Under Assembly Bill 5, “Uber and Lyft drivers, musicians, dancers, singers, artists of all kinds, freelance journalists, etc., under contract now will have to be employed, rather than paid as independent contractors under [what’s called] the ‘ABC test’.” AB5 has been in effect for a week, and already opera and theatre productions are being put on hold or called off — “just the beginning of a flood of potential problems, complaints, job losses, and project cancellations.” – San Francisco Classical Voice
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Largest Musicians’ Union Plans Major Cuts To Pensions
“The plan, the American Federation of Musicians and Employers’ Pension Fund — which covers more than 50,000 people, including Broadway musicians, players in some orchestras, and freelance musicians and recording artists — declared over the summer that it was in ‘critical and declining status’ and would run out of money to pay benefits within 20 years. … Now its trustees are taking the rare step of trying to cut benefits that have already been earned by many of the plan’s participants.” – The New York Times
Elizabeth Wurtzel, Author Of ‘Prozac Nation’, Dead At 52
Her memoir, published in 1994, when she was 27, “established her as one of the most provocative writers of her generation, generating awe among readers who saw in her work an honest depiction of depression and mental health issues, as well as derision from critics who accused her of self-absorption, narcissism and relentless self-promotion. … Ms. Wurtzel went on to make ‘a career out of my emotions,’ as she later put it, receiving a reported $500,000 advance for her second book, the essay collection Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women (1998).” – The Washington Post
The Times Of London Appoints New Chief Theatre Critic
“[Clive] Davis has more than thirty years of journalism experience, and was a regular freelance writer for The Times and The Sunday Times covering music, radio, theatre, comedy, and contributing op-ed columns. His other work has appeared in The Independent, Daily Express, New Statesman and Weekly Standard.” – News UK
After Seven-Year Vacancy, Pittsburgh Symphony Names Principal Pops Conductor
Byron Stripling, the former lead trumpet of the Count Basie Orchestra, “has conducted the [PSO] as a guest and will make his debut as principal [pops] conductor in October. This is only the second time the orchestra has named a principal pops conductor. The first was the renowned Marvin Hamlisch, who was hired in 1995 and died in 2012.” – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
How Science Fiction Is Changing How It Thinks About Environmental Change
At least from small-press publishers, we’re getting more work that looks at, not so much how do we survive the apocalypse as how do we live with nature? How do we live in this world? – Washington Post
Reconsidering The Big Bang Theory
Both the retrospective and the prospective interpretations of the Hubble Constant have stoked ongoing controversy in the 90 years since Edwin Powell Hubble published the first definitive evidence of an expanding universe in 1929. Recently, the controversy has taken on yet another guise, as increasingly precise techniques for measuring the expansion rate have begun to yield distinctly different predictions. The discrepancy has cosmologists wondering whether they are missing important elements in their models of how the Universe evolved from the Big Bang to today. – Aeon
What Poetry Can Learn From Machine Learning
“There are more resonances between programming and poetry than you might think. Computer science is an art form of words and punctuation, thoughtfully placed and goal-oriented, even if not necessarily deployed to evoke surprise or longing. Laid out on a page, every program uses indentations, stanzas, and a distinctive visual hierarchy to convey meaning. In the best cases, a close-reader of code will be rewarded with a sense of awe for the way ideas have been captured in words.” – The New Yorker
How The Newton Brothers Got To Be Masters Of Horror Music
When they started collaborating in 2011, they didn’t plan on their composing careers revolving around the stuff of nightmares. And the work, they’ll freely admit, can exert a psychological toll. “Being in a dark room staring at dark imagery for a long time, it does get to you. Sometimes you need to step aside and go watch ‘Finding Nemo’ with your niece.” – The New York Times
Destroy Cultural Sites? History Suggests That’s The Quickest Way To Worldwide Condemnation
When the Taliban destroyed the historic Bamiyan Budha, the international response “was indeed collective, a near-universal eruption of outrage and dismay at the loss. At the United Nations, after the Taliban announced its intent to destroy the statues, representatives of countries from around the world, Muslim and Christian alike, spoke of the Taliban’s intent as barbaric, and condemned the threatened vandalism. After the deed was done, and the ancient statues were reduced to rubble, the event defined the Taliban as an outlaw regime, uncivilized and evil.” – Washington Post