“Clearly, we’re not bringing anybody back to work anytime soon in person, based on those guidelines,” Aurora Managing Director Julie Saltzman Kellner told The Chronicle by phone. “To be honest, we weren’t anyways. They are really similar to the guidelines we had set out for ourselves, in terms of when we imagined we could produce again.” – San Francisco Chronicle
Author: Douglas McLennan
When Will It Be Safe To Return To The Dance Studio?
Put simply, dancers who aren’t ready to go back shouldn’t have to. As desperately as we miss dancing, we have to put our health—and the health of our communities—first. But as artists who often lack employment protections, it may feel risky to draw a line in the sand. – Dance Magazine
Won’t Artificial Intelligence Be Immortal?
It is common to assume that an AI could achieve immortality by creating backup copies of itself and thus transfer its consciousness from one computer to the next. This view is encouraged by science-fiction stories. But is it right? – Nautilus
The Comedy Culture Divide
On one side, new faces have meant less tolerance for the flippant bigotry that has long been a part of stand-up—Shane Gillis, for example, recently lost a spot on Saturday Night Live after people called out his history of using homophobic and racist slurs. On the other side—which includes some of the biggest names in the business, like Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr, and Ricky Gervais—comedians complain that people can no longer take a joke and that the art is losing its edge because of what they dismiss as “cancel culture.” – The Walrus
Here Are Hollywood’s New Production Rules For Shooting During Pandemic
The instructions detail how to deal with a confirmed case of COVID-19 on a set. Anyone in the cast or crew that was within six feet of the infected person for more than 15 minutes may need to be quarantined, potentially bringing a complete halt to filming. The name of the ill employee must not be disclosed, according to the rules. Physical distancing will be required, which will be a challenge for crowded sets. – Los Angeles Times
Sonny Rollins On Surviving A Pandemic
“This is O.K. for me because I am trying to live in a different world, besides the world of the illness. I’m trying to live in a world of the spirit wherein I am concentrating on things such as the golden rule. This is my big thing; I am trying to live by it. The main thing is do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Sure, everybody knows it, but nobody lives by it. We live in a world where it’s about “I’ve gotta get mine, and—too bad for you—I’ve gotta get mine first.” – The New Yorker
Banff Centre Permanently Fires 284 Staff
On Thursday, management laid off 284 staff members, some of whom had worked there for decades and lived in campus housing. An additional 100 people remain on temporary layoff, leaving 123 fully employed. – CBC
Awkward: It Appears Netflix Trademarked “Space Force” Before The US Military
The streaming platform’s trademark for “Space Force” dates back to January 2019. The US military’s space warfare service of the same name was founded in December, eleven months later, without ever having registered a trademark for its name. – Futurism
How Pop Physics Snuck Into Our Belief Systems
The modern genre of pop cosmology began with the big bang of Stephen Hawking’s 1988 megabestseller, A Brief History of Time. Since then, world-class physicists like Michio Kaku, Steven Weinberg, and Freeman Dyson, who died earlier this year at the age of 96, have earned wider fame by writing popular accounts of fundamental physical concepts: time and space, matter and energy, the origin and destiny of the universe. – Tablet
Five Foundations Step Up With $1.7 Billion To Help Non-Profit Arts, Humanities
Mellon’s commitment comes as part of a broader partnership between major U.S. foundations — Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation — designed to activate over $1.7 billion in enhanced grantmaking to support struggling nonprofits. – Andrew W. Mellon Foundation