The law firm MinterEllison, a major supporter of the Southern Hemisphere's counterpart to the Edinburgh Festivals, pulled back after several participants withdrew from Adelaide Writers' Week over the appearance of two authors, both harshly critical of Israel and one of whom takes a Putinist line on Ukraine. - The Age (Melbourne)
"(He was) the founder of Catch a Rising Star comedy club in New York City where a generation of stand-up comics — Billy Crystal, Richard Lewis, Jerry Seinfeld, Robin Williams, Richard Belzer and countless others — honed their craft in the 1970s." - MSN (The Washington Post)
Members of a group calling itself the National Socialist Movement yelled slogans and accosted theatergoers just before the first preview performance of Jason Robert Brown's musical, which is about the false conviction and lynching of Leo Frank in Georgia in 1915. - Playbill
"Daniel Elie Bouaziz ... pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering, referencing a sale of counterfeit Warhol works to an unnamed victim. ... The court agreed to drop 16 other counts," related to sales of fake Liechtensteins, Basquiats, Harings and other works. - ARTnews
"National Public Radio will reduce its workforce by 10 percent as it grapples with what CEO John Lansing says is a 'sharp decline' in sponsorship revenue. ... More than 700 employees work at the public media firm." - The Hollywood Reporter
"Cuts of around £6.6m," made by the cabinet of recently departed First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, "to Scotland's arts and culture sector funded by the state were reversed – but (the acting Finance Minister) warned this was the 'absolute limit' of funding he could offer Creative Scotland." - The National (Scotland)
"The Joyce, which since 1982 has presented dance companies from all over the world at its home in Chelsea, has signed a yearlong lease on a multilevel building on East 10th Street that it hopes to purchase and operate permanently" as rehearsal and studio space. - The New York Times
Rather than being our crowning glory as a species, is it possible that human intelligence is in fact a liability, the source of our existential angst and increasingly apparent talent for self-destruction? - The Guardian
Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly advancing to a point where it can generate the design of a building completely autonomously. With the potential to create designs faster and with more accuracy than ever before, AI has the potential to revolutionize the architecture industry. - Dezeen
During a press conference at the Iraq embassy in London on Friday, Tablet Hill was described as the “cradle of civilization” and “one of the most important heritage sites in the world that very few people know about.” - ARTnews
As a young hornist in the 1970s, he helped launch the first French-horn soloist competition in America, inspired by the performances of European players. He conducted the Albuquerque Philharmonic, and started a renowned annual French-horn workshop that drew top talent from across the country. - The Wall Street Journal
Most experts acknowledge that we are a long way off from seeing what AI researchers have termed “artificial general intelligence”: the kind of intelligence that does not consist in performing highly circumscribed tasks, but which involves a unified conception of the world. - The Point
Emily Dickinson thought that words start a new, discrete cycle of life the moment they are uttered. While American English can be perceived as a threat to the survival of other cultures around the world, in our country it is a force that helps to bind us together. - The New York Times
In the budget proposal he submitted to the legislature, Gov. Tony Evers has called for $100 million from the state's general fund to be placed in an Artistic Endowment Fund, with the interest from that money distributed annually in grants to arts organizations across Wisconsin. - WXPR (Rhinelander, WI)
ChatGPT, the popular bot released to the public by OpenAI late last year, is obsessed with clichés and uses them all the time. Perhaps it is no coincidence that use of the chatbot has already become common in areas of life where people write formulaically and blandly. - The Atlantic
