AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- We’re Enhancing Real Life as a Cinematic Experience
The result is that cinematic, as a descriptor, now connotes not a break from regular life but an enhancement of it. – The Atlantic
- Critics Pan Elon Musk’s AI Version Of “The Odyssey”
Xavier Collins, the co-founder of Wonder Studios, said the first episode was made in less than two weeks with a creative team of three, including the US-based director Dev Walker. It is understood to have cost tens of thousands of dollars. – The Guardian
- Why Does Music Feel So Fake Right Now?
“Is it real?” That’s the most pressing question in music right now, and it’s one that feels impossible to adequately answer, in almost any context. Mainstream pop, seemingly falling out of fashion though it still fills stadiums and streaming playlists, is riddled with stories of chicanery and poison artifice. – NPR
- Meet ABT’s Youngest-Ever Choreographer
Brady Farrar, now 21, is still recognized by some fans from his six-week appearance on Dance Moms when he was 14. He entered ABT as an apprentice in 2024 and joined the corps last year but began choreographing at age 15. His Trio Élégiaque, commissioned by ABT, debuts this week. – The New York Times
- Fort Worth Symphony CEO Keith Cerny To Depart In January
“Cerny, who has led the orchestra for eight years, will depart after a tenure that included the hiring of Music Director Robert Spano, navigating the COVID-19 pandemic without cutting musicians’ and staff members’ pay or benefits, and a major push to expand the orchestra’s board and donor base.” – CultureMap Fort Worth
ISSUES
- Staffers At V&A Museums In London Suspend Strike Plans
“The strike was suspended on Monday pending last-minute talks with the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, after the V&A management made an improved offer.” – The Guardian
- San Francisco’s SFMoMA Gets A Big Boost From A K-Pop Star
Want to sell tickets? Get a K-pop star’s art collection up. “The show has been a blockbuster success, with over 66,000 tickets sold and advance sales that were six times higher than any previous exhibition at the museum.” – The Guardian (UK)
- Dealers Scramble To Get Work Out Of Art Basel Paris After Surprise Early Closing
Multiple dealers told ARTnews they’d received an email announcing the decision at around 3:30 p.m. on Thursday. By then, many had already suspected Saturday’s opening might be canceled. The loss of Sunday came as more of a surprise. – ARTnews
- Man Arrested For Beheading Iwo Jima Memorial Statue At Quantico Marine Base
“Officers responding to a report of destruction of property at the Marine Corps Base Quantico around 10:31 p.m. saw a man ‘actively damaging the statue with a sledgehammer’ and detained him without incident, Prince William County police said.” – CNN
- Art Basel Paris Is Closing Early Because Of France’s Violent Demonstrations
The art fair had been schedule to run through the weekend, but organizers have decided to shut it down on Friday evening “in light of potential demonstrations across Paris this weekend, and in the interest of safeguarding our visitors.” – Artnet
MEDIA
- Perot Museum Of Nature And Science Plans $185 Million Expansion
“Plans include a five-story parking garage, a new arrival pavilion, a dedicated area for school bus drop-offs, a pollinator garden and a paleontology garden. This will double the amount of square footage that the museum has dedicated to exhibits, but now outside the building.” – KERA (Dallas)
- The Film Director Whose Impossible Class Struggle Movie Won At Venice
Lee Chang-Dong: “I constantly asked myself: am I worthy of telling this story? And if I am, how do I tell it? Do I stand close to the workers, or keep my distance?” – The Guardian (UK)
- A Huge Fire Has Destroyed Hitler’s Nazi Guesthouse
For some reason (the reason being that after WWII, “local officials fought successfully to keep it, seeing it as a historical site that could attract visitors”), it was still standing, and had a popular restaurant. – The New York Times
- “Why Satire Is No Laughing Matter”: An Essay By Sacha Baron Cohen
“Satire doesn’t just needle politicians or regimes — it occasionally helps bring them down. … Historian Ben Lewis credits Soviet joke-telling with helping to topple communism, by making it impossible for even the system’s own enforcers to take it seriously. … ‘Every joke,’ George Orwell observed, ‘is a tiny revolution.’” – Time
- This Year’s Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Booted From The National Mall, Thrived On A Nine-Month U.S. Tour
“Clifford Murphy, the director of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, which runs the festival, called it a ‘democratizing experience’ — one that added up to more than just making lemons into lemonade.” – The New York Times
MUSIC
- Has Substack “Fixed” Writing On The Internet?
The company is, in essence, a crowdfunding e-commerce site, belonging to the same category as Kickstarter, Patreon, Gumroad, and OnlyFans. But it has out-evolved its ancestors and bested its competitors in its relevance to public discourse and in its direct commodification of online parasocial relationships. – The New Yorker
- Can An Immigrant From Scotland Really Be ‘An Irish Writer’?
The writer herself has questions.”Writers are, often, to generalise, outsiders, observers, given to the long view, odd if not downright awkward. … How do these propensities relate to the construction of literature as an international sport?” – Irish Times
- How To Write About People, And Place, Beyond War
“Turning to fiction allowed for stories that would otherwise have disappeared into the chest of time, to live on, and slowly but surely they are educating, bringing forth that we all share this place together. The 24-hour news cycle leaves little room for reflection or deeper understanding.” – LitHub
- What Makes For A Good Scary Story?
The end, says Stephen Graham Jones.”The story is running along the top of a flat mesa, and it’s nighttime and 95% of it is even-footing. But then at the very end, you jump off into the night, into the darkness, and you trust.” – NPR
- It’s Spooky Season, And Time To Acknowledge The Most Influential American Writer Ever
Edgar Allan Poe “seems in deliberate, even flagrant, contrast with what were once regarded as the great themes of American literature: the freedom of self-reinvention promised by a new society and its frontier, exploration, rugged individualism, and the struggle to conquer nature.” – Slate
PEOPLE
- We’re Enhancing Real Life as a Cinematic Experience
The result is that cinematic, as a descriptor, now connotes not a break from regular life but an enhancement of it. – The Atlantic
- Critics Pan Elon Musk’s AI Version Of “The Odyssey”
Xavier Collins, the co-founder of Wonder Studios, said the first episode was made in less than two weeks with a creative team of three, including the US-based director Dev Walker. It is understood to have cost tens of thousands of dollars. – The Guardian
- Why Does Music Feel So Fake Right Now?
“Is it real?” That’s the most pressing question in music right now, and it’s one that feels impossible to adequately answer, in almost any context. Mainstream pop, seemingly falling out of fashion though it still fills stadiums and streaming playlists, is riddled with stories of chicanery and poison artifice. – NPR
- Meet ABT’s Youngest-Ever Choreographer
Brady Farrar, now 21, is still recognized by some fans from his six-week appearance on Dance Moms when he was 14. He entered ABT as an apprentice in 2024 and joined the corps last year but began choreographing at age 15. His Trio Élégiaque, commissioned by ABT, debuts this week. – The New York Times
- Fort Worth Symphony CEO Keith Cerny To Depart In January
“Cerny, who has led the orchestra for eight years, will depart after a tenure that included the hiring of Music Director Robert Spano, navigating the COVID-19 pandemic without cutting musicians’ and staff members’ pay or benefits, and a major push to expand the orchestra’s board and donor base.” – CultureMap Fort Worth
PEOPLE
- We’re Enhancing Real Life as a Cinematic Experience
The result is that cinematic, as a descriptor, now connotes not a break from regular life but an enhancement of it. – The Atlantic
- Critics Pan Elon Musk’s AI Version Of “The Odyssey”
Xavier Collins, the co-founder of Wonder Studios, said the first episode was made in less than two weeks with a creative team of three, including the US-based director Dev Walker. It is understood to have cost tens of thousands of dollars. – The Guardian
- Why Does Music Feel So Fake Right Now?
“Is it real?” That’s the most pressing question in music right now, and it’s one that feels impossible to adequately answer, in almost any context. Mainstream pop, seemingly falling out of fashion though it still fills stadiums and streaming playlists, is riddled with stories of chicanery and poison artifice. – NPR
- Meet ABT’s Youngest-Ever Choreographer
Brady Farrar, now 21, is still recognized by some fans from his six-week appearance on Dance Moms when he was 14. He entered ABT as an apprentice in 2024 and joined the corps last year but began choreographing at age 15. His Trio Élégiaque, commissioned by ABT, debuts this week. – The New York Times
- Fort Worth Symphony CEO Keith Cerny To Depart In January
“Cerny, who has led the orchestra for eight years, will depart after a tenure that included the hiring of Music Director Robert Spano, navigating the COVID-19 pandemic without cutting musicians’ and staff members’ pay or benefits, and a major push to expand the orchestra’s board and donor base.” – CultureMap Fort Worth
THEATRE
VISUAL
- We’re Enhancing Real Life as a Cinematic Experience
The result is that cinematic, as a descriptor, now connotes not a break from regular life but an enhancement of it. – The Atlantic
- Billionaire Tech Nerds And Their Investment In Ending Democracy
As Trump’s behaviour became increasingly authoritarian—openly defying laws, targeting his enemies with prosecutions, dispatching troops into Democratic cities, and turning US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into a shock force to terrorize immigrant communities—many in Silicon Valley cashed in on the action. – The Walrus
- Does The California Gold Rush Teach Us Anything About The Rush To AI?
In 1849 alone, more than forty thousand people travelled overland to California, while roughly the same number headed there by sea. – The New Yorker
- Why Some Youth – The Ones Who Joust On Bikes, For Instance – Are Going Medieval
One “emerging medieval strand [is] ‘wenchcore,’ which offers ‘a more acceptable voracious sexuality, the ribald, singing, dancing, drinking, doesn’t-need-to-be-perfect idea of womanhood and of masculinity … more of just whatever goes.’” – The Guardian (UK)
- The Art Of Attention
“You can’t talk about aesthetics,” he wrote, “without talking about the principle of hope and the existence of evil.” Attention, for him, was a matter of life and death, or at least of their cultural equivalents, remembering and forgetting. – The New York Times