Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee discusses President Trump’s proposed 250-foot triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery. His Atlantic essay, “Trump’s Arch Is Atrocious. Don’t Build It,” considers how the monument could reshape a landscape devoted to sacrifice and remembrance.

As drought strains Massachusetts gardens, horticultural expert Uli Lorimer explains why water should go to mature trees, shrubs and perennials before lawns. Lorimer is director of horticulture at Native Plant Trust and author of The Northeast Native Plant Primer.

Cape Ann Museum director Oliver Barker and curator Eliza Rathbone explore the friendship among Milton Avery, Adolph Gottlieb and Mark Rothko—and how their summers in Gloucester shaped their art. Avery, Gottlieb & Rothko: By the Sea is on view through September 27.

Playwright Levi Holloway discusses transforming the slow-building dread of the hit film Paranormal Activity from screen to stage. Directed by Sleep No More co-creator Felix Barrett, the new story uses live illusion, darkness and sound to build suspense. It runs at the Emerson Colonial Theatre through July 30.

Mahesh Daas, president of Boston Architectural College, shares his impressions of the newly opened Obama Presidential Center, considering how its museum and public campus recast the presidential library as a civic gathering place—and how its monumental design enters Chicago’s storied architectural landscape.

Photographer Winslow Martin and Project SAVE executive director Arto Vaun discuss My Armenia (1999–2008), an exhibition of black-and-white photographs tracing everyday life during the first decade of Armenia’s independence. The show also inaugurates Project SAVE’s expanded Watertown gallery dedicated to contemporary photography.

Grammy-winning soprano Jane Eaglen, president of the Boston Wagner Society, previews the American Wagner Festival, running July 27 through August 8 with masterclasses, performances and the popular Wagner and Vino.

Shakespeare scholar Caroline Bicks, the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine, discusses Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King, her investigation into the drafts, revisions and creative process behind King’s early fiction.

Boston-based violinist, songwriter and producer Rhett Price talks about his debut album, Renaissance Man, and his journey from subway busking and viral cover songs to placing his own original music at center stage.