The Health Alliance for Chicago Comedians is building a pilot program to help 10 comics pay insurance premiums through the Affordable Care Act’s next open enrollment period. Stand-up comedians, especially early in their careers, often take gigs and side jobs which offer no insurance. - WBEZ (Chicago)
“Music recorded in 432 hertz (cycles per second) is taking off on social media platforms and music streaming services. … Scientists say there’s no robust evidence that music tuned to 432 hertz has any special benefits or healing properties. Some musicians and listeners say it helps them connect with nature, relax or concentrate.” - AP
Nobody would patronize a best-seller–only shopping mall kiosk called We Bet We Have That Book You Want, even though best-sellers are most of what anyone buys. People want to walk into stores with lots of books which they have no interest in even looking at. - Republic of Letters
The two closely named rivals plan to take on a much more established competitor: The Washington Post, which is owned by the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and recently cut its staff by a third. - The New York Times
Membership in the ABA grew by more than 500 over the past year, to a total of 3,417 (at 3,783 locations), nearly triple what it was a decade ago and the highest level since the late 1990s. - AP News
“It was six weeks of being unable to move, ... to participate in life at all, before she could get out of bed. And then Lauren Cuthbertson, the biggest British dance star since Darcey Bussell, … had to persuade her useless limbs, now stripped of their strength, to listen to her brain again.” - The Times (UK)
Treating freedom of expression and social cohesion as trade-offs is a category error. Freedom of expression is an internal attribute of cultural activity, an inherent good. Without it there is no culture worthy of the name, only sanctioned content. - ArtsHub
Adelaide Wisdom Benjamin, a queen of Carnival who became a lawyer and philanthropist whose gifts of money, determination and leadership helped save New Orleans’ symphony orchestra, died Saturday in her sleep at her New Orleans home. - NOLA.com
“Maybe it was very important, and maybe you’re a doctor, and you’re saving someone’s life, and I hope you are, but we do see these, we do feel them. I’ve got you, I feel like I’ve got to hold you all, so when I feel that and see it, it’s hard.” - The Guardian
The orchestra’s keyboardist had suddenly fallen ill. Was there by any chance a pianist in the house? And one with exceptional sight-reading skills? - The Guardian
The research demonstrates that our “semantic knowledge”, the internal cognitive map of how concepts connect and apply to one another, is the absolute precondition for meaningful invention. - Neuroscience
Machine learning represents a seismic shift, both in society and in the arts, and we need storytellers, artists, teachers and thinkers in this space to help determine the direction of that shift and help us navigate this unfamiliar territory. - The Guardian
As board chair of what was then the New Orleans Symphony, she worked tirelessly to save an organization which was $3 million in debt and had stopped paying musicians. She subsequently helped its transition into the Louisiana Philharmonic, the US’s first musician-run professional orchestra. - The Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
“Christy Tanner, a veteran of CBS News, took the helm at NYPR in early February. Since then, she has let many of its top figures go with little explanation, … surprising the organization’s staff and unsettling some of its remaining leaders. … None of the departures have been announced publicly.” - Semafor
