Criticism is not an unerring ranking system but a form of personal expression, and a good review is not right (or not only right) but convincing, fresh, entertaining, satisfying, perceptive – in other words, possesses the sorts of qualities prized in the objects the critic is nominally appraising. - New Statesman
“As I look at this goofy award, I can’t help but think that one day it just might be the weapon used to bludgeon me to death,” Mr. Sandler said in his familiar silly cadence during his acceptance speech. - The New York Times
Good criticism can provide that context — historical or theoretical or even economic — and some vocabulary for discussing musical taste. It can help demystify some of the mechanics of the art form, ideally in language that remains approachable to the novice or new initiate. - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
It’s easy to dump on the contractors. But the contractors didn’t design this overwrought building, nor did they commission it. That falls to the Culver City-based Morphosis, led by Thom Mayne, and the museum’s board. - Los Angeles Times
Perhaps the most significant aspect of the guidance is an author’s “duty to disclose the inclusion of AI-generated content in a work submitted for registration.” - ArsTechnica
The problem is that even when these systems are wrong only 10% of the time, you don’t know which 10%. People also don’t have the ability to quickly validate the systems’ responses. - Gizmodo
The figures suggest that Netflix is finding its footing with the new revenue stream, after having been overwhelmingly reliant on subscriber revenue for most of its history. - The Verge
His mother was dying, and, like everyone, he couldn't travel. But, he says, "given so much external suffering, as the Dalai Lama pointed out, it didn’t seem helpful to compound that by creating even more suffering, internally, through anxiety or rage." - Los Angeles Review Of Books
This is a huge issue for verifying images, as hand issues had been one of the ways to tell an AI-generated photo from a human-created image. "Many viewers have already proven themselves unable to discern AI-generated artwork from the real deal." - Hyperallergic
Or at least not the We Out Here fest, founded by the BBC's Giles Peterson, expecting about 25,000 people during the event. The Dorset police said the music event "will likely undermine the licensing objective to Prevent Crime and Disorder and ensure Public Safety." - BBC
Librarians argue that a lawsuit filed by four major publishers, should it succeed, "would jeopardize the future development of digital libraries nationwide. The Internet Archive is the most significant specialized library to emerge in decades." - Inside Higher Ed
"In devising an onstage gateway to Ally’s imagination, 'We were like, what if the portal is actually her notebook?' said Sammy Lopez, co-director. 'And what if we gave the audience the opportunity to jump into the notebook with Ally?'" - The New York Times
Honestly, Cézanne, who cares now, and who ever cared? "Portraitists and landscape artists have almost always been held in much higher esteem. ... Humans, nature: teeming with verve, vigour and vitality. But a vase? A candlestick? A jug? Cutlery, I ask you!" - The Guardian (UK)
And it's not just any musical - it's an attempt to adapt the 1972 movie The Harder They Come, the movie that introduced a worldwide audience to reggae via star and musician Jimmy Cliff. - Slate
"The Actors’ Gang Prison Project is a rehabilitation program that offers theater programming to 14 California state prisons, a reentry facility and an L.A. County probation camp" - and it's celebrating 40 years since its inaugural production. - Los Angeles Times
After some art historical detective work, "the two artworks, which were once one, now hang side-by-side ... only a sliver of wall dividing the woman from her husband and son." - Yahoo News (AFP)
"We have changed our collective tastes in response to technological progress in the past. We’ll now do it again, without even noticing that it’s happening. And if history is any indication, our tastes will evolve in a way that rigs the game in favor of human artists." - Wired
Aman Dhaliwal is an actor who has appeared in Punjabi, Hindi, and Telegu films. "The suspect approached the victim in the parking lot ... and began to attack him with a hatchet and knife." - Los Angeles Times
Perhaps the most significant aspect of the guidance is an author’s “duty to disclose the inclusion of AI-generated content in a work submitted for registration.” - ArsTechnica
The problem is that even when these systems are wrong only 10% of the time, you don’t know which 10%. People also don’t have the ability to quickly validate the systems’ responses. - Gizmodo
Yes, but "if your laptop isn’t being flecked with olive oil spatter during a decathlon of online cooking classes, you’re probably doing something wrong. Of course, you’re probably doing something wrong anyway." - Fast Company
"Stars rely on them for publicity and they depend on stars to make a living. But this relationship can also turn toxic" - and some paparazzi blame social media for "an insatiable appetite for celebrity content." - BBC
"Collective campaigns, lawsuits, international rules and IT hacks are all being deployed at speed on behalf of the creative industries in an effort, if not to win the battle, at least to 'rage, rage against the dying of the light.'" - The Observer (UK)
Criticism is not an unerring ranking system but a form of personal expression, and a good review is not right (or not only right) but convincing, fresh, entertaining, satisfying, perceptive – in other words, possesses the sorts of qualities prized in the objects the critic is nominally appraising. - New Statesman
Good criticism can provide that context — historical or theoretical or even economic — and some vocabulary for discussing musical taste. It can help demystify some of the mechanics of the art form, ideally in language that remains approachable to the novice or new initiate. - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
This is a huge issue for verifying images, as hand issues had been one of the ways to tell an AI-generated photo from a human-created image. "Many viewers have already proven themselves unable to discern AI-generated artwork from the real deal." - Hyperallergic
"These workers – who help create the show’s music-video parodies and other popular pre-taped segments – had been unrepresented and paid rates far below industry standards." - Variety
Yeoh said, "Ladies, don't let anyone tell you you're past your prime." Inspiration, except on South Korean broadcaster SBS News, where "'ladies' was conspicuously omitted from the coverage. The single word was edited out of a video of Yeoh’s speech, and it wasn’t translated in the subtitles." - Time
"The real reason that the critique has shifted from 'people are too mean to bots' to 'people are too nice to them' is because the political economy of AI has suddenly and dramatically changed, and along with it, tech companies’ sales pitches." - Wired
Or at least not the We Out Here fest, founded by the BBC's Giles Peterson, expecting about 25,000 people during the event. The Dorset police said the music event "will likely undermine the licensing objective to Prevent Crime and Disorder and ensure Public Safety." - BBC
An arbitrator "in a decision issued last month that has not been previously reported, ruled that the Met should compensate Netrebko for 13 canceled performances," which means the opera company owes the Russian soprano more than $200,000. - The New York Times
It's not their first meet-up. Before the pandemic, when he was merely the crown prince, Charles summoned Webber to fix the problem "that there wasn’t enough access for young people to go and learn how to play the church organ." - Washington Post
Samara Joy "possesses an innate ability to take an old standard and make it seem like the lyrics were torn from her diary. It's an approach that causes confusion for fans who aren't well versed in the jazz repertoire." - BBC
Half of the composers commissioned by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra for its flagship new music program, 50 Fanfares, are women. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra will premiere 17 new Australian works in its 2023 season. More than half have been composed by women. - The Guardian
It’s easy to dump on the contractors. But the contractors didn’t design this overwrought building, nor did they commission it. That falls to the Culver City-based Morphosis, led by Thom Mayne, and the museum’s board. - Los Angeles Times
Honestly, Cézanne, who cares now, and who ever cared? "Portraitists and landscape artists have almost always been held in much higher esteem. ... Humans, nature: teeming with verve, vigour and vitality. But a vase? A candlestick? A jug? Cutlery, I ask you!" - The Guardian (UK)
After some art historical detective work, "the two artworks, which were once one, now hang side-by-side ... only a sliver of wall dividing the woman from her husband and son." - Yahoo News (AFP)
"We have changed our collective tastes in response to technological progress in the past. We’ll now do it again, without even noticing that it’s happening. And if history is any indication, our tastes will evolve in a way that rigs the game in favor of human artists." - Wired
Legal filings show that "one side of the family has accused the other of deceit and fraud, of secretly loaning the works to the White House as part of an effort to boost an ownership claim on them." Then there's the other side. - The New York Times
Multiple exhibitions in Istanbul seem to nearly predict the pain and agony of the recent earthquakes that have killed at least 55,000 people - partly because the artists understand "the fragility of the buildings people see as their sanctuaries." - Hyperallergic
His mother was dying, and, like everyone, he couldn't travel. But, he says, "given so much external suffering, as the Dalai Lama pointed out, it didn’t seem helpful to compound that by creating even more suffering, internally, through anxiety or rage." - Los Angeles Review Of Books
Librarians argue that a lawsuit filed by four major publishers, should it succeed, "would jeopardize the future development of digital libraries nationwide. The Internet Archive is the most significant specialized library to emerge in decades." - Inside Higher Ed
It's complex - see the Indigenous villains in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, but "Increasing use of non-English languages and subtitles demonstrates both a trend toward linguistic realism in Hollywood and also broader acceptance of linguistic diversity." - Raw Story
Not to mention luck at the library: "I found Krik? Krak!, a short story collection by Edwidge Danticat, in the Ealing Road Library and fell in love. This book raised me." - The Guardian (UK)
Mid-20th-century writing guides taught that this emphatic punctuation mark should be used sparingly -- not least because advertising and marketing overuse it. But ! filled a real void when it was invented in the 1340s, and it fills one now (which is why our text messages have so many). - MSN (The Washington Post)
"Amazon hasn't shared its exact reason for the change …, but one obvious explanation is that relatively few people are buying these subscriptions and it doesn't make financial sense to continue to support them." - Nieman Lab
The figures suggest that Netflix is finding its footing with the new revenue stream, after having been overwhelmingly reliant on subscriber revenue for most of its history. - The Verge
Basically, "Americans simply did not want to hear about it" early on, and now? "There’s reason to be pessimistic about the risk-averse, IP-addicted studios of the 21st century dipping back into a war that it rarely bothered to engage with in the first place." - The Guardian (UK)
At SXSW, there's a lot of discussion around what AI could do for (or against) the movies. But "for all the hype, some remain skeptical, wondering how much of the excitement is venture capital-fueled froth." - Los Angeles Times
Because honestly, a lot of things went right (not including the too-frequent Cocaine Bear jokes). For one (big) thing, in a much better choice than last year, "They gave out all the awards during the telecast." - NPR
Hollywood is very, very good at pathos - the art of emotional persuasion. The goal of the newly formed Climate Action Network is to "infiltrate every part of the industry with climate knowledge," they say. It's a rough road. - The Atlantic
How? By not hiring a single South Asian dancer for the performance. Dance group artistic director Achinta McDaniel says South Asian dance groups are organizing. "This really lit a fire. ... It’s been too long that we’ve been quiet." - Variety
"Stella Abrera is ABT Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School's new Artistic Director. Abrera has been acting in this position for the last several months after serving as Artistic Director of Kaatsbaan Cultural Park in Tivoli (a position now held by former ABT star Paloma Herrera)." - The Ballet Herald
"Booty-shaking worker bees guide their fellow workers to pollen by a form of communication known as 'waggle dancing' — performing steps that map out where food is located. ... Now scientists have discovered that bees hone these moves when they're young, by touching their antennae to the bodies of dancing elder bees." - CNN
"The dance video, in which the blue balloons stood in for ions, depicted how Checkers Marshall's Ph.D. work aims to make metal-organic frameworks smaller, more effective, and more useful for other applications, from water filtration to nerve agent detoxification." - Science
“A lot of the time when I’m working, I come up against a lot of imposed judgements of ‘you’re a wheelchair-user so you can only do this’. And I think having a cast that is all wheelchair users is going to be a big statement.” - The Guardian
"In devising an onstage gateway to Ally’s imagination, 'We were like, what if the portal is actually her notebook?' said Sammy Lopez, co-director. 'And what if we gave the audience the opportunity to jump into the notebook with Ally?'" - The New York Times
And it's not just any musical - it's an attempt to adapt the 1972 movie The Harder They Come, the movie that introduced a worldwide audience to reggae via star and musician Jimmy Cliff. - Slate
"The Actors’ Gang Prison Project is a rehabilitation program that offers theater programming to 14 California state prisons, a reentry facility and an L.A. County probation camp" - and it's celebrating 40 years since its inaugural production. - Los Angeles Times
The reviews are in, and, like the book, the play sounds, er, challenging. But the show has been extended thanks to fans who attend "wearing A Little Life-themed sweatshirts and holding copies of the book aloft or cradling them like tiny babies." - LitHub
The show was meant to open on Broadway April 3. Producer Hunter Arnold "told the cast and crew — and soon after, the public — that a lead producer had decided not to 'fulfill their obligations to the production' because of personal reasons." - The New York Times
I feel that we’re in a kind of new and important phase where directors especially, who never get to hang out with each other, feel like we all are trying to build community in a way that I don’t feel was as present pre-pandemic. There’s dialogue happening, and the idea of competition just doesn’t...
“As I look at this goofy award, I can’t help but think that one day it just might be the weapon used to bludgeon me to death,” Mr. Sandler said in his familiar silly cadence during his acceptance speech. - The New York Times
Aman Dhaliwal is an actor who has appeared in Punjabi, Hindi, and Telegu films. "The suspect approached the victim in the parking lot ... and began to attack him with a hatchet and knife." - Los Angeles Times
Reddick "was a distinctive, instantly recognizable presence, even if he was not quite a household name. His voice was distinctive, too, as players of Horizon Zero Dawn, Destiny 2 and other video games on which he could be heard know." - The New York Times
Over the decades I’ve learned a huge amount about writing novels. I feel like I’m just learning on the job about screenplays. One key difference is that a screenplay is a contribution to something that a team is going to work on, so it’s necessarily a collaborative document. - The Millions
"Elena Poniatowska has chronicled every major social movement in Mexico over seven decades, her 40-plus books a one-woman time capsule of a country's modern history. … (She) still writes a weekly column, showcasing her uncanny ability to get her subjects — presidents, murderers, victims of unspeakable crimes — to crack open." - MSN (The...
A series of papers, discovered in Florentine archives, concerns the emancipation in 1452 of an enslaved Circassian woman, probably abducted as a girl, named Caterina, which was the name of Leonardo's mother. All of the documents are linked to his father, who wrote some of them himself. - NBC News
Librarians argue that a lawsuit filed by four major publishers, should it succeed, "would jeopardize the future development of digital libraries nationwide. The Internet Archive is the most significant specialized library to emerge in decades." - Inside Higher Ed
"We have changed our collective tastes in response to technological progress in the past. We’ll now do it again, without even noticing that it’s happening. And if history is any indication, our tastes will evolve in a way that rigs the game in favor of human artists." - Wired
An arbitrator "in a decision issued last month that has not been previously reported, ruled that the Met should compensate Netrebko for 13 canceled performances," which means the opera company owes the Russian soprano more than $200,000. - The New York Times
AI image and text generation is pure primitive accumulation: expropriation of labour from the many for the enrichment and advancement of a few Silicon Valley technology companies and their billionaire owners. - The Guardian
Much of the reluctance to do what climate change requires comes from the assumption that it means trading abundance for austerity. But what if it meant giving up things we’re well rid of, from deadly emissions to nagging feelings of doom and complicity in destruction? - Washington Post
The advancement of generative artificial intelligence is not an advancement toward artificial personhood for a simple, absolute reason: There is no falsifiable thesis of consciousness. You cannot find a researcher who can define, in a testable way, what consciousness is. - The Atlantic
For nearly two decades, Tina Chancey and her ensemble, Hesperus, have been assembling and performing live music — songs and instrumental works from the Middle Ages, along with period-style improvisation — to accompany such classic silent films as The Mark of Zorro, Robin Hood, and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. - Early Music America
Arifa Akbar: "Crunching or chewing can be a distraction, especially in the confines of the older, tighter West End venues, but theatre is a group activity. … The group experience is what we come for – and that includes jostling in the foyer, coughing, rustling and, yes, eating or drinking." - The Guardian
Burny Mattinson became a messenger at Disney, beginning a career that would eventually make him the longest-tenured employee of the company (just shy of seventy years) and one of the last still at the company to have started there when Walt Disney himself was running it. - The New Yorker
"Recently, two of the team's investigators … agreed to answer questions from The New York Times. They declined to comment on the Basquiat case, citing the ongoing investigation. But they discussed the origin and purpose of the Art Crime Team, and the public's increased interest in it. - The New York Times
Vinyl revenue grew 17% and topped $1.2 billion last year, making up nearly three-quarters of the revenue brought in by physical music. At the same time, CD revenue fell 18% to $483 million, the RIAA said. - NPR
The survey "exposes how many artists, especially those from less privileged backgrounds, have to sustain multiple additional jobs to subsidise poorly paid commissions in the public sector. Some told of deciding to leave the art world entirely to protect their mental health and financial security." - The Guardian (UK)