Today: October 13, 2024
Today: October 13, 2024

Latest From The Los Angeles Post

Arts

Generative AI is a minefield for copyright law

Still from ‘All watched over by machines of loving grace’ by Memo Akten, 2021. Created using custom AI software. Memo Akten, CC BY-SA In 2022, an AI-generated work of art won the Colorado State Fair’s art competition. The artist, Jason Allen, had used Midjourney – a generative AI system trained on art scraped from the internet – to create the piece. The process was far from fully automated: Allen went through some 900 iterations over 80 hours to create and refine his submission. Yet his use of AI to win the art competition triggered a heated backlash online, with one

Generative AI is a minefield for copyright law
Arts

Justin Guarini, Briga Heelan honor music of Britney Spears in ‘Once Upon a One More Time’

Performing in a fairy tale musical with songs by the Princess of Pop can be both magical and daunting. That’s the way Justin Guarini and Briga Heelan, who star in “Once Upon a One More Time,” see their roles in the jukebox musical that features songs by Britney Spears. The musical debuted at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., in 2021 and now it’s on Broadway with Heelan and Guarini reprising their roles as Cinderella and Prince Charming. On a recent two-show day, fans of all ages were wearing Britney-themed attire waiting to be seated

Justin Guarini, Briga Heelan honor music of Britney Spears in ‘Once Upon a One More Time’
Arts

Robert Caro's last book on LBJ likely won't be delayed by editor Robert Gottlieb's death

Robert Caro’s fifth volume on Lyndon Johnson, one of the book world’s most long-awaited publications, is unlikely to be delayed by the death of his longtime editor, publishing luminary Robert Gottlieb. “Mr. Caro is continuing his work on Volume 5 with limited interruption,” Caro spokesperson Paul Bogaards said Thursday, a day after Gottlieb’s death at 92. No release date has been set for what’s supposed to be the final book in “The Years of Lyndon Johnson” series, the first of which was published in 1982. Late last year, Caro told The Associated Press he had no

Robert Caro's last book on LBJ likely won't be delayed by editor Robert Gottlieb's death
Arts

Peacock strikes naming rights deal with home of Emmy Awards in downtown Los Angeles

Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles is changing its name to Peacock Theater, and the open-air plaza next to it will be known as Peacock Place. The changes take effect July 11 as part of a multi-year naming rights deal between Peacock, NBCUniversal’s premium streaming service, and sports and live entertainment giant AEG. The deal announced Thursday is Peacock’s first naming rights agreement. The 7,100-seat theater hosts concerts and special events, including the Emmy Awards. The 40,000-square-foot plaza will change its name from XBOX Plaza. The deal includes adding a LED marquee at the corner of

Peacock strikes naming rights deal with home of Emmy Awards in downtown Los Angeles
Arts

Gloria Estefan, Jeff Lynne, Teddy Riley, Glen Ballard, Liz Rose heading to Songwriters Hall of Fame

Gloria Estefan, Jeff Lynne, Teddy Riley, Glen Ballard and Liz Rose are being inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame on Thursday, with Post Malone and musical theater lyricist Tim Rice also being honored. The class of 2023 will be inducted at a gala at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. Louis Bell, Jacob Dickey, Emilio Estefan, Sasha Estefan, Doug E. Fresh, Myles Frost, Heather Headley, Alan Menken, Valerie Simpson, Keith Sweat and Joe Walsh are set to participate. The inductees include Lynne, of ELO, who penned “Mr. Blue Sky” and “Evil Woman,” and

Gloria Estefan, Jeff Lynne, Teddy Riley, Glen Ballard, Liz Rose heading to Songwriters Hall of Fame
Arts

Songwriter, music industry entrepreneur sentenced to life in prison in girlfriend's death

A songwriter and music industry entrepreneur from Atlanta has been sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing his girlfriend in Iowa. Justin Wright was found guilty of first-degree murder in April in the death of 20-year-old Wilanna Bibbs, and was sentenced Wednesday, the Quad-City Times reported. Wright, 34, also known as J Wright, founded Camp Entertainment Worldwide in 2011. His company worked with artists that included Bow Wow, Timbaland, Kash Doll and DJ Khalid, and he became a multi-platinum songwriter working with those acts. Bibbs, an aspiring singer from Durham, North Carolina, was shot

Songwriter, music industry entrepreneur sentenced to life in prison in girlfriend's death
Arts

Noah Kahan writes songs about New England. His vulnerability has far wider appeal

Singer-songwriter Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season” is about New England — a topic the Vermont native says he could write about for the rest of his life — but it’s also largely about in-between spaces. When resentment lingers but forgiveness feels possible. When a broken friendship is just beginning to mend. When homesickness clashes with a desire to leave. Or, in the case of the album’s title track, when fall hasn’t yet turned to winter. Writing the folk-pop album, he told The Associated Press, felt “like breathing.” Kahan revisits those themes through a new lens on the

Noah Kahan writes songs about New England. His vulnerability has far wider appeal
Arts

How the Unabomber's unique linguistic fingerprints led to his capture

Ted Kaczynski was arrested after the longest and most expensive investigation in the FBI’s history. Rich Pedroncelli/AFP via Getty Images Can the language someone uses be as unique as their fingerprints? As I describe in my forthcoming book, “Linguistic Fingerprints: How Language Creates and Reveals Identity,” that was true in the case of Theodore Kaczynski. Kaczynski, who was known as the Unabomber, died in a North Carolina prison on June 10, 2023, reportedly by suicide. Kaczynski had been a math prodigy and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, before he withdrew from society and declared war on the

How the Unabomber's unique linguistic fingerprints led to his capture
Arts

Bill Cosby sued by 9 more women in Nevada for alleged decades-old sexual assaults

Nine more women are accusing Bill Cosby of sexual assault in a lawsuit that alleges he used his “enormous power, fame and prestige” to victimize them. A lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court in Nevada alleges that the women were individually drugged and assaulted between approximately 1979 and 1992 in Las Vegas, Reno and Lake Tahoe homes, dressing rooms and hotels. One woman alleges that Cosby, claiming to be her acting mentor, lured her from New York to Nevada, where he drugged her in a hotel room with what he had claimed to be non-alcoholic sparkling

Bill Cosby sued by 9 more women in Nevada for alleged decades-old sexual assaults
Arts

Barbara Kingsolver wins Women's Prize for Fiction with Appalachian novel 'Demon Copperhead'

American novelist Barbara Kingsolver won the prestigious Women’s Prize for Fiction Wednesday with “Demon Copperhead,” the Dickens-inspired tale of a boy’s struggle against the odds in a corner of America scarred by opioid addiction. Kingsolver’s Appalachian coming-of-age tale was announced as winner of the 30,000 pounds ($38,000) award at a ceremony in London. Kingsolver, 68, also won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for the novel, which transplants Charles Dickens’ “David Copperfield” to modern-day southwest Virginia, where the author lives. It was a second victory for Kingsolver, who previously won the Women’s Prize in 2010 for “The

Barbara Kingsolver wins Women's Prize for Fiction with Appalachian novel 'Demon Copperhead'
Arts

Experts question prosecutors' strategy against weapons expert in Alec Baldwin case

More than a year and a half after Alec Baldwin shot and killed a cinematographer while rehearsing a scene on set in New Mexico, prosecutors have yet to solve the biggest mystery in the tragic case: How did live rounds get on the set? Prosecutors said in their latest court filing that they have some evidence to support the theory that weapons expert Hannah Gutierrez-Reed may be responsible for the introduction of the rounds. But they have offered no details, and barring more evidence, they’re now basing part of their case against her on the idea

Experts question prosecutors' strategy against weapons expert in Alec Baldwin case
Arts

Chasing Horse charged with more sex crimes in new Canadian case

Nathan Chasing Horse has been charged in Alberta, Canada, with new sex crimes in the latest criminal case to be brought against the former “Dances With Wolves” actor, who remains jailed in Las Vegas as he awaits trial in a sweeping sexual abuse case that stunned Indian Country and has helped law enforcement in two countries corroborate long-standing allegations against him. At a virtual news conference Wednesday, Sgt. Nancy Farmer of the Tsuut’ina Nation Police Service acknowledged that the Alberta case is largely symbolic. Chasing Horse — who faces not only decades in a Nevada prison

Chasing Horse charged with more sex crimes in new Canadian case
Arts

Robert Gottlieb, celebrated literary editor of Toni Morrison and Robert Caro, dies at 92

Robert Gottlieb, the inspired and eclectic literary editor whose brilliant career was launched with Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” and continued for decades with such Pulitzer Prize-winning classics as Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” and Robert Caro’s “The Power Broker,” has died at age 92. Gottlieb died Wednesday of natural causes at a New York hospital, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group announced. Caro, who had worked for decades with Gottlieb on his Lyndon Johnson biographies and was featured with him last year in the documentary “Turn Every Page,” said in a statement that he had never worked with an editor so

Robert Gottlieb, celebrated literary editor of Toni Morrison and Robert Caro, dies at 92
Arts

Met Opera box office has slight uptick in 2nd season after pandemic

The Metropolitan Opera saw a slight uptick in ticket sales in its second season following the coronavirus pandemic. The Met sold 66% of tickets during the season that ended Saturday, up from 61% during the 2021-22 season. Sales were lower than budgeted because of a cyberattack in mid-December that shut down the company’s website and box office for nine days and left operations limited for several weeks. Without the shutdown, the Met projected 68% attendance. The opera’s available dollar capacity, which takes into account the impact of discounts, ticked up a percent last year to 57%.

Met Opera box office has slight uptick in 2nd season after pandemic
Arts

Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith: Supreme Court rules for income streams over artistic freedom

Andy Warhol in Milan, Italy, January 1987. Leonardo Cendamo/Hulton Archive via Getty Images The Supreme Court has made it more difficult to quote from existing imagery, music and text, and harder to critique society by borrowing and amplifying others’ works. The 7-2 majority opinion in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith builds on the copyright and fair use decisions of the past 200 years. At first glance, it reads like the triumph of an independent creator over more powerful forces that seek to profit from original work without paying. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the majority,

Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith: Supreme Court rules for income streams over artistic freedom
Arts

Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith: Supreme Court rules for income streams over artistic freedom

Andy Warhol in Milan, Italy, January 1987. Leonardo Cendamo/Hulton Archive via Getty Images The Supreme Court has made it more difficult to quote from existing imagery, music and text, and harder to critique society by borrowing and amplifying others’ works. The 7-2 majority opinion in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith builds on the copyright and fair use decisions of the past 200 years. At first glance, it reads like the triumph of an independent creator over more powerful forces that seek to profit from original work without paying. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the majority,

Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith: Supreme Court rules for income streams over artistic freedom
Arts

What is vernacular art? A visual artist explains

Henry Darger worked as a hospital custodian. After his death in 1973, hundreds of his illustrations were discovered. Brooklyn Taxidermy/flickr, CC BY Vernacular art is a genre of visual art made by artists who are usually self-taught. They tend to work outside of art academies and commercial galleries, which have traditionally been the purview of white, affluent artists and collectors. In the U.S., vernacular art – which can also be called folk art or outsider art – is dominated by the works of African American, Appalachian and working-class people. In many cases these artists took up making paintings, sculptures, quilts

What is vernacular art? A visual artist explains
Arts

European soccer is having another reckoning over racism – is it time to accept the problem goes beyond bad fans?

Vinícius Júnior is making the point, but are soccer’s governing bosses getting it? Aitor Alcalde Colomer/Getty Images After suffering months of racial abuse on the field and off, Brazilian soccer star Vinícius Júnior had enough. On May 21, 2023, the Real Madrid forward – commonly seen as one of the best soccer players in the world – brought a halt to a game at Valencia’s Mestalla Stadium, pointing to fans who were making blatantly racist remarks and gestures. He later made it clear that this was not an isolated event: “It was not the first time, nor the second, nor

European soccer is having another reckoning over racism – is it time to accept the problem goes beyond bad fans?
Arts

Why more cities are hiring 'night mayors' and establishing forms of nighttime governance

A dancer at ‘The Fairy Tale Ball’ in Madrid in October 2022. Aldara Zarraoa/Getty Images Growing up in a small town in Brazil, my daily life was shaped by the rhythms of my family’s working hours. My father has been a night shift worker for over three decades at a local factory. We got used to silent days and busy nights, noticing how our lives weren’t in sync with those of our neighbors. After all those years, my fascination with the night as a separate, habitable world became a research project as a Mellon Fellow at McGill University. Then it

Why more cities are hiring 'night mayors' and establishing forms of nighttime governance
Arts

How the sounds of 'Succession' shred the grandeur and respect the characters so desperately try to project

While the Roy siblings are shielded by their wealth, the show’s music chips away at their armor. Macall Polay/HBO HBO’s “Succession” delivered its grand finale on May 28, 2023 – the climax of four award-packed seasons of searing put-downs, nihilistic humor and desperate power plays. The show tells the story of ailing media tycoon Logan Roy and his four horrid children who aim to inherit his empire. I loved it because it rendered despicable people in power as human – funny, pathetic, capable of deep feeling – without once trying to redeem them. But as a music historian, I will

How the sounds of 'Succession' shred the grandeur and respect the characters so desperately try to project
Arts

Street scrolls: The beats, rhymes and spirituality of Latin hip-hop

Puerto Rican singer Residente performs in Havana in 2010. His back reads, ‘We receive flowers and bullets in the very same heart.’ STR/AFP via Getty Images As a first-generation college graduate and a Latino from a family that constantly scrambled to make ends meet, there was very little in my upbringing that foreshadowed my current life as a religion professor and scholar. I didn’t grow up surrounded by books, and I spent many more hours in childhood dissecting hip-hop and shooting hoops than doing schoolwork. It wasn’t until late in college, when a couple of teachers lit a fire in

Street scrolls: The beats, rhymes and spirituality of Latin hip-hop
Arts

'Across the Spider-Verse' and the Latino legacy of Spider-Man

Spider-Man Miguel O’Hara, who first appeared in the 1992 comic series ‘Spider-Man 2099,’ was the first Latino superhero to assume a starring role. Marvel Database As a Latino literature and media scholar, a lifelong gamer and a Guatemalan-American girl whose dad read her comics every night, I quickly became a fan and then scholar of Miles Morales, the Afro-Puerto Rican Spider-Man who first appeared in comic book form in 2011’s “Ultimate Fallout #4.” Just seven years after his introduction, Morales swung into theaters in “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” a visually stunning, 3D-animated film that won an Academy Award for best

'Across the Spider-Verse' and the Latino legacy of Spider-Man
Arts

How building more backyard homes, granny flats and in-law suites can help alleviate the housing crisis

A newly built accessory dwelling unit in Los Angeles. Alisha Jucevic/The Washington Post via Getty Images To many people, the image of a nuclear family in a stand-alone house with a green lawn and white picket fence still represents a fulfillment of the American dream. However, this ideal is relatively new within a broader history of housing and development in the U.S. It’s also a goal that has become increasingly unattainable. As professors of architecture, we explore how cities change over time, and how certain building trends become commonplace through cultural, political, technological and economic shifts. Over the past century,

How building more backyard homes, granny flats and in-law suites can help alleviate the housing crisis
Arts

A community can gentrify without losing its identity -- examples from Pittsburgh, Boston and Newark of what works

A street mural by Manuel Acevedo at Halsey Place in Newark, N.J. Anthony Alvarez, CC BY-NC-ND How can neighborhoods gentrify without erasing their heart and voice? It’s an important question to ask now, I’d suggest, since many communities across the U.S. are at risk of losing their historical identities as new people and businesses move in, displacing residents and affecting the fabric of the community. This process is known as gentrification, and while a neighborhood “upgrade” can bring new vitality, diversity and opportunity, that is a win only if existing residents and businesses are not forced or priced out. How

A community can gentrify without losing its identity -- examples from Pittsburgh, Boston and Newark of what works
Arts

Historians are learning more about how the Nazis targeted trans people

Patrons at the Eldorado, a popular LGBTQ cabaret in Berlin during the Weimar years. Herbert Hoffmann/ullstein bild via Getty Images In the fall of 2022, a German court heard an unusual case. It was a civil lawsuit that grew out of a feud on Twitter about whether transgender people were victims of the Holocaust. Though there is no longer much debate about whether gay men and lesbians were persecuted, there’s been very little scholarship on trans people during this period. The court took expert statements from historians, including myself, before finding that the historical evidence shows that trans people were,

Historians are learning more about how the Nazis targeted trans people

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