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Saturday, September 26, 2015

Saturday Night in Park Slope: Holy Smokes at The Sloodge

(Video courtesy Holy Smokes)

Saturday Afternoon on the Upper West Side: "Anna Bolena" at the Metropolitan Opera

(Videos courtesy Metropolitan Opera) (Video and text courtesy VIC TORIYA)

Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky embarks on her quest to vocally conquer all three of Donizetti’s historic Tudor queen operas in the same season, here as a young royal grasping at power and paying a terrible price. Bass Ildar Abdrazakov is King Henry VIII, not one of history’s kindest husbands; mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton is Jane Seymour, the king’s consort and the reason the queen loses her head. Tenor Stephen Costello plays the queen’s love interest in Sir David McVicar’s gripping period production. Marco Armiliato conducts.

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Sunday Afternoon in Rockaway: Beach Boogie Stomp Weekend with Simon & The Bar Sinisters, The Supertones and Gözer at Riis Park Beach Bazaar

(Videos courtesy Otom Izot)
(Video courtesy Daveofalltrades27)

Richard Grayson letter in The New York Times Sunday Dialogue: "Grading More Fairly"

Today, September 20, 2015, Richard Grayson had a letter in today's Sunday Dialogue in The New York Times, "Grading More Fairly":
Ms. Wissner-Gross need not fear grade deflation from the majority of today’s college instructors: poorly paid, job-insecure part-timers whose continued employment is usually determined by each semester’s evaluations by their students. Why would adjuncts, making only $3,000 for teaching a class of 25 or 30 students, grade low and thus ensure bad evaluations by angry students? As I used to tell my students in the years when I was a part-time professor, “B+ is the new C.”
An average grade in my class was an A-, and no administrator ever chastised me as long as the students were happy. When students complained about their grade, I didn’t argue but just raised the grade. Given my low salary and lack of benefits or job security, it was just too much trouble to invoke “standards” when the three or four colleges hiring me every semester didn’t seem to care about them.
RICHARD GRAYSON Brooklyn