You might wonder how people who seem so good by occupation could be so bad in private. The theory of moral licensing could help explain why: When humans are good, it says, we give ourselves license to be bad. – Nautilus
Author: Douglas McLennan
Museums Are Being Criticized For Taking Money From Robber Barons (And The Like). What To Do?
Obviously, take the lead, realize there’s a problem as standards change. Instead, protests driven by social media are shaming some of the world’s most venerable cultural institutions, and they’re looking pretty bad. But there’s a balancing act to consider, writes Adrian Ellis… – The Art Newspaper
A Jiffy Lube Owner Talks About His Business’s Relationship With The Arts
Steve Sanner: “Small business owners like me don’t often view the arts as an area in which we can make a real difference. Even our “stretch” sponsorship levels are overshadowed by the huge dollar amounts that wealthy individuals, banks, law firms, and insurance companies can generate. For us, philanthropy is difficult to plan for, so our sponsorship investments tend to come out of our advertising budgets. Therefore, we’re motivated to find ways to drive our business in more immediate, ROI-based campaigns than what is thought a typical sponsorship of the arts might provide.” – Americans for the Arts
Remembering Composer Dominick Argento
Argento was always a force apart. He belonged to no compositional school, preferring a distinctly eclectic language that appealed both intellectually and emotionally to his audiences. At a time when most of the celebrated American composers were based on either the East or West coasts, where they could work together and help promote one another’s music, Mr. Argento lived and worked in Minneapolis throughout his career, teaching composition at the University of Minnesota and working closely for many years with the director Sir Tyrone Guthrie at what became the Guthrie Theater. – Washington Post
Will AI Ever Be Artists? Be Creative? Produce Art? A Philosopher Argues No
“Human creative achievement, because of the way it is socially embedded, will not succumb to advances in artificial intelligence. To say otherwise is to misunderstand both what human beings are and what our creativity amounts to.” – MIT Technology Review
Machines Can Now Write Compelling Fake Stories. Soon We Won’t Be Able To Tell What’s Real
Jack Clark says it may not be long before AI can reliably produce fake stories, bogus tweets, or duplicitous comments that are even more convincing. “It’s very clear that if this technology matures—and I’d give it one or two years—it could be used for disinformation or propaganda,” he says. “We’re trying to get ahead of this.” – MIT Technology Review
The Troubled Oscars – A Timeline
Have we ever seen a more chaotic lead up to an awards telecast? A host is announced, then revoked. Categories are added, then rescinded. Awards are to be televised, then not. Then televised again. It’s enough to make you think the Academy doesn’t know what it’s doing. At the least, it shows a collapse in confidence. – The New York Times
Ah, The Scourge Of Jukebox Musicals… Except… They’re Really Fun!
The critics aren’t wrong: We really do want that crisp, new snap. But Broadway has deep roots in vaudeville — no story, just acts — so audiences are right: We’ll always crave performances that revel in that singing, dancing beat. – Washington Post
The Blazing Talent (And Mental Illness) Of Pianist Oscar Levant
“To read about Levant is to be struck by how his seeming compulsion to blurt the details of his mental illnesses into the nearest microphone foreshadowed the modern-day “oversharers” who chronicle each twist and turn of their private lives. Even so, there was more to him than his madness, and the story of his career as a musician, sometime actor, and media figure avant la lettre will be of interest to anyone curious about what it meant to be famous in America at midcentury.” – Commentary
What Netflix Has Discovered About International Tastes In An Era Of Nationalism
Netflix’s strategy is fundamentally different. Instead of trying to sell American ideas to a foreign audience, it’s aiming to sell international ideas to a global audience. A list of Netflix’s most watched and most culturally significant recent productions looks like a Model United Nations. – The New York Times