“For the first time since May of last year, the Louisville Orchestra is an orchestra again. … The harmony comes after a year of orchestra members making their overtures on sidewalks, with protests filled with accusations of unfair labor practices and failure to bargain in good faith, while the orchestra [management] threatened to hire replacement musicians.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Philip Roth Consents To Cooperate With Biographer
“Philip Roth has a new biographer: Blake Bailey, the author of highly regarded biographies of Richard Yates and John Cheever. … [In] June he and Mr. Roth signed a collaboration agreement guaranteeing him unlimited access to Mr. Roth’s archives and correspondence … The project will take him 8 to 10 years to complete, he estimated.”
US Federal Judge Approves Settlement In E-Book Price Fixing Case
“Among other things, the agreement requires the publishers – Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster – to abandon the pricing system that they had conceived with Apple before it released its iPad tablet in 2010. The change is supposed to come within the next week.” Apple and two other publishers reject the settlement and will go to trial.
Lost Medieval Church Found Under English Parking Lot
“The hunt for King Richard III’s grave is heating up, with archaeologists announcing today (Sept. 5) that they have located the church where the king was buried in 1485.” Greyfriars Abbey church in Leicester, recorded as the site of Richard’s grave, was destroyed during the Reformation and its location had been lost.
Milwaukee’s Skylight Theatre Chooses New Artistic Director
Viswa Subbaraman, founder/director of Houston’s contemporary opera troupe, Opera Vista, takes over at Milwaukee’s opera/operetta/musical theater company at the start of next season. He succeeds the widely-admired Bill Theisen, whose eight-year tenure included being fired and rehired (following a community and performer rebellion over his dismissal) over the summer of 2009.
Susan Sarandon Says She Had Death Threats For Speaking Out On Iraq War
“[C]ertainly leading up to the Iraq war, when I was asking unpopular questions, there were lots of attacks from the hate radio jocks asking for something to be done about me. I had death threats. There were people who felt, thanks to the right-wing papers, I was un-American.”
Do Birds Hold Funerals?
Well, it depends on what exactly one means by “funeral”, but they do respond in groups to the death of their fellows.
Emma Thompson Writes An (Authorized) Sequel To Potter’s Peter Rabbit
“If Frederick Warne [the publisher of the Peter Rabbit stories] had sent some official letter I would have said don’t be ridiculous, I can’t think of anything I want to do less than step into the footsteps of a genius like Potter.” But Warne sent the actress/screenwriter a package containing a half-eaten radish leaf and a letter from Peter Rabbit himself instead. She tumbled for it.
Is Lap-Dancing Art? (For Tax Purposes, That Is)
“New York State’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, is used to considering weighty issues, like same-sex marriage and the death penalty. But on Wednesday, its august chambers entertained a debate of perhaps less significance but far more prurience: whether lap dancing constitutes a form of art.”
What’s The Funniest Film Ever Made? According To The Statistics, It’s Airplane!
“The movie starring Leslie Neilsen … came out top in research conducted by a panel of members of movie subscription service Lovefilm. They calculated the precise number of ‘laughs a minute’ for the top 10 comedies chosen by Lovefilm members.” Airplane! averages a laugh line every 20 seconds.