|
|
Vol. LXIV, No. 11
|
|
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
|
|
|
|
Vol. LXIV, No. 11
|
|
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
|
 (Photo by Emily Reeves)
NIGHTMARE ON MOORE STREET: The weekend’s blockbuster of a storm inflicted a seemingly random pattern of blows on area homes. This particular stroke of fate was delivered across the street from Princeton High School. Heavy rain along with wind gusts up to 70 miles per hour toppled trees, knocked out power, and flooded basements here, there, and everywhere.
|
Felling trees and flooding basements, inflicting power outages and road closures, Saturday’s storm caused almost everyone in central New Jersey some degree of inconvenience as a result of the heavy rain and driving winds.
A partnership between New Jersey Transit and local municipalities could result in a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system replacing the much-beloved Dinky train shuttle connecting the Princeton Junction station to a site on campus.
Three Township candidates are vying for two seats in the coming School Board election on Tuesday, April 20. Finance Committee chair Dorothy Bedford is running for reelection, and newcomers Molly Chrein and Afsheen Shamsi have tossed their hats into the ring. Current Board member and Township resident Joann Cunningham, who is a member of the Personnel and Program committees, has chosen not to run for reelection.
Despite the abysmal weather, merchants reported town-wide enthusiasm for Sunday’s Princeton Pi Day, marveling at the turnout. “It’s hip to be a geek,” joked Shopping Center General Manager Chris Hanington. “It really puts you on the map.”
Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman called for a robust dialogue between scientists, social scientists, and humanists during her talk, “The Meaning of Race in the Post-Genome Era.” Sponsored by the Center for African American Studies, the James Baldwin Lecture featured Ms. Tilghman’s take on how scientific discourse has affected how people imagine race and racial categories over time.
After the Princeton University men’s basketball team topped arch-rival Penn last week, Tiger head coach Sydney Johnson got emotional as he reflected on his quartet of seniors.
A lot of college kids head down to Florida to get some rest and relaxation over spring break.
Cheryl Stevens climbed up Mt. Kilimanjaro last summer in training for her senior season with the Princeton University women’s basketball team.
If all music were to be destroyed, I would plead for the Preludes.James Huneker in “The Greater Chopin”
Say your power’s been knocked out and you’re in the dark except for a small candle faintly flickering on top of a dresser, with nothing to get you through the night but a portable CD player and Chopin’s Preludes played by Maurizio Pollini. The wind’s still howling, and unbeknownst to you, the basement’s filling with water, but you’re inside Pollini’s piano, and the glory of the music is speaking for everything, the storm, the wind, the dark, the candle, the memory of your father playing Chopin on the grand piano in the living room while your mother swooned, and somehow you’re there again and you’re happy. An hour later when you find out what happened in the basement, you realize there’s nothing you can do until morning but let the water rise. So you go back upstairs, put the headphones on, wrap yourself in a blanket, and let Chopin gather you in again.
Tracy Letts, Steppenwolf ensemble actor since 2002 and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize — and Tony Award-winning playwright for August: Osage County, commands the stage from his first angry, foul-mouthed entrance down the steep, narrow staircase into the junkshop early in the first act of David Mamet’s 1975 American Buffalo until his final subdued exit in the last minutes of the play.
New Jersey Symphony Orchestra subtitled its most recent concert series “Don Juan,” referring to the Richard Strauss tone poem which was the centerpiece of the program. However, rather than be at the core of the performance with other works bracketing, the complex Strauss piece was at the end, preceded by three other pieces full of action and stories. Guest conductor Lawrence Renes relied on his experience in opera to guide the NJSO players through a performance on Friday night in Richardson Auditorium which was full of musical narratives and drama.