AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- The Tony Awards, Updated Live
In case you can’t tune in … – Playbill
- Broadway’s big night — hold the comfort food
Good Morning,
The Tony awards last night said a lot about where Broadway’s head is at: more reassurance than risk. Vulture handicapped the field (Vulture) — while the argument that the season has gone soft, “serving up liberal comfort food” instead of the gut punch theater does best, gets a sharp rebuttal over at AJ’s own For What it’s Worth. The four new musicals bet the form can still turn a corner (Washington Post).
Meanwhile the institution that can’t catch a break: a judge tossed the Kennedy Center’s lawsuit against a jazz musician who declined to play its holiday show (The New York Times), even as the deeper fight over its leadership and finances grinds on (The Atlantic).
Two to mark: Anthony Stewart Head, of Buffy and Ted Lasso, at 72 (The New York Times), and MOBO founder Kanya King, remembered for remaking Black British culture on a currency of “kindness and warmth” (The Guardian).
And because someone decided it needed one: the French Open now opens with a ballet, choreographed by Benjamin Millepied (The New York Times).
Lastly, my take on the Trump Administration’s decision to deny student loans to programs “This notion that the ultimate measure of American education is economic is an impoverishing one. We measure for success. If that measure is earnings then we optimize for earnings. Social value measured on an earnings scale doesn’t just get deprioritized, it doesn’t exist. But we need that social value. So we “subsidize” it, turning it into charity that can’t exist on its own. Then the conservative mindset spins those subsidies as luxuries we can’t afford, so there’s ongoing pressure to eliminate them. What began as a values debate becomes a fiscal debate argued around a measurement scale that doesn’t measure values. If you’re in the arts, this argument should sound very familiar.” Read the rest here.
All of our stories below.
Doug
- A New Documentary Shows Just How Much Movie-Makers Can’t Handle The Reality Of Michael Jackson
Capitalizing on his name is one things, as the fictional Michael heads to a billion-dollar take at the box office, but Netflix is also, rather disgustingly, cashing in. – HuffPost
- The 1980s Centered A Neon-Colored End Of The World, And Now It’s All Coming To A Theatre Near You
Revisiting the 1980s, a decade whose “reality pulsed with cultural Balkanization, financial erosion, systemic disinvestment, and televised neurosis, the American theatre conjures a cultural imagination crowded with the outsiders, monsters, con artists, hungry things, and chosen kindred of the analog twilight.” – American Theatre
- An Appreciation For Kanya King, Who Changed And ‘Revolutionized’ Black British Culture
The founder of the Mobo Awards was “engaging, self-effacing, funny, modest. Someone with so much to brag about but who was so humble. Her superpower, it turns out, was kindness and warmth.” – The Guardian (UK)
ISSUES
- The UK’s Heirloom Ceramics Sector Is In Deep Trouble
“The UK ceramics sector employs 20,000 people, half of them in the West Midlands, and is regarded as an indispensable to the economy” – but repeated blows are breaking even the ceramics for the defense sector. – The Guardian (UK)
- Archaeologists Are Discovering Centuries’ Worth Of Paris History Underneath Notre-Dame
“Among the hundreds of objects already found: a fourth-century coin stamped with the face of the Emperor Constantine, and shards of medieval pottery painted on the inside with marks no expert has yet deciphered — like a modern Da Vinci Code.” – AP
- Miami’s Bass Museum Of Art Creates New Artistic Director Position, Hires Philippe Vergne
“Philippe Vergne, the former director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Dia Art Foundation in New York, has been named to the newly created position of Artistic Director and Chief Curator and will work alongside Executive Director Silvia Karman Cubiña … as her ‘thought partner’.” – The Miami Herald (MSN)
- Pace Gallery Cuts 50 Artists, 50 Staff
“The whole art gallery art system became too big, too commercial, too impersonal and too corporate,” Marc Glimcher, the chief executive, said in an interview this week. – The New York Times
- Why Trump’s Arch Is So Wrong
Triumphal arches are thuggish. They’re the architectural equivalent of a domestic abuser standing, arms crossed, legs athwart, in front of the bedroom door. I prefer the democratic, American tradition of modest, respectful, open-air monuments. – The Atlantic
MEDIA
- A New Documentary Shows Just How Much Movie-Makers Can’t Handle The Reality Of Michael Jackson
Capitalizing on his name is one things, as the fictional Michael heads to a billion-dollar take at the box office, but Netflix is also, rather disgustingly, cashing in. – HuffPost
- The Effort To Save The Kennedy Center From This President Is Far From Over
“Fundamental questions about the institution’s leadership, finances, and artistic direction remain in flux. ‘It’s not clear if there’s any money to stay open with. … And it’s also not clear who’s going to be in charge.’” – The Atlantic
- There’s A Big Need For Creative Talent In The Age Of AI
Our survey found that 79% of Americans believe that cities investing in colleges dedicated to the creative industry will be more successful economically in the future than those that do not. – Fast Company
- Kennedy Center Staff Told To Remove Trump’s Name From Everything
“(An internal) memo states staffers must immediately change email signatures, letterhead, and other documents ‘to reflect the name as ‘The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,’ or ‘Kennedy Center.’’ This also includes voicemails, social media accounts and press releases.” – Politico
- All 11 Edinburgh Festivals Propose A Common Ticket Platform
The festivals involved in the plan, including the main international festival, will soon invite bidders to investigate how to merge the ticketing operations and data of all 11 events, which in 2024 sold nearly 4m tickets in total. Others include the book festival and the film festival. – The Guardian
MUSIC
- A New Edith Wharton Story Highlights The Human Inability To Deal With War
“The story, on two typed and undated manuscripts that appeared to be different drafts, centers on a dinner party hosted at the same table where, earlier in the war, an army surgeon had performed amputations.” – The New York Times
- Mary Shelley’s Sisters
“Fanny’s few surviving letters testify to her interests in poetry, education, art history, literature, current affairs, social politics, and the wellbeing of her extended family. … She counted Aaron Burr (former USA vice president), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (poet), Humphry Davy (scientist), [and] Charles and Mary Lamb (writers)” as acquaintances. – LitHub
- Two And A Half Centuries On, Someone May Have Figured Out The Mystery Of The Declaration Of Independence
Pretty cool: “Scholars have identified about 17 distinct broadside editions created in print shops across the colonies in July and August 1776, usually in runs of hundreds of copies.” One was anonymous – but perhaps not anymore. – The New York Times
- Literary Arts Fund Awards Its First-Ever Grants — $7.7 Million Worth
“Among 40 organizations in 19 states, (the) recipients of grants ranging from $40,000 to $500,000 include the National Book Foundation, which oversees the National Book Awards; the North Carolina Writers’ Network; Graywolf Press, Copper Canyon Press and other publishers; and the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop.” – AP
- A Frequent Book-Prize Juror Explains How These Awards Actually Work
Rebecca Makkai has judged six major awards in the past eight years (a pace she does not recommend), and she shares some things she’s learned that she thinks most people don’t realize. For instance, she explains, the process is both purer and more random than you’d guess. – SubMakk
PEOPLE
- The Tony Awards, Updated Live
In case you can’t tune in … – Playbill
- Broadway’s big night — hold the comfort food
Good Morning,
The Tony awards last night said a lot about where Broadway’s head is at: more reassurance than risk. Vulture handicapped the field (Vulture) — while the argument that the season has gone soft, “serving up liberal comfort food” instead of the gut punch theater does best, gets a sharp rebuttal over at AJ’s own For What it’s Worth. The four new musicals bet the form can still turn a corner (Washington Post).
Meanwhile the institution that can’t catch a break: a judge tossed the Kennedy Center’s lawsuit against a jazz musician who declined to play its holiday show (The New York Times), even as the deeper fight over its leadership and finances grinds on (The Atlantic).
Two to mark: Anthony Stewart Head, of Buffy and Ted Lasso, at 72 (The New York Times), and MOBO founder Kanya King, remembered for remaking Black British culture on a currency of “kindness and warmth” (The Guardian).
And because someone decided it needed one: the French Open now opens with a ballet, choreographed by Benjamin Millepied (The New York Times).
Lastly, my take on the Trump Administration’s decision to deny student loans to programs “This notion that the ultimate measure of American education is economic is an impoverishing one. We measure for success. If that measure is earnings then we optimize for earnings. Social value measured on an earnings scale doesn’t just get deprioritized, it doesn’t exist. But we need that social value. So we “subsidize” it, turning it into charity that can’t exist on its own. Then the conservative mindset spins those subsidies as luxuries we can’t afford, so there’s ongoing pressure to eliminate them. What began as a values debate becomes a fiscal debate argued around a measurement scale that doesn’t measure values. If you’re in the arts, this argument should sound very familiar.” Read the rest here.
All of our stories below.
Doug
- A New Documentary Shows Just How Much Movie-Makers Can’t Handle The Reality Of Michael Jackson
Capitalizing on his name is one things, as the fictional Michael heads to a billion-dollar take at the box office, but Netflix is also, rather disgustingly, cashing in. – HuffPost
- The 1980s Centered A Neon-Colored End Of The World, And Now It’s All Coming To A Theatre Near You
Revisiting the 1980s, a decade whose “reality pulsed with cultural Balkanization, financial erosion, systemic disinvestment, and televised neurosis, the American theatre conjures a cultural imagination crowded with the outsiders, monsters, con artists, hungry things, and chosen kindred of the analog twilight.” – American Theatre
- An Appreciation For Kanya King, Who Changed And ‘Revolutionized’ Black British Culture
The founder of the Mobo Awards was “engaging, self-effacing, funny, modest. Someone with so much to brag about but who was so humble. Her superpower, it turns out, was kindness and warmth.” – The Guardian (UK)
PEOPLE
- The Tony Awards, Updated Live
In case you can’t tune in … – Playbill
- Broadway’s big night — hold the comfort food
Good Morning,
The Tony awards last night said a lot about where Broadway’s head is at: more reassurance than risk. Vulture handicapped the field (Vulture) — while the argument that the season has gone soft, “serving up liberal comfort food” instead of the gut punch theater does best, gets a sharp rebuttal over at AJ’s own For What it’s Worth. The four new musicals bet the form can still turn a corner (Washington Post).
Meanwhile the institution that can’t catch a break: a judge tossed the Kennedy Center’s lawsuit against a jazz musician who declined to play its holiday show (The New York Times), even as the deeper fight over its leadership and finances grinds on (The Atlantic).
Two to mark: Anthony Stewart Head, of Buffy and Ted Lasso, at 72 (The New York Times), and MOBO founder Kanya King, remembered for remaking Black British culture on a currency of “kindness and warmth” (The Guardian).
And because someone decided it needed one: the French Open now opens with a ballet, choreographed by Benjamin Millepied (The New York Times).
Lastly, my take on the Trump Administration’s decision to deny student loans to programs “This notion that the ultimate measure of American education is economic is an impoverishing one. We measure for success. If that measure is earnings then we optimize for earnings. Social value measured on an earnings scale doesn’t just get deprioritized, it doesn’t exist. But we need that social value. So we “subsidize” it, turning it into charity that can’t exist on its own. Then the conservative mindset spins those subsidies as luxuries we can’t afford, so there’s ongoing pressure to eliminate them. What began as a values debate becomes a fiscal debate argued around a measurement scale that doesn’t measure values. If you’re in the arts, this argument should sound very familiar.” Read the rest here.
All of our stories below.
Doug
- A New Documentary Shows Just How Much Movie-Makers Can’t Handle The Reality Of Michael Jackson
Capitalizing on his name is one things, as the fictional Michael heads to a billion-dollar take at the box office, but Netflix is also, rather disgustingly, cashing in. – HuffPost
- The 1980s Centered A Neon-Colored End Of The World, And Now It’s All Coming To A Theatre Near You
Revisiting the 1980s, a decade whose “reality pulsed with cultural Balkanization, financial erosion, systemic disinvestment, and televised neurosis, the American theatre conjures a cultural imagination crowded with the outsiders, monsters, con artists, hungry things, and chosen kindred of the analog twilight.” – American Theatre
- An Appreciation For Kanya King, Who Changed And ‘Revolutionized’ Black British Culture
The founder of the Mobo Awards was “engaging, self-effacing, funny, modest. Someone with so much to brag about but who was so humble. Her superpower, it turns out, was kindness and warmth.” – The Guardian (UK)
THEATRE
VISUAL
- Good AI? Model Proposes Thousands Of Designs, Test Them, Then Adapts
The AI model proposed study designs, and robots carried them out and fed the data back to the model for the next round. Humans set the goal, and the machines did much of the work in the lab, cutting the cost of producing a desired protein by 40 percent. – Singularity Hub
- Lessons From The Enhanced Games
Trying to break world records remains a high-risk, high-reward strategy for Enhanced. The event proved that breaking records is incredibly difficult, even with PEDs and technological enhancements such as swimming supersuits, both banned in traditional sport. – The Conversation
- If You Don’t Use AI It’s Tough To Spot AI
One of the problems with AI use seeping out of business and science writing and into the ‘literary’ world is that literary editors may be the worst equipped to identify AI writing. – London Review of Books
- Criticism In The Age Of AI: It’s Superfluous
The early parts of the story of how the humanities turned against “the human” are well told in two intellectual histories. – Hedgehog Review
- Are The Arts Simply Incompatible With Right Wing Government?
A belief that what is good will be paid for by consumers, and that the state should stand back and play as small a part as possible. Applying this to the arts means that they are not a public good but instead a sector that should be shaped by market principles, competition, and measurable returns. – The Big Idea
