Events

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra has created brilliant listening guides for audiences: Hannah Chan-Hartley is the managing editor and musicologist at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO). She oversees the production of the orchestra’s various printed programmes, from designing layouts and writing and editing content, to the creation of its intriguing ‘listening guides’ with graphic designer Gareth Fowler. A deft mix of text and graphics, the guides can be read while listening to the performance, their...

Apparently Comcast has upgraded my Internet service: Yeah, I can live with that.

Tonight and Sunday evening I'll be performing Mahler's 2nd Symphony with the Apollo Chorus and the Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra, University Chorale, and Bienen Contemporary/Early Vocal Ensemble. If you've never heard this piece, you have to come to one of the performances. Tonight's 7:30 p.m. performance, at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall on the Northwestern University campus, will have the best sound. But Sunday's 6:30 pm performance, at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park in downtown...

Crain's this morning profiles Ryan Leavitt and Vishal Shah, who have launched a company to revolutionize sales training: LearnCore has moved sales training materials online and taken advantage of webcams to allow salespeople to do virtual role-playing. Using screen-capture technology, the company also can record how salespeople explain and demonstrate products for customers. The training can be delivered virtually when it's convenient for the user. It's also easier to track employee progress and...

For the first time since 1880, more young people are living with their parents than with each other: Adults between 18 and 34 are more likely to live with a parent than to get married or move in with a romantic partner, according to an analysis of Census data by the Pew Research Center. The researchers note that it's the first time in more than 130 years in which young adults have chosen their parents' homes over living on their own in a relationship. In 2014, 32.1 percent of young adults were living...

Oh, Wisconsin. You gave the world Robert La Follette, but also Joseph McCarthy; Frank Zeidler, and Paul Ryan; and, of course, Scott Walker, whose latest rigidly-ideological imbecile move will keep Wisconsin firmly in the 20th century: Gov. Scott Walker’s decision to hand back $810 million to the federal government — money that would have built a fast train from Madison to Milwaukee and Chicago — remains one of the most unfortunate and stupid acts in recent Wisconsin history. Not only did Walker deprive...

New Republic's Joe Miller outlines how the Alabama Republican Party has made life worse for just about everyone in Alabama: “There is nothing good that has come from the Republicans being in power in Alabama, and I’m a Republican,” says Arthur Payne, a former state representative from Birmingham. “Since the Republicans have taken over, we have borrowed more money than we ever have in the history of the state, and our budget is in worse shape than it’s ever been.” That’s saying a lot for a state that for...

These are the kinds of articles that make me want to go into exile: A years-long investigation by journalist David Cay Johnston uncovered links between Donald Trump and key mafia figures, which would make Trump the most corrupt presidential candidate since Harding. James Fallows warns us not to assume that even though because the U.S. has gotten out of previous political crises, we shouldn't complacently assume that we'll do it again if Trump gets elected. He draws on Madison's Federalist #10 to make...

With perfect weather and a D&D-themed pub crawl today, posting will be...suboptimal. I promise at least one photo later this weekend.