“A federal appeals court attempted to close the book on endless litigation between the relatives of author John Steinbeck in a ruling that upheld a $5 million verdict against his daughter-in-law, but threw out $8 million she faced in punitive damages.” – Yahoo! (AP)
Author: Matthew Westphal
First Arrest Made In Major Old Masters Forgery Ring Case
“There has at last been an arrest in a high-profile string of suspected Old Master forgeries uncovered in 2016. An Italian painter, Lino Frongia, 61, was taken into custody in northern Italy earlier this week, while an arrest warrant has been issued for French art dealer and collector Giulano Ruffini, who sold the works in question.” – Artnet
Merriam-Webster Dictionary Admits ‘They’ As Nonbinary Singular Pronoun
“We will note that ‘they’ has been in consistent use as a singular pronoun since the late 1300s; that the development of singular ‘they’ mirrors the development of the singular ‘you’ from the plural ‘you'” noted M-W on its blog, “yet we don’t complain that singular ‘you’ is ungrammatical.” – The Guardian
The Struggle For Control Of The Salzburg Easter Festival Is Over
“The fight has pitted two strong-willed artistic leaders against one another: Christian Thielemann, the principal conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Easter Festival’s artistic director since 2013; and the man tapped last November as his successor, Nikolaus Bachler, who is nearing the end of his tenure as general manager of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.” Thielemann and his orchestra will be leaving Salzburg after 2022, and Bachler plans “to reinvent the festival.” – The New York Times
Cokie Roberts, Longtime Commentator At NPR And ABC, Dead At 75
“[She] earned three Emmy Awards, was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame in 2000 and was named a ‘living legend’ by the Library of Congress in 2008. The consummate Washington insider, she had covered Capitol Hill since the Carter administration” and literally grew up in and around the halls of Congress. – The Washington Post
Despite Death Threats And Rocket Attacks, She Runs A Feminist Radio Station In Afghanistan
Sediqa Sherzai founded Radio Roshani in Kunduz in 2008. The Taliban fired rockets at the station the next year. In 2015 they stole the station’s equipment and planted mines in the building. Nevertheless, she persists. – BBC
Propwatch: the bell in ‘Amsterdam’
It’s kind of calling-for-immediate-attention bell that invites a sharp smack with palm or finger, and drives Basil Fawlty to the very verge of derangement. Ping! It’s a comedy device – an indicator of short-fuse entitlement, an enhancer of retro-farce chaos. It retains its comic tinge in Amsterdam, which is unnerving, given the context. – David Jays
Architects Explain How Those Super-Tall, Super-Skinny New York Apartment Towers Stand Up In The Wind
“As the wind goes around the building, it accelerates, and it creates vortices that alternate, causing the building to move from side to side. Sometimes we can use that phenomenon, cutting openings for the wind and converting it to energy with turbines. Here, we’re not trying to bring the wind through the building; we’re managing it, shaping the notches to optimize wind flow.” Justin Davidson talks with the designers of the 130-story Central Park Tower. – New York Magazine
Street Theatre With Giant Moles
“These tufty mammals are the stars of Philippe Quesne’s The Moles, which ran at N.Y.U. Skirball over the weekend and kicked off with a Friday afternoon parade through the West Village. A rock concert, a nature mockumentary, a collective hallucination and a goof on the idea of underground theater, The Moles welcomes audiences, wordlessly, to Caveland, a stalactite-studded subterranean lair that the moles invade and then enjoy, sometimes in the company of a neighborly purple teddy bear.” – The New York Times
Diversity, Gender Equity, Innovation — Here’s A Ballet Company That’s Living Up To The Ideals
“With just 10 dancers, [Ballet X is] a model of what is possible for small contemporary ballet troupes — and it embodies many of the ideals that larger companies are striving for today. It commissions lots of women. Half of the company members are dancers of color. The work pushes ballet in new directions, whether through innovative story ballets or genre-bending collaborations. It’s deeply rooted in its Philadelphia community, and has fostered an open company culture rarely found in ballet.” – Dance Magazine