In a recent Tonight Show segment on presidential candidates’ vacation homes, Leno and his writers used, for the retreat of the famously wealthy Mitt Romney, an image of the Golden Temple, Sikhism’s holiest shrine. In response, an Indian-American Sikh has filed a lawsuit against the comedian.
Author: Matthew Westphal
Meet The Coppolas Of Brazil
“Sometimes they limit themselves simply to producing movies, though on many other occasions they have also written, directed or actually filmed them. But by any standard the Barretos – Luiz Carlos and Lucy and their children, Bruno, Fábio and Paula – are the first family of cinema in Brazil.”
Another Conductor Stops Concert, This Time For Crying Baby
At a Dayton Philharmonic concert earlier this month, during the long flute solo that opens Debussy’s Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun, an infant began to wail – and kept going. Once he saw that the musicians were getting distracted, conductor Neal Gittleman “stopped the music, turned to the audience, and asked that the child be removed. Some audience members applauded.”
Top Chinese Maestro Beats Up New York Mugger
Long Yu, music director of the China Philharmonic, was in Manhattan to lead the New York Philharmonic in a Chinese New Year program. He was walking along Columbus Avenue one night this week when a man asked him for a cigarette and then punched him; Long Yu chased his attacker down the street and punched back.
Dept. Of Overworking A Metaphor: Researchers Study Thinking Outside An Actual Box
“Just how potent is the metaphor ‘thinking outside the box’? To find out, researchers built a literal box out of PVC pipe and cardboard – 5′ cubed.”
Andrew Miller’s Pure Wins £30K Costa Book Award
“A vividly told story of life in pre-revolutionary Paris on Tuesday won the 2011 Costa book award in what turned out to be a bitterly fought two-way tussle between fact and fiction. Andrew Miller was given one of the UK’s most prestigious literary prizes – and a £30,000 cheque – at a ceremony in London for his sixth novel, Pure.“
Sergei Polunin Suddenly Quits Royal Ballet
“The young Royal Ballet star Sergei Polunin, Covent Garden’s most remarkable male discovery for years, has quit the company today in a stunning shock.”
Proposed Virginia Law Would Deny Orchestral Players Unemployment Benefits
“House Bill 1254 would make symphony performers between orchestra seasons ineligible for unemployment between orchestra seasons if they performed during the last season and plan to perform in the upcoming season.”
Cate Blanchett And Andrew Upton Were Not Asked To Leave Sydney Theatre Co. (Whatever The Herald Says)
“The Sydney Morning Herald ran a story that suggested that the theater company’s board of directors was less than satisfied with the couple’s tenure” and decided not to renew their contract as artistic directors. Both Blanchett’s PR people and the STC’s board insist the suggestion is entirely false; the Herald has appended a half-correction.
Abu Dhabi’s Suspended Museum Island Project Back On Track
“A long-delayed project to build three colossal museums” – including branches of the Guggenheim and the Louvre – “on an arid Persian Gulf island will be finished by 2017, officials say, realizing the designs of some of the world’s leading architects while underlining the ambitions of this city to emerge as a global capital.”