AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Pride And Pain: The United States At 250 As Seen In Its Performing Arts Scene
“Who are ‘our people,’ broadly defined? Can we even talk about a common American experience or identity, to which we can all attach a full-throated patriotism? We might look to the example of New York City’s Lincoln Center.” – American Theatre
- If You Need Some Incredible Photographs, Not Only Of Space, NASA Probably Has Them
But how to search them up? Google won’t help as much (if at all) anymore, but there are ways. – Wired
- Hollywood’s Output Has Always Been About Defining The USA
But now? “More and more, the space of American cinema is defined by one word: fantasy. … The fantasy worlds where our movies increasingly take place add up, in both philosophy and sensation, to a kind of abstract no-man’s land.” – Variety
- Ordering Up, And Then Touching, The Objects At The V&A East Storehouse
“When you open these cardboard frames up and look at the edges of the paper and see they’re stained and old, you can really picture Beatrix Potter’s hand. … It’s such a privilege to be this close and be trusted.” – The New York Times
- The Fanfiction Community Is At Internal War Over Generative AI
“Fandom communities are still mostly relying on vibes. Most fanfics aren’t judged by a tool like the AO3 skin, but by tells’ that could include anything from specific sentence structures — like the notorious ‘it’s not X, it’s Y’ — to overuse of flowery metaphors.” – The Verge (Archive Today)
ISSUES
- Ordering Up, And Then Touching, The Objects At The V&A East Storehouse
“When you open these cardboard frames up and look at the edges of the paper and see they’re stained and old, you can really picture Beatrix Potter’s hand. … It’s such a privilege to be this close and be trusted.” – The New York Times
- Attendance Has Plunged At Europe’s Jewish Museums
Across Europe, many Jewish museums have seen visitor numbers drop, patrons back away and security threats rise since the fall of 2023. The association’s members also reported online harassment, vandalism and acts of aggression against staff members. – The New York Times
- Canadian Art Forger Used His Children In Scheme
Labeled Canada’s largest art fraud ever by investigators, the scheme has been the subject of a prolonged court battle that culminated last year in the conviction of Jeffrey Cowan, one of eight people arrested in 2023. He has been accused of taking part in an effort to sell 1,400 faked Morrisseau works. – ARTnews
- Nine-Hour Online Queues For Bayeux Tapestry Tickets At British Museum
“When tickets went on sale for the first time on Wednesday morning, … there were reports of 40,000 people queueing by mid-morning, with that figure ballooning to almost 80,000 by mid-afternoon.” – The Guardian
- It’s Expensive To Enter Australia’s Art Prize Competitions. But Hard To Give Them Up
In today’s landscape, prizes are no longer a nice little extra, or a back pat that arrives at the end of a long and successful career. They’re a serious part of the machinery. – ArtsHub
MEDIA
- Pondering The Statue Of Liberty As An Art Object
Financed by public subscription, powered by photography and P.R., the Statue of Liberty is now so identified with her adopted home that she has all but melted into symbol. – The New York Times
- Appeals Court Reverses Lower Court Ruling That National Park Signs Had To Be Restored To Their Originals
The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday halted the ruling, which would have restored park materials that the administration says were purged as part of the administration’s effort to get rid of materials that “disparage” Americans. – The Hill
- New York City’s New Budget Has Record-High Arts Funding
“The city government will give $323.8 million to (the Department of Cultural Affairs), which administers public funding to arts institutions throughout the city. The appropriation marks a nearly 7% increase from last year’s then-record $299.6 million investment.” – Hyperallergic
- Paris Has Become Europe’s Nexus For Black Culture
“Paris draws together communities from west, central and north Africa, as well as the Caribbean, and its density creates the conditions for encounters that aren’t as easy to manufacture elsewhere. What distinguishes Paris from other diaspora hubs … is the granularity of African identity it sustains.” – The Guardian
- How To Open Up Elite Universities?
It seems possible to push wealthy colleges like Princeton to enroll more working- and middle-class students. They surely need that push, because our most prestigious universities enroll a larger share of rich students now than they did in the 1980s. – The New York Times
MUSIC
- The Fanfiction Community Is At Internal War Over Generative AI
“Fandom communities are still mostly relying on vibes. Most fanfics aren’t judged by a tool like the AO3 skin, but by tells’ that could include anything from specific sentence structures — like the notorious ‘it’s not X, it’s Y’ — to overuse of flowery metaphors.” – The Verge (Archive Today)
- Cleared Commonwealth Prize-winner Explains His Writing Process
In a phone interview on Tuesday afternoon, Jamir Nazir told me that he feels vindicated—and relieved. “Look, I didn’t use it!” he said about AI. Now that he has won the prize, Nazir said, he is free at last to explain his process and clear his name. – The Atlantic
- How Noah Webster Pushed (And Pushed Some More) To Americanize The English Language
“Though it was much maligned during its initial years, The American Spelling Book had a profound pedagogical effect throughout the young nation. … ‘There iz no alternativ,’ implored Webster in 1790, … ‘Every possible reezon that could ever be offered for altering the spelling of wurds, stil exists in full force.’” – Literary Hub
- How JD Vance’s Book Put bell hooks’ 2002 Book Back On The Bestseller List
In 2002, the Black feminist writer and scholar bell hooks published a book titled “Communion,” which argues that women have been conditioned to search for love outside of themselves, and should focus on cultivating self-love in all stages of their lives. – The New York Times
- How Book Prizes Really Work
In every prize I’ve ever judged or heard firsthand reports of, everything else is up to the judges and their idiosyncrasies. There’s no input from anyone else. The heads of these organizations often learn the winner at the same moment the rest of the world does. – Rebecca Makkai
PEOPLE
- Pride And Pain: The United States At 250 As Seen In Its Performing Arts Scene
“Who are ‘our people,’ broadly defined? Can we even talk about a common American experience or identity, to which we can all attach a full-throated patriotism? We might look to the example of New York City’s Lincoln Center.” – American Theatre
- If You Need Some Incredible Photographs, Not Only Of Space, NASA Probably Has Them
But how to search them up? Google won’t help as much (if at all) anymore, but there are ways. – Wired
- Hollywood’s Output Has Always Been About Defining The USA
But now? “More and more, the space of American cinema is defined by one word: fantasy. … The fantasy worlds where our movies increasingly take place add up, in both philosophy and sensation, to a kind of abstract no-man’s land.” – Variety
- Ordering Up, And Then Touching, The Objects At The V&A East Storehouse
“When you open these cardboard frames up and look at the edges of the paper and see they’re stained and old, you can really picture Beatrix Potter’s hand. … It’s such a privilege to be this close and be trusted.” – The New York Times
- The Fanfiction Community Is At Internal War Over Generative AI
“Fandom communities are still mostly relying on vibes. Most fanfics aren’t judged by a tool like the AO3 skin, but by tells’ that could include anything from specific sentence structures — like the notorious ‘it’s not X, it’s Y’ — to overuse of flowery metaphors.” – The Verge (Archive Today)
PEOPLE
- Pride And Pain: The United States At 250 As Seen In Its Performing Arts Scene
“Who are ‘our people,’ broadly defined? Can we even talk about a common American experience or identity, to which we can all attach a full-throated patriotism? We might look to the example of New York City’s Lincoln Center.” – American Theatre
- If You Need Some Incredible Photographs, Not Only Of Space, NASA Probably Has Them
But how to search them up? Google won’t help as much (if at all) anymore, but there are ways. – Wired
- Hollywood’s Output Has Always Been About Defining The USA
But now? “More and more, the space of American cinema is defined by one word: fantasy. … The fantasy worlds where our movies increasingly take place add up, in both philosophy and sensation, to a kind of abstract no-man’s land.” – Variety
- Ordering Up, And Then Touching, The Objects At The V&A East Storehouse
“When you open these cardboard frames up and look at the edges of the paper and see they’re stained and old, you can really picture Beatrix Potter’s hand. … It’s such a privilege to be this close and be trusted.” – The New York Times
- The Fanfiction Community Is At Internal War Over Generative AI
“Fandom communities are still mostly relying on vibes. Most fanfics aren’t judged by a tool like the AO3 skin, but by tells’ that could include anything from specific sentence structures — like the notorious ‘it’s not X, it’s Y’ — to overuse of flowery metaphors.” – The Verge (Archive Today)
THEATRE
VISUAL
- If You Need Some Incredible Photographs, Not Only Of Space, NASA Probably Has Them
But how to search them up? Google won’t help as much (if at all) anymore, but there are ways. – Wired
- The Two Versions Of Who We Really Are
Jean-Paul Sartre, for instance, insists that for humans ‘existence precedes essence’. We do not have an essence until we give ourselves an essence. In short, ‘man first exists: he materialises in the world, encounters himself, and only afterward defines himself.’ I define myself. – Psyche
- The Wrong Way To Criticize The Humanities
This poorly argued case that it may be time to restrain the principles of academic freedom and faculty autonomy is not helping the situation. – Boston Review
- Do We Have A Facts Problem Or An Interpretation-Of-Facts Problem?
Citizens can agree on verifiable facts and still inhabit different worlds, because facts do not interpret themselves. To see why, we need to look beyond narrow factual disagreements to the competing systems of interpretation through which people select, categorize, frame, connect, explain, and narrate facts. – Persuasion
- Why It’s So Difficult To Calculate Benefits And Costs Of Technology Innovation
When a tool reliably performs a cognitive operation, the internal capacity for that operation tends to weaken with disuse. People who know they can look up something on Google develop weaker memory for the information itself, and habitual GPS users show measurable decline in hippocampal-dependent spatial navigation. – Aeon
