The newly formed Sacramento Symphony played its season premiere this past weekend, and issued paychecks to its musicians. Monday morning, the checks bounced. “Although the checks cleared on Wednesday, the situation raised questions about the financial position of the symphony and its parent organization, the Metropolitan Music Center.” The MMC is reportedly operating in the red, and still owes money to a Los Angeles-based chamber orchestra from a concert in 2001. Still, the orchestra is insisting that the rubber checks were merely a banking error.
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How About Proving That Celine Dion Causes Nausea?
The Ig-Nobel Prizes were handed out this week, and the top prize went to a researcher from Auburn University in Alabama, for a groundbreaking study which proved that suicide rates among white men are demonstrably higher in areas saturated by country music.
Cleveland Inching Towards A Contract
Despite all the fireworks coming from Philadelphia and Montreal, there are a number of major orchestras making a real effort to negotiate a new musicians’ contract without a lot of public sniping. In Cleveland, where the musicians and management recently agreed to extend their current deal in order to keep negotiating without a work stoppage, both sides say that progress, while slow, is definitely being made.
Museum To Buy Winslow Homer’s Home
“The Portland Museum of Art expects to buy the Prouts Neck home and studio of Winslow Homer, the 19th century American painter known for his dramatic images of Maine’s coast.”
The Painting … It’s Watching Me
“The mystery of why eyes in certain paintings and photographs appear to move has been solved: it has to do with how we perceive two and three dimensions, a new study finds.”
If You Are A Terrorist, Your Grant Will Be Denied
“The Ford Foundation, a major arts-supporting organization, checks its applicants and grantees daily against terrorism watch lists … yet this is not unique: Philanthropies must now comply with laws designed to prevent terrorists from using not-for-profits to finance their activities. The question is how aware arts groups are of the practice.”
Rushdie To Congress: Leave Readers Alone
Objecting to the government “noseying into what should be personal creative space,” author Salman Rushdie presented the U.S. Congress with a petition signed by 180,000 people, calling for the repeal of provisions of the Patriot Act that give investigators access to individuals’ book-buying and library records.
Army Enlists Children’s Book To Help Families
“The Kissing Hand,” a children’s book about a raccoon trying to assuage her baby’s separation anxiety, rose in popularity after 9/11, when the American Library Association recommended it. The book has just sold an additional 14,000 copies to a single customer: the U.S. Army. In a first-time effort, the army plans to distribute the story to help military families cope with wartime separation.
Alice vs. Harry: Who’s More Dangerous?
Once upon a time, the Harry Potter books could be counted on to incite the most alarm among those who seek to protect America’s youth by removing objectionable books from schools and libraries. Now Harry and his magic have been toppled from their No. 1 spot by a lesser-known series: Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s well-reviewed “Alice” books, whose sexual content provoked numerous challenges in 2003.
And Weighing In At Over 800 Pages …
Short attention span? What short attention span? In seeming contradiction to the sound-bite culture they inhabit, readers are snapping up ever-heftier books, and this fall will bring more of them.