The writing -- and the reporting -- in this story is so damn good. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/s...
'25-'26 Fellow @rjionline.bsky.social Journalist: Arts, culture, health, etc. Bylines: Globe and Mail, New York Times, Dance Magazine, and many more. Cancer and stroke survivor somehow still here. rjritzel@gmail.com https://what-if-arts.ghost.io/
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The writing -- and the reporting -- in this story is so damn good. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/s...
A very worthwhile community service reporting effort!
"Ms. Lake said on Friday that the latest layoffs would allow these organizations to focus on getting news to people living under Communist governments and dictators." www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/u...
Level 4: Are you telling me Giuliani still has money for private security and a physician who drops everything to travel to New Hampshire?
#solutionsjournalism
Also. I'd be good with having Giuliani no longer meriting any newsbreaks until he's dead.
has there been any reporting on how DC's Deaf community is feeling about and reacting to all this that I missed somewhere?
I really need to sit out one night and see who is working so hard to paint over all the protest art. This box had the same few fading anti-heritage posters on it for months and nobody did anything, but now fresh paint over everything every few days with no effort to scrape or sand
Not gonna happen. Harris was gerrymandered *into* office when Maryland's Dems redrew lines in 2011 to get Roscoe Bartlett out. Maryland went from two Republicans to one, but the cost was making Harris's Eastern Shore district ironclad red.
Schiff? (But Katie Porter's would have been better.)
Scheduled my first medical appointment on a new insurance plan. Please clap for my basic American (cancer-survivorship) adulting.
Good news everyone we can all go back to shitting in the drinking water for freedom
Beating out rookies from @thebaltimorebanner.com and @baltimoresun.bsky.social. Impressive!
Love this concept for a story!
"Honey, I don't have much time. I've been arrested by ICE and they are sending me to a detainment center. I love you and the kids, I will be OK, please call our attorney" -- John Shin, DACA resident, speaking to his wife last week. She hasn't heard from him since www.fox13now.com/news/local-n...
Ah, that reminds me that for years I've been wanting to write about Drotningholm candles, invented for the Swedish theatre where Bergman filmed MAGIC FLUTE. Which I suppose was also about normies experiencing Mozart?
How do fire marshals not get these Instagram ads?
This is going to make such a great ROTC recruitment video.
The daughters of Hermann Göring's aide - who refused for years to talk with art-theft investigators - put their home in Argentina up for sale, and GUESS WHAT.
Checked in with my source, but sadly she does not remember the original five. The Gator Three are: Be respectful! Be safe! And Be Responsible! In other words: don't be a dick, kids.
Gator Five! was the go-to at the elementary school where my sister teachers, but then a new principal condensed it to the Gator Three! (as in three ways to not be a dick) and my niece is pissed.
Yes. Anyone who has seen 1776 knows this.
Does Snoop understand that when he went to the Paris Olympics last year, gay women athletes were... everywhere?
Sam, that AVENUE Q song about getting outside your apartment also applies to homes in Keene, N.H.
Cheering on team Johns Hopkins in this nonprofit hospital v. healthcare monolith feud. www.hopkinsmedicine.org/united-cover...
B
Which is to say, don't miss this bonkers detail in this Times story on Ric Grennell firing the Kennedy Center dance team.
From Intel, to U.S. Steel to The Washington Ballet, the Trump administration is very interested in federalizing private organizations. And that, my friends, is communism.
Yep. I hope someone involved with Indianapolis charter schools looks into how he got hired!
Such a discouraging week for the arts in Washington, D.C.
Julian Wachner, former music director of the Washington Chorus and Trinity Wall Street, arrested on child porn charges in Indiana. fox59.com/news/indycri...
I love soccer, I love the performing arts and I believe the World Cup draw should happen somewhere else.
Interesting! I was struck by the expanded role of the commerce secretary under Moore. State agencies under commerce had less autonomy to speak for the themselves, etc.
My niece and nephew call Jane Raleigh "the lady with the yellow pants," a nod to her bright clothing, and also her friendliness. Jane wanted to know everyone who came to the Kennedy Center to see dance, especially kids. 💛🥹💛
I can't say enough wonderful things about Jane Raleigh, recently terminated director of dance programming at the Kennedy Center. She was a young, practicing dancer when she succeeded Meg Booth, and she has flourished as an administrator. www.npr.org/2025/08/21/n...
What if, and I am only spitballing here, we all just logged off for the rest of the summer
Mark Carney cancelled the Digital Service tax and all I got was this lousy price hike on all my streaming services. www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/article...
The need for public investment in local journalism is dire — a fact underscored by the events of the last two weeks. That's why I've introduced the Local New Funding Act. 📰 Read my full opinion in @51st.news: ➡️ 51st.news/opinion-dc-m...
CulturalDC: does a thing everyone is going to hate and doesn't bother to get messaging out in front of it Everyone: wtf, I hate this, how could you? CulturalDC: I'm being bullied. www.popville.com/2025/08/majo...
R.I.P. to James Dobson, the guy who wrote the book endorsing corporal punishment to a generation of American parents.
The Nickelback fans I've met all accidentally showed up at Nickel Creek concerts.
I thought this too, but felt no need to write 800 words about it.
The North American Irish Dance Championships took place at Gaylord National Harbor Resort in July, bringing competitors to town to show off their jig, reel, and hornpipe skills.
Ugh. Great point for DC drivers from @karenho.bsky.social: Could the increased military presence drive up auto insurance costs?
I feel like this is my fault because I taught my niece and nephew what oxymorons are this morning and used "giant shrimp" as an example.
(Not what Taylor's doing here, but you get the insouciant idea.)
My 10-year-old niece is a terrific dancer. I have created a monster who is attempting to master passé-reléve hops -- with double beats! -- when she's supposed to be eating breakfast.
Has anyone seen any good reporting on people with serious mood disorders going off their meds in the name of MAHA? (Because that's a thing)
Every time a Trump security blunder hits the news, I remember being subjected to a background check just to walk an Assistant Secretary of State's Labradoodle.
This is reporting www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...
Past time for northern state legislators to withdraw from Articles of Agreement negotiated at Appomattox.
TEACH THIS IN JOURNALISM CLASSES.
Watched the Ravens pre-season win last night with my family, and the seven-year-old said, "I thought the kicker was named Tucker?" So @thebaltimorebanner.com, I suggest someone write, "How to talk to your kids about Justin Tucker's massage parlor misbehavior." (Or hire me to do it.)
This is 💯 what Darren would do!!! 🏆
Ask and you shall receive, @karenho.bsky.social. (At least on London's West End.) www.herculesthemusical.co.uk
Darren would 100% scab while claiming artistic freedom justifications that try to sound anarchist so he'll have a soundbite for the next gig when he has to shapeshift again.
🍾☕️
Karma for the leather pants as Darren on SLINGS AND ARROWS.
Let's play, "Who said it: Pete Hegseth's pastor or Phylicia Rashad's character on THE GUILDED AGE?" www.npr.org/2025/08/09/n...
"People administered Narcan and saved his life. No more of that." -- Attorney general Pam Bondi a man she says overdosed at the Wharf.
"Resting pitch face" 🤣
Damn I so could have been Anne Hathaway's character in DEVIL WEARS PRADA. (h/t @ryanbeckwith.bsky.social)
Immigrants. They get the job done.
[Looks for GIF of the Phanatic laughing]
I’ve always believed that the political destiny of great nations has often turned on weak men’s reaction to the equivalent of “Jenny laughed when I asked her to the Spring Formal”
But it's the way things are. It's why I'm at @rjionline.bsky.social for a year researching ways to improve arts journalism funding. Hoping to get a nonprofit off the ground that would offer grants to subsidize projects.
That's still a lot more money that many of my arts journalism gigs work out to!
I added avocado to my airport Shake Shack, an award for my packing prowess.
I've seen Beattie described as both a "visiting professor" at Duke and an "instructor." There's a significant difference. Any idea what his title was?
2nd'ed!
SF is really lucky to have @lilyjaniak.bsky.social.
I love that the ACA shows are finally getting some STC marketing love. I remember being one of like, 25 people watching a friend do WINTER'S TALE in a Capitol Hill basement.
hi I’m mad these aren’t the people in charge
Reading recommendation! Because, I dunno, women who recruit naive girls to pleasure wealthy men are in the news: SCHOOL OF MIRRORS, by my friend Eva Stachniak, vividly depicts Madame de Pompadour's systemic grooming of French teenage courtesans for Louis XV. www.goodreads.com/book/show/58...
One of the best things about the GIGI reboot was Victoria Clark singing "Thank Heaven," imho.
Amen. Especially when time for office visits is also deducted from PTO!
Created as a benefit artwork for Shakespeare Theatre's Mock Trial fundraiser! And featuring a shirtless Michael Kahn.
Features my cousins' grandfather, our family's embarrassing famous radio racist, Carl McIntire!
On the Media: The Divided Dial | WNYC Studios | Podcasts share.google/6L1IV5gASoFh...
Great points, Andrew! Also, have you listened to @katiethornton.bsky.social series Divided Dial on the history of evangelical radio? (Etc)
Important quote, because a lot of the moment we're living through is downstream to conservatives feeling locked out of popular culture in the past.
Anybody free for lunch tomorrow? Join a Zoom brainstorm session and let's find ways to boost funding for arts journalism. Noon ET! Register here: bit.ly/newsartsfunding
And... post commercial break we got: *Photos of famous actors with a First Folio *A reading from AS YOU LIKE IT *A s/o to the Folger *An exegesis of Jaques' final speech *A s/o to Canada's National Theatre School *Two commedia dell'arte references
We're halfway through the late show and already... *Colbert has parodied WAITING FOR GODOT *Sandra Oh (on to promote Shakespeare in the Park) has quoted ROMEO AND JULIET *Lin Manuel Miranda has sung *Andy Karl made a cameo The loss of the Late Show is an incalcuable loss to theater
I have a line in the memoir I'm writing about feeling like I've spent my career Forrest Gumping my way through the decline of American legacy media. Exhibit Who Knows: In 2017, I spent a day shadowing Jon Batiste from rehearsal to recording that night's "Late Show" episode. Fuck Paramount.
The Phanatic is a real son of a bitch.
I have long pointed out that Colbert is one of few professing Christians in American mainstream entertainment. (h/t @sophiegilbert.bsky.social)
do these drawings this count as art sales? do I have to report on this for my job? 🤔
Note also that the lawsuit alleges that because race and class are correlated, providing free tuition to lower income students is also racial preference. They just want a pure aristocracy of inherited wealth
Thank you, Duck, for watching CSpan for the team tonight.
The misogynistic imagery and language of the Epstein letter sounds so similar to how Trump recently described the Broadway dancers in CATS.
Entirely righteous, 100% correct, thread.
Listen here: www.npr.org/2025/07/05/n...
LOL apologies that I lost the link, Stephanie!
"IN CLEVELAND, YOU'D BE A 9" would be a better slogan
"What-remains-of-arts-coverage seems to be “HEY TAKE 5 MINUTES TO STOP THINKING ABOUT TRUMP AND LOOK AT THIS PAINTING AND MAYBE YOU’LL FEEL BETTER” but if that is what the world is asking for, right now, then there’s no one better than Woolfe to deliver it." -- Will Robin 🔥
Co-sign.
Could it be that Ric and his buddies --including KC VP and former Chester County Register of Wills Rick Loughery -- are not cut out to be producers?
But still pretty funny. share.google/KxEcFExtcLFX...
Looking at Chellie Pingree's letter, I think he did something cutie and is trying to get $ through a different committee.