Part of the problem for platforms like YouTube and Facebook — which has also pledged to clean up misinformation that could lead to real-world harm — is that the definition of “harmful” misinformation is circular. There is no inherent reason that a video questioning the official 9/11 narrative is more dangerous than a video asserting the existence of U.F.O.s or Bigfoot. A conspiracy theory is harmful if it results in harm — at which point it’s often too late for platforms to act. – The New York Times
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Composer Dominick Argento, 91
“In addition to his fourteen operas, he composed song cycles, choral pieces and musical monodramas, establishing himself as one of the most adept practitioners of text-setting within his generation of American composers. Though his polystylistic idiom ranges from opulent Romanticism to acerbic dissonance, his melodic lines are unfailingly well suited both to the voice and to the straightforward delivery of the words.” – Opera News
Cultural Objects Versus Immigrants – A Disconnect
“Since the independence of West African countries throughout the late 1950s and early ’60s, the retention of objects and the simultaneous rejection of people has become ever more fraught. Young undocumented migrants from former French colonies stand metres away from the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, a museum in Paris full of their inaccessible patrimony. The migrants are treated with contempt while the objects from their homelands are cared for in museums and treated with great reverence. The migrants will be deported but the objects will not be repatriated. The homeland is therefore only home to objects, not people.” – Aeon
Peter Tork Of The Monkees Dead At 77
“If the Monkees were a manufactured version of the Beatles, a ‘prefab four’ who auditioned for a rock-and-roll sitcom and were selected more for their long-haired good looks than their musical abilities, Mr. Tork was the group’s Ringo, its lovably goofy supporting player.” – The Washington Post
Film Critic Carrie Rickey Talks About Weinstein, #MeToo And Movies
“Naturally, as a woman and a mother, I am not for sexual predation of women in any industry. That kind of goes without saying. Before Nora Ephron died, she made a list of the things she wouldn’t miss. I think number one or two on that list of things I won’t miss are more panels about why there aren’t enough women in film. That’s kind of how I’m feeling now. We talk about it, and we talk about it, and nothing fucking changes. You can quote me on that.” – The Smart Set
Renaissance polyphony as the eternal frontier of self-discovery
Much of the 16th-century music that New York Polyphony performed last Saturday night has a Rorschach quality: without typical polarities like major and minor keys, the music acquires an abstraction, prompting reactions that can be hugely different for each listener — and on every encounter — dictated by where the performers connect in these webs of notes and what the listener’s psyche zeros in on. – David Patrick Stearns
The Inconveniences Of Truth In A Non-Objective Age
Scepticism about common-sense things has been on the agenda of philosophers for centuries, but only as a plaything confined to the study. It does not spill into everyday life. So, what on earth do people mean when they say we are living in a “post-truth” world? – New Statesman
UK Study: Young People Under-represented In Arts Organizations
Just 2% of the cultural sector is made up of people aged 16-19, despite these making up 3.2% of the working population – a representation gap of over a third. – Arts Professional
How Leaders Bend History For Their Own Purposes
The past is once more being bent to suit present purposes in the hope of ushering in something that may one day look as bizarre as anything in this history of “past futures”. – New Statesman
The Challenges Of Trying To Define “Cool”
What exactly is ‘intellectual cool’? For a start, although it includes intellectual trends, or what we sometimes call ‘fashions,’ it obviously is not just this. And here we run up against a very difficult problem – what we call ‘cool’ never describes itself, never declares itself, and never advises who it will be visiting next. People who write about Spinoza will never say they’re doing so because he’s really cool at the moment. Equally, ask a hipster who they hate the most and they will say, without a moment’s hesitation, ‘Hipsters! I f*cking hate them!’ – Sydney Review of Books