Directly after I posted a notice about the wonderful American art song recital by Randal Turner, I received an email from Glen Roven, the composer-conductor-pianist, thanking me for the review (Turner's recital included a group of Roven's songs), and asking if I'd be interested in hearing another recital, this time by Daniel Okulitch. I was happy to accept the offer, and found the CD in the mail straightaway…
Okulitch's recital is distinguished by having the … <Read More>
It's actually kind of amazing to think about Larry Kramer's play, "The Normal Heart," now being presented at a Broadway theater (The John Golden Theatre) and drawing full houses. I went last night, the house seemed very full for a Tuesday evening, and the experience was overwhelming.
This play has a special resonance for me, not only because I've had various contacts with Larry over the years but also because I came to know several … <Read More>
Deciding that serving the aims of bankruptcy law was more important than applying a possibly unconstitutional statutory limitation, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Cecelia G. Morris has rejected the United States Trustee's motion to dismiss a joint bankruptcy filing by a New York same-sex couple who were married in Vermont shortly before filing their petition. The ruling in In re Theresa L. Somers and Rosemary Caggiano, Debtors, 10-38296, was decided on May 4 but first reported in … <Read More>
I spent the weekend in Ithaca, New York, for the Advisory Board Meeting of the Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution at Cornell's New York State School of Industrial & Labor Relations. Cornell ILR is my alma mater, and Marty Scheinman was a classmate. Now he's a prominent labor arbitrator and mediator and, with his wife Laurie, has become the primary sponsor of this program at Cornell ILR, with one of our favorite professors (and subsequently, dean … <Read More>
This week I attended performances of two off-Broadway shows: "Knickerbocker," part of the PublicLab series at the Public Theater, and "Picked" at the Vineyard Theatre. While each of these plays had their strengths and weaknesses, both ultimately struck me as entertaining and thought-provoking.
[I've been requested to hold my comments about Knickerbocker until after the official opening.]
"Picked," written by Christopher Shinn and directed by Michael Wilson with, essentially, no sets, just some prop … <Read More>
One of the delights of the current digital age for classical enthusiasts is the heightened ability for imaginative musical artists of the first rank to undertake their own recording projects and sell them on-line through their own websites or such aggregate websites as CDbaby.com. Here are some recent items direct from the artists without the intervention of corporate bean-counters:
1. Seda R
The European Court of Justice (Grand Chamber) ruled today that the city of Hamburg was likely violating European Law by providing a pension scheme under which retired married city pensioners receive higher pensions than retired city pensioners who are in a same-sex registered partnership. The May 10 ruling in the case of R
Last night I saw a performance of Tony Kushner's latest big play, "The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures," at New York's Public Theater. The show officially opened just a few days earlier, generating a spate of reviews in the daily newspapers on Friday, so I was reasonably well-informed about what to expect, and the reviews seemed reasonably accurate.
This is a very lengthy "dysfunctional family" saga, with … <Read More>
I went to this one by default. That is, I was interested in going to a movie, which I hadn't done in a while. After looking at what was on offer at the local multiplexes, I picked this one because it sounded the least fluffy and irrelevant of all the new flicks on offer. I found it to be an interesting movie, going to some lengths to recreate a time and place (the traveling circuses … <Read More>
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, based in Denver, took a narrow view of the confidentiality requirements for medical information under the Americans With Disabilities Act in a decision issued on May 3 upholding a grant of summary judgment to an employer that had arguably required an HIV-positive person to disclose his status to co-workers as a requirement of working in his desired job classification. The court premised its ruling in EEOC v. … <Read More>