This morning I attended the funeral service for Steven W. Siegel, a friend of more than thirty years whose premature death at 65 is much to be deplored. Although I thought the remembrances spoken at the service evoked this wonderful man very well, I wanted to add a few comments to help memorialize him in cyberspace.
When I first met Steve after joining Congregation Beth Simchat Torah (as it was then named), NYC's gay synagogue, in … <Read More>
One approaches performances by over-hyped younsters with great skepticism… but skepticism is defeated by Lang Lang, the young Chinese pianist who set a real challenge for himself by taking on Bela Bartok's 2nd Piano Concerto (1930-31), a monster of a piece both as a technical challenge and as a musical challenge. It is easy for somebody with big technique to make a big noise in this piece. More difficult is to play all the notes … <Read More>
Igor Stravinsky is generally considered one of the most important 20th century composers. Born in Russia in 1882, he left as a young composer to write ballets for Serge Diaghilev's Ballet Russe, which was based in Western Europe and performed its most celebrated premieres in Paris. Outside Russia when the communist takeover occurred, Stravinsky remained in the west, making his home variously in France, Switzerland, and finally the United States, where he died in New … <Read More>
The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is assigned to the 1st Circuit for appellate review of federal district court opinions, so it was the Boston-based 1st Circuit that ruled against a Title VII and Equal Protection discrimination claim brought by a gay employee, Luis Aik Ayala-Sepulveda, against the municipality of San German and its mayor, Isidro Negron-Irizarry. Appropriately enough, the decision for the court of appeals panel was written by Judge Juan Torruella, a Puerto Rican jurist who … <Read More>
There's all this buzz about "The Artist," a new "silent film" about the difficult period (at least for actors who didn't speak English very well) when movies began to have soundtracks.
The film, shot in sharp-focus black and white with a musical soundtrack and some brief moments of sound effects and speech, is done up with 1920's style credits and occasional dialogue cards. It's shot in the style of an old silent film until the … <Read More>
New Jersey Administrative Law Judge Solomon A. Metzger ruled on January 12, 2012, that the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, a body associated with the United Methodist Church that owns and operates a square mile of real estate on the New Jersey shore in the Township of Neptune, violated the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination by refusing to rent the Boardwalk Pavilion on its property for a civil union ceremony involving a lesbian couple. Bernstein v. … <Read More>
In New York State, marriages can be performed by a list of public officials and religious officiants. Among those on the list are Judges. Some judges don't do marriages, others limit them to family members and acquaintances, while some are basically available upon reasonable request. But, as with other public officials who play some role in the administration of marriages, the question arises whether there is a legal or ethical violation if a judge refuses … <Read More>
I saw "Margin Call" during its brief run at the Lincoln Center cinema. The show I attended looked to be sold out, and so were others than weekend according to press reports. The film got enthusiastic reviews from the NY Times, the New Yorker, and other commentators. It played briefly and disappeared. I assumed they were hoping for Oscar nominations and would open it wide in January after they were announced. But then it showed … <Read More>
Who knew that you could build a successful movie out of a potential violation of the Rule Against Perpetuities? In "The Descendants," George Clooney plays a prominent Hawaii real estate lawyer who is also the sole trustee of a family trust holding title to a large undeveloped tract of seafront property. According to the script, under the Rule of Perpetuities the trust has to sell the property within 7 years, and the sole individual who … <Read More>
Now I've seen both "War Horse" the movie and "War Horse" the play. As I previously commented on this blog, the play is sensational. The more I think about it, however, the more I feel that the plot itself is rather simple-minded and predictable. What makes the play sensational is the production, in which the life-size "puppets" of horses and other farm animals are operated with such virtuosity by the dancers (both as to movements … <Read More>