AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Good Morning
The fight over Notre Dame’s windows isn’t really about windows. Claire Tabouret’s proposed stained glass would replace Viollet-le-Duc’s 19th-century panels — undamaged ones — and a lawsuit is now trying to stop it (ARTnews).
The Kennedy Center’s cascading cancellations continue — New York City Ballet has pulled out of its scheduled performances there (The New York Times). Hyperallergic argues that progressive art faces a double bind: the world is hostile to socially engaged work but perfectly happy to borrow its language for branding and real estate (Hyperallergic). And in Britain, a new report finds that Black genres have generated £24.5 billion of the UK music industry’s £30 billion recorded music market. (The Guardian).
And it turns out we’ve all been mispronouncing Thoreau. Now Meryl Streep is involved (The New York Times).
All of our stories below.
- Why Is Everyone Still In Love With Sherlock Holmes?
“The real Holmes – the one written by Conan Doyle – is endlessly fascinating. He is a genius but flawed because he is so supercilious that he gets bored too quickly and turns to drugs to keep him occupied. But he has a humanity to him.” – NPR
- Tracy Kidder, Who Helped Redefine Nonfiction, Has Died At 80
“Kidder was careful to eschew focusing on his longtime loves like fishing or baseball, afraid that if he spent too much time in one of those realms, it might cause him to ‘feel sick of it.’” – The Guardian UK (AP)
- Will A Lawsuit Allow Claire Tabouret’s Windows To Be Mounted In Notre Dame?
“At the crux of the controversy is the fact that Tabouret’s new windows would push out Viollet-le-Duc’s undamaged ones. Advocates for the project argue that since the windows date to the 19th century, instead of the Middle Ages, they are fair game to be replaced.” – ARTnews
- If Streamers Like Netflix Keep Raising Prices, How Will Viewers Keep Up?
The newest price increase includes a $27 a month premium (that is, not ad-supported; which was, one may remember, THE WHOLE POINT OF STREAMING) plan. Time to get out? – Decider (MSN)
ISSUES
- Will A Lawsuit Allow Claire Tabouret’s Windows To Be Mounted In Notre Dame?
“At the crux of the controversy is the fact that Tabouret’s new windows would push out Viollet-le-Duc’s undamaged ones. Advocates for the project argue that since the windows date to the 19th century, instead of the Middle Ages, they are fair game to be replaced.” – ARTnews
- The World Is Hostile To Socially Progressive Art, But Also Wants To Copy It – For Profit
“Developers discovered the cultural value of place-making. Corporations embraced art as branding. Cultural nonprofits and academic institutions increasingly adopted the vocabulary of community engagement while operating within the same economic structures driving displacement.” What now? – Hyperallergic
- The Paul Klee That Can’t Leave The Middle East Because Of The War
“Angelus Novus is renowned not just in its own right, but for what its most famous owner made of it. … It was purchased in Munich in 1921 by the German-Jewish writer Walter Benjamin, a titanic figure in 20th-century letters.” Now, ironically, it’s represented by “an authorized facsimile.” – The New York Times
- A New Theory About Where The Book Of Kells Was Made
It’s been widely assumed that the 8th-century manuscript was copied and illuminated at St. Columba’s monastery on Scotland’s island of Iona — this despite the fact that there’s no archaeological evidence that Iona had a place or materials for such a major project. Evidence has, however, been found at another Scottish site. – Artnet
- Despite War, Middle East Art World Seems “Normal”
As the US-Israel war on Iran enters its fourth week, neighboring Gulf states, a hub of much of the region’s contemporary art production, are projecting an image of normalcy, with many galleries and museums reopening. – Hyperallergic
MEDIA
- What We All Miss When We Second-Screen
“Short-form video habituates the brain to rapid stimuli, reducing its capacity to stay focused on the slower and more demanding. There’s a popular term for it that’s pretty self-explanatory: ‘brainrot.’” – Boston Globe
- Iran Is Winning The AI Slop Propaganda War
An AI-generated LEGO movie mocking Trump as a pedophile “is the work of Iran-based propagandists called the ‘Explosive News Team’ and is just the latest in a long line of AI-generated LEGO videos aimed at mocking Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu.” – 404 Media
- Why Did OpenAI Kill Sora?
Maybe it was this: “The platform’s operational costs proved unsustainable, with each 10-second video costing OpenAI approximately $130 in compute expenses. With millions of users creating content daily, these costs escalated to $15 million per day.” – Geeky Gadgets
- Why Destroying Cultural Sites In War Is Bad Strategy
Ignoring cultural property protections runs counter to a lesson many military forces, including the United States, have come to recognize: that safeguarding cultural heritage is not only a legal obligation, but also strategically smart. – The Conversation
- Why Trump Is Going After Cultural Institutions
One thing that has really struck me is that ordinary Americans are far less interested in fighting about history than it might seem. – The New York Times
MUSIC
- We’ve Been Mispronouncing The Name Of A Foundational American Writer For Decades
“It was a hotly debated thing, and it came to a head with Meryl Streep.” – The New York Times
- Han Kang And Arundhati Roy Among Winners At National Book Critics Circle Awards
Nobel laureate Han Kang won the fiction category for We Do Not Part, while Karen Hao took nonfiction honors for Empire of A.I. and Arundhati Roy received the autobiography prize for Mother Mary Comes to Me. Among other honorees were Quinn Slobodian for Hayek’s Bastards (criticism) and Kevin Young for Night Watch (poetry). – AP
- AI Is Making A Bollox Of The Publishing Industry
As more A.I.-generated writing is put out in the world, more readers will question whether the text they are poring over was penned by a human. We’re barreling toward a rapid erosion of trust between authors and readers, and the publishing industry is unprepared to deal with the consequences. – The New York Times
- The People Getting Falsely Accused Of Using AI Because They Write Too Well
Everyone is trying to figure out who is LLM and who is human, and sometimes we’re getting it wrong. In particular, people who learned English as a second or third language, working hard to master the strange, unpredictable rules, are accused of using AI precisely because they follow those rules. – New York Magazine
- How The London Review Of Books Is Making Money Despite Losing Circulation
The independently-owned title has seen sales decline from a post-pandemic high of 91,000 copies in 2021 to about 78,000 currently. But the LRB has increased income by an average of 6.8% year-on-year since the pandemic and is focusing on revenue per copy rather than discounting to increase circulation. – Press Gazette (UK)
PEOPLE
- Good Morning
The fight over Notre Dame’s windows isn’t really about windows. Claire Tabouret’s proposed stained glass would replace Viollet-le-Duc’s 19th-century panels — undamaged ones — and a lawsuit is now trying to stop it (ARTnews).
The Kennedy Center’s cascading cancellations continue — New York City Ballet has pulled out of its scheduled performances there (The New York Times). Hyperallergic argues that progressive art faces a double bind: the world is hostile to socially engaged work but perfectly happy to borrow its language for branding and real estate (Hyperallergic). And in Britain, a new report finds that Black genres have generated £24.5 billion of the UK music industry’s £30 billion recorded music market. (The Guardian).
And it turns out we’ve all been mispronouncing Thoreau. Now Meryl Streep is involved (The New York Times).
All of our stories below.
- Why Is Everyone Still In Love With Sherlock Holmes?
“The real Holmes – the one written by Conan Doyle – is endlessly fascinating. He is a genius but flawed because he is so supercilious that he gets bored too quickly and turns to drugs to keep him occupied. But he has a humanity to him.” – NPR
- Tracy Kidder, Who Helped Redefine Nonfiction, Has Died At 80
“Kidder was careful to eschew focusing on his longtime loves like fishing or baseball, afraid that if he spent too much time in one of those realms, it might cause him to ‘feel sick of it.’” – The Guardian UK (AP)
- Will A Lawsuit Allow Claire Tabouret’s Windows To Be Mounted In Notre Dame?
“At the crux of the controversy is the fact that Tabouret’s new windows would push out Viollet-le-Duc’s undamaged ones. Advocates for the project argue that since the windows date to the 19th century, instead of the Middle Ages, they are fair game to be replaced.” – ARTnews
- If Streamers Like Netflix Keep Raising Prices, How Will Viewers Keep Up?
The newest price increase includes a $27 a month premium (that is, not ad-supported; which was, one may remember, THE WHOLE POINT OF STREAMING) plan. Time to get out? – Decider (MSN)
PEOPLE
- Good Morning
The fight over Notre Dame’s windows isn’t really about windows. Claire Tabouret’s proposed stained glass would replace Viollet-le-Duc’s 19th-century panels — undamaged ones — and a lawsuit is now trying to stop it (ARTnews).
The Kennedy Center’s cascading cancellations continue — New York City Ballet has pulled out of its scheduled performances there (The New York Times). Hyperallergic argues that progressive art faces a double bind: the world is hostile to socially engaged work but perfectly happy to borrow its language for branding and real estate (Hyperallergic). And in Britain, a new report finds that Black genres have generated £24.5 billion of the UK music industry’s £30 billion recorded music market. (The Guardian).
And it turns out we’ve all been mispronouncing Thoreau. Now Meryl Streep is involved (The New York Times).
All of our stories below.
- Why Is Everyone Still In Love With Sherlock Holmes?
“The real Holmes – the one written by Conan Doyle – is endlessly fascinating. He is a genius but flawed because he is so supercilious that he gets bored too quickly and turns to drugs to keep him occupied. But he has a humanity to him.” – NPR
- Tracy Kidder, Who Helped Redefine Nonfiction, Has Died At 80
“Kidder was careful to eschew focusing on his longtime loves like fishing or baseball, afraid that if he spent too much time in one of those realms, it might cause him to ‘feel sick of it.’” – The Guardian UK (AP)
- Will A Lawsuit Allow Claire Tabouret’s Windows To Be Mounted In Notre Dame?
“At the crux of the controversy is the fact that Tabouret’s new windows would push out Viollet-le-Duc’s undamaged ones. Advocates for the project argue that since the windows date to the 19th century, instead of the Middle Ages, they are fair game to be replaced.” – ARTnews
- If Streamers Like Netflix Keep Raising Prices, How Will Viewers Keep Up?
The newest price increase includes a $27 a month premium (that is, not ad-supported; which was, one may remember, THE WHOLE POINT OF STREAMING) plan. Time to get out? – Decider (MSN)
THEATRE
VISUAL
- Why Is Everyone Still In Love With Sherlock Holmes?
“The real Holmes – the one written by Conan Doyle – is endlessly fascinating. He is a genius but flawed because he is so supercilious that he gets bored too quickly and turns to drugs to keep him occupied. But he has a humanity to him.” – NPR
- Rebecca Solnit Wants Progressives To Calm Down And Keep It Slow
“Yes, we’re living through a political revolution, but it’s not the one you think. It’s not the fast-paced hurtle towards fascist necropolitics we wake up to every day.” – The Guardian (UK)
- Manitoba Considers Banning Algorithmic Pricing
Once firms get consumers used to being sorted, profiled, and priced differently, the practice starts to feel inevitable. But it is not. It is a choice about what kind of business practices we expect. Personalized algorithmic pricing pulls together affordability, privacy, competition, consumer protection, and data extraction all at once. – The Walrus
- AI Is Forcing Us To Grapple With Meaning
When Wittgenstein referred to the “beginning of the end of humanity,” he was not envisioning sci-fi cataclysms… He was referring to what he called the “form of life” we inhabit. That form of life is threatened by a way of thinking that lowers human life to the plane of science and technology. – Commonweal
- The Progress Paradox: Are You Coal Or Are You A Horse?
Searches for the phrase job apocalypse are spiking. Polls show that voters are beginning to freak out. But there’s a better question for white-collar workers to ask themselves: Am I coal, or am I a horse? – The Atlantic
