The band directors at Spring Lake, outside of St. Paul, Minnesota, have pledged to include at least one piece by a female composer and one by a composer of color in each concert, for each of the school’s bands. “We made a commitment this year to only buy music from composers of color,” says Brian Lukkasson, one of the directors. He says it’s been hard, but not because those composers aren’t writing for band. They are.
Final Act: Why Do Some Artists Produce Their Most Interesting Work Late In Life?
There are obvious answers to that of course – experience is a great teacher. But what accounts for the sometime enormous turns in style and thought that some artists undergo?
How Artificial Intelligence “Thinks”
“One can be book-smart, street-smart, emotionally gifted, wise, rational, or experienced; it’s rare and difficult to be intelligent in all of these ways. Intelligence has many sources and our brains don’t respond to them all the same way. Thus, the quest to develop artificial intelligence begets numerous challenges, not the least of which is what we don’t understand about human intelligence.”
“Genius” Never Works Alone
“We still cling to the notion that groundbreaking creative work happens in isolation. And there’s no shortage of productivity experts who will rush to point out that the toughest, most high-value work takes mastery and deep focus—that distractions are bad, and that most distractions result from other people, all being forced to collaborate and failing miserably at it.”
How Would We Act If We Knew We Would Live Forever? [VIDEO]
Would living forever make people happier or more generous? “It’s worth asking, ‘Should we die?'”
Shia LaBeouf’s ‘He Will Not Divide Us’ Has Found A New Home
The piece, a live-streaming art protest by by Shia LaBeouf, Nastja Säde Rönkkö, and Luke Turner, was shut down at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York last week even though it was supposed to stay up for as long as the current officeholder is president. But “the project has found a new home at the El Rey Theater in Albuquerque, New Mexico.”
Clyde Stubblefield, Drummer To James Brown And Famed Solo Performer On ‘Funky Drummer,’ Dies At 73
“Stubblefield saw ‘very little’ in royalties and never expected them. But Stubblefield was held in high esteem by his fellow musicians. When Prince got wind in 2000 that Stubblefield was deep in debt after fighting bladder cancer, he personally paid $90,000 to cover his bills.”
Movies Have The Power To Change Minds, And Real Lives
Civil Rights leader Vernon E. Jordan Jr.: “Division has always been a product of assumption — assuming that our story is the only story, or that our lives are harder than someone else’s, or that people who don’t look like us don’t have the right to live and work for the American dream. But no matter how divisive life in this country may become, the movie theater has always been a place where we can rediscover what unites us.”
So What’s The Deal With The Foreign Film Nominees For This Year’s Oscars?
There’s a South Pacific island Romeo & Juliet-ish film from Australia, a Hitchcockian thriller from Iran, a post-WWII POW story from Denmark, the force that is A Man Called Ove from Sweden, and of course, the very tipped winner, Toni Erdmann – which is set to be remade in the U.S. with Jack Nicholson and Kristen Wiig (yes, really). Which will win? Which should win?
In Tunisia, These Break Dancers Perform For Social Justice
This photo essay shows that the three-day festival “gives a lot of hope to the youth,” according to host Chouaib Cheu. “Tunisia’s hip-hop culture stems from the frustrations of the country’s disillusioned youth, who have sought to paint a picture of a society torn up by social injustice.”