The failure of the Carnegie Hall/New York Philharmonic is a public embarrassment, writes Greg Sandow. “If you ask me, Carnegie Hall and the Philharmonic both look dumb. One issue, as anybody could have guessed beforehand, was how to accomodate all the concerts the Philharmonic gives each year with Carnegie’s strong and diverse schedule. How could it take all these months to figure that out? And how could the two organizations have announced plans to merge – actually announce that the meger was a done deal, with everything set except for the details – without settling such an obvious issue before the announcement was made? I can barely believe it.”