MOST RECENT AJBLOGS

Garo Saraydarian disrupts traditional music theory

- Aaron Dworkin

Replay: Illinois Jacquet plays “Flying Home”

- Terry Teachout

In memory of…

- Terry Teachout

Pucker Up: Skittish About the British at Metropolitan Museum’s Prints Stint

- CultureGrrl

Snapshot: Tony Bennett sings “If I Ruled the World”

- Terry Teachout


 

DANCE

Are Some People’s Brains Simply Wired Better For Dance?

- The Conversation

At The Thunderbird American Indian Dancers’ Annual New York Powwow

- Dance Magazine

Sadler’s Wells Reveals Plans For New Dance Center In London’s Olympic Park

- Time Out (London)

How Dance Aspen Arose From The Ashes Of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet

- Dance Magazine

IDEAS

New York’s New Motto Is Be Nice To Tourists

- The New York Times

Weapon Of Mass Distraction: Why Facebook’s “Metaverse” Is An Illusion

- New York Magazine

Cryptopunks: How A Market For NFT’s Was Born

- Wired

NFT’s Explained

- Harvard Business Review

How Beeple Is Changing The Relationship Between Artist And Collector

- Quartz

How We Became Post-Modernist (And Why It’s A Problem)

- The Guardian

Cities Are Spreading Like Organisms

- Aeon

Why “Dark Ages” Is a Flawed Historical Narrative

- The New York Times

Depression Isn’t Just A Low Mood. It’s an Altered State Of Consciosness

- Psyche

Yuval Noah Harari: How Stories Drive Humanity

- The New York Times

Our Collective Narcissism Is Terrifying, Harmful – And Creepily Common

- The Atlantic

Storytelling Goes Academic, Or Maybe Academia Gets Cool, With Podcasts

- MacLeans (Canada)



 

ISSUES

A New University To “Fix” Education? It Needs A Rethink About What’s Broken

- The New Republic

Why Arts And Humanities Are Crucial To STEM Education And The Tech Industry

- World Economic Forum

Design Fiction? What Exactly Is That?

- World Economic Forum (Neste)

Xi Jinping Is Rewriting China’s History – A New Cultural Revolution

- The New Yorker

A Universal Basic Income For Arts Workers? One Country Is Trying It

- The Irish Times

London’s Barbican Center Commits To “Radical Transformation” After Investigation

- The Guardian

Niall Ferguson: Why I’m Starting A New University

- Washington Post

The Building Industry Helped Create The Climate Crisis. The National Building Museum Wants To Help Solve It.

- MSN (The Washington Post)

Scottish Nightclub Tries To Harness Dancers’ Energy To Power Club

- BBC

Boris Johnson’s Government Is Using Britain’s Cultural Institutions As Culture War Battlefields

- The Guardian

How San Francisco Bay Area Organizations Made It Through COVID

- Vogl Consulting

It’s A Very Big Deal For NYC Cultural Organizations That The US Reopened To International Visitors Today

- The New York Times

PEN America Says Banning ‘Critical Race Theory’ Is A Threat To Free Speech

- The New York Times

Protests Over Chappelle’s Transphobia May Not Harm Netflix’s Bottom Line

- NPR



 

MEDIA

The Director Of ‘Passing’ Says There Are No Easy Answers Here

- Washington Post

Is Science Fiction An “Inadequate Response” To Existential Threat?

- PopMatters

Hollywood Has Joined The NFT Gold Rush

- Variety

Disney+ Loses Momentum

- Deadline

Local Journalism Is Disappearing. Might We Revitalize It With Existing Institutions?

- NiemanLab

Forest Whitaker’s Production Company Has Never Lost Investors A Dime. It Still Has Trouble Getting Financing For Black Films

- Vulture

Here’s The First State To Requires All High Schoolers To Take A Media Literacy Course

- Axios

What Will Change The Way Hollywood Portrays Muslims? Maybe Just This Directory

- The New York Times

Creating Personalized Audio News Streams By Algorithm Is Not (Yet) A Success

- Nieman Lab

Netflix Is Being Sued And Sued And Sued. The Nature Of Streaming May Change As A Result

- The Hollywood Reporter



 

MUSIC

Why Are Some Classical Music Institutions Resisting Broadening Their View of Music?

- San Francisco Chronicle

Strathmore, Baltimore Symphony’s DC-Area Home, Finally Settles With IATSE

- MSN (The Washington Post)

Music Is What It Is – You Have To Meet It There

- The New York Times

How Peter Gelb Is Handling The Most Difficult Job In Opera, Now Even More Difficult

- New York Magazine

Ludovic Morlot Appointed To Lead Barcelona Orchestra

- Ara Balears

Musicians: Suffocating In The Gig Economy

- Brooklyn Rail

How Can Today’s Piano Students Learn To Improvise? The Same Way They Did In The 18th Century

- Early Music America

Chinese Composers Are Making Western Classical Music Their Own

- Prospect

Study: Listening To Familiar Music Boosts Brain Function

- News Medical

Diagnosis: What Would It Take To Make Victoria BC A Music Center?

- CBC

The Vinyl Crisis Is Getting Worse

- FADER

A Fresh New Generation Extends UK’s Jazz Revival

- The Guardian

For Windsor Musicians Who Work In Detroit, The U.S. Border Reopening Is A Massive Relief

- CBC

For Some Music Lovers, It’s Still Better To Enjoy Concerts From The Comfort Of Home

- Oregon ArtsWatch

What To Do When You’re A Violin Soloist, And A String Snaps

- Seattle Times

Filipino Youth Are Using Music To Pressure The Country’s Regime

- Los Angeles Times

The Opera World Pays Tribute To RBG

- The New York Times



 

PEOPLE

Petra Mayer, NPR’s Beloved, Passionate Books Editor Has Died Suddenly

- NPR

Sylvère Lotringer, Who Founded Semiotext(e) And Brought French Theory To America’s Art World, Dead At 83

- Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)

Man And Daughter Killed Over Four Stradivarius Violins

- Daily Beast

David Graeber Was A Startlingly Smart Anthropologist. He Died Just After Completing His Magnum Opus

- New York Magazine

How A Nice Jewish Boy From Oakland Became A Busy Bollywood Actor

- The New York Times

John Cleese Cancels Cambridge Union Appearance Over Speaker Blacklist

- The Telegraph (UK)

Actor Dean Stockwell Dead At 85

- The Guardian

Golden Age Hollywood Director John Farrow Had An Extraordinary Life. Why Have We Forgotten Him?

- The Guardian

Big Bird In The Crosshairs: Ted Cruz Attacks After The Big Guy Gets Vaccinated

- The Guardian

Making A Big Indie Movie And Then a PR Turnaround

- Anonymous



 

THEATRE

In A Time Of Crisis And Pestilence, Vaudeville As Social Critique

- The Public Domain Review

Zadie Smith’s First Play Hits The Stage, Retelling A Canterbury Tale

- The New York Times

Quebec Court Upholds Fines On Theatres That Portray Smoking Onstage (Even With Prop Cigarettes)

- Toronto Star

The Original True-Crime Dramas Were In Elizabethan Theatres

- London Review of Books

As Broadway Reopens, Who Is Broadway For?

- American Theatre

Theatre Workers Aren’t Just Leaving Jobs, They’re Leaving Theatre

- San Francisco Chronicle

This Theatre Is Avoiding Founder’s Syndrome By Shutting Down When Its Founder Retires

- MSN (Chicago Tribune)

Think There Aren’t Any Serous Female Magicians Or Jugglers? Let’s Make That Idea Disappear

- MSN (Los Angeles Times)

Broadway Box Office Rebounds

- Deadline

Most US Theatres Lost Money And Audience On Their Digital Projects During Lockdown (But That May Be OK)

- American Theatre



 

VISUAL

Hong Kong’s M+ makes A Play For Global Attention

- ARTnews

Now Venice Is Drowning In Billboards

- Apollo

Christopher Walken Paints Over A Banksy On Camera

- CNN

The Louvre Said That ‘Salvator Mundi’ Is A Real Leonardo. Now The Prado Says It’s Not.

- ARTnews

‘Discovery Of A Lifetime’: Well-Preserved Tudor-Era Murals Uncovered At Yorkshire Manor

- The Guardian

Hong Kong’s M+ Museum Opens In A Climate No One Expected When It Was First Proposed

- Artnet

Art Critic Reviews Work Without Noticing That It Depicts Rupert Murdoch

- The Guardian

Attendance At The World’s Most Visited Museums Plunged By 78% In 2020

- World Economic Forum

Vatican Library Opens Its First Contemporary Art Space

- Artnet

Newark Museum Of Art Is Becoming A Real Estate Developer

- NJ.com

Major Museum In DR Congo Partly Destroyed In Fire

- ARTnews

One Of LA’s Most Beautiful Buildings Lives Again

- Curbed

Car Parked On Italian Street For 47 Years Becomes Monument

- Insider



 

WORDS

How Shakespeare Drove Publishing And Publishing Drove Shakespeare In The 1700s

- The Conversation

Co-opting Woke

- The New York Times

Writers Ought To Be Trained The Way Actors Are

- Catapult

Ocean Vuong Bombarded By Complaints From Australian 12th Graders Who Got His Writing On Their Comp Exams

- The Guardian

Oxford’s Bodleian Library Was A Wreck Before The Eponymous Bodley Fixed It Up

- Literary Hub

How Julia Child Changed Americans’ Minds, And, Later, Her Own

- The Guardian

Portland’s Iconic Super Bookstore Faces Uncertainty

- The New York Times

Canada’s $100K Giller Prize Goes To Omar El Akkad For “What Strange Paradise”

- CBC

How A Poem Can Change The World

- The Conversation

Is This Chinese Government Trying To Buy Hong Kong’s Major English-Language Newspaper?

- Al Jazeera (Bloomberg)

The Surprisingly Successful Art Of Curating Penguin Modern Classics

- The Guardian (UK)

The Enormous Marketing Power Of BookTok

- The Economist

Organizing Your Books Can Feel Like Controlling Your Life

- The Guardian (UK)