Stories

While AI job automation has already replaced around 400,000 factory jobs in the U.S. from 1990 to 2007, with another 2 million on the way, AI today is automating the economy in a much more subtle way. - VentureBeat

“It became clear, just in a matter of days, that the only way to salvage the school was to actually do a mass evacuation and airlift of the entire school community.” - Berkshire Eagle

This time around, the traditionalist lunatics have succeeded in taking over the asylum. Reactionary ideas hostile to the cosmopolitan, to Modernism, to modernity itself, are in the ascendant. - The Art Newspaper

Why did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sign a pirate edition of “The Sign of the Four,” the second of the four Sherlock Holmes novels? Conan Doyle hated pirate editions. He was as famous for denouncing pirate publishers. - The New York Times

Seattle Symphony music director Thomas Dausgaard has abruptly stepped down from his post, midway through his third season at the top of Seattle’s flagship orchestra. - Seattle Times

From a very early age, dancers are taught that pain comes with the territory. “Dance is not natural. We’re stretching our bodies to extremes.” Think of a young, impressionable dancer developing their splits or breaking in pointe shoes for the first time—basically everything hurts. - Dance Magazine

And that tech isn't just for action films. Citizen Kane's 4K changes are "clear even before the first shot. In the 4K transfer, the bold capital letters that spell out Kane’s title beam like white neon against a jet-black background. The effect is bold, electrifying." - Slate

One arts council president says bluntly that the artists need more funding, or "this situation is definitely going to have long-term consequences." - CBC

The artists - visual and performing - will earn a basic payment each week to pursue their arts, for up to three years. - BBC

What's the issue with the classic ballet costume? Well, they're just a costume, says one former prima ballerina - and a restrictive one, at that. Leanne Benjamin: "I think we all expect and enjoy evolution and so will welcome what comes next." - The Observer (UK)

James Baldwin got it. "Baldwin acknowledged the restrictions placed on Poitier and other Black actors at the time, but he also recognized Black agency in these performances. Poitier 'smuggled in reality,'" Baldwin wrote, no matter what was on the page.- The Atlantic

Just in case you care, after all of the info of last year that tanked "one of the glitziest awards shows in Hollywood," the info was delivered via Twitter. - The New York Times

We're not all in this together, clearly. The Broadway League "proposed to the unions representing Broadway workers that those workers take a 50 percent pay cut during so-called 'COVID pauses.'" That's not going well. - The Daily Beast

Hey, there's money, and then there's art. Rylance: "Theatre is so flexible and it’s so different from being an actor in a film. It’s a thousand times more enjoyable." - The Guardian (UK)

Even before omicron hit, "the red flags were flying low back in 2021. The monstrous success of Spider-Man helped paper over the cracks of what was an underwhelming final quarter at the box office." - The Guardian (UK)