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Los Angeles Times
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Is there a Los Angeles musical style?
The composer and critic Virgil Thomson once defined American music as music written by Americans. There is no arguing with that. Less obvious, however, is figuring out what, if anything, describes L.A. music. Los Angeles is the home of film music. The two most influential classical composers of the first half of the 20th century, Stravinsky and Schoenberg, lived here. (In Stravinsky's case, the Russian composer spent more of his life in L.A. than in any other city.) The composer with the most radical influence on the second half of the 20th century, John Cage, was born and grew up here. Ferreting out L.A.'s bearing on jazz and the many, many aspects of popular music, as well as world music, is a lifetime's effort. Yet these seeming incongruities of musical life are what fascinate the most. Schoenberg and Stravinsky, for instance, flirted, if futilely, with writing Hollywood film scores. The money was a lure. The possibility of reaching the masses, irresistible. Picture Schoenberg, in 1935, in the office of Hollywood's prevailing film producer, Irving Thalberg, offering untenable requirements to score MGM's feature film adaptation of Pearl S. Buck's 'The Good Earth.' Picture the composer, considered by many the instigator of the most daunting music of all time, asking for $50,000 (more than $1.1 million today adjusted for inflation) and full control of the movie's sound, including having the actors recite their lines to his rhythms and suggested pitches. Picture, again, eight decades later and 3,000 miles away, the head of the Opera of the Future project in his office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's ultra-futuristic Media Lab, mulling over an idea for an opera based on that remarkable Thalberg incident as a way to examine the profound implications of art and entertainment had Schoenberg been given the green light. A new production of Tod Machover's 'Schoenberg in Hollywood,' which had its premiere in Boston seven years ago, finally reaches L.A. on Sunday afternoon for the first of four performances by the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music at the Nimoy. Those very names — Schoenberg, who taught at UCLA from 1936 to 1944, Alpert and Leonard Nimoy — couldn't better illustrate the marvelous fantasy of L.A. musical juxtapositions. Also Sunday at First Lutheran Church of Venice, the Hear Now Music Festival concludes its 2025 season of three concerts. This festival is L.A.'s most dedicated resource for surveying local music. Over the last 14 years, it has featured more than 200 composers, from the most famous to the most obscure, from academia and from Hollywood, be they John Williams, an electronic wizard at CalArts or a kid fiddling away with a guitar in the garage. The idea of artistic place and physical place are at the heart of Hear Now. If L.A. music is anything, it is a music that challenges the notions of borders. The festival came about because its co-founder, composer Hugh Levick — who divides his time between France, Spain and Venice Beach — said the music that his L.A. colleagues were writing was easier to hear being performed abroad than in venues here. Composers in L.A. are far-flung. Looking at universities alone, UCLA, USC, CalArts, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, Pomona College and the Cal State campuses in Northridge, Long Beach and Fullerton are all centers of musical activity that have had widespread influence. The seeds of Minimalism, the most prominent style of late 20th century music as propagated most famously by Philip Glass and Steve Reich, can be traced to Los Angeles City College in the 1950s. That's where La Monte Young — while studying with, and finding encouragement from, pianist Leonard Stein (who had been Schoenberg's assistant) — began to consider what would happen if he radically slowed everything down. I sat down with Levick recently to discover what he had learned from the festival. Having coffee at a Santa Monica cafe, we were near a cottage where Cage had lived in the early 1930s, when he found his first music job. It was as an assistant to pioneering animator Oskar Fischinger, who came into artistic conflict with Walt Disney over 'Fantasia.' Cage didn't last long, falling asleep on the job and dropping a lighted cigarette on flammable celluloid. Levick has probably encountered a greater variety of composers in this part of the world than anyone else. The way Hear Now works is that any composer can submit scores, so I asked the obvious questions. Could he detect any commonality, as one might in, say, Paris or Berlin? Is there West Coast and East Coast music as there once seemed to be? Does L.A. have its own sound or maybe laid-back sensibility? 'Not really,' Levick said. 'There are people whom you could vaguely put together stylistically. They may have obvious influences, but mostly they have gone their own way. What is a little different about the West Coast and the East Coast is there is a certain fluidity and flexibility here and certain rigidity on the East Coast.' When asked what has surprised him over the years, Levick pointed to the fact that although John Williams, John Adams, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Thomas Adès and Andrew Norman may attract audiences, curiosity also drives crowds. Of this year's festival, which features works by 28 composers, I've previously encountered only four. Even Levick was surprised by the great many submissions from composers he didn't know. Yet that turns out to be a draw. At this year's festival, the first two programs were sold out. I attended the first at 2220 Arts + Archives in March devoted to often arcane electro-acoustic music, and it attracted a diverse and enthusiastic audience taking pleasure in not knowing what to expect. No two works were remotely the same. If Levick shies away from generalization, he too is a composer not easily pinned down. He started out as a fiction writer who, while living in Paris, chanced upon avant-garde jazz and took up the saxophone. That led him naturally to classical avant-garde. The concert Sunday will feature his latest work, 'The Song of Prophet X,' for speaker/singer and piano quartet, a similar configuration that Schoenberg used in his antiwar 'Ode to Napoleon,' We cannot escape Schoenberg. This season has seen widespread celebration of the 150th anniversary of his birth. Last year, on April 30, Hear Now ended its festival with a large-scale concert given at the UCLA music department's Schoenberg Hall and featuring the UCLA Philharmonia conducted by Neal Stulberg, the same forces tackling Machover's 'Schoenberg in Hollywood.' The campus was on edge from news of a violent attack on a Palestinian protest that day just across from Schoenberg Hall. Hear Now, nevertheless, went on as scheduled. The concert was not a political statement, the music had nothing to do with protest movements. Even so, the symbolism of the occasion was impossible to ignore. Schoenberg, who had fled Nazi Germany, wrote scores of protest music such as 'Ode to Napoleon' and 'Survivor From Warsaw.' He also dallied with Hollywood. Schoenberg might ultimately be seen as the great juxtaposition. Leonard Stein and John Cage were in Schoenberg's UCLA classes. Film composers David Raksin ('Laura') and Leonard Rosenman ('East of Eden') studied with Schoenberg. Both Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman brought up Schoenberg when I interviewed them, and it was their world of progressive jazz that led Hugh Levick to Hear Now. Could we then define L.A. music as simply be music of, and open to, juxtapositions?
Miami Herald
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Poll: Floridians oppose six-week abortion law, despite backing Trump in 2024
Nearly half of Florida voters oppose the state's current abortion law, according to a new poll released on Wednesday by MediaLab@FAU. Just over a third support it and the rest don't know what to think. Forty-nine percent of people polled said they were opposed to Florida's new law that makes it illegal to obtain an abortion past the sixth week of pregnancy, with few exceptions. Thirty-five percent said they support the six-week law, and another 16 percent said they were unsure. Working in collaboration with Florida Atlantic's PolCom Lab, MediaLab@FAU launched its first poll this month to get a sense of where Floridians stand on a variety of controversial issues, including abortion. The poll was conducted by Mainstreet Research, which polled 961 Florida voters between April 4 and 9. The Supreme Court's overturn of Roe v. Wade nearly three years ago triggered abortion bans and strict new limits on abortion across the United States. Twelve states now have a total abortion ban, while 29 states have abortion bans based on gestational duration, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization committed to advancing sexual and reproductive health. The MediaLab poll also included a question about Florida's hurdles for a citizen-proposed amendment to be added to the state constitution. Amendment 4, which would have enshrined abortion rights through viability – generally considered as 24 weeks of gestation – was given a thumbs up last November by 57% of Florida voters. However, it needed 60% to pass, frustrating advocates of that measure as well as a proposal to legalize recreational marijuana, which garnered nearly 56% of the vote. Florida has among the nation's most stringent requirements to make changes to its constitution. This threshold was deemed appropriate by 57% of MediaLab poll participants, while only 26% said it was too high. The rest had no opinion or said it was 'too low.' Dr. Kevin Wagner, co-executive director of the PolCom Lab and a professor of political science at Florida Atlantic, said the question about the threshold might have needed more explanation for voters who aren't necessarily tuned into the intricacies of ballot initiatives. 'The vast majority of people don't spend a lot of time thinking about how bills become law and how constitutional amendments get passed,' said Wagner. 'The problem with this question is that we're asking for an analysis that maybe many voters did not make, and that can be tricky sometimes.' Pollsters working on a campaign, he noted, would probably spend time educating voters about the system before asking the question, though this was beyond the scope of the MediaLab project. In addition to the poll, whose findings are being released towards the end of Florida's legislative session (May 2) and Americans marking the first 100 days of the second Trump administration (April 30), MediaLab reporters also asked individual voters for their opinions on issues addressed in the poll. 'I don't support the current Florida abortion law, but it is better than straight-up banning it,' said Nick Joseph, 23, a Delray Beach resident. 'I just believe that the decision of abortion should be left to the woman and not the government.' Malik Booth, a retail manager who lives in Boynton Beach, offered a similar viewpoint. 'I believe women should have the right to make whatever decision is best for them and their situation,' said Boothe, 29. 'Considering most people don't find out they're pregnant until about six weeks, I don't think that's enough time to decide.' Jacqueline Romano, a student at the State College of Florida in Bradenton, said that the abortion issue was more complex for her. Her religious views make her personally opposed to abortion, but she draws the line on the state's severe limitations. 'Being raised Catholic I'd say yes [to the six-week ban] but as a woman, I don't think I can agree with it being a law,' said Romano, 24. 'Six weeks is just too soon. Some women wouldn't even know by that time. I think there should be a little more room allowing for decision-making. Having a child is a big deal, a lot of responsibility.' Kelvin Nguyen, a resident of Orlando, said he found the 60% threshold to be a reasonable barrier for public consensus on a given issue. 'If people want to get stuff changed, they've got to have a majority vote,' said Nguyen, 23. 'I think 60% is a good number.' The poll also revealed differences in opinion based on 2024 presidential preferences. Just 11 percent of those who favored former Vice President Kamala Harris supported the six-week ban, while 78.6% were against it. However, 53.3% of President Donald Trump's voters approve of the measure, compared to 27.9% who oppose it. The poll for MediaLab was conducted with text messaging and an online panel. The survey gave respondents the option to complete the survey in English and Spanish. The estimated margin of error for the poll is +/- 3.2% at the 95% confidence level. For more information, please download the full from Mainstreet Research. - Andrew Assisi, Christian Gangan and Madeline Koll contributed to this report. This story was produced by MediaLab@FAU, a project of Florida Atlantic University School of Communication and Multimedia Studies. MediaLab is supported by a grant from Press Forward, a national movement to strengthen democracy by revitalizing local news and information. News organizations are welcome to republish our work, as long as they credit MediaLab and the writers.
The Guardian
25-03-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
Heavy ChatGPT users tend to be more lonely, suggests research
Heavy users of ChatGPT tend to be lonelier, more emotionally dependent on the AI tool and have fewer offline social relationships, new research suggests. Only a small number of users engage emotionally with ChatGPT, but those who do are among the heaviest users, according to a pair of studies from OpenAI and the MIT Media Lab. The researchers wrote that the users who engaged in the most emotionally expressive personal conversations with the chatbots tended to experience higher loneliness – though it isn't clear if this is caused by the chatbot or because lonely people are seeking emotional bonds. While the researchers have stressed that the studies are preliminary, they ask pressing questions about how AI chatbot tools, which according to OpenAI is used by more than 400 million people a week, are influencing people's offline lives. The researchers, who plan to submit both studies to peer-reviewed journals, found that participants who 'bonded' with ChatGPT – typically in the top 10% for time spent with the tool – were more likely than others to be lonely, and to rely on it more. The researchers established a complex picture in terms of the impact. Voice-based chatbots initially appeared to help mitigate loneliness compared with text-based chatbots, but this advantage started to slip the more someone used them. After using the chatbot for four weeks, female study participants were slightly less likely to socialise with people than their male counterparts. Participants who interacted with ChatGPT's voice mode in a gender that was not their own for their interactions reported significantly higher levels of loneliness and more emotional dependency on the chatbot at the end of the experiment. In the first study, the researchers analysed real-world data from close to 40m interactions with ChatGPT, and then asked the 4,076 users who had had those interactions how they had made them feel. For the second study, the Media Lab recruited almost 1,000 people to take part in an in-depth four-week trial examining how participants interacted with ChatGPT for a minimum of five minutes each day. Participants then completed a questionnaire to measure their feelings of loneliness, levels of social engagement, and emotional dependence on the bot. The findings echo earlier research, for example in 2023 MIT Media Lab researchers found that chatbots tended to mirror the emotional sentiment of a user's messages – happier messages led to happier responses. Dr Andrew Rogoyski, a director at the Surrey Institute for People-Centred Artificial Intelligence, said that because peoplewere hard-wired to to think of a machine behaving in human-like ways as a human, AI chatbots could be 'dangerous', and far more research was needed to understand their social and emotional impacts. 'In my opinion, we are doing open-brain surgery on humans, poking around with our basic emotional wiring with no idea of the long-term consequences. We've seen some of the downsides of social media – this is potentially much more far-reaching,' he said. Dr Theodore Cosco, a researcher at the University of Oxford, said the research raised 'valid concerns about heavy chatbot usage', though he noted it 'opens the door to exciting and encouraging possibilities'. 'The idea that AI systems can offer meaningful support — particularly for those who may otherwise feel isolated — is worth exploring. However, we must be thoughtful and intentional in how we integrate these tools into everyday life.' Dr Doris Dippold, who researches intercultural communication at the University of Surrey, said it would be important to establish what caused emotional dependence on chatbots. 'Are they caused by the fact that chatting to a bot ties users to a laptop or a phone and therefore removes them from authentic social interaction? Or is it the social interaction, courtesy of ChatGPT or another digital companion, which makes people crave more?'
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Yahoo
Morgantown man charged after allegedly sending explicit images of 4-6-year-olds
MORGANTOWN, (WBOY) — A Morgantown man has been charged after he allegedly sent explicit images of 4-6 year old juveniles using a messaging app. On Jan. 9, deputies with the Monongalia County Sheriff's Office received a report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children regarding child sexual abuse material being transmitted via MediaLab/Kik, according to a criminal complaint. At that point, deputies began an investigation and learned the materials being shared depicted juveniles as young as 4-6 years old 'being sexually assaulted.' They were able to obtain a search warrant for the email address and IP associated with the MediaLab/Kik account and determined the account's owner to be Jerry Church, 35, of Morgantown, deputies said. Monongalia County kidnapping suspect arrested in Weston Church's Kik account contained more explicit images of juveniles, as well as identifying information and messages from Church, according to the complaint. Church has been charged with exhibition/distribution of explicit images depicting minors. He is being held in North Central Regional Jail on $75,000 bond. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
