“Community policing officers will carry books while they are making their rounds on the city’s North and South sides. They’ll still respond to certain emergencies, but won’t be dispatched to calls for help, freeing them up to visit neighborhoods without libraries and give away books to anyone who wants them. The program is the first of its kind in the country, organizers say.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Mary Cochran, Dancer With Paul Taylor And Chair Of Dance At Barnard, Dead At 54
Known for what Dance magazine called “her verve, charm and daring,” Cochran performed with the Paul Taylor Dance Company from 1984 to 1996 and led the well-regarded dance department at Barnard College from 2003 to 2013.
Puerto Rico’s PBS Station Is Shut Down
Sistema TV in San Juan has been taken off the air because, following Hurricane Maria, the university holding its license decided to cease all non-academic activities.
Brown University’s New Orchestra Director ‘Relieved Of Duties’ Just Before His First Concert
“‘Brandon Keith Brown is no longer serving in the role he took on this summer when he joined the university as visiting assistant professor of music and orchestra conductor,’ said Brown spokesman Brian Clark. ‘As for the reason, I am not at liberty to disclose details related to personnel, which we do not consider public.'” (That doesn’t mean the students won’t talk, though.)
Classical Music Has Its Own Bunch Of Mini-Harvey Weinsteins
“One big problem is the mindless adulation bestowed on famous conductors and directors. Such sycophancy doesn’t lead just to the tolerance of abuse, it mythologises the misdeeds so that they become part of the mystique surrounding ‘the maestro’.” (For example, Georg Solti, who’d seduce his way through the female choristers at the Royal Opera house and buy them white fur coats afterward.) And, writes Richard Morrison, “that was decades ago, but what has changed? In one acclaimed present-day ensemble female violinists rise up the ranks if they sleep with the conductor. It’s as simple, and jaw-dropping, as that.”
Inside The Weinstein Company When The Stories About Harvey Broke
“As they gathered, someone mentioned that The New Yorker story was up. The assembled employees read in silence. They listened to the tape. They knew that voice too well. Some began to shake, and many of them wept as they contemplated the roles they might have played as accomplices, unwitting or not.” Dana Goodyear talks to current and former employees, many of whom insist that they knew Harvey Weinstein was “a bully, a screamer, a yeller, a thrower, a pig – not that he was a rapist.”
This Might Be The Most Appalling Thing Any Woman Has Yet Said About Harvey Weinstein
Russian actress Lyubov Tolkalina said in an interview, “Isn’t it beautiful when a man of such great power sexually harasses you? … What does it matter how you got the part? It’s good for everyone: he feels good, they feel good, and most importantly the viewers feel good.”
Canadian Opera Co. Extends Alexander Neef’s Contract To 2026
“This means that by 2026, Neef will be the longest-serving General Director of the COC (18 years), after Richard Bradshaw.”
As ISIS Loses Territory, It Steps Up Looting Of Antiquities
“Members of IS are definitely involved in sales,” says one scholar, “particularly now that the so-called state is rapidly unravelling.” However, there’s little independently verifiable evidence of the scale of the ISIS trade in stolen antiquities – not to mention the fact that there are plenty of fakes mixed in with the genuine artifacts.
This Mosaic From Caligula’s Pleasure Boat Spent 45 Years As A Manhattan Coffee Table
The 2000-year-old piece was once part of an elaborate mosaic floor in one of the Roman emperor’s floating palaces on Lake Nemi south of Rome. Somehow it ended up in the Park Avenue apartment of an antiques dealer. “Last month, prosecutors seized the mosaic, saying they had evidence it had been taken from an Italian museum before World War II.”