AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Elizabeth I’s Angriest Letters Were Her Secretaries’
Good Morning,
Of roughly 3,000 surviving letters attributed to Elizabeth I, about 100 are in her own hand, and handwriting and word-frequency analysis now suggests her male secretaries wrote much of the fury into the rest (Smithsonian).
Choreographer Kyle Abraham has renamed his company for the third time since 2005, to Kyle Abraham Dance Vanguard, borrowing from D’Angelo’s ensemble; dancers keep 52-week salaries, retirement benefits and perpetual royalties (Dance Magazine). Among the 20 new MacArthur fellows, Chip Thomas, 69, a physician on the Navajo Nation for 36 years, is famous for rewriting a billboard from “Welcome to Pepsi Country” to “Welcome to Diabetes Country.” Then there’s saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, 29, who has performed beside a chef cooking onstage (NPR).
China now requires students to read Jane Eyre in full, where it had only been recommended, and state media quoted Jane’s “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless?” (The New York Times). In Washington, Utah Senator Mike Lee blocked a bill from Jeff Merkley and Lisa Murkowski that would bar demolishing any presidential memorial (for example, the Kennedy Center — aheam) without Congress’s approval, calling it “partisan scaremongering” (The Washington Post).
All of our stories below. See you tomorrow.
Doug
- If I Could But See It A Dazzling Graphic Biography of William Morris
<a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2026/09/if-i-could-but-see-it-a-dazzling-graphic-biography-of-william-morris.html" title="If I Could But See It
A Dazzling - How Does Broadway’s Current Longest-Running Musical Keep Going? Celebrity Stunt Casting, Of Course
The lead producers of Chicago, Fran and Barry Weissler, now make a point of having someone in the cast with a following from outside Broadway — from film, scripted television, or, most recently, reality TV such as The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, Vanderpump Rules, and America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. – Billboard
- It’s Getting More And More Difficult To Tell What’s Real
Life on the internet has become, among other things, a test of patience and an experience of gruelling duration; the ad somehow continued for more than three minutes. A captive audience, it turns out, gets crude digital puppetry as its just deserts. – The New Yorker
- It Seems Queen Elizabeth I Did Not Write All Her Letters — Particularly The Furious Ones
A researcher has analyzed more than 500 of her “scribal letters” — correspondence from the queen but in the handwriting of her secretaries, notably principal royal secretary Francis Walsingham — and found that they sometimes altered the queen’s own language for strategic reasons, including to make her appear even angrier than she was. – Smithsonian Magazine
ISSUES
- How The Architecture Of Sound Is Changing Cities
The sounds of the city weren’t just decorative, musical — they could define the physical contours of a space as dramatically as a concrete wall or an open door to the street. – Reasons to be Cheerful
- Uzbekistan Now Has Its First Contemporary Art Museum Since Independence From The USSR
“Tashkent is reinventing itself. The Uzbek capital, which is home to 3 million, was once the fourth-largest city in the Soviet Union and has long been a cultural hub in Central Asia. … The Center for Contemporary Arts Tashkent has opened. It’s a watershed moment for the nation as it expands its cultural ambitions.” – Artnet
- How Did The World’s Largest Collection Of Marcel Duchamp End Up In Philadelphia?
A forward-looking director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art wooed Duchamp, that’s how. Sidney Fiske Kimball “offered what Duchamp wanted: space and control. Lots of it.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
- Influential MoMA Curator To Retire
Ann Temkin has been a curator at the museum since 2003 and was promoted to chief curator in 2008, becoming the first woman to lead MoMA’s richest and most powerful department. – The New York Times
- A Reprieve For Philly’s Academy of Natural Sciences?
Drexel says that while it appreciates the William Penn Foundation’s “public suggestion that it assist in temporarily keeping the Academy’s museum open,” they have “not received a formal proposal with a defined level of financial support.” – Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
MEDIA
- Can Trump Really Demolish The Kennedy Center?
The legal fight over Mr. Trump’s takeover of the center has revolved largely around one important statute, first passed by Congress in 1958. It established a National Cultural Center and then was amended in 1964 to dedicate the institution to President Kennedy after his assassination. – The New York Times
- Republican Senator Blocks Passage Of Bill To Prevent Demolishing The Kennedy Center
A bipartisan effort to ban the demolition of presidential memorials — including the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts — was blocked Monday night in the Senate by an objection from Sen.Mike Lee (R-Utah). – Washington Post
- The Numbers Are Clear: Kennedy Center’s Finances Were Fine Before Trump, And They’re Disastrous Now
“In the 19 months since President Trump took over the Kennedy Center, the institution has borrowed everything its bank would lend it, dipped into money donors had given on condition it never be spent, and written off pledges from supporters who stopped paying.” – The Washington Post (MSN)
- Carnegie-Mellon University Gets $3 Billion Gift To Build Campus In Miami
“The staggering amount (pledged by hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin) is the largest-ever gift by an individual in higher education, surpassing Michael Bloomberg’s $1.8 billion donation to Johns Hopkins in 2018. Griffin’s donation will be split: $1 billion will support CMU’s original campus in Pittsburgh and $2 billion will help launch CMU’s Miami campus.” – CNN
- California Bans “Ghost” Ticketing
The law prohibits using software to get around ticket limits, queue and presale restrictions. It restricts websites and ads designed to make resellers look like authorized ticket sources. Sellers in violation could face misdemeanor charges and penalties. – Los Angeles Times
MUSIC
- It Seems Queen Elizabeth I Did Not Write All Her Letters — Particularly The Furious Ones
A researcher has analyzed more than 500 of her “scribal letters” — correspondence from the queen but in the handwriting of her secretaries, notably principal royal secretary Francis Walsingham — and found that they sometimes altered the queen’s own language for strategic reasons, including to make her appear even angrier than she was. – Smithsonian Magazine
- Fresno Considering Privatizing Its Libraries
“Our public libraries are public and should stay public. We don’t need private corporations coming in and laying people off and censoring material.” – ABC Fresno
- “Jane Eyre” Is Now Part Of China’s Official High School Curriculum
“(Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel) has long been popular in China and was already recommended reading for schoolchildren. But this fall, ninth-grade students across the country are being required to read (it) in full. … One report in an official newspaper held it up as an anti-materialistic love story young people could learn from.” – The New York Times
- Has The Kids Scholastic Book Fair Been Ruined?
If the goal is to celebrate books and reading and get kids excited… is a for-profit book fair the best way to do that? – LitHub
- Novelist Louise Erdrich Wins $250K Dorothy And Lillian Gish Prize
The award, established by the estate of the silent film stars, is given for “an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind’s enjoyment and understanding of life.” Among previous winners are Gustavo Dudamel, Isabelle Allende, Merce Cunningham, Ava DuVernay, Laurie Anderson, Tricia Brown, Maya Lin, and Meredith Monk. – AP
PEOPLE
- Elizabeth I’s Angriest Letters Were Her Secretaries’
Good Morning,
Of roughly 3,000 surviving letters attributed to Elizabeth I, about 100 are in her own hand, and handwriting and word-frequency analysis now suggests her male secretaries wrote much of the fury into the rest (Smithsonian).
Choreographer Kyle Abraham has renamed his company for the third time since 2005, to Kyle Abraham Dance Vanguard, borrowing from D’Angelo’s ensemble; dancers keep 52-week salaries, retirement benefits and perpetual royalties (Dance Magazine). Among the 20 new MacArthur fellows, Chip Thomas, 69, a physician on the Navajo Nation for 36 years, is famous for rewriting a billboard from “Welcome to Pepsi Country” to “Welcome to Diabetes Country.” Then there’s saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, 29, who has performed beside a chef cooking onstage (NPR).
China now requires students to read Jane Eyre in full, where it had only been recommended, and state media quoted Jane’s “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless?” (The New York Times). In Washington, Utah Senator Mike Lee blocked a bill from Jeff Merkley and Lisa Murkowski that would bar demolishing any presidential memorial (for example, the Kennedy Center — aheam) without Congress’s approval, calling it “partisan scaremongering” (The Washington Post).
All of our stories below. See you tomorrow.
Doug
- If I Could But See It A Dazzling Graphic Biography of William Morris<a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2026/09/if-i-could-but-see-it-a-dazzling-graphic-biography-of-william-morris.html" title="If I Could But See It
A Dazzling - How Does Broadway’s Current Longest-Running Musical Keep Going? Celebrity Stunt Casting, Of Course
The lead producers of Chicago, Fran and Barry Weissler, now make a point of having someone in the cast with a following from outside Broadway — from film, scripted television, or, most recently, reality TV such as The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, Vanderpump Rules, and America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. – Billboard
- It’s Getting More And More Difficult To Tell What’s Real
Life on the internet has become, among other things, a test of patience and an experience of gruelling duration; the ad somehow continued for more than three minutes. A captive audience, it turns out, gets crude digital puppetry as its just deserts. – The New Yorker
- It Seems Queen Elizabeth I Did Not Write All Her Letters — Particularly The Furious Ones
A researcher has analyzed more than 500 of her “scribal letters” — correspondence from the queen but in the handwriting of her secretaries, notably principal royal secretary Francis Walsingham — and found that they sometimes altered the queen’s own language for strategic reasons, including to make her appear even angrier than she was. – Smithsonian Magazine
PEOPLE
- Elizabeth I’s Angriest Letters Were Her Secretaries’
Good Morning,
Of roughly 3,000 surviving letters attributed to Elizabeth I, about 100 are in her own hand, and handwriting and word-frequency analysis now suggests her male secretaries wrote much of the fury into the rest (Smithsonian).
Choreographer Kyle Abraham has renamed his company for the third time since 2005, to Kyle Abraham Dance Vanguard, borrowing from D’Angelo’s ensemble; dancers keep 52-week salaries, retirement benefits and perpetual royalties (Dance Magazine). Among the 20 new MacArthur fellows, Chip Thomas, 69, a physician on the Navajo Nation for 36 years, is famous for rewriting a billboard from “Welcome to Pepsi Country” to “Welcome to Diabetes Country.” Then there’s saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, 29, who has performed beside a chef cooking onstage (NPR).
China now requires students to read Jane Eyre in full, where it had only been recommended, and state media quoted Jane’s “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless?” (The New York Times). In Washington, Utah Senator Mike Lee blocked a bill from Jeff Merkley and Lisa Murkowski that would bar demolishing any presidential memorial (for example, the Kennedy Center — aheam) without Congress’s approval, calling it “partisan scaremongering” (The Washington Post).
All of our stories below. See you tomorrow.
Doug
- If I Could But See It A Dazzling Graphic Biography of William Morris<a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2026/09/if-i-could-but-see-it-a-dazzling-graphic-biography-of-william-morris.html" title="If I Could But See It
A Dazzling - How Does Broadway’s Current Longest-Running Musical Keep Going? Celebrity Stunt Casting, Of Course
The lead producers of Chicago, Fran and Barry Weissler, now make a point of having someone in the cast with a following from outside Broadway — from film, scripted television, or, most recently, reality TV such as The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, Vanderpump Rules, and America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. – Billboard
- It’s Getting More And More Difficult To Tell What’s Real
Life on the internet has become, among other things, a test of patience and an experience of gruelling duration; the ad somehow continued for more than three minutes. A captive audience, it turns out, gets crude digital puppetry as its just deserts. – The New Yorker
- It Seems Queen Elizabeth I Did Not Write All Her Letters — Particularly The Furious Ones
A researcher has analyzed more than 500 of her “scribal letters” — correspondence from the queen but in the handwriting of her secretaries, notably principal royal secretary Francis Walsingham — and found that they sometimes altered the queen’s own language for strategic reasons, including to make her appear even angrier than she was. – Smithsonian Magazine
THEATRE
VISUAL
- It’s Getting More And More Difficult To Tell What’s Real
Life on the internet has become, among other things, a test of patience and an experience of gruelling duration; the ad somehow continued for more than three minutes. A captive audience, it turns out, gets crude digital puppetry as its just deserts. – The New Yorker
- Humanists Versus AI
The vibes, less pollable but perhaps no less palpable, are noxious. Students boo speakers who extol A.I. in commencement addresses, and consumers deride celebrities and brands that embrace the technology. – The New Yorker
- What The Latest Studies Say About How Our Brains Change Using AI
Across millions of math sessions by a group that ranged from fifth graders to college students, the researchers compared performance from before 2022, when ChatGPT first came out, with the work that followed its arrival. – The New York Times
- Middle Schoolers, Blocked From Most Social Media, Turn Comments On An NPR Podcast Into A Hangout Spot
“When Glass asked one of the kids why they picked this particular podcast, they said, ‘We just, like, looked for podcasts that didn’t have many comments.’” Ouch. But also, creative as heck. – The Verge
- Former Disney CEO Bob Iger On Creativity
A culture of creativity is also a culture accepting of failure. Creativity is not a science. You can’t possibly bat 1,000. There are inevitable failures, and it’s really important to know as a culture how to process failure so that when you do, it doesn’t destroy people’s ability to continue to create. – Harvard Business Review