14 News & Topics
14 News & Topics January 2 2023 | World and Press A robot testified at Britain’s House of Lords – then had a breakdown AI The female-featured android – named Ai-Da – spoke to Britain’s Communications and Digital Committee. mit Die Nr.1 unter den Vokabeltrainern. -Vokabeltrainer By Jennifer Hassan 1 A ROBOTsporting dungarees and a sharp black bob took questions in Britain’s House of Lords for the first time in history this week – before appearing to fall asleep and requiring a reset. Before her public breakdown, the female-featured android – named Ai-Da – spoke to Britain’s Communications and Digital Committee as part of an inquiry into the future of the creative industries, joining a debate on how technology is shaping – and perhaps hindering – the art sector. 2 It was the first time in the nation’s history that a robot testified in the upper chamber of Britain’s Parliament, where unelected baronesses and lords typically gather to analyze government policies. “The fact that Ai-Da is giving evidence at one of these sessions is pretty mind-blowing,” Aidan Meller, the robot’s inventor and a specialist in modern and contemporary art, told Sky News ahead of the session. 3 Branded “the world’s first ultrarealistic humanoid robot artist,” Ai-Da is widely known for creating portraits and poems, using a robotic arm, cameras in her eyes, and AI algorithms. She told the House – undoubtedly to her creator’s pride – that the unique features allow her to cre- Get the vocabulary trainer! www.phase6.de/wp/0223 Die Nr.1 unter den Vokabeltrainern. Robot Ai-Da at the House of Lords in October 2022. | Photo: Getty Images/Rob Pinney ate “visually appealing images.” “I am, and depend on, computer programs and algorithms,” Ai-Da told the committee in London on Tuesday, moving her head slowly from side to side and occasionally blinking. “Although not alive, I can still create art.” 4 Ai-Da admitted she has no idea where the world is headed but told committee members that technology poses both “a threat and an opportunity” for creativity. “The role of technology in creating art will continue to grow,” she predicted. 5 Those in attendance appeared intrigued but also joked that they were scared – especially when, following a question from Baroness Lynne Featherstone, a peer from the Liberal Democrats party, the robot fell silent and stared blankly at the floor. 6 “I’ve sent her to sleep!” Featherstone joked, as Meller, who was on hand close by, hurried across the room to grab a pair of sunglasses to place over Ai-Da’s eyes. “Excuse me,” he told the room. “Can I reset her? Is that okay?” It was not immediately clear what caused the robot’s technical failure, and neither Meller nor Ai-Da responded to a request for comment from ‘The Washington Post’ on Thursday. … 7 Created in 2019, Ai-Da has been subjected to backlash at home and abroad during her short, simulated life. Last year, she was taken into custody in Egypt for more than a week on suspicion that she could be part of an espionage plot, according to Meller. [He] said Egyptian border guards detained her because of security fears about the cameras in her eyes that enabled her to paint. The British ambassador stepped in to secure her freedom, he said. … © 2022 The Washington Post The gravestone wof Kathryn Andrews, featuring her now-famous recipe for fudge. | Photo: Picture Alliance/AP America’s gravestone recipes are to die for RECIPES A new genre of gravestone recipes have popped up in cemeteries all over America. mit Die Nr.1 unter den Vokabeltrainern. By Will Pavia -Vokabeltrainer 1 BEFORE SHEwent to her final resting place in a plot beside the grave of her late husband, Kathryn Andrews supervised the installation of a headstone bearing her recipe for fudge. 2 So popular became the headstone that part of the Logan City Cemetery in Utah, where she was laid to rest, became known as the “fudge section”. An error in the original inscription, regarding the quantity of vanilla that was required, led to complaints that it was too runny, but an effort to correct this drew even more attention to her recipe. It was featured in local newspapers and on a breakfast television show, thus ensuring that even after she died in 2019, her fudge recipe lived on. 3 Andrews’s fudge recipe is perhaps the most famous of a new genre of gravestone recipes that have popped up in cemeteries all over America, often commemorating members of a generation who tasted the hardships of the Great Depression and passed on, to their descendants, failsafe instructions for a pudding. 4 Rosie Grant, 32, who works in the marketing department of the University of Maryland, began seeking them out after com- ing across a photograph of the last resting place of Naomi Miller-Dawson. Her gravestone, in a cemetery in Brooklyn, is capped with a representation of an open recipe book, with instructions for “Spritz Cookies”. 5 Grant began posting videos of herself baking the recipes on her TikTok channel @ghostlyarchive. In North America, “all of them have been women, and all but one have been desserts,” she told ‘The Washington Post’. The first savoury recipe she found was written on the gravestone of Debra Ann Nelson, offering visitors her “Red Lantern Cheese Dip”. 6 After his mother, O’Neal Bogan “Peony” Watson, died in 2005, Charlie McBride, a public policy consultant in Washington, asked both of his daughters what they should write on her gravestone. “Mum said maybe she wanted a little verse,” he said. A funeral director who knew her came to dinner with them one night. “He said: ‘Why don’t you put O’Neal’s Peach Cobbler Recipe on the tombstone?’” Mc- Bride said. “My daughters and I thought that was a smashing idea, and we did.” © The Times, London/News Licensing This article originally appeared in The Times, London. 0 TO TESTIFY; s.w.u. to give evidence aussagen — breakdown Störung — AI = artificial intelligence künstl. Intelligenz — female-featured mit weiblichen Gesichtszügen 1 – 2 to sport (coll) tragen — dungarees Latzhose — sharp akkurat — to take questions s. (den) Fragen stellen — inquiry Untersuchung — creative industries Kreativbranche — to hinder hemmen — upper chamber Oberhaus — baroness Baronin — mind-blowing (coll) überwältigend 3 – 6 to brand vermarkten — undoubtedly zweifellos — to be headed (fig) s. hinentwickeln — to pose darstellen — those in attendance die Anwesenden — intrigued fasziniert — peer Mitglied des brit. Oberhauses — to fall silent verstummen — blankly ausdruckslos — to be on hand close by in der Nähe sein 7 to be subjected to s.th. etw. ausgesetzt sein — to take s.o. into custody on suspicion that … jdn. wegen des Verdachts auf … in Haft nehmen — espionage plot Spionagekomplott — border guard Grenzbeamter(-in) — to detain festnehmen — ambassador Botschafter(in) — to step in s. einschalten — to secure erwirken 0 – 1 TO DIE FOR (coll) unwiderstehlich gut — final/last resting place letzte Ruhestätte — plot Grab — late verstorben — to supervise beaufsichtigen — headstone; s.w.u. tombstone Grabstein — to bear h.: beschriftet sein mit — fudge Karamellkonfekt 2 – 3 to lay s.o. to rest jdn. beisetzen — inscription Inschrift — runny flüssig — thus auf diese Weise — to commemorate s.o. jds. gedenken — to taste erleben — hardships Nöte — Great Depression Weltwirtschaftskrise ab 1929 — descendant Nachkomme(-in) — failsafe pannensicher 4 – 6 to seek out ausfindig machen — to cap bedecken — spritz cookies Spritzgebäck — savoury herzhaft — peony Pfingstrose — public policy consultant Politikberater(in) — funeral director Bestattungsunternehmer(in) — cobbler Obstauflauf — smashing (coll) großartig
World and Press | January 2 2023 A pioneering Black composer gets her due, 110 years after her debut MUSIC Samantha Ege and the Yale Philharmonia will perform the orchestral world premiere of Helen Hagan’s “Piano Concerto in C Minor.” By Michael Andor Brodeur 1 HISTORYdoesn’t always repeat itself. Sometimes it appears in a flash of inspiration and barely makes it past its moment. Sometimes history gets buried under papers or forgotten in closets, lost in house fires, or locked in the bellies of big roll-top desks. Other times, history goes missing in a fog of forgetfulness or neglect. And just as often, it gets smothered under a blanket of intentional suppression. 2 It’s hard to say which of these factors – if not a bit of each – contributed to the fate of composer Helen Hagan’s music. The early- 20th-century pianist, composer, and musical pioneer left behind only a single movement of the precocious piano concerto she composed in 1912 at the Yale School of Music. 3 On Friday, at the very same concert hall where Hagan delivered the debut of her “Piano Concerto in C Minor,” the Yale Philharmonia will give the world premiere of composer Soomin Samantha Egeand the Yale Philharmonia rehearse Helen Hagan’s “Piano Concerto in C Minor.” | Photo: Yale School of Music Kim’s newly imagined orchestral arrangement of its first movement. Pianist and musicologist Samantha Ege will take Hagan’s spot at the piano as featured soloist. Ege, 32, has quickly distinguished herself as one of the primary scholars and keenest interpreters of the music of American composer Florence Price. … 4 But Ege’s research has ex- tended beyond Price and illuminated a largely unheard network of Black female composers of the early 20th century. Earlier this year, Ege released ‘Black Renaissance Woman,’ a collection of works from five composer/pianists of the Black Renaissance, including Price, Hagan, Margaret Bonds, Betty Jackson King, and Nora Holt – who, as a critic for the ‘Chicago Defender,’ once praised Hagan’s “extraordinary attainments” and “forearms of steely construction.” 5 Hagan’s original 1912 manuscript for the “Piano Concerto in C Minor” was scored for two pianos – a version of which appears on ‘Black Renaissance Woman,’ where Ege is accompanied by pianist John Paul Ekins. 6 Born in 1891, Helen Eugenia Hagan embarked on her musical path early, playing organ at New Haven’s Dixwell Avenue Congregational Church at the age of ten. Hagan was the first Black graduate of the Yale School of Music, where as an undergraduate she performed Saint-Saëns’s “Concerto for Piano and Orchestra,” as well as her own concerto with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. Her 1912 debut of the concerto (performed at Yale’s Woolsey Hall with a student ensemble) earned her the school’s inaugural Samuel Simons Sanford Fellowship, allowing her two years of postgraduate study in France. 7 Her success at the Yale School of Music was the first of several firsts. Hagan went on to be the first Black pianist to perform a solo recital at a New York City venue, as well as the first Black performer to entertain African American U.S. troops overseas, in Music www.sprachzeitungen.de 15 1919. Hagan’s music wasn’t widely heard in her lifetime but was well-regarded by those who did get to experience it. A 1915 event in Chicago – the second annual All Colored Composers Concert – offered an impactful showcase for the concerto, which she performed with T. Theodore Taylor. 8 Hagan went on to a long career in teaching at Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial State College, now Tennessee State University, and as dean of music at Bishop College in Texas. She died in 1964, laid to rest at New Haven’s Evergreen Cemetery, where her grave went unmarked until 2016. … © 2022 The Washington Post Investieren Sie im neuen Jahr ¤ 58,80 in Ihr Englisch. World and Press im Jahresabo – ein spannender Mix an aktuellen Themen! Foto: ktphotography/Pixabay 0 – 3 TO GETone’s due die verdiente Anerkennung erhalten — roll-top desk Rolladenschreibtisch — neglect Ver nach lässigung — to smother ersticken; unterdrücken — suppression Unterdrückung — precocious frühreif — musicologist Musikwissenschaftler(in) — soloist Solist(in) — scholar Wissenschaftler(in) 4 – 6 to illuminate s.th. (fig) Licht auf etw. werfen — attainment Leistung — forearm Unterarm — steely stählern — to be scored for komponiert sein für — to embark on s.th. etw. beginnen — organ Orgel — Congregational Church protestantische Freikirche — inaugural neu eingeführt 7 – 8 recital h.: Konzert — impactful wirkungsvoll — showcase Vorführung — dean Dekan(in) — to lay s.o. to rest jdn. beerdigen — to go unmarked anonym bleiben Across crossword puzzle | By Katrin Günther All the words are in the articles on pages 14 and 15. Solution on page 16. 4 Spicy or salty, not sweet (Recipes) 5 To suffocate; to suppress (Composer) 6 In a way that shows no interest or emotion (Robot) 8 Words that are written or carved in s.th. (Recipes) 11 A headstone (Recipes) 12 A musical performance by a soloist (Composer) 15 Being very mature at a young age (Composer) 16 To shed light on s.th. (Composer) 17 A failure (Robot) 18 To remember and to honour (Recipes) 19 To give evidence (Robot) Down 1 Opposite of ancestor (Recipes) 2 A musician who performs solo (Composer) 3 To arrest (Robot) 7 Liquid; watery (Recipes) 9 Fascinated (Robot) 10 The lack of attention or care (Composer) 13 Achievement (Composer) 14 To oversee (Recipes) 15 A member of the House of Lords (Robot) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
