AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Shostakovich: His Time Has Come (Alas)
Leonard Bernstein celebrated Dmitri Shostakovich’s sixtieth birthday by proclaiming him “an authentic genius” – “and there aren’t too many of those around anymore.” That took courage in 1966, when Shostakovich – the leading Soviet musician — remained a Cold War cartoon of the stooge and simpleton. As Bernstein appreciated earlier
- Good Morning
In case you missed it, this week’s AJ Chronicles deeper dive into stories from the past week ponders German philosopher Jurgen Habermas’s notion of the “public sphere,” that space outside control of both state and market forces where culture circulates freely, ideas get tested, and democratic life lives. Democracy, he argued, required it to exist, and he warned it is never guaranteed. It’s worth pondering this insight now, because the public sphere is currently being tested: by the market, from inside the institutions that host it, and from the state. Habermas died last week at 96.
Calvin Tompkins died this week at 100, and with him goes one of the last great interpreters of contemporary art — the critic who spent 62 years guiding New Yorker readers through the often arcane world of what art was becoming (The New York Times). The timing is pointed. While Tompkins spent a career helping people understand artists on their own terms, the federal government is now insisting on a different kind of interpretation: the National Park Service has pulled films about mill workers from a historic site in Lowell, Massachusetts, apparently in compliance with its “only positive history” directive (NBC). And Black Studies departments at American colleges — some of them storied, award-winning programs — are being quietly dismantled, bottom lines and trustees doing what no culture war had managed to finish (LitHub).
Hollywood is feeling its own version of this. Vulture’s week-after Oscars piece notes that with the Warner Bros. sale and the Academy’s imminent move to YouTube, the ceremony felt like it was being preserved in amber even as it happened — a bittersweet fin de siècle moment for an industry in mid-transformation (Vulture).
A lighter item: a Dutch art detective once answered his door to find a blue IKEA bag on the step. Inside, a blood-soaked pillow. Inside that, a missing Van Gogh (NPR). Cultural transmission takes many forms.
All of our stories below.
- Game Developers Use AI For A Lot Of Things, But Not Creating Games
This feels like good news for creators: “‘I feel like the human mind is so beautiful,’ The Melty Way developer Gabriel Paquette told me. ‘Why not use it?’” (Archive Today link) – The Verge
- The Navy Veteran Who Titles His Paintings After Octavia Butler And Dostoyevsky
“’You do four years in the Navy, and you see a lot of blue water,’ said [Walter] Price, standing in his studio in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn.” – The New York Times
- Musicians On The Greatness And Legacy Of Alice Coltrane
In just one example, “as the American composer Adrian Younge says: ‘Alice Coltrane took the harp, an instrument of angels and orchestras, and made it sound like the cosmos breathing.’” – The Guardian (UK)
ISSUES
- The Navy Veteran Who Titles His Paintings After Octavia Butler And Dostoyevsky
“’You do four years in the Navy, and you see a lot of blue water,’ said [Walter] Price, standing in his studio in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn.” – The New York Times
- The Art Detective Who Follows Clues To Stolen Paintings In A Shadowy, Underground Ecosystem
“One afternoon, Brand says he opened his door and found a blue IKEA bag on his doorstep. Inside, he says, was a pillow soaked in blood. Wrapped within it was the missing Van Gogh.” – NPR
- Trump’s Handpicked Arts Commission Says Plans For New White House Entry “Not Beautiful Enough”
The federal Commission of Fine Arts has taken issue with plans for a new 33,000-square-foot security screening center for White House visitors, saying the proposed facility is too big and not beautiful enough. – The New York Times
- Trump’s Handpicked Arts Commission Approves 250th Birthday Gold Coin — With Trump’s Image
The coin, which is supposed to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary, shows Mr. Trump with his fists pressed against a desk and a glowering expression on his face. The back of the coin features an eagle. – The New York Times
- New Obama Presidential Library Makes Big Bets On Art
Obama and his wife, Michelle, envisioned art as being a fundamental part of the $800 million Obama Presidential Center when it opens on Juneteenth after 10 years of planning and construction. – WBEZ
MEDIA
- Game Developers Use AI For A Lot Of Things, But Not Creating Games
This feels like good news for creators: “‘I feel like the human mind is so beautiful,’ The Melty Way developer Gabriel Paquette told me. ‘Why not use it?’” (Archive Today link) – The Verge
- What’s The Impact Of The US Dismantling Storied, Award-Winning Black Studies Departments?s
“Early investment in race and gender studies ‘favored programs over departments,’ which has always made financing a tenuous proposition. And at the end of the day, even the highest minded universities stay beholden to bottom lines and trustees.” – LitHub
- National Park Service Pulls Films About Mill Workers From Historic Site In Massachusetts
The suspicion is that’s this is the result of bowing down to the “only positive history” guideline from the federal government, but the people of Lowell are not pleased to have their history questioned. – NBC
- Why ABC Decided To Play With Fire
“ABC knew that [Taylor Frankie] Paul had been charged in a domestic violence incident that led to the injury of her child and somehow thought she would make an excellent Bachelorette anyway. What were they thinking?” – Los Angeles Times (MSN)
- Revisiting Fank Gehry’s Plans For A Grand Avenue Of Culture In LA
Gehry’s vision included completing the original plans cost-cut out of Disney a quarter-century ago, along with new modifications and much more throughout the area. Some are more costly than others. Enough could be done on Grand Avenue in time for the Olympics to make a difference if we begin this minute. – Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)
MUSIC
- We Miss You, Mass Market Paperbacks, But We Live In Reality
Now: Which is better for authors and (or) for readers, hardcover books or trade paperbacks? – LitHub
- Brooklyn Library Hosts A Booklover’s Dream Slumber Party
Is this real or a dream? “This year’s festival was stuffed like a generalist’s backpack. Events ran from 7 in the evening and wound down deliberately at 3:14 am, in honor of Pi Day. The program was anchored by German filmmaker Werner Herzog.” – LitHub
- Could AI Help Decipher The Indus Valley Civilization’s Writing?
There’s nothing like a Rosetta Stone for the Harappan script (as it’s sometimes called), which developed in and around the ancient cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa in present-day Pakistan. Scholars have wide differences about whether the script might ever be deciphered, with or without artificial intelligence. – Live Science
- The Space Between Criticism And Literary Evaluation
That’s the thing about bad works: they demand talking back to, and unlike the moments of profound inward reflection good works often inspire, we feel better off shouting out loud at the bad ones. – 3 Quarks Daily
- Report: Adding Up The Financial Worth Of Public Libraries
A new report has put a figure on the value of public libraries to the community, estimating that they are worth $86.60 in community value per adult per year. – ABC Australia
PEOPLE
- Shostakovich: His Time Has Come (Alas)
Leonard Bernstein celebrated Dmitri Shostakovich’s sixtieth birthday by proclaiming him “an authentic genius” – “and there aren’t too many of those around anymore.” That took courage in 1966, when Shostakovich – the leading Soviet musician — remained a Cold War cartoon of the stooge and simpleton. As Bernstein appreciated earlier
- Good Morning
In case you missed it, this week’s AJ Chronicles deeper dive into stories from the past week ponders German philosopher Jurgen Habermas’s notion of the “public sphere,” that space outside control of both state and market forces where culture circulates freely, ideas get tested, and democratic life lives. Democracy, he argued, required it to exist, and he warned it is never guaranteed. It’s worth pondering this insight now, because the public sphere is currently being tested: by the market, from inside the institutions that host it, and from the state. Habermas died last week at 96.
Calvin Tompkins died this week at 100, and with him goes one of the last great interpreters of contemporary art — the critic who spent 62 years guiding New Yorker readers through the often arcane world of what art was becoming (The New York Times). The timing is pointed. While Tompkins spent a career helping people understand artists on their own terms, the federal government is now insisting on a different kind of interpretation: the National Park Service has pulled films about mill workers from a historic site in Lowell, Massachusetts, apparently in compliance with its “only positive history” directive (NBC). And Black Studies departments at American colleges — some of them storied, award-winning programs — are being quietly dismantled, bottom lines and trustees doing what no culture war had managed to finish (LitHub).
Hollywood is feeling its own version of this. Vulture’s week-after Oscars piece notes that with the Warner Bros. sale and the Academy’s imminent move to YouTube, the ceremony felt like it was being preserved in amber even as it happened — a bittersweet fin de siècle moment for an industry in mid-transformation (Vulture).
A lighter item: a Dutch art detective once answered his door to find a blue IKEA bag on the step. Inside, a blood-soaked pillow. Inside that, a missing Van Gogh (NPR). Cultural transmission takes many forms.
All of our stories below.
- Game Developers Use AI For A Lot Of Things, But Not Creating Games
This feels like good news for creators: “‘I feel like the human mind is so beautiful,’ The Melty Way developer Gabriel Paquette told me. ‘Why not use it?’” (Archive Today link) – The Verge
- The Navy Veteran Who Titles His Paintings After Octavia Butler And Dostoyevsky
“’You do four years in the Navy, and you see a lot of blue water,’ said [Walter] Price, standing in his studio in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn.” – The New York Times
- Musicians On The Greatness And Legacy Of Alice Coltrane
In just one example, “as the American composer Adrian Younge says: ‘Alice Coltrane took the harp, an instrument of angels and orchestras, and made it sound like the cosmos breathing.’” – The Guardian (UK)
PEOPLE
- Shostakovich: His Time Has Come (Alas)
Leonard Bernstein celebrated Dmitri Shostakovich’s sixtieth birthday by proclaiming him “an authentic genius” – “and there aren’t too many of those around anymore.” That took courage in 1966, when Shostakovich – the leading Soviet musician — remained a Cold War cartoon of the stooge and simpleton. As Bernstein appreciated earlier
- Good Morning
In case you missed it, this week’s AJ Chronicles deeper dive into stories from the past week ponders German philosopher Jurgen Habermas’s notion of the “public sphere,” that space outside control of both state and market forces where culture circulates freely, ideas get tested, and democratic life lives. Democracy, he argued, required it to exist, and he warned it is never guaranteed. It’s worth pondering this insight now, because the public sphere is currently being tested: by the market, from inside the institutions that host it, and from the state. Habermas died last week at 96.
Calvin Tompkins died this week at 100, and with him goes one of the last great interpreters of contemporary art — the critic who spent 62 years guiding New Yorker readers through the often arcane world of what art was becoming (The New York Times). The timing is pointed. While Tompkins spent a career helping people understand artists on their own terms, the federal government is now insisting on a different kind of interpretation: the National Park Service has pulled films about mill workers from a historic site in Lowell, Massachusetts, apparently in compliance with its “only positive history” directive (NBC). And Black Studies departments at American colleges — some of them storied, award-winning programs — are being quietly dismantled, bottom lines and trustees doing what no culture war had managed to finish (LitHub).
Hollywood is feeling its own version of this. Vulture’s week-after Oscars piece notes that with the Warner Bros. sale and the Academy’s imminent move to YouTube, the ceremony felt like it was being preserved in amber even as it happened — a bittersweet fin de siècle moment for an industry in mid-transformation (Vulture).
A lighter item: a Dutch art detective once answered his door to find a blue IKEA bag on the step. Inside, a blood-soaked pillow. Inside that, a missing Van Gogh (NPR). Cultural transmission takes many forms.
All of our stories below.
- Game Developers Use AI For A Lot Of Things, But Not Creating Games
This feels like good news for creators: “‘I feel like the human mind is so beautiful,’ The Melty Way developer Gabriel Paquette told me. ‘Why not use it?’” (Archive Today link) – The Verge
- The Navy Veteran Who Titles His Paintings After Octavia Butler And Dostoyevsky
“’You do four years in the Navy, and you see a lot of blue water,’ said [Walter] Price, standing in his studio in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn.” – The New York Times
- Musicians On The Greatness And Legacy Of Alice Coltrane
In just one example, “as the American composer Adrian Younge says: ‘Alice Coltrane took the harp, an instrument of angels and orchestras, and made it sound like the cosmos breathing.’” – The Guardian (UK)
THEATRE
VISUAL
- One Week On, Looking At The Impacts Of This Year’s Oscars
“Put the Warners Bros. sale alongside the Oscars’ imminent move to YouTube, and the whole night carried with it a bittersweet fin de siècle air, as if it was being immortalized in retrospect even as it was happening.” – Vulture
- What It Takes To Bring A Long-Neglected 1930s Cinema Back To Life
“The Holly’s revival offers a case study in how a historic landmark can complement an existing arts ecosystem — strengthening downtown vitality while reconnecting a community to its past.” – Oregon ArtsWatch
- Can Wisdom Be Taught?
The study of wisdom dates to antiquity, but only in the past 40 years have researchers begun to apply the scientific method to probe what wisdom is and how it develops. – Knowable
- Reconsidering Dopamine’s Effects On The Brain
Where once there was a simple model that explained how dopamine works in the brain, now there are challenges that seek to amend the theory — or even to overturn it. – Nature
- What Is Philosophy In The Age Of AI?
Understanding language as something defined by public use—rather than private intention—helps us grasp how simply scraping text from around the web and finding patterns in the way words fit together can form the basis for passably imitating a human. – Prospect
