“Internet trolls have a manifesto of sorts, which states they are doing it for the “lulz,” or laughs. What trolls do for the lulz ranges from clever pranks to harassment to violent threats. There’s also doxxing–publishing personal data, such as Social Security numbers and bank accounts–and swatting, calling in an emergency to a victim’s house so the SWAT team busts in. When victims do not experience lulz, trolls tell them they have no sense of humor. Trolls are turning social media and comment boards into a giant locker room in a teen movie, with towel-snapping racial epithets and misogyny.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
Daniel Barenboim, Fanatic
“Barenboim still boils over with plans. He wants to tackle the gulf between a class of musicians who are technically skilled but ignorant of their society, and a wider society that can’t understand classical music. This autumn his Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin begins teaching a degree course in music, coupled with twice-weekly philosophy lessons. He is also looking for a primary school in Germany to follow a programme of music education set by him and the Berlin Staatskapelle.”
Who Goes To Choral Concerts? The Survey Says…
Personal relationships fuel the audiences for choral concerts. Among the children and youth choruses surveyed, four in five respondents have a familial or friendship relationship with a young performer. Among adult choruses, about a third of respondents reported having a relationship with a performer.
Scientists Took MRIs Of People’s Brains While They Watched Movies. Here’s What They Saw
“Our results demonstrate that some films can exert considerable control over brain activity and eye movements. However, this was not the case for all types of motion picture sequences, and the level of control over viewers’ brain activity differed as a function of movie content, editing, and directing style.”
Royal Ontario Museum Removes Chihuly Quote From Show As Inappropriate
The museum, by way of explanation, says: “Once the exhibition installation was complete, and the text was seen in context, it became clear that it did not reflect the voice of the museum, nor did it reflect the experience of the work.” The ROM also pointed out that the original quote “was provided as part of the exhibition text,” which had been featured in several other museums before arriving here.
Will Thomas Mann’s House In LA Be Torn Down?
“Perhaps the juggernaut of the real-estate market is destined to roll over the Mann house as it has over many other notable places. Worse things will have happened in the world. But for anyone who loves Mann’s work, or who cherishes the story of émigré culture in Los Angeles, it would be a crushing outcome.”
Can Artifical Intelligence Learn From Romance Novels How To “Act” Human”
“Given that the final frontier in artificial intelligence calls for some form of consciousness, when it comes, it will almost certainly issue not from the source code of a programmer, but from the lab of a neuroscientist. Then, if romance novels play a role, it will be to ensure, as a true test of intelligence, that they are read not with indifference, but with delight or disdain.”
Are Culture And Cool Just Pretentious Constructs?
“It’s difficult not to feel as though we, as a culture, have reached a dead end, that our quest for authenticity has bred nothing more than a series of postures and attitudes that, if they hadn’t sprung up by themselves, would have been invented by market demographers anyway. Perhaps we are stuck in the age of “cool,” when all roads to larger causes inevitably circle back to the adolescent project of exalting the self.”
Brazilian Artists Launch Huge Demonstrations Over Cuts To Culture
Ocupa MinC began in May when Michel Temer became interim president and promptly announced that the government was going to deal with one of the worst budget deficits in years by absorbing the Ministry of Culture into the Ministry of Education. In response, thousands of artists and musicians occupied MinC buildings in at least 18 cities nationwide, camping out in tents and performing songs in protest.
When LA Glitz Met Europe’s Most Rigorous Intellectual Composers
“Here, Californian naiveté and blatant commercialism butted heads with European rigor and elitism. This was a collision of worlds which never fully resolved or came to an agreeable integration, reflecting some of the fundamental fragmentation of Los Angeles. In this way, the peculiar contours of LA culture have made an indelible mark upon new music as a whole.”