in Reds,” was the estate of former Goldman Sachs banker turned art dealer Robert Mnuchin, who paid $6.7 million for the work in 2003. The winning telephone bidder at Sotheby’s was anonymous. – The Wall Street Journal
MEDIA
- Our Feeds Are Products Of Stealth Marketing — And Thus, Mostly Fake
The head of one viral marketing firm says 90 percent of what we see online is advertising. And of course, “the point of this kind of marketing is that nobody is supposed to notice it. But lately, the machinery has started to show.” – Vulture
- Seth Rogen Says If You Want To Use AI To ‘Write’ Your Scripts, You Should Simply Stop Working As A ‘Writer’ And Go Do Something Else
“Every time I see a video on Instagram that’s like, ‘Hollywood is cooked,’ what follows is the most stupid dog shit I’ve ever seen in my life.” – Variety
- A Popular Pre-Print Publication Will Ban Anyone Who Sends Papers With Evidence Of AI Slop
“If a paper has ‘incontrovertible evidence that the authors did not check the results of LLM generation,’ such as hallucinated references or “meta-comments” left by an LLM, authors will be banned from ArXiv for a year.” The responses have been … er, interesting. – The Verge
- The Anti-AI Backlash Is Growing
Even absent any uptick in AI-induced layoffs, the anti-AI sentiment is likely to keep growing. – The Atlantic
- Would Paying Reviewers Help Fix The Peer Review Problem?
“The current system of unpaid reviews undermines the standards of the peer-review process. It produces late reviews and excludes large segments of the research community who cannot afford to work for free. If you have a financial commitment from the reviewer, it creates a lever for expecting quality. Payment creates accountability, not corruption.” – InsideHigherEd
MUSIC
- The Egyptian Mummy Buried With The Iliad
Was Greek literature a “cheat code” to the afterlife for Egyptian royals of Roman-era Egypt? – The New York Times
- A Forgotten Medieval Book In Rome Was Hiding A Copy Of The World’s First Poem In English
“Prior to the discovery of the Rome manuscript, the earliest one was from the early 12th century. So this is three centuries earlier than that. And so it attests to the importance that was already being attached to the English in the early 9th century.” – Seattle Times (AP)
- Lost Your Ability To Enjoy Reading?
Try returning to some things you cared about as a kid. – The Atlantic
- What Kinds Of Non-Fiction Reporting Wins Pulitzers
If you do look closely at the history, biography, memoir, and general-nonfiction honors, a noticeable pattern emerges. The picks typically share a particular quality. – The Atlantic
- London Museum To Return Old Jain Manuscripts (Though They Aren’t Leaving Britain)
The Wellcome Collection is ceding ownership of more than 2,000 documents, dating from the 15th to 19th centuries, bought from a Jain temple in present-day Pakistan in 1919. Now deeming the purchase of the manuscripts “unethical,” the museum is turning them over to the UK-based Institute of Jainology. – The Telegraph (UK) (Yahoo!)
PEOPLE
- Fifty Years Later, A Documentary About The Harlem Renaissance Gets Its Debut
“The documentary centres on a cocktail party [director William] Greaves hosted at Duke Ellington’s townhouse in Harlem in August 1972 – an attempt to capture the voices of artists, writers, musicians and organisers whose work had transformed Black American culture in the 1920s.” – The Guardian (UK)
- The Egyptian Mummy Buried With The Iliad
Was Greek literature a “cheat code” to the afterlife for Egyptian royals of Roman-era Egypt? – The New York Times
- Our Feeds Are Products Of Stealth Marketing — And Thus, Mostly Fake
The head of one viral marketing firm says 90 percent of what we see online is advertising. And of course, “the point of this kind of marketing is that nobody is supposed to notice it. But lately, the machinery has started to show.” – Vulture
- Seth Rogen Says If You Want To Use AI To ‘Write’ Your Scripts, You Should Simply Stop Working As A ‘Writer’ And Go Do Something Else
“Every time I see a video on Instagram that’s like, ‘Hollywood is cooked,’ what follows is the most stupid dog shit I’ve ever seen in my life.” – Variety
- Taking Broadway On The Road, But In Baseball
This Tony-nominated actor is finding more theatrical work – and, let’s face it, likely better pay – as a member of the Savannah Bananas, playing a relief pitcher who comes on dressed as, and singing, the Phantom of the Opera. – The New York Times
PEOPLE
- Fifty Years Later, A Documentary About The Harlem Renaissance Gets Its Debut
“The documentary centres on a cocktail party [director William] Greaves hosted at Duke Ellington’s townhouse in Harlem in August 1972 – an attempt to capture the voices of artists, writers, musicians and organisers whose work had transformed Black American culture in the 1920s.” – The Guardian (UK)
- The Egyptian Mummy Buried With The Iliad
Was Greek literature a “cheat code” to the afterlife for Egyptian royals of Roman-era Egypt? – The New York Times
- Our Feeds Are Products Of Stealth Marketing — And Thus, Mostly Fake
The head of one viral marketing firm says 90 percent of what we see online is advertising. And of course, “the point of this kind of marketing is that nobody is supposed to notice it. But lately, the machinery has started to show.” – Vulture
- Seth Rogen Says If You Want To Use AI To ‘Write’ Your Scripts, You Should Simply Stop Working As A ‘Writer’ And Go Do Something Else
“Every time I see a video on Instagram that’s like, ‘Hollywood is cooked,’ what follows is the most stupid dog shit I’ve ever seen in my life.” – Variety
- Taking Broadway On The Road, But In Baseball
This Tony-nominated actor is finding more theatrical work – and, let’s face it, likely better pay – as a member of the Savannah Bananas, playing a relief pitcher who comes on dressed as, and singing, the Phantom of the Opera. – The New York Times
THEATRE
VISUAL
- The AI Revolution Is Meant To Overwhelm You
I’ve written previously that one of AI’s enduring cultural impacts is to make people feel like they’re losing their mind. But lately, I believe, it’s the accelerated nature of the AI boom that’s driving people everywhere mad. – The Atlantic
- Sorry, But Introspection Is Just An Illusion
There are no such stable beliefs and desires “inside” us that can be observed and reported. Instead, the human mind is a wonderfully fluent, but profoundly deceptive, improviser: spinning stories justifying our thoughts and actions as fast as we ask questions. And these invented explanations are vague, inconsistent, and often provably wrong. – IAI News
- Study: Use Of AI Narrows Diversity Of Creativity
A recent preprint study provides evidence that while these tools might boost individual performance, they contribute to an overall reduction in the diversity of ideas across different users. – PsyPost
- Study: People Are Bad At Figuring Out What They Don’t Know (Yet They Think They Can)
People aren’t just bad at remembering things they see all the time, but also in actually knowing how they work. In a 2006 study, many people made significant errors when drawing a bicycle, like putting the chain around the front wheel as well as the back wheel. – The Conversation
- How Your Brain Toggles Between The Familiar And Exploration
Research from my team suggests that people balance between exploration and habit – that is, trying something new or sticking with the familiar – when deciding what route to take. Which navigation strategy someone chooses depends not only on their spatial abilities but on their network of brain regions that support navigation. – The Conversation
