“The online translation tool recently started using a neural network to translate between some of its most popular languages – and the system is now so clever it can do this for language pairs on which it has not been explicitly trained. To do this, it seems to have created its own artificial language.”
Tag: 11.30.16
Justin Davidson: Shouldn’t The Metropolitan Opera Be Doing A Better Job Of New Opera?
“Art demands openness, persistence, and a willingness to tolerate failure. You can’t expect an opera composer to write a great opera if she’s never had the chance to write a mediocre one — or five.”
Dance Magazine Awards 2016: Peck, Lubovitch, Adams, Garafola
“This year we celebrate four extraordinary dance heroes: New York City Ballet principal Tiler Peck, choreographer Lar Lubovitch, activist/teacher Carolyn Adams and historian Lynn Garafola.”
How A TV Show – Finally – Made Itself Into A Love Letter To Black L.A.
Issa Rae’s HBO show “Insecure” accomplishes something nothing else has: Showing the beautiful, complex tenderness of the Los Angeles that African Americans inhabit. “The city’s sprawl becomes a playground for both Insecure’s characters and its soundtrack’s artists, not a coincidence but an asset to the story itself.”
Why Don’t We Have More Famous Black Sci-Fi Writers?
Double problems: The U.S. literary fiction establishment’s problems with genre, and the genre’s racism. “The space for black authors in speculative fiction is continually being built, while the existence of those very spaces is still being challenged by their gatekeepers.”
It Can ‘Reach People Who Are Not A Captive Audience’ – Shepard Fairey On The Power Of Street Art
“If you are going to an artist’s gallery or museum show or website, you might find something interesting and new, but it’s not the same as the visceral experience of encountering something unexpected on the street.” A Q&A with correspondent Scott Timberg.
Poetry Plays An Important Role In Iceland
Poetry is a national pastime, but not a particularly “specialist activity,” said Sveinn Yngvi Egilsson, a professor of Icelandic literature at the University of Iceland. “It’s part of being an Icelander,” he said. “Yes, it’s charming, isn’t it?”
Why Language Wants To Be Free (And Evolve And Change)
“As people in a literate society, we think of language as what’s on the page. That’s the real thing; speaking is just an approximation. Language sits still. But then we hear new things coming in and unless it strikes us as catchy, we think, It’s not supposed to do that because that’s not what in the book. So when new things happen, they’re processed as vulgar and as broken. We don’t understand that no language could ever sit still.”
How An East Village Funhouse Became A Show Business Empire: The Blue Man Group At 25
“They are bald, blue and earless. They do not talk. They play with their food (and their paint), perform wild music on instruments of their own devising and are the centerpiece of an international entertainment empire with 550 full- and part-time employees and annual revenues of $100 million. But perhaps the most striking thing about the men of Blue Man Group … is how comprehensively they have moved from the fringes to the mainstream, and beyond.
Four Things That Would Change The Complexion Of Classical Music
“I am tired of picking up a classical music magazine plastered with middle-aged white faces. In the same way that a six-year-old boy in Tower Hamlets can run around the living room in his Cristiano Ronaldo-emblazoned jersey, screaming at the top of his lungs while he watches his hero play on the box, we need to ensure that the next generation of violinists, composers, marketers, vocalists, lighting technicians, managers, bassoonists and producers alike can have the same experience when they pick up their parents’ copy of Gramophone or Classical Music Magazine.”