"For many of the more than 250 unionized employees, the agreement ratified on Feb. 16 between their union, Local 2110 of the U.A.W., and the publisher was a victory: It included a raise and some guaranteed overtime for the employees at the lower end of the wage scale." - The New York Times
In “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” for instance, the Oompa-Loompas are no longer “small men” but rather “small people,” according to The Telegraph, while the word “fat” has also been removed from every book. - Toronto Star
For 25 years I’ve begun my introductory psychology course by showing how our best artificial intelligence still can’t duplicate ordinary common sense. This year I was terrified that that part of the lecture would be obsolete because the examples I gave would be aced by GPT. I needn’t have worried. - Harvard Gazette
The red chalk drawing is thought to date from 1512, shortly before Michelangelo painted that final section of one of the world’s most famous works of art, which he had started in 1508. - The Observer
“Sometimes my work is considered as activism,” he adds. “It is not. There are people who do that. My work is just trying to engage my identity.” - BachTrack
I’ve known writers who used to submit, literally, the manuscript of a work. It might loiter for six months in some publisher’s office before being returned. Under the conditions of print, a dozen failures a year were difficult to accumulate. Today, if you work at it, you can fail a dozen times before lunch. - The Atlantic
Music is a sphere where young performers and composers tend to look to their teachers and bosses as mentors. This can give rise to all sorts of power abuses, especially in the cut-throat entertainment world where everybody is hustling for the next job. - The Guardian
"Founded by refugees fleeing the Khmer Rouge regime, which sought to eradicate most religious institutions, (the Buddhist temple) Watt Munisotaram and its troupe hope that teaching young children sacred dance will strengthen their ties to both Buddhism and Cambodian traditions." - AP
The deliberate attempt to emulate music culminated in the works of abstract artists like Kandinsky, where colours and shapes, devoid of representational contents, are art in their own right. But just how can an abstract painting imitate music? How can the two be associated in a deep and meaningful way? - Psyche
"The innovative structure of Barter Theatre's new Black Stories Black Voices program ... could well serve as a national model for inclusive art-making that embraces and empowers Black communities at mainstream theatres." - American Theatre
Think of ChatGPT as a blurry jpeg of all the text on the Web. It retains much of the information on the Web, in the same way that a jpeg retains much of the information of a higher-resolution image, but, if you’re looking for an exact sequence of bits, you won’t find it. - The New Yorker
"The (works were) taken from houses in Barcelona last year, sparking a major police investigation that led authorities to a hideout in Catalonia. Officers found (them) alongside a hoard of stolen money, watches, jewelry, and expensive pens. ... The police have arrested five suspects, including three brothers aged 50, 53 and 55." - Artnet
“Si collected Johns in depth, but can we sell more than 10 Johns for $10 million apiece all at once? Absolutely not. So instead we’re selling a group that feels holistic and feels like Si.” - Wall Street Journal
"If opera in the form that its creators imagine it becomes for toffs, that is nothing to do with opera itself. It is absolutely extrinsic to the art form, and precisely the result of neglect, and underfunding, and starving of resources, and shame, and embarrassment, and lack of care." - The Guardian
What does it matter if Homo sapiens no longer exists? The astonishing fact is that, despite acquiring the ability to annihilate ourselves back in the 1950s, when thermonuclear weapons were invented, very few philosophers in the West have paid much attention to the ethics of human extinction. - Aeon
