“November 12, 2013. I was ready to make a jump, I hit a slippery spot on the floor and heard two huge pops in my right knee,” she says. “The ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) had ruptured. The pain came from my tibia slamming into my femur.” She’d had injuries before – what dancer hasn’t? – but realized this could be career-ending: “I went into surgery, knowing I might not come back.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
Study: Music Can Change Listeners’ Behavior
“Songs that deal with social topics seem to have an impact on our cognition and behavior,” the University of Wuerzburg’s Nicolas Ruth writes in the journal Psychology of Music. “Musicians espousing such messages would be pleased to know that their music has a real — if small — effect on people’s behavior.”
Looking For “Great” Composers Of Our Age? The Idea Of Greatness Might Not Work
“Fixed and hierarchical ideas of ‘greatness’ feel off-kilter with the times, even socially divisive in their narrow view of what greatness is and how it manifests itself not only musically, but also culturally and demographically.”
A Neuroscientist Wonders: Could We Upload Our Brains Into The Computer?
As a neuroscientist, my interest lies mainly in a more practical question: is it even technically possible to duplicate yourself in a computer program? The short answer is: probably, but not for a while.
Dance As A Fitness Routine? The Benefits Are Many
With “Just Dance,” I am elevating my heart rate, but I am also sidestepping the self. Depending on the song and background images, I am a partying hipster in a floor-length fur (Macklemore, “Can’t Hold Us”), or a futuristic funk dancer (Nicki Minaj, “Pound the Alarm”), or a girl with swinging blond hair at a club. Critics complain that the offerings on “Just Dance” skew painfully toward bubble-gum pop, but it also means that on “Just Dance,” I am forever young.
Will Live-Streaming News Break The Cable News Networks?
“What we saw last week was live streaming’s Gulf War, a moment that will catapult the technology into the center of the news — and will begin to inexorably alter much of television news as we know it. And that’s not a bad thing. Though it will shake up the economics of TV, live streaming is opening up a much more compelling way to watch the news.”
Battles Rage Over Authenticating Modigliani Work
“As well as a number of suspected fakes on the market (more in drawings than in paintings, says Wayne), complicating the field has been an epic battle between two specialists, Christian Parisot and Marc Restellini, which aired publicly for more than a decade through the 2000s.”
One LA Neighborhood Fighting Gentrification Resists Artists’ Complicity In Upscaling
“Since PSSST, Boyle Heights’ newest gallery, announced its grand opening (originally scheduled for May 13) the conflict between the art space and local grassroots organizations has escalated to dimensions greater than each of the actual entities by bringing to question the direct and indirect complicity of artists and cultural spaces in the displacement of long-seated, working-class communities.”
Digital Comics Thrive As Art Form Flourishes
“Digital comics creators may fit their art to screen proportions or vertical strips. Artists and writers design for panel-viewing apps by making sure each chunk of the page works on its own, so you’re not left trying to remember who got Hulk so mad or what everyone’s looking at up in the sky — and they can use limited views to control pacing and create suspenseful reveals. Going further, formats such as Madefire’s Motion Books combine writing, animation and even sound. None of that invalidates the traditional art form, of course, but there’s always evolution.”
Why Are Classical Music’s Biggest Stars Lining Up To Perform In “Mozart In The Jungle”?
“The show’s ability to draw so many A-listers is both a testament to its growing success, and a reflection of the fact that there are now far fewer opportunities for classical artists to appear on television, which is still an important medium for reaching, and appealing to, new audiences.”