Category: today’s top story

“The Metropolitan Opera’s revival of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde cannot make it through a performance without turmoil. For the second straight performance, the opera was interrupted in mid-act [when] the part of the raked set Gary Lehman was stretched out on came loose… and the tenor slid into the prompter’s box.”

“Is Europe learning any lessons from harsh collisions between free speech and the religious sensibilities of Muslims? The next few weeks may provide an answer as The Netherlands gears up for the release of a short film, expected to be fiercely critical of Islam, by right-wing politician Geert Wilders, who has called the Koran a fascist book. Past experience is not encouraging…”

“The case, to be argued in the fall, involves a recent Federal Communications Commission policy that holds broadcasters liable for ‘fleeting expletives’ — single instances of certain profanities, uttered usually in live settings. But the justices could also review constitutional issues raised by the commission’s overall indecency regime, which may no longer be tenable in the age of filtering technologies.”

The orchestra’s board claims that it will have to shut down if musicians don’t agree to sweeping layoffs and a 12-week reduction in the season. But donors seem suspicious of whether the organization has a real plan for stabilization, and musicians say the reductions designed to save the bottom line would destroy the orchestra. Worse, the sides aren’t even talking at the moment…

“Nearly broke and still short of solutions, the Columbus Symphony could fold as early as next month, the president of the symphony board says.” Of course, that same board president is pushing a plan to “save” the orchestra by laying off 22 full-time musicians and shaving 12 weeks off the season, so the musicians aren’t necessarily buying into the doomsday scenario. Who to believe?

“Critics are busy – guess what? – critiquing other critics. No, this isn’t another nod in the direction of the playwriting debut of Nicholas de Jongh. The spring edition of the Economist’s new Intelligent Life magazine includes a guide, put together by 24 writers and editors, to the best critics going. Read it and weep – or cheer.”

“It’s no longer enough for a museum to put up a Web site and hope that people find it. Many museums are discovering that the Web 2.0 world lets them advance their mission online to bring in new and often younger visitors and to educate a wider audience.”

“The issue is essentially a debate over whether government should regulate Internet traffic in a way that guarantees an open — or neutral — Web over which users and content providers have continued, unfettered access. Net neutrality proponents have claimed that, with a relatively few number of large ISPs, the potential ability to discriminate against particular kinds of Web traffic must be restrained by some sort of government intervention.”

“To work in an independent bookstore is to always be aware of shoplifters. It can devour you; you can spend all your time watching people, wondering if they’re watching you. Every shoplifter caught is a major victory against the forces of darkness; every one who escapes is another 10 minutes kept awake at night with gnashing teeth.”

In an era when the internet has made fact-checking easier than ever, it sometimes seems as if high-profile cases of plagiarism and faked memoirs pop up every week. “But the history of literary fakers stretches far, far back, at least to the 19th century,” and the hoaxes only become more incredible with time.