Category: today’s top story

“How would New Yorkers feel if the owners of the Empire State or Chrysler Buildings sold off the naming rights to those buildings? How would Parisians react if the Eiffel Tower changed names? … Putting your name on the city’s–and the nation’s–tallest building is a privilege that should be earned, not simply coaxed out of owners in a real estate deal.”

“In 2002 Mandela attempted to record his feelings about Robben Island in [five] limited edition, individually signed prints. … This week, London’s Belgravia Gallery opens an exhibition of Mandela’s lithographs – against his wishes. He ‘strongly dissociates himself’ from the event; his lawyer insists, ‘He did not sign those artworks.’ The gallery claims its video of him signing artworks proves its sale authentic.”

Calling Richard Wagner a “Nazi composer,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich has demanded that Los Angeles Opera substitute works by other composers in next year’s Ring Festival LA. He’s not the only one upset about the performance of Wagner’s epic. “Holocaust survivors and their families have contacted supervisors in recent weeks to express outrage at the festival. Some have threatened to picket.”

“New York’s biggest-ever art fraud investigation claimed another casualty yesterday, when three- decade art market veteran Leigh Morse was arrested for her role as Lawrence B. Salander’s right-hand woman. … The office of Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau announced three additional counts against [Salander] and he pleaded not guilty. “

Spanish-language media company Univision will pay $33.5 million to exchange its license for 105.9 FM for the existing WQXR frequency at 96.3 FM; public radio powerhouse WNYC will then pay $11.5 million for the WQXR call letters and website as well as the former Univision frequency, where WQXR will broadcast beginning in October. The New York Times Co. will use the $45 million in purchase proceeds to pay down debt.

“The distinguished British conductor Sir Edward Downes and his wife Lady Joan have ended their lives at the Dignitas clinic in Zurich, their children revealed today. The 85-year-old maestro had become virtually blind and had lost some of his hearing, while his 74-year-old wife had been suffering from cancer, according to a statement released by their son and daughter, Caractacus and Boudicca.”

“Peter Gelb earned $1.5 million in his second year as general manager of New York’s Metropolitan Opera, according to the company’s tax return for the year ending in July 2008. That was up 36 percent from the previous year. … Those numbers reflect a time before the fabled opera company at Lincoln Center started singing sorrowful tunes of loss as the economy tanked last fall.”

“In the past year, researchers have developed technology that makes it possible to use thoughts to operate a computer, maneuver a wheelchair or even use Twitter — all without lifting a finger. But as neural devices become more complicated — and go wireless — some scientists say the risks of “brain hacking” should be taken seriously.”

“First North Korea. Then Vietnam. Now Cuba. The New York Philharmonic, continuing its travels in [what’s left of] the Communist world, is seriously considering an invitation to perform for the first time in Havana. Philharmonic officials plan to travel to Cuba on Friday to look over logistics.”

“[C]ould some alleged plagiarists–like Maureen Dowd, Chris Anderson, Elizabeth Hasselbeck, and even [Kaavya] Viswanathan, who all either deny the charge, or blame their copying on unconscious mistakes–be guilty of psychological sloppiness rather than fraud? Could the real offense be disregard for the mind’s subliminal kleptomania? And if it is real, is unconscious copying (or ‘cryptomnesia’ to those who study the phenomenon) preventable?”