I visited Colgate University in Hamilton, New York for Reunion Weekend and took a few photos of the beautiful campus. Like the alumni, the grounds have maintained their good looks.
A copy of the signed edition of Bruce Springsteen's autobiography Born to Run (2016) obtained last October atThe New Yorker Festival was sold in January on eBay in just twenty-two minutes with the Buy It Now feature. You simply don't take chances when it comes to the Boss. The New Yorker's editor David Remnick got to interview Mr. Springsteen at the Festival and he knows how very popular it was. In fact, he now boasts publicly that the event sold out in just six seconds, but how on earth is this something the magazine should be proud of? It suggests that the tickets went to scalpers and their sophisticated bots rather than to long-time readers and fans. Has The New Yorker Festival, at least with its most popular event, stumbled into the same ticket distribution nightmare that the producers of "Hamilton" face?
The signed edition of Born to Run (2016) by Bruce Springsteen with a general admission ticket to The New Yorker Festival, October 7, 2016
Bruce Springsteen eBay Listing Ended December 15, 2016
Bruce Springsteen eBay Item Description
eBay Bid History A five-day auction ends in fewer than twenty-two minutes with the Buy It Now Feature
The signed edition of Born to Run (2016) by Bruce Springsteen with a general admission ticket to The New Yorker Festival, October 7, 2016
Note: Would you like to hear David Remnick's conversation with Bruce Springsteen last year at The New Yorker Festival? Tune in to "The New Yorker Radio Hour" Episode 58: Bruce Springsteen Talks with David Remnick. By the way, with whom would you rather have a beer?
Seeing Lin-Manuel Miranda's extraordinary musical "Hamilton" yesterday reminded me of a chance encounter last year with composer Flannery Cunningham. We were seated next to each other on an Aer Lingus flight home from Dublin and I couldn't help noticing she was doing a little in-flight composing. I love encountering creative people and struck up a conversation which one hopes didn't effect her productivity too adversely. She is influenced by 14th-century ars nova chanson, yet some of her own work incorporates contemporary electronic media.
Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377)
Puis qu'en oubli
A 14th-century ars nova period polyphonic chanson
As it turns out, her senior thesis at Princeton University was the composition of the opera Weehawken about the famous duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Ms. Cunningham did the historical research and wrote the libretto as well. The chamber opera received its first performance at Princeton in 2013. Three excerpts can be heard on Ms. Cunningham's website. At the time I spoke with her, Ms. Cunningham had not heard the score of "Hamilton."
A scene from Flannery Cunningham's chamber opera Weehawken
