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Revolving Door? Toronto Symphony CEO To Step Down

Matthew Loden has reportedly decided to leave the role after accepting an offer to serve as Dean at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Huston, Texas. - Ludwig Van

Is The Idea of “Toxic” Masculinity Counter-Productive?

"In today’s context, it is unclear why we are talking about boys and girls as though these are fixed identities to which masculinity and femininity naturally attach, unless to speak in these terms promotes a form of gender moralism, or gender dogma." - Psyche

Is Disagreement A Social Media Design Problem?

Social media developers can take steps to foster constructive disagreements online through design. But our findings suggest that they also will need to consider how their interventions might backfire. - The Conversation

‘He’s A Friend Of Dorothy’: A Brief History Of Yesteryear’s Favorite Gay Euphemism

For you young'uns, back before Stonewall, this was an expression gay men used to identify each other. (If a guy replied "Dorothy who?", one quickly retreated.) But who was Dorothy — Gale or Parker? - Smithsonian Magazine

Why Is Amazon’s Science Fiction So Toxic?

Amazon has shat out science-fiction programming for years, and it ranges, on the smell-o-meter, from the merely obnoxious to the just plain noxious—a flatulence that fluctuates. - Wired

#IALivingWage: Hollywood’s Writers’ Assistants Fight For More Money And Less Misery

Despite the famously long hours and low pay, aspiring TV writers compete madly for these jobs, hoping to get a foot in the door and onto the career ladder. But, as one assistant puts it, "the ladder has been disappearing." - Fast Company

Why Is Creativity Going Down?

Studies suggest that bored people score higher on creativity tests. As our distractions have multiplied, our minds have less opportunity to wander. Thus... - Medium

Netflix And (Ugh) ‘365 Days’ Have Made Poland Into A Hotbed Of Video Production

The industry that produced Andrzej Wajda and Agnieszka Holland never anticipated that a trashy softcore flick would become its most-watched product, the world's lockdown guilty pleasure. Fortunately, Netflix has been putting a lot of resources into more (and more respectable) projects in Poland. - The Hollywood Reporter

Creativity Scores Are Going Down

"A researcher at the University of William and Mary analyzed 300,000 Torrance Test scores since the '50s. She found that creativity scores began to nosedive in 1990. - Inc

At The Robot Version Of The Eurovision Song Contest

The A.I. Song Contest features three dozen or so teams that use artificial intelligence networks to create parts of, and sometimes all of, a song, along with a jury of scientists and songwriters led by Imogen Heap. And what did they come up with? - The New York Times

Study: Why We See Faces In Inanimate Objects

Face pareidolia – seeing faces in random objects or patterns of light and shadow – is an everyday phenomenon. Once considered a symptom of psychosis, it arises from an error in visual perception. - The Guardian

How A Drama School Class Handled Graduating Right Into The Pandemic

The theater students of the UNC School of the Arts Class of 2020 hadn't expected to be starting their careers right at the moment their chosen industry completely shut down. Here's a look at how they managed and where they are now. - The New York Times

Dancing To Heal From Turmoil And Tragedy

Ari Honarvar, who as a teen danced secretly to get herself through life in post-revolution Iran, writes about how she now leads communal dancing as therapy for Central American asylum-seekers marooned in Tijuana. - Slate

Rebel Filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. Dead At 85

He built a cult following in the 1960s underground with inventively odd satires, then hit the mainstream in 1969 with Putney Swope, in which a Black Power activist takes over a New York ad agency, followed by Greaser's Palace, the life of Christ as a spaghetti Western. - Variety

Scientists Are Figuring Out The Chemical Baths Stradivari And Guarneri Gave Their Spruce Wood

Researchers using an array of high-tech methods have found traces of alum, potash, lime, borax, and plain old salt in the wooden fronts of these old instruments — and the cellulose molecules in the spruce were rearranged by those treatments. - The Strad

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