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- Nobody Boos At A Screen
Good Morning,
The U.S. has lost a fifth of its movie theaters and nearly a third of its bowling alleys since 2001 (Fortune). That’s not a taste story, it’s an infrastructure one — the places where strangers used to end up sitting next to each other are disappearing.
The consequence shows up inside the rooms still standing: moviegoing has stopped being habit meeting spontaneity, and the question of what to see has collapsed into whether to go at all (The Atlantic). Instagram, meanwhile, is building a TV app on the theory that private scrolling becomes a shared activity if you move it to the big screen (The Atlantic).
But a room still does something a feed can’t. Bayreuth audiences booed the AI-assembled projections in a Wagner staging (Los Angeles Times). Some additional evidence: remembering sequences, processing music and staying present with other people is exactly the demand researchers think helps hold dementia off (Harper’s Bazaar).
All of our stories below.
- A Boston Symphony Lesson: Limits Of A Music Critic?
The answer cannot simply be that the critic is more objective. Objectivity is valuable, but proximity matters as well. Critics attend performances. Audiences hear concerts. Administrators oversee institutions. But only the musicians experience the entire artistic relationship. – Orlando Alonso
- Sonny Rollins — A Generation Of Change
He was the last major figure to work in almost every era of jazz history: swing, bebop, hard bop, free, fusion. He was the terminal representative of the American music we call jazz, the final titan to fall. It’s unclear whether the music can still sustain the spontaneity and power that he and his peers represented. – n+1
- Guardrails For AI Didn’t Work. So Bring In The Philosophers
“Efforts [to stop the generation of harmful content] were initially focused around putting in simple black-and-white guardrails, such as forbidding a model from talking about bombs entirely. But these proved clumsy and easy to circumvent. Now, companies are pursuing methods that lean heavily on a philosophical understanding of right and wrong.” – The AI Humanist
- Bayreuth Audiences Boo Use Of AI In Wagner Performance
The collage that the technology projected onstage puzzled the audience, DPA reported, with images including late former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the towers of the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and a special postage stamp marking German reunification in 1990. – Los Angeles Times
- The Odyssey’s Success on Movie Screens Produces A Big Surge In Video Game Use
Once The Odyssey zapped onto IMAX screens on July 17, “the cultural spillover into games was immediate.” 10 days later, Ubisoft‘s 2018 ancient Greek adventure Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey had nearly doubled its active player count, swelling from an approximate total of 122,000 players to 233,000 across platforms. – GamesRadar
- America Is Losing Its Public Gathering Spaces
According to its Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages—which counts business establishments by industry down to the county level going back to 1990—the U.S. has lost a fifth of its movie theaters and nearly a third of its bowling alleys since 2001. – Fortune
- There Are 35,000 Museums In The US. Here Is ARTnews’ List Of The Top 30
They’re spread out across the lower 48. – ARTnews
- Did Someone Steal A Nicholas Cage Movie On A Hard Drive?
A new lawsuit claims Netflix did not safeguard an as-yet-unreleased Nicolas Cage WWII movie, which allegedly was just sitting around on a hard drive until somebody stole it. – Rolling Stone
- Google Briefly Allowed AI Manipulation Of Google Earth Satellite Images. Bad Idea
Google briefly allowed anyone to create AI-modified versions of satellite imagery available in Google Earth—before quickly reversing its decision as people shared examples of AI-generated pictures that illustrated the potential for misinformation and disinformation. – Ars Technica
- Misty Copeland Takes The Reins
“It’s about creating opportunity. It’s about creating access. It’s about continuing to not just be a voice in my time, but how are we setting up the next generation?” – The New York Times
- Happy 420th Birthday To The Scottish Play
Yes, Macbeth has been around for a while. “Fun fact: Samuel Pepys saw it at least nine times himself.” – LitHub
- Hollywood’s Open, Horrible Secrets, Such As The Whisper Network Concerning Jared Leto
“When a lot of people make a percentage off the earnings of one famous individual, the capacity for denial is vast” — and now there’s a huge, “well-oiled anti-accountability machine” that cranks up as well. – The New York Times
- Instagram Wants To Be On Your First Screen Now
“The idea with the channels seems to be that making the secret, private shame of scrolling into a collaborative activity will give it a new place in the home.” – The Atlantic
- An Actor Who Was Slated To Star In Hadestown Has ‘Departed’ After His Hostile Comments About Trans People Emerge
For instance, in one video clip that surfaced after Geno Segers was announced as Hades, “Segers likens transgender people to people pretending they are service animals in hopes of receiving discounts on airfare.” – The New York Times
- Australian Library Waives Fine For Book Returned After 150 Years
The book, The Antiquities of Athens, published in 1858, “was discovered inside a tea crate bricked into a sealed fireplace.” Normal place to put a book down and then never see it again, right? – Salon
- Writers Just Can’t Resist Writing From The POV Of A Dog
Virginia Woolf with Flush, Paul Auster with Timbuktu, Garth Stein with The Art of Racing in the Rain, and now another Paul – Yoon – with Etna. Why? Yoon says, “I deeply believe dogs have superpowers and secrets.” – The New York Times
- Ballet Might Help Stave Off Dementia
“When we’re learning choreography, we’re asking the brain to do so many things at once: remember sequences, process music, coordinate movement, adapt when we make mistakes, and stay present with other people in the room. It’s a perfect puzzle for keeping the mind fresh.” – Harper’s Bazaar
- How Samantha Morton, Circe In The New Odyssey, Survived A Grim Childhood To Become A Star
“It was theater that ultimately changed her life. Between the ages of 14 and 16 she began acting while, offstage, she kept stealing food to survive, used drugs and accumulated several arrests for violent incidents.” – El País English
- Question: Is It Even Possible To Make Non-Creepy Smart Glasses?
Sure, everyone has phones, but “the phone still needs to be pulled out, held up, and have its camera activated to capture a photo or film a video. Smart glasses, with small built-in cameras and the user’s ability to obfuscate the recording notification, are much sneakier.” – Wired
- How Fender’s Newish CEO Seems Intent On Ruining The Famous Guitar Company
The CEO “appears to be suggesting that, by learning to play other people’s songs, internalizing those influences, and then synthesizing them into something new, you are essentially doing the same thing as an AI.” – The Verge
- Morgan Freeman’s Deep Voice Is Still Going Even As The Actor Is Almost 90
“The 89-year-old Oscar-winning actor has voiced God and presidents, and he is the go-to narrator for your favorite documentarian. He still brushes aside the impact of his immediately recognizable, resonant baritone.” – The New York Times
- People Aren’t Reading As Much, But Perhaps This Will Spur Them On
That’s right: It’s a couch-to-5K, except for books. – The Guardian (UK)
- Gen Z Is Saving Hollywood, Right?
Er … not really. “Moviegoing used to be a matter of habit meeting spontaneity. … Today, patrons generally plan their cinema visits in advance, and the question of what to see has collapsed into the question of whether to go at all.” – The Atlantic
- “Feeling It” — Giuini and Arrau vs. George Szell’s New World Perfectionism
As readers of this blog must be aware – perhaps with interest, perhaps with mounting annoyance – I
- How To Get From Canada To Eurovision
“It’s still too soon to say how Canada’s act will be chosen, but as any athlete will tell you, it’s never too soon to start preparing for the international media, the next-level fans or winning over voters.” – CBC
- Vincent Pastore, Who Went From Nightclub Owner To Mob Guys In ‘Goodfellas’ And ‘The Sopranos,’ Has Died At 80
Pastore once said, “It’s easier for me to play a tough guy than it is to play the good guy. … I grew up in a tough neighborhood. I didn’t study the classics. I’m a street actor. A lot of my training was on the set.” – The New York Times
- When Childhood Dreams Turn Into Big Screen Reality
This guy started practicing Spider-moves and parkour as a kid, hoping he’d one day get to do stunts for Spider-Man movies … and that has paid off in a big way. – BBC
- Cicero Sez
- What Happens When Two Partners Working Writers Suddenly Write Together
“‘We’d always been very wary of working together because we’d quite like to stay together,’ says Sharp wryly. She looks at her partner of 13 years. ‘You don’t generally like to work with others.’” – The Guardian (UK)
- They’re Re-Gilding Some Statues In DC, For Some Reason
“All four statues were a thank-you gift from Italy following the end of World War II.” – Artforum
- A Cult Fave Filmmaker Says All The Bad Stuff In The World Comes From Sexual Repression
Gregg Araki, the director of new indie I Want Your Sex: “The world’s so fucked up right now with wars and ICE and fucking genocides that I want to put a little queer joy and positivity into the world.” – The Guardian (UK)
- The Power Of Images, Or, How Fake Towns On Maps Sometimes Became Real
“The logic is simple: two cartographers might easily draw the same real town, but two cartographers can’t independently dream up the same fake one. So if a rival’s map contains the same invented place, it all but proves they copied the map.” – Open Culture
- Where Does All Of This ‘Odyssey’ Discourse Leave Us?
First of all, let academics write reviews of things they know about – whether you agree with their reviews or not, it jump-starts the discussion. – Vulture
- Greta Lee Is Having A Moment
Perhaps the bike-loving, gardening, SCUBA-diving actor is having what might be called another moment, a few years after Past Lives garnered her some attention. – The New York Times