AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Borrowed time, bought orchestras
Good Morning,
Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart says the Boston Symphony has been “living on borrowed time” for years (Boston Globe). In Minneapolis, the Jungle Theater, dark since February, has put its building up for sale (Star Tribune). The California Academy of Sciences is cutting nearly 10% of its workforce (SF Chronicle). And London’s National Gallery — in such precarious shape it has just hired an economist-in-residence — warns that “if they catch cold, the rest of us will get pneumonia” (Financial Times).
Meanwhile, wealthy amateurs are now paying to “conduct” professional orchestras for an evening (The Baffler). The institutions that built classical music can’t pay the rent, and the donors who used to fund them are buying themselves the podium instead.
San Francisco is going the other way, naming its first-ever arts and culture czar with authority over three city agencies (SF Chronicle). And nine days before opening, the entire Venice Biennale jury has resigned over Russia’s participation and prize eligibility (AP).
A new Banksy appeared in Westminster overnight — a marching figure with a billowing flag obscuring his face (The Guardian). Read the marching man however you like.
All of our stories below.
- Six Elite Ballet Dancers On What They Did After Retiring From The Stage
One became a kindergarten teacher and social worker; another became a midwife. One lucky fellow got to be artistic director of a company; another studied music and started conducting ballet orchestras. One got appointed to Britain’s House of Lords. And one, of course, became a consultant. – The Guardian
- The Struggle To Protect Mauritania’s Medieval Library Town
Chinguetti developed as a trading post on the trans-Sahara caravan route to Timbuktu — and, as in Timbuktu, over the centuries Chinguetti families came to amass important collections of medieval manuscripts on religion, law, and science. Now, as the population dwindles and the desert sand encroaches, preserving these collections is a challenge. – The Dial
- London’s New Banksy Statue Appears In The Middle of The Night
The sculpture depicts a man marching forward off a plinth while carrying a large, billowing flag that obscures his face. A video Banksy posted on social media shows the statue being towed to Westminster in the dead of night, alongside shots of the nearby statue of Winston Churchill. – The Guardian
- Troubled Minneapolis Theatre Puts Its Building Up For Sale
Three months after pausing its programming because of financial hardship, the Jungle Theater has put its south Minneapolis home up for sale. The company announced April 30 that it is actively looking for a buyer of its Lyndale Avenue S. building. – Minneapolis Star Tribune
ISSUES
- London’s New Banksy Statue Appears In The Middle of The Night
The sculpture depicts a man marching forward off a plinth while carrying a large, billowing flag that obscures his face. A video Banksy posted on social media shows the statue being towed to Westminster in the dead of night, alongside shots of the nearby statue of Winston Churchill. – The Guardian
- Gallery Appoints Economist-In-Residence
“We radically, radically need something new, because old thinking isn’t getting us anywhere. In my 30 years in the cultural sector I’ve never known a situation in which so many major institutions — the National Gallery, Tate — are in such a precarious economic state. If they catch cold, the rest of us will get pneumonia.” – Financial Times
- Check Out The Plans For Putting An Actual Park In The Middle Of Park Avenue
“A century ago, the median down … Park Avenue was much more welcoming than it is today, a place with seating and substantial plantings where you’d consider spending time. … In 2024, (New York City) announced a call for proposals wherein those two lanes would be reclaimed from traffic for leisure and greenery.” – Vulture (MSN)
- The Entire Venice Biennale Jury Has Resigned
“(The move was made) just nine days before the world’s oldest and most important contemporary art fair opens, amid tensions over Russia’s participation and the panel’s decision to bar prizes for countries accused of crimes against humanity.” – AP
- How San Antonio’s Public Art Program Has Changed The City
It launched in 1996 via a city ordinance that originally earmarked 1 percent of the budget for capital improvement projects for public art. That amount was raised to 1.5 percent for the 2022-2027 bond program. – San Antonio Express (MSN)
MEDIA
- City Of San Francisco Names Its First-Ever Arts And Culture Czar
“Longtime arts and city government veteran Matthew Goudeau has been named San Francisco’s first executive director of arts and culture. … To that end, Goudeau will oversee three of the city’s most important arts entities: the San Francisco Arts Commission, Grants for the Arts and the Film Commission.” – San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)
- Money Troubles And Layoffs At California Academy Of Sciences In San Francisco
“The museum and research center … plans to lay off 53 employees and scale back some programs as it grapples with a growing budget deficit driven by rising costs and lagging revenue. The cuts, announced Tuesday, will affect about 9.3% of the academy’s workforce.” – San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)
- A Major New Humanities Center At Oxford
Billed as Oxford’s largest and most programmatically ambitious academic project, the Schwarzman Centre yokes together seven humanities faculties, along with a 500-seat concert hall, a 250-seat theatre, a black-box immersive performance space, a white-box exhibition gallery, a dance studio, a cinema and a museum to house the Bate Collection of historic musical instruments. – The Guardian
- Differences Between Being An Arts Lover In The UK And In Australia
The experience of attending, supporting and living among the arts differs in ways that are practical, financial and social. – ArtsHub
- Strategies For Fighting Misinformation
What of misinformation that has taken hold, and how can it be debunked? If the misinformation is not going to be widely shared, the best thing to do can simply be to ignore it. Otherwise, however, it is best to get in first, provided our own presentation is clear and sticky. – 3 Quarks Daily
MUSIC
- The Struggle To Protect Mauritania’s Medieval Library Town
Chinguetti developed as a trading post on the trans-Sahara caravan route to Timbuktu — and, as in Timbuktu, over the centuries Chinguetti families came to amass important collections of medieval manuscripts on religion, law, and science. Now, as the population dwindles and the desert sand encroaches, preserving these collections is a challenge. – The Dial
- Idaho Legislature Changes Book Ban As Court Challenges Continue
The three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit wrote that HB 710 enables a “system of informal censorship” and potentially “encourages formal censorship through the legal process. The First Amendment does not tolerate either outcome.” – Publishers Weekly
- The Guardian Now Has More American Readers Than The Washington Post Has
“(The Guardian) has found a lane in the U.S. news market as a progressive alternative to institutional American media, … backed by a voluntary contribution model that has attracted 700,000 supporters, 500,000 of them recurring. Reader revenue has grown 35% a year for the past two years, with a still-growing 150-person newsroom.” – The Rebooting
- Lost Copy Of Oldest Surviving English Poem Turns Up In Rome
“Scholars from Trinity College Dublin uncovered the manuscript that contains Caedmon’s Hymn at the National Central Library of Rome. Bede, the medieval theologian revered as the father of English history, recorded the nine-line poem in the eighth century.” – The Guardian
- State Legislatures Tweak Library And School Laws Concerning Books (To Protect Them)
“We’ve had success in blue states that want to protect from book banning at the local level, but these efforts have moved to purple or even red states, to the point of Alaska now moving this forward.” – Publishers Weekly
PEOPLE
- Borrowed time, bought orchestras
Good Morning,
Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart says the Boston Symphony has been “living on borrowed time” for years (Boston Globe). In Minneapolis, the Jungle Theater, dark since February, has put its building up for sale (Star Tribune). The California Academy of Sciences is cutting nearly 10% of its workforce (SF Chronicle). And London’s National Gallery — in such precarious shape it has just hired an economist-in-residence — warns that “if they catch cold, the rest of us will get pneumonia” (Financial Times).
Meanwhile, wealthy amateurs are now paying to “conduct” professional orchestras for an evening (The Baffler). The institutions that built classical music can’t pay the rent, and the donors who used to fund them are buying themselves the podium instead.
San Francisco is going the other way, naming its first-ever arts and culture czar with authority over three city agencies (SF Chronicle). And nine days before opening, the entire Venice Biennale jury has resigned over Russia’s participation and prize eligibility (AP).
A new Banksy appeared in Westminster overnight — a marching figure with a billowing flag obscuring his face (The Guardian). Read the marching man however you like.
All of our stories below.
- Six Elite Ballet Dancers On What They Did After Retiring From The Stage
One became a kindergarten teacher and social worker; another became a midwife. One lucky fellow got to be artistic director of a company; another studied music and started conducting ballet orchestras. One got appointed to Britain’s House of Lords. And one, of course, became a consultant. – The Guardian
- The Struggle To Protect Mauritania’s Medieval Library Town
Chinguetti developed as a trading post on the trans-Sahara caravan route to Timbuktu — and, as in Timbuktu, over the centuries Chinguetti families came to amass important collections of medieval manuscripts on religion, law, and science. Now, as the population dwindles and the desert sand encroaches, preserving these collections is a challenge. – The Dial
- London’s New Banksy Statue Appears In The Middle of The Night
The sculpture depicts a man marching forward off a plinth while carrying a large, billowing flag that obscures his face. A video Banksy posted on social media shows the statue being towed to Westminster in the dead of night, alongside shots of the nearby statue of Winston Churchill. – The Guardian
- Troubled Minneapolis Theatre Puts Its Building Up For Sale
Three months after pausing its programming because of financial hardship, the Jungle Theater has put its south Minneapolis home up for sale. The company announced April 30 that it is actively looking for a buyer of its Lyndale Avenue S. building. – Minneapolis Star Tribune
PEOPLE
- Borrowed time, bought orchestras
Good Morning,
Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart says the Boston Symphony has been “living on borrowed time” for years (Boston Globe). In Minneapolis, the Jungle Theater, dark since February, has put its building up for sale (Star Tribune). The California Academy of Sciences is cutting nearly 10% of its workforce (SF Chronicle). And London’s National Gallery — in such precarious shape it has just hired an economist-in-residence — warns that “if they catch cold, the rest of us will get pneumonia” (Financial Times).
Meanwhile, wealthy amateurs are now paying to “conduct” professional orchestras for an evening (The Baffler). The institutions that built classical music can’t pay the rent, and the donors who used to fund them are buying themselves the podium instead.
San Francisco is going the other way, naming its first-ever arts and culture czar with authority over three city agencies (SF Chronicle). And nine days before opening, the entire Venice Biennale jury has resigned over Russia’s participation and prize eligibility (AP).
A new Banksy appeared in Westminster overnight — a marching figure with a billowing flag obscuring his face (The Guardian). Read the marching man however you like.
All of our stories below.
- Six Elite Ballet Dancers On What They Did After Retiring From The Stage
One became a kindergarten teacher and social worker; another became a midwife. One lucky fellow got to be artistic director of a company; another studied music and started conducting ballet orchestras. One got appointed to Britain’s House of Lords. And one, of course, became a consultant. – The Guardian
- The Struggle To Protect Mauritania’s Medieval Library Town
Chinguetti developed as a trading post on the trans-Sahara caravan route to Timbuktu — and, as in Timbuktu, over the centuries Chinguetti families came to amass important collections of medieval manuscripts on religion, law, and science. Now, as the population dwindles and the desert sand encroaches, preserving these collections is a challenge. – The Dial
- London’s New Banksy Statue Appears In The Middle of The Night
The sculpture depicts a man marching forward off a plinth while carrying a large, billowing flag that obscures his face. A video Banksy posted on social media shows the statue being towed to Westminster in the dead of night, alongside shots of the nearby statue of Winston Churchill. – The Guardian
- Troubled Minneapolis Theatre Puts Its Building Up For Sale
Three months after pausing its programming because of financial hardship, the Jungle Theater has put its south Minneapolis home up for sale. The company announced April 30 that it is actively looking for a buyer of its Lyndale Avenue S. building. – Minneapolis Star Tribune
THEATRE
VISUAL
- Are Online Worlds The Only Place Children Have Unsupervised Freedom?
According to results from a 2025 Harris Poll, 62 per cent of American kids aged eight to 12 have never walked or biked somewhere without an adult. Roughly the same percentage have never made plans with friends without adult assistance, and almost half have never walked in a different aisle than their parents at a store. – Psyche
- What If There’s No Such Thing As Infinity?
“A lot of mathematicians just find the whole proposal preposterous,” said Joel David Hamkins(opens a new tab), a set theorist at the University of Notre Dame. Ultrafinitism is not polite talk at a mathematical society dinner. – Quanta
- AI And A Permanent Underclass
Whether you talk with engineers, venture capitalists, founders or managers, or with doomers, accelerationists, lefties or libertarians, the so-called San Francisco consensus on the impact of A.I. for workers is bleak. – The New York Times
- Cory Doctorow: Why The World Is Suddenly Becoming Enshittified
“The internet is getting worse, fast. The services we rely on, they’re all turning into piles of shit. Worse, the digital is merging with the physical, which means that the same forces that are wrecking our platforms are also wrecking our homes and our cars, the places where we work and shop. – Literary Review of Canada
- AI: A Philosophy About Language
The underlying intelligence of a large language model isn’t a function of its architecture, its parameter count, or the volume of compute thrown at its training. It is not even about the training data. It is a function of the social complexity of the civilization whose language it digested. – The Ideas Newsletter
