Ben Brantley has a front-page NY Times piece today on how the standing ovation has become the default reaction to live performances, with audiences leaping to their feet at the end of virtually every production, regardless of whether it was deserved. The reasons for the ubiquity of the promiscuous S.O. have been widely pondered by […]
We went to a wonderful performance by the St. Louis Symphony last night. The program included Dvorak, Saint-Saens, Ravel, and two of my favorites — Gershwin’s “Rhapsody In Blue” and Bernstein’s symphonic dances from “West Side Story.” The former featured the St. Louis debut of 15-year-old Julliard prodigy Sarina Zhang on piano. Her performance was […]
From my Twitter feed… The woman using her mind to control a robotic arm is amazing, but I’ll be impressed when she can get a teenage girl to do what she’s told. Every restaurant I’ve been to at the top of a tall building always had terrible food — until tonight when we ate at […]
Today on the Final Table, we discussed some tournament strategy from a hand I played (or rather, opted not to play) recently, new rumors about how soon the PokerStars/Full Tilt deal could happen, prop bets on this summer’s World Series Of Poker, and whether the WSOP should display Chris Ferguson’s banner with the other previous […]
Every year, lots of celebrities are invited to give commencement addresses. Very few of them write well, so they don’t turn out to be much of anything. And then there’s Aaron Sorkin’s speech at Syracuse University.