For most of my career, dancing and academic research were two separate but equally weighted spheres. However, over the years, I have become more and more aware that many people viewed dance as a less valuable way of thinking and working. Dance, in their minds, was a purely emotive activity consisting of uncritical, spontaneous movement or a purely athletic endeavour whose sole purpose is to defy our body’s physical limits. Part of the reason why this view of dance persists, I think, stems from a deeply rooted prejudice against embodied vocations. – Aeon
Blog
Why AI Can’t Predict The Value Of Art
To bring real value, any A.I. application needs loads of quality data—which is doubly problematic in our small and notoriously opaque industry (dealers l-o-v-e to hoard sales info). Without greater transparency, A.I. can do only so much. – Artnet
Inside This Season’s Most Controversial Book – The Woody Allen Memoir
I spoke to several industry professionals; almost all were reluctant to play Monday morning quarterback without the promise of anonymity—if you’re making a book deal in secret, perhaps it’s worth interrogating why. – The New Republic
Comic Books Industry Grinds To Halt For The First Time Ever
Comics are largely sold through the direct market, moving from publisher to distributor to specialty comics retailers, as opposed to digital distribution or the newstands of yesteryear. But last month, Diamond Comics Distributors—the monopoly that supplies monthly comics to retailers in the United States and Britain—announced that it was refusing to accept new product from comics’ largest publishers, including Marvel, DC, Image, and Boom Studios. – The Daily Beast
Before There Was ‘The Onion’, There Was ‘Not The New York Times’
An April Fool’s story that’s actually true: back during the 1978 newspaper strike in New York City, a group of writers and editors that included some now-illustrious names — George Plimpton, Nora Ephron, Carl Bernstein, Terry Southern, Frances FitzGerald — put together a parody newspaper and got it onto newsstands. Here’s the first-ever oral history of this proto-Onion from some of the folks involved. – The New York Times
SXSW Will Put Its Film Festival Online Streaming For Ten Days
SXSW announced Thursday that it’s partnering with Amazon Prime Video to stream as much of its movie line-up as possible for a 10-day period in the U.S. It will be free to viewers with or without an Amazon Prime membership. – CBS Austin
Crosswords Only Date Back To 1913, But Written Word Games Have Been Around For A Very Long Time
Here’s a brief history, going from a five-by-five palindrome from ancient Rome to Victorian double acrostics to four different kinds of riddle (including the anti-riddle). – The Paris Review
Arts Freelancers Are At Particular Risk Right Now
Everyone includes musicians, visual artists, designers, dancers and other freelancers who are part of Washington’s vibrant arts economy. They are musicians with no tour dates. Art handlers with postponed exhibitions. Actors, dancers and designers booked for upcoming productions that are now in limbo. – Washington Post
Give This Woman A Pritzker Prize! Once Pakistan’s Starchitect, She Now Designs Mud-And-Bamboo Huts For Poor Villagers
Yasmeen Lari retired at 60 after making her career designing some of Pakistan’s glitziest modern buildings for government and corporate clients. Then, after a severe earthquake, she went to help with reconstruction — designing simple houses that survivors could build themselves, using the debris, that cost a tenth of what NGOs spent on prefab concrete homes. And she’s gone on from there, developing one innovative and inexpensive structure after another, creating jobs for impoverished women at the same time. – The Guardian
Simon Woods Chosen As League Of American Orchestras Next Leader
Mr. Woods’s previous position ended just as the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s season was about to begin last year. After building a reputation for innovation during his run as president of the Seattle Symphony from 2011 to 2017, he arrived in Los Angeles to follow Deborah Borda, who decamped to New York after a long, inspired run in California. – The New York Times