“CEO Deborah Borda said that the orchestra has negotiated a new interim deal with its musicians: They will be paid in full until March 31, and then accept reduced pay for the next two months. Health insurance and instrument insurance will continue through the remainder of the current contract, which expires September 20.” – Vulture
Tag: 03.23.20
What Will The Arts Look Like When This Is All Over?
Even in that best-case scenario — say, a May return — it may take years to return to the vibrant, cultural universe that defines our country. – Washington Post
Why Aren’t Robots Saving Us In The Virus Crisis?
This economic catastrophe is blowing up the myth of the worker robot and AI takeover. We’ve been led to believe that a new wave of automation is here, made possible by smarter AI and more sophisticated robots. Yet our economy still craters without human workers, because the machines are far, far away from matching our intelligence and dexterity. You’re more likely to have a machine automate part of your job, not destroy your job entirely. – Wired
What Houdini Understood About Our Fascination With Magic
Magic challenges our sense of what’s real; Houdini wanted to challenge the ultimate reality of death, by risking it over and over. That risk, he later wrote, is what “attracts us to the man who paints the flagstaff on the tall building, or to the ‘human fly,’ who scales the walls of the same building. If we knew that there was no possibility of either one of them falling or, if they did fall, that they wouldn’t injure themselves in any way, we wouldn’t pay any more attention to them than we do a nursemaid wheeling a baby carriage. – The New Yorker
“Inspire us to be brave”
Thanks to a kind-hearted, quick-witted nurse in New York-Presbyterian’s cardio-thoracic ICU, I was able to see and speak to Mrs. T via Skype on Sunday night. – Terry Teachout
The Art Of Taking A Walk
How many of us today are able to free ourselves from the page and head out the door when we rise from our desks? Even abiding by the dictates of nature, breathing deeply out in the open air as we set our legs into motion, it’s likely we need to accomplish the undertaking as quickly and efficiently as possible. But in so doing, perhaps we still miss the essence of the activity itself. We forego the art of walking. – Aeon
Are We Making Our Decisions Or Are We Physically Reacting?
Is it possible that our experience of decision-making – the impression we have of making choices, indeed of having choices to make, sometimes hard ones – is entirely illusory? Is it possible that a chain of physical events in our bodies and brains must cause us to act in the way we do, whatever our experience of the process might be? – Aeon
Miami’s Ultra Festival Goes Online. It Doesn’t Work So Well
Ultra’s attempt at virtuality illustrated what happens when the vehicle of that nihilism, the global economy, grinds to a halt. However grim it might have seemed before, the end result is weirder still. “This,” a user called historicalfigure9 wrote on the subreddit, “is depressing.” – The Daily Beast
What Survived The Fire At The Museum
When fire, smoke, and water pumped in for more than 20 hours ripped through the archives at the Museum of the Chinese in America in late January, the staff thought all of the more than 85,000 pieces were lost. But “on March 8, about 20 workers wearing hard hats and gas masks passed more than 2,000 boxes filled with the beloved archives from one person to the next, down the building’s fire escape and into a truck.” Now (as soon as it’s safe to do the work) it’s preservation and sorting time. – The New York Times
One Of The Last Victims Of Hollywood’s Blacklist Recounts How She Fought For Her Career
Marsha Hunt, who “never wanted to do anything but act,” was on the list when the “Red Channels” were published, claiming she was a Communist or “fellow traveler.” Why? Because she had defended others’ right to be in any party they wanted to be in. She explains, “It was a time of hysteria and all of us who spoke out against blacklists were punished in some way or other. There was a very strong right wing in the movie business.” – BBC