Category: today’s top story

“Richard Davis, chairman of the orchestra’s negotiating team, said management will stand firm in the 11-month lockout, despite the looming prospect of outcomes once deemed unthinkable – including the departure of Music Director Osmo Vänskä, the cancellation of key concerts at Carnegie Hall and delaying the start of the 2013-14 season in the newly remodeled Orchestra Hall.”

“YouTube-centric CEOs and digital leaders peered into the crystal ball of the immediate future at this year’s unofficial YouTubers’ conference VidCon in Anaheim, California and what they saw–or think they saw–involved peril and even bankruptcy.”

“Under the proposal, musicians would return Sept. 30 for two months under the tenets of the old contract while negotiations continue to find a new deal. If there is no agreement by then, a 24 month contract would go into effect that would reduce musicians base pay to $87,000 (management says average annual pay will be $102,000).”

That’s as in creative writing. “Articles on offer this summer starred the Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire and that most golden of monarchs, Louis XIV, as well as a series of ‘interviews’ with long-dead composers, and ventures into somewhat esoteric historical fiction like ‘what if the oil embargo of 1973 had gone on longer?'”

“It seems a very ill sign for the future that bad music is so willingly foisted on serious junior musicians who have already made a commitment to the art form. American cultural leaders have always been terrified of their duty to lead taste and to maintain standards. But it is best never to show fear in the presence of children.”

“Architects frustrated by a lack of opportunity to build who, rather than retreating into drawings or text, have formed multidisciplinary practices to build their designs themselves.”

“The new works are said to include a story-filled ‘manual’ of the Vedanta religious philosophy, with which Mr. Salinger was deeply involved; a novel set during World War II and based on his first marriage; and a novella modeled on his own war experiences.”

“I can’t claim to have the answers, but I do know I expect a sense of traveling back in time when I visit a museum, of feeling like I was there while these things lived or were used, of feeling the ghosts of the past grab me by the hand and walk me around. Instead I get a sense of a classroom made of cold granite, the only sense of life emerging from the tourists.”

“Before he died in 2008, the brashly inventive artist Robert Rauschenberg appointed three of his dearest friends and longtime business associates as trustees to administer his $600 million-plus estate and protect the charitable foundation he had created in his name. But now, that foundation and the three men entrusted with its welfare are engaged in a court battle in Florida [and New York].”

WBAI had to lay off two-thirds of its staff this month just to be able to afford basics such as rent for its transmitter. “But critics have long said that its top-heavy governance, with large local boards and frequent, expensive elections, have put the organization in a constant state of gridlock, and that unless Pacifica reforms it will simply govern itself to death.”