williamaveryhudson

Back in March…

Some pre-multiplex movie palaces have been brought out of retirement, succeeding thanks to smart programming and nonprofit status. Idealist.org notes an article by Karl-Erik Stromsta about L.A.’s Old Town Music Hall and Warner Grand, two historic theaters now running thanks to this innovative business model.

There’s a certain Art Deco gem on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, The Metro - currently dark - that might benefit from this kind of activism…

tags: new york movies

My current favorite magazine The Week - yeah, Harold Evans! Pace, New Yorker - reports from the enlightening Outlook India that North Americans & Brits are flocking to the world’s largest democracy for high-tech Western medical care. Hip replacements, Lasik eye surgery, angioplasty - name it. Maybe a little Ayurveda too, for balance?

tags: India

Last night at a standing-room only concert at the Bloomingdale School of Music on NYC’s West 108th Street, Shara Worden and My Brightest Diamond “negotiated the spaces between popular and art songs” in a set ranging from Purcell to Debussy to Weill and ending with six new songs by Worden herself.

The group (Worden, voice/guitar; Rob Moose, violin; Cornelius DuFallo, violin; Marla Hansen, viola; Maria Jeffers, cello; Katy Luo, piano) may be one of the sexiest sextets performing today, proving once and for all that classical forms can indeed channel the explosive energy of a rock star.

An album is in the works. In the meantime, I’m getting a copy of Kurt Weill’s “Youkali: Tango Habanera.” Just one find from an evening of discovery.

tags: new york music performance

Richard Foreman has opened his notebooks to public view. And US $5 buys amazing theater at the ontological-hysteric incubator at the Ontological Theater at St. Marks (131 East 10th Street, NYC) [Schedule].

technorati tags: new york city theater performance

In the Global Corruption Report 2006, Transparency International documents how theft, bribery and extortion are depriving millions of essential medical care and promoting drug-resistant disease. Essential reading - this global US $3 trillion sector needs fixing, and here is a good place to start.

technorati tags:
corruption