It’s been 10 years since I published what seems to have been some prescient commentary about the now (belatedly) completed Jean Nouvel-designed 1,050-foot tower (known to CultureGrrl readers as The MoMA Monster). – Lee Rosenbaum
Nobel Committee Fought Tooth And Nail Over Whether To Give Prize To Samuel Beckett
“Fifty years after Samuel Beckett won the Nobel prize for literature, newly opened archives reveal the serious doubts the committee had over giving the award to an author they felt held a ‘bottomless contempt for the human condition’.” – The Guardian
Barry Tuckwell, Perhaps The World’s Most Prominent French Horn Player, Dead At 88
He started playing the horn at age 13 and within two years landed a position in the Melbourne Symphony; by age 19, he had gone to Britain and played in orchestras there; at age 24, he was appointed first horn in the London Symphony. After 13 years, he left the LSO for a full-time career as a soloist (then, as now, very rare for his instrument), making more than 50 recordings, and developed an additional career as a conductor. – Gramophone