The words "virile" or "virility" were constantly used in reviews of the music of the late 19th-century Irish-French composer Augusta Holmès. What's more, "Holmès's virile lifestyle, as much as her works, put Ernest Hemingway’s to shame," writes Julia Conrad, who ranks the composer's works in order of virility. - Van
To build algorithms that more effectively predict user preferences and better enhance consumer well-being and social welfare, organizations need to employ ways to measure user preferences that take into account these biases. - Harvard Business Review
A reporter visits the dancers for the Utah Jazz to see the elements that go into their work, from selecting members to costumes and makeup to rehearsal and deciding what movement will, and won't, be worked out ahead of time. - The Salt Lake Tribune
Devised at a time before computers were widely available, the index was certainly an impressive achievement. It had taken 24 researchers some five years to complete by hand and had cost nearly a million dollars to produce. - The Conversation
Under new artistic director Jon Tracy, Marin Shakespeare is undertaking a slew of new initiatives: adding nine artistic associates, hosting other stage companies in its space, a "dramaturgy university", the theater equivalent of a book club, and, four-hours-a-day-three-days-a-week, letting anyone use its facilities. - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
Up to the immediate post-WWII period, publishing was a fairly local, personal business, with houses founded by whiskered men shipping out books to stores on an irregular basis. Today we have the Big Five—HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Hachette, and Penguin Random House. - The Bulwark
Crying live is the standard challenge, but these actors have also had to simulate coughing, sneezing, climaxing and even vomiting in front of an audience. - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
Acquiring older cultural objects through purchase or donation can be risky for museums if they suspect the art or artifacts might have to be returned to a foreign government at some point. - The Observer
"OpenAI, the organization behind ChatGPT and text-to-image generator DALL-E, … (told Britain's House of Lords that) 'limiting training data to public domain books and drawings created more than a century ago might yield an interesting experiment, but would not provide A.I. systems that meet the needs of today’s citizens.'" - Artnet
The authors of a petition signed by more than 4,000 people "are concerned the addition of this clause as a prerequisite for funding will silence critics of the state of Israel and undermine freedom of expression." - Artnet
It all started when, in 2021, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti decided he wanted to take the company public using a SPAC (remember those?), all the rage on Wall Street at the time. - New York Magazine (MSN)
From the estate of Lois Kirschenbaum, who spent decades attending opera and ballet and collecting autographs at Lincoln Center and elsewhere, "donations of $215,000 apiece have started to arrive, surprising groups like New York City Opera, American Ballet Theater, Carnegie Hall and the Public Theater." - The New York Times
"The Academy … will keep its museum open and fully operating. It plans to carry on classes in continuing education and its K-12 arts programs. At the same time, PAFA intends to restore its comprehensive three- or four-year certificate program and relaunch it this fall." - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
"Amazon is laying off “several hundred” employees at Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios. Additionally, 500 employees — or 35% of the workforce — are being let go at Amazon-owned livestream platform Twitch." - Variety
"Freedom of information requests by the PA news agency to museums and galleries that receive public funding from the (national government) asking for details on absent items from the last 20 years found that more than 1,700 items were absent from collections." - The Guardian
