Sotheby’s Raises Commissions, Following Lead of Christie’s

Less than two weeks after Christie’s announced that it was increasing the fees it charges buyers, Sotheby’s followed suit. On Thursday afternoon, when the auction house reported its 2012 financial results, it announced that it would increase what is known as its buyer’s premium - or the fees it charges buyers â€" for the first time since 2008.

Both companies had been charging 25 percent for the first $50,000; 20 percent on the amount from $50,000 to $1 million and 12 percent of the rest. Now shoppers at Sotheby’s will be charged 25 percent on the first $100,000; 20 percent from $100,000 to $1.9 million and 12 percent of the rest. For more than 98 percent of lots sold this change will represent an increase of 2 percent or less, the company said, and no sales will see more than a 3.6 percent increase in the final purchase price.

It will be slightly cheaper to buy at Cristie’s. When Christie’s increase goes into effect on March 11, it will charge 25 percent for the first $75,000; 20 percent on the next $75,001 to $1.5 million and 12 percent of the rest.

Over the last few years both auction houses have begun giving some of its biggest sellers a percentage of the buyer’s premium as an incentive to get their business, a practice which cut into profits. For the full year, Sotheby’s saw both its revenues and profits decline. Revenues in 2012 were $768.5 million, an 8 percent decline from the previous year; the company attributed much of that fall-off to a reduction in commissions. Net income was $108.3 million, a 37 percent decrease from 2011.

Board Warns Teacher for Having Two Jobs in the Same School

The New York City Conflicts of Interest Board issued a warning letter on Thursday to a teacher in Queens for having two different jobs in the same school.

The teacher, Alex Joseph Pauline, worked as both a custodial helper and a teacher at Public School 80 from 1998 to 2012, according to the letter. Custodial helpers are hired by a school’s head custodian.

Part-time secondary employment for employees of the city’s Education Department as custodial helpers is allowed under a waiver that was requested by the agency and approved by the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board in 2008. But in the letter, the board said the waiver stipulates that such employment must occur at a different school and during the summer.

Mr. Pauline, according to the letter, worked as a custodial helper during the summers and during the school year.

“Thus, by working as a custodial helper while also working as a D.O.E. teacher at the same school, you held a position wit a firm you knew was engaged in business dealings with the city in violation of City Charter,” the letter stated. In this case, the teacher was employed by the head custodian, who provides services to the Education Department and is paid by the agency.

According to the Department of Education, Mr. Pauline’s teacher salary is $67,095 per year, and his rate as a custodial helper was $18.13 per hour.

AIDS Documentary May Become ABC Miniseries

The acclaimed documentary “How to Survive a Plague,” about the genesis of the AIDS epidemic, could become a television miniseries. The Hollywood Reporter said Thursday that ABC Studios, a production company owned by the Disney/ABC Television Group, had bought the rights to the documentary so it could develop a dramatic miniseries about HIV-positive young men who, as the title implies, beat the medical odds.

David France, who co-wrote and directed the documentary, said, “We’d like it to be an extended story that’s not just about AIDS and what AIDS wrought, but about this tremendous civil rights movement that grew from the ashes of AIDS and the dawn of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement.” He said that ABC Studios was a logcal home for such a miniseries: “ABC is the network of ‘Roots.’”

“How to Survive a Plague” was nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary feature, but lost last Sunday to “Searching for Sugar Man.”

Charles Isherwood Answers Questions About the Spring Theater Season

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Maria Dizzia and Greg Keller in the New York Theater Workshop production of “Belleville.”

Charles Isherwood, theater critic for The New York Times, answers readers’ questions about the spring theater season.

Q.

Of the plays by emerging playwrights making their Broadway debuts, what are some of the most exciting and noteworthy â€" KM, New York

A.

Which Broadway season are you looking at I’m afraid I don’t see any notable new playwrights emerging on Broadway in the next couple of months. Unless you count Colm Toibin! Although he’s an acclaimed novelist this gifted Irish writer I suppose does qualify as a Broadway newbie, with “The Testament of Mary.” Broadway is not, and has not been for some time, the place to look for exciting and noteworthy emerging playwrights. That would be Off Broadway, and the regional theaters. I feel like I’m flogging a dead horse at this point, but I would urge you to check out Amy Herzog’s “Belleville” at New York Theater Workshop and Annie Baker’s “The Flick” at Playwrights Horizons if you’re looking for noteworthy new plays to see in the next couple of months.

Q.

With so many new musicals opening in the next few months, do you think any one will drown out the others â€" pl123, New York

A.

Although there is no “Book of Mormon”-size juggernaut on the horizon, the most likely candidate for attention-hogging is probably “Matilda,” the stage adaptation of a Roald Dahl book. The reason: it’s surfing in on a wave of acclaim from London. In fact, the season has been unusually quiet in terms of London imports - “Matilda” is really the first and only across-the-pond production, which is highly unusual.

I think the playing field this spring is fairly even in terms of musicals getting a fair shake: “Hands on a Hardbody” and “Kinky Boots” have both won some nice reviews out of town, but neither is a sure thing with a built-in audience, and even “Matilda” is not likely to be a known commodity outside theater aficionados.

Q.

Why so many plays â€" Mike Rafael, Montclair, N.J.

A.

This one’s pretty simple: plays are cheaper to produce. (Although nothing is cheap to produce on Broadway.) They are also simpler, for the most part, to stage. Musicals have many more working parts, which means many more collaborators to wrangle … which means more money to spend.

Q.

I received an email today about “The Testament of Mary” with Fiona Shaw. Do you have! any back! ground info on this one â€" Andrea, Peekskill, N.Y.

A.

It began life as a play - or rather a monologue - by the Irish writer Colm Toibin. (I’m a particular fan of his novel “The Master,” about Henry James.) The great Irish actress Marie Mullen, who won a Tony for “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” some time ago, performed it at the Dublin Theater Festival a few years ago. Mr. Toibin subsequently turned it into a novel, but now it is returning in its original form, with the formidable team of Ms. Shaw and her longtime collaborator, Deborah Warner, directing. This is the one highbrow entry in a spring season that’s trending, ahem, in other directions. (Nothing new there.) It will be the one you need to see if you want to impress friendsat cocktail parties of the well-heeled and the culturally well-informed.

Q.

What’s the outlook for the emergence of new producers from the under-age-35 demographic Will Broadway suffer a producer shortage in the next five to 10 years â€" Arvid, Valparaiso, Ind.

A.

To take the questions in reverse: I see no evidence that Broadway will suffer a producer shortage in the next decade. Season after season we’ve seen the 40 or so Broadway theaters remain pretty consistently booked.

What we could definitely use more of: producers who are able to look beyond the most obvious ways of connecting with audiences these days, which is to say slapping stars into road-tested vehicles, or concocting musicals from other cultural spare parts. (Read: movies.) Otherwise the fossilization of Broadway into a vapid commercial m! arketplac! e catering to everyone’s baser instincts (namely celebrity-ogling) will only continue.

As for the first question: It’s probably important to distinguish between investors and producers. The line is blurred today, since anyone who puts any significant sum into a show now has above-the-title billing once reserved for actual producers. (Open a Playbill today and you’re likely to find more names above the title than there are actors in the cast.) True producers - who develop shows from start to finish, in close collaboration with artists - remain, as far as I can tell, pretty thin on the ground. And since as a critic I have minimal engagement with them, I couldn’t tell you the average age of this rare specimen, but I suspect it’s somewhere north of 35. Jordan Roth, who now runs the Jujamcyn Theaters, is considered a babe in the industry, at the ripe age of 37.

Playing the cockeyed optimist, I would hope that producers under 35 might have more innovative ideas about how to develop new audieces and fresh ideas about what might work on Broadway, and the success of unlikely shows like “Once” offers promise that adventurous think can pay off - at least occasionally.

Q.

How do you decide where to travel to see theater that you somehow suspect might interest readers â€" Freddie, New York

A.

Mostly by the caliber of the talent involved. A new play by an established writer, or one the editors and I think is worthy of note, is always of interest. Major new musicals are relatively rare, so if time permits I like to check out as many of those as possible, although we tend not to review shows that have already announced Broadway openings.

Rock Documentary on the National Will Open Tribeca Film Festival

Tribeca Film Festival The National front man Matt Berninger, left, and his brother, Tom, the director of “Mistaken For Strangers.”

The Tribeca Film Festival will begin with a taste of Brooklyn and a nonfiction film on the Brooklyn (by way of Cincinnati) rock band the National, organizers for the festival said Thursday.

“Mistaken for Strangers,” a documentary that chronicles a tour by the National, the indie-rock quintet behind “High Violet” and other albums, will have its world premiere on the festival’s openig night, April 17, followed by a performance by the band.

The documentary is directed by Tom Berninger, a filmmaker who has a unique in with the National: he is the younger brother of the group’s front man, Matt Berninger. A news release from the Tribeca organizers further described Tom Berninger as a “newbie roadie” as well as “a heavy metal and horror movie enthusiast” whose “moonlighting as an irreverent documentarian creates some drama for the band on the road.” The news release added that “Mistaken for Strangers” was “a hilarious and touching look at two very different brothers, and an entertaining story of artistic aspiration.”

Last year’s Tribeca Film Festival opened with another rock documentary, “The Union,” about Elton John and directed by Cameron Crowe. This year’s festival will run through April 28, with the ! full slate of features expected to be announced next week.

Rock Documentary on the National Will Open Tribeca Film Festival

Tribeca Film Festival The National front man Matt Berninger, left, and his brother, Tom, the director of “Mistaken For Strangers.”

The Tribeca Film Festival will begin with a taste of Brooklyn and a nonfiction film on the Brooklyn (by way of Cincinnati) rock band the National, organizers for the festival said Thursday.

“Mistaken for Strangers,” a documentary that chronicles a tour by the National, the indie-rock quintet behind “High Violet” and other albums, will have its world premiere on the festival’s openig night, April 17, followed by a performance by the band.

The documentary is directed by Tom Berninger, a filmmaker who has a unique in with the National: he is the younger brother of the group’s front man, Matt Berninger. A news release from the Tribeca organizers further described Tom Berninger as a “newbie roadie” as well as “a heavy metal and horror movie enthusiast” whose “moonlighting as an irreverent documentarian creates some drama for the band on the road.” The news release added that “Mistaken for Strangers” was “a hilarious and touching look at two very different brothers, and an entertaining story of artistic aspiration.”

Last year’s Tribeca Film Festival opened with another rock documentary, “The Union,” about Elton John and directed by Cameron Crowe. This year’s festival will run through April 28, with the ! full slate of features expected to be announced next week.

Idina Menzel to Return to Broadway Next Spring in a New Musical

Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images Idina Menzel in January at the Screen Actors Guild awards.

The Tony Award-winning actress Idina Menzel will return to Broadway next spring for the first time since “Wicked” to star in a new musical, “If/Then,” about a woman who moves to New York seeking a fresh start as she prepares to turn 40, the show’s producer, David Stone, announced on Thursday.

“If/Then” will also be the first Broadway production by the composer Tom Kitt and the lyricist and book writer Brian Yorkey since their critically acclaimed 2009 musical, “Next to Normal,” which won three Tonys - including one for best score - as well as the Pulitzer Prize for drama.

Like “Next to Normal,” which centered on a mother struggling with mental illness, “If/Then” is a contemporary-sounding musical about a strongly drawn female protagonist, Elizabeth, who Ms. Menzel described in a statement as “complex, flawed, and surprising.” Beyond Elizabeth’s goals - a new home and friends, and hopes for a resurgent career - little else was revealed about the character in the announcement Thursday, although the titles of two of Elizabeth’s songs - “Here I Go” and “You Learn to Live Without” - offer some flavor. Ms. Menzel is expected to perform those songs on Friday at an American Songbook series concert featuring the work of Mr. Kitt and Mr. Yorkey.

“If/Thenâ€!  boasts several creative reunions. Mr. Kitt and Mr. Yorkey are again working with their “Next to Normal” director, Michael Greif, and its producer, Mr. Stone. Mr. Greif, meanwhile, directed Ms. Menzel in 1996 in her breakout performance as Maureen in the original production of “Rent,” which earned her a Tony nomination. And Mr. Stone is a producer of “Wicked,” the international blockbuster that brought Ms. Menzel to prominence - and won her a best actress Tony - in the role of the green-skinned Elphaba, who grows up to become the Wicked Witch of the West.

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Idina Menzel preparing for her role as Elphaba in “Wicked” in 2004.

Ms. Menzel, who also played Maureen in the 2005 film adaptation of “Rent” and has been a guest star in several episodes of the Fox series “Glee,” said in the statement that she had been “eager to find a project where the material was exciting and new and spoke to my heart.” “I’m thrilled to have finally found it,” added Ms. Menzel, who left the Broadway company of “Wicked” in early 2005.

Mr. Stone, in a telephone interview on Thursday, said he was attracted to the project because of the chance to work again with the four artists, and because of the material. “The show is really about how we choose our lives and how our lives choose us, themes that I find very rich and very moving,” he said.

Mr. Kitt and Mr. Yorkey wrote a six-page treatment of “If/Then” in 2008 during the out-of-town run of “Next to Normal” in Washington, Mr. Stone said, and! since th! en they have had three developmental workshops, all involving Ms. Menzel. A fourth is planned for April, after which the team will prepare for a pre-Broadway run at the National Theater in Washington. The musical is to begin preview performances there on Nov. 5 and open on Nov. 24.

The Broadway production, which will be at a Nederlander theater to be announced later, is scheduled to begin previews on March 4, 2014, and open on March 27. Mr. Stone declined to provide a budget estimate for the show but said it would be “midsize” - which means more than the $4-million “Next to Normal” but less than the big-cast Broadway musicals that can cost around $15 million. He said the cast of “If/Then,” in its current shape, included 16 actors or so.

Tom Petty to Play Intimate Shows in New York and Los Angeles

Chad Batka for The New York Times Tom Petty at Madison Square Garden in 2010.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers will play five nights at the Beacon Theater in May, a rare string of shows at a 2,900-seat hall for a veteran rock group that can easily fill arenas, the group announced on Thursday.

Live Nation, the concert promoter, said it was the first time Mr. Petty and his group had played the Beacon in the band’s 35-year career, though that statement could not immediately be confirmed. The band will appear at the Beacon on May 20, 21, 3, 25 and 26; tickets go on sale March 25.

Mr. Petty will follow up that series of concerts in New York with a six-night stand at another intimate space on the West Coast â€" the Fonda Theater in Los Angeles. The band also announced it will perform at several summer festivals, including the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Tennessee , the Hangout Music Festival in Alabama and the Firefly Music Festival in Delaware.

Over the years, Mr. Petty has occasionally taken a break from arenas to perform in smaller music halls, including a 20-show run in 1997 at the Fillmore in San Francisco and a five-night run at Chicago’s Vic Theater in 2003.

The Case of the Missing Cemetery Tulip

Vera Swensen Vera Swensen’s Valentine offerings at the grave of her son Mark Santiago at St. Raymond Cemetery in the Bronx included an “I Love You” balloon and a solar-powered light shaped like a tulip.

Two days before Valentine’s Day, Vera Swensen visited her son’s grave at St. Raymond Cemetery in the Bronx, as she had most days since he died in 2007 at age 28.

As she often does on special occasions, she left him some gifts: balloons that said “I LoveYou,” a box of chocolates and a tulip-shaped solar-powered light that glows at night.

“I consider Mark my shining star, and in return I always want him to have a light where he is now in St. Raymond’s,” Ms. Swensen explained in an e-mail. The light was still there on Feb. 16, she said.

On Feb 17, a Sunday, a security guard at the cemetery saw a man he thought was acting suspiciously. He asked to take the man’s picture.

The man, Louis Peduto, posed for the guard’s camera. In his hand he held a tulip-shaped light.

Courtesy N.Y.P.D. Louis Peduto, phot! ographed at St. Raymond Cemetery in the Bronx on Feb. 17, held a tulip-shaped light like one left at Mark Santiago’s grave.

On Feb. 18, the police say, Mr. Peduto tried to steal a sackful of brass fixtures from the cemetery. The same guard saw him, the guard’s employers said, and confronted him and went to summon the police. When he returned, the guard said, the bag was there, but Mr. Peduto was gone.

Mr. Peduto, who is 56 and homeless, was found and arrested the next day. When Ms. Swensen returned to her son’s grave the day Mr. Peduto was arrested, she said, the tulip-shaped light she had left was gone.

Last Saturday at Rikers Island, where he is being held on felony charges of grand larceny and cemetery desecration, Mr. Peduto said he did not take the tulip light from the grave of Ms. Swensen’s son Mark Santiago.

Nor, for that matter, he said, did hetry to take the metal goods he is accused of stealing - 11 brass grates, two brass door handles, and copper and brass wire, all found in the sack, according to a criminal complaint. He said he was not even at the cemetery the day the guard saw the man with the sack.

“I’m not the monster they’re making me out to be, robbing graves like a ghoul,” Mr. Peduto said in the Rikers visiting room, his six-foot, 200-pound frame perched on a small plastic chair.

He noted that in some accounts he was accused of taking four doors from the cemetery. “Those doors weigh 300 to 400 to 500 pounds,” he said. “How am I even going to carry that On my back I’m not Superman.” (According to the complaint, Mr. Peduto confessed that he had been taking brass goods from the cemetery for about two weeks and had made $200 selling them.)

Mr. Peduto grew vague and indirect in his responses when asked abou! t the tul! ip light, but he said he had bought it and left it at the grave of a family member at St. Raymond. A cemetery representative said that there were many people buried there with the last name Peduto.

Ms. Swensen, 62, said last week that she was convinced Mr. Peduto took the light.

“Believe me it’s not about the lite, it wasn’t expensive,” she wrote in a comment on City Room. “It’s about I left it for my son, a light to shine at nite. Shame shame on that man.”

This Friday would have been the 34th birthday of Mr. Santiago, who died of a pancreatic infection. Ms. Swensen and her family will celebrate the way they always do: a meal of his favorite foods - this year, sausage and peppers with mozzarella and a napoleon cake - followed by a visit to his grave, where she plans to leave flowers and balloons and some other present.

Ms. Swensen said hr older son tells her to stop leaving things at Mark’s grave. “I don’t think I’ll change,” she said. “We’re going to leave things for him.”

She said she hoped the birthday tokens would not be removed.

’30 Rock’ and the Celebrity Cameo That Got Away

Has any half-hour comedy in recent years had a better track record securing celebrity cameos than “30 Rock”

Before it ended its seven-year run last month, the superbly produced show featured appearances by, among others, Oprah Winfrey, Jerry Seinfeld, Condoleezza Rice, James Franco and Jim Carrey. Yet at a panel with a group of writers from the show at the Paley Center for Media last night, Tina Fey, its creator and star, revealed that there was one that got away: Dr. Zizmor, the dermatologist whose ads are famously plastered all over the New York subway system. “Zizmor turned us down,” Ms. Fey said urgently, before offeing up her her imitation of his wife’s imagined (and taken aback) reaction to the suggestion. “[She] was like, ‘He’s a doctor.’”

Ms. Fey â€" who reflected on the beloved show with Robert Carlock, who helped launch “30 Rock,” Colleen McGuinness, Josh Siegal and Dylan Morgan â€" answered questions about the show cheerfully but without much sentiment. She took pride in the writers’ accomplishments and generally downplayed any talk of grand visions, explaining that the manic energy of the show might have come from anxiety that it was going to be cancelled. When asked by the moderator, Emily Nussbaum, the television critic for The New Yorker, if there was any benefit that came from being on a broadcast network rather than on cable, she said that not being able to curse was a helpful constraint.

Some of the most interesting avenues of discussion were about what didn’t receive positive response. Ms. Fey said the audience didn’t like it when they introduced love interests fo! r Jack Donaghy, played by Alec Baldwin. And a plot line involving an affair between Pete (played by Scott Adsit) and Jenna (Jane Krakowski) was dropped after a table read. “It tanked,” she said. “People were creeped out by it.”

After an hour or so, the audience was invited to ask questions. One young female comedian asked for advice. Ms. Fey said stage time in front of an audience is key, then added, ”Always wear a bra, even if you think you don’t need it.”

Before a Fare Increase, Squeezing Every Cent Out of Your MetroCard

Beginning on Sunday, base fares for subways and buses will rise by a quarter, to $2.50. The cost of a 30-day unlimited MetroCard will increase by $8, to $112.

In this dark hour, there is perhaps only one force that can provide a refuge for riders: math!

The central calculation for many MetroCard users â€" whether to purchase a pay-per-ride card or a 30-day unlimited card â€" is fairly simple. Under the new fare structure, the “break-even point,” when buying an unlimited card becomes the better deal, is 48 rides, given the pay-per-ride bonuses afforded to riders. The old number was 50. (For a full accounting, see this post.)

The more cumbersome task is deciphering how riders can squeeze out maximum value during the final days of the old fares.

For time-based cards, like the 30-day pass, the clock does not begin ticking until a card is first used â€" regardless of when it is purchased. But to quell the threat of bulk-buying before the change, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has decreed that for cards purchased before the increase kicks in, the 30-day clock starts ticking March 11 or on first use, whichever is earlier.

So how can a 30-day cardholder beat the system in the days to come It depends on how expertly the last card purchase was timed. Here’s the breakdown:

1) If your card will expire before March 11, the choice is easy. Buy a new 30-day card before Sunday, at the old rate of $104, and then begin using it once the old card is up.

2) If your card expires just after the March 11 ! deadline, the equation becomes trickier. Divide the cost of any existing card ($104) by the number of days it can be used (30), and you’ll find that a rider pays nearly $3.47 per day for an unlimited card.

If a rider stops using the old card with, say, two days left, then, he is not collecting on double that value, or $6.93. But at $112, the new 30-day card costs $8 more than one purchased before this Sunday.

As a result, even riders holding a 30-day card that expires on March 12 or March 13 can, in effect, save money by buying a new card before the price goes up. (For that giddy day or two after March 11, you will have two valid unlimited-ride cards. Perhaps you could lend one to a friend or use one to get around the 18-minute subway-swipe limit and swipe in a stranger as you enter.)

3) The implication, unfortunately, is that anyone whose 30-day card expires later in March is out of luck. Perhaps a gentle soul with a preferable expiration date will buy fellow riders lunch.

(Note tat all calculations assume that riders reuse existing cards to avoid a $1 surcharge for purchasing a new card, and use the system with the same frequency each day. If a rider knew, for instance, that he was going to be out of the city until late March, the analysis would be moot.)

PATH to Resume Weekend Service to Lower Manhattan

Ruth Fremson/The New York Times PATH train service is returning to a normal operating schedule this weekend for the first time since Hurricane Sandy ravaged the system.

The PATH train will resume weekend service between New Jersey and Lower Manhattan on Friday, marking the first time since Hurricane Sandy that all of the system’s trains are once again operating on a normal schedule.

When the storm struck in October, the tunnels between New York and New Jersey were flooded with millions of gallons of salt water, and removing the water and repairing the damage has been a monumental challenge.

A video showing water bursting through a closed elevator and emptying into a PATH station became one of the more memorable images of the hurricane.

The Port Authority, which runs the PATH service, said at the time that it “experienced an unprecedented amount of flooding, damaging multiple types of equipment, including those for signaling and train control.”

In all, the storm caused about $800 million in damage to the PATH service, according to the authority. The loss of the service was particularly burdensome to commuters in Hoboken, N.J., many of whom rely on the trains for travel.

One month after the storm, when partial PATH service was restored, it was hailed as a sign of Hoboken’s slow recovery.

But it took longer to reopen the line that runs between Exchange Place in Jersey City and the World Trade Center â€" which includes stops in Newark! , Harrison and Grove Street in Jersey City.

Weekday service on the line resumed in January. And when the trains start running again this weekend, it will mark a full return to prestorm operations.

Steven Spielberg Will Be Jury President at Cannes Film Festival

Cannes Film Festival Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg may have gone home empty-handed at the Academy Awards on Sunday night, but on Thursday he was bestowed another prestigious cinematic honor (besides the fact that, you know, he gets to be Steven Spielberg every day of his life): he will serve as president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in May, its organizers said.

Mr. Spielberg, an Oscar winner for “Schindler’s List” and “Saving Private Ryan” and most recently a nominee for “Lincoln,” has shown his motion pictures at Cannes including “The Sugarland Express,” which won the festival’s best screenplay award in 1974; also, his blockbuster “E.T. the Exra Terrestrial” had its world premiere there as the festival’s closing film in 1982. “Ever since,” Gilles Jacob, the president of the Cannes festival, said in a statement, “I’ve often asked Steven to be Jury President, but he’s always been shooting a film. So when this year I was told ‘E.T., phone home,’ I understood and immediately replied: ‘At last!’”

Thierry Frémaux, the festival’s “general delegate,” said that Mr. Spielberg had accepted the offer to head the festival’s jury president “in principle two years ago,” and was able to fulfill the commitment this year, when the festival will run May 15 through 26.

Mr. Spielberg, who succeeds previous jury presidents including Robert De Niro and Nanni Moretti, said in a statement: “My admiration for the steadfast mission of the Festival to champion the international language of movies is second to none. The most prestigious of its kind, the festival has always established the motion picture as a cross cu! ltural and generational medium.”

Guns and the Pulpit

Dear Diary:

The pastor flings excited beads of sweat from his brow as he preaches to the packed pews of his Harlem congregation at First Corinthian Baptist Church. His enthusiasm echoes in a shared buzz of gratitude. We are happy to be alive. Happy to come together on this Sunday, a day unique to all those anteceding and all that will follow.

The change in mood is sudden. Spontaneous “Amens” and “Thank yous” ripple into silence. The pastor has posed a request: “I want all those who have lost a loved one from gun violence to walk to the front.”

Half the congregation rises from their pews and files toward the pulpit.

I stay seated. I am one of a handful of white faces scattered among the crowd. My friend hugs her 8-year-old son tightly. To her, he is the world. To the world, he is another young black male, teetering on the edge of morbid statistics. Today she avoids the long walk to the pulpit, but tomorrow holds no guarantees. His future and the future of this communityare being decided in other parts of town.

I turn my head to the left. The pew stands completely empty. A moment before, those same seats were filled with flesh-and-blood people who have become eclipsed by data and information trends. I gaze across the barren sea of crushed red velvet with tightness in my chest. How will we find a unified decision when half of us are gone

Read all recent entries and our updated submissions guidelines. Reach us via e-mail diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.

Oral History Group and ‘POV’ Producer Receive $1 Million Grants

Two Brooklyn public media organizations are among 13 winners of a 2013 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, being announced Thursday by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

StoryCorps, which records and collects oral histories, and its occasional collaborator American Documentary, which produces the PBS series “POV,” will receive $1 million each. Dave Isay, StoryCorps’ founder and a 2000 MacArthur Genius Grant winner, said in a telephone interview that in addition to bolstering reserves, the money would go toward making StoryCorps’ digital archive of more than 45,000 (and growing) stories publicly available. StoryCorps owns the stories’ rights, but “we have to be very, very careful,” Mr. Isay said, citing concerns about privacy and identity theft.

Simon Kilmurry, American Documentary’s executive director, said by phone that the award would both aid the constructio of a public screening room and “give us a real solid financial base,” including some unrestricted funds to support projects and films.

Among the other winners, Housing Partnership Network, a Boston organization that facilitates collaboration among affordable housing and community development leaders, was awarded the largest grant, $1.5 million.

Oral History Group and ‘POV’ Producer Receive $1 Million Grants

Two Brooklyn public media organizations are among 13 winners of a 2013 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, being announced Thursday by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

StoryCorps, which records and collects oral histories, and its occasional collaborator American Documentary, which produces the PBS series “POV,” will receive $1 million each. Dave Isay, StoryCorps’ founder and a 2000 MacArthur Genius Grant winner, said in a telephone interview that in addition to bolstering reserves, the money would go toward making StoryCorps’ digital archive of more than 45,000 (and growing) stories publicly available. StoryCorps owns the stories’ rights, but “we have to be very, very careful,” Mr. Isay said, citing concerns about privacy and identity theft.

Simon Kilmurry, American Documentary’s executive director, said by phone that the award would both aid the constructio of a public screening room and “give us a real solid financial base,” including some unrestricted funds to support projects and films.

Among the other winners, Housing Partnership Network, a Boston organization that facilitates collaboration among affordable housing and community development leaders, was awarded the largest grant, $1.5 million.

2 Views of Buildings Around Grand Central: Special or Just Old

It is possible to look at the 80- and 90-year-old towers around Grand Central Terminal as buildings that give east Midtown the desirable luster of civic history. It is equally possible to look at them as the buildings that give east Midtown the deathly shroud of commercial obsolescence. (As the photos above are meant to show, it is also possible to see the buildings in either light.)

David W. Dunlap/The New York Times

The Bloomberg administration is advancing an ambitious rezoning proposal for east Midtown (PDF) that would increase allowable building density and encourage developers to assemble lrge sites for enormous new office towers. To earn greater density, developers would pay for improvements to the pedestrian network. In some cases, they could build even denser buildings if their designs made what the City Planning Department called “a significant contribution to the skyline.”

But not if there are landmarks in the middle of the development sites.

So the question of whether any more buildings in east Midtown merit official landmark status â€" besides those that are already designated â€"  is more than a preservation issue. It could affect the city’s economy.

Two position papers released Wednesday answered the question quite differently.

In “Icons, Placeholders and Leftovers: Midtown East Report” (PDF), the Real Estate Board of New York and its allies in the Midtown21C coalition concluded, “The critical landmarks have been designated.” They rejected every building identified by preservation groups as being worthy of landmark consideration.

“Landmarking runs the risk of slowing or stopping the fission process of continuous transformation that has created Midtown East,” said the report, which was prepared by the consultants George E. Thomas and Susn Nigra Snyder of Philadelphia and Joel S. Weinstein, an engineer in New York.

“Any disruption in the process runs the risk of stalling or stopping development â€" and curtailing one of the great sources of real estate and wage taxes that pay the city’s regional bills,” the report said.

Besides that, the report said, a landmark designation can threaten the very building it is intended to protect, since masonry towers built before World War II suffer from the “inherent vice” of materials that have reached the end of their life spans or were assembled with insufficient safeguards against moisture, weathering and wear.

“Inherent vice threatens the integrity of a building,” the report said, “and has the potential to destroy the economic basis of its use.”

Old Acquaintances Remember Van Cliburn

Neal Boenzi/The New York Times Van Cliburn during a ticket-tape parade in New York after returning from Moscow after winning the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow in 1958.

To the world, he was the famous concert pianist who gave an uncertain nation a shot of confidence in those tense months after Sputnik. “The Texan who conquered Russia,” Time magazine called him. But to the people who saw him carrying furniture on West 57th Street, he was just another 20-something, moving to a new apartment. And mostly doing it himself.

“I would bump into Van carrying a chair or a small tabe,” said the pianist Gary Graffman, who later took an apartment in the building Mr. Cliburn had vacated. “That’s how he moved.” Mr. Graffman’s wife, Naomi, added, “I suspect things like his piano, he didn’t move himself.”

Mr. Cliburn, who died on Wednesday, had triumphed at the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958. That was after he had won another important contest, the Leventritt Competition, in 1954 â€" and after countless wake-up calls from Mrs. Graffman, who worked for his manager at Columbia Artists Management in those days.

Every morning, starting about 10 a.m., Mrs. Graffman would call the switchboard in the Osborne, the apartment house at 205 West 57th Street where Mr. Cliburn lived in the mid-1950s and where the Graffmans have lived since 1962.

“He liked to sleep late,” Mr. Graffman said. “Mrs. Hughes, w! ho was down at the desk, would ring and keep ringing. It somehow didn’t register until 11 o’clock.”

Around 12:45, she said, “I’d be sitting at my typewriter and the door would open, and his head would pop in â€" his head, which seemed to be about 12 feet off the ground. He’d say, ‘Honey, I’m hungry.’ We’d go downstairs to Beefburger Hall, which is now a pizzeria, and we’d have a beef burger for 35 cents. I always paid, and if I was feeling rich, I’d have a cheeseburger for 45 cents.”

Mr. Cliburn soon made enough money from concerts and recordings to afford more than a burger. But by the 1970s, he was not making recordings very often. Thomas Z. Shepard, who took over as the vice president of Mr. Cliburn’s label, RCA Red Seal, said there was a reason.

“He had once taken a low-interest loan, I think it was 3 percent, and he used it to buy real estate and he did very well,” he said. “He was in no hurry to repay the loan and RCA didn’t care that much, either.They wanted to keep him happy. But whenever he came in to record, instead of getting any money for the recording, they would deduct his fee from what he owed them. And even though that was perfectly sensible and civilized, that deincentivized Van. He didn’t see why he should break his chops when he wasn’t going to make any money.”

Mrs. Graffman remembered Mr. Cliburn’s debut with the New York Philharmonic, soon after he won the Leventritt Competition â€" and the party after the concert, at the Park Avenue apartment of Rosalie Leventritt, the widow of Edgar Leventritt, a lawyer and amateur pianist who had started the competition.

“There were two planeloads of Texans who came for the concert,” Mrs. Graffman said. “In the old days, before they renovated Carnegie Hall, there was a long staircase backstage to go up to the green room, and hundreds of people pushing ahead like an ocean. We were with Mrs. Leventritt, and Van was standing at the top. He called down to her, ‘Honey, ! you see a! ll these people They’re all coming to your party.’ It was an absolute madhouse. She wasn’t expecting 500 extra people.”

Online Play Helps ‘Harlem Shake’ Reign at No. 1

Julie Glassberg for The New York Times Baauer performing in September.

“Harlem Shake” still has plenty of shake left in it.

Baauer’s song “Harlem Shake” has nothing to do with the actual dance of that name, but has inspired thousands of people to upload videos to YouTube of themselves flailing about to the track. And it holds at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100, the magazine’s standard pop singles chart.

The song benefits from a recent change in Billboard’s chart methodology that incorporates YouTube views along with sales, airplay and other fors of audio streaming. The song â€" or qualified excerpts of it â€" had 98 million streams in the United States last week including thousands of videos on YouTube, a drop of just 5 percent from the 103 million it drew the week before, the first time that Billboard and its partner, Nielsen SoundScan, counted those views.

But YouTube wasn’t the only place where “Harlem Shake” was a hit. It went to the top of iTunes’s rankings as well, and SoundScan counted 297,000 downloads of the song last week, enough to make it the second-most downloaded song of the week.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’s “Thrift Shop” has exactly the opposite standings on Billboard’s song charts this week: It is the top digital track, with 300,000 downloads, but was held at No. 2 on the Hot 100 by the “Harlem Shake” phenomenon.

Also on the chart this week, Mumford & Sons’ “Babel” (Glassnote) remains the top-selling album. This is the album’s fifth week at No. 1, but! with 63,000 sales, it is a 66 percent drop from the week before â€" when it enjoyed a post-Grammy Award boost â€" and the lowest sales for a No. 1 album since August, when Zac Brown Band’s “Uncaged” had 48,000, according to Billboard.

Another “shake” had a notable showing on the chart this week, in an otherwise slow week of music sales. The band Alabama Shakes, jumped 14 spots to No. 6 with 33,000 sales of its album “Boys & Girls” (ATO), following recent performances at the Grammys and on “Saturday Night Live.”

Charges Tie Son and 2nd Man to Mother’s Dismembered Body

Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press The police on Tuesday guarded one of the locations in the Bronx where a dismembered body was found in plastic bags.

The son of a woman whose body was found dismembered and deposited in bags around a Bronx neighborhood was charged on Wednesday with two felonies related to the improper disposal of her body, as detectives continued questioning him and a friend about the killing itself.

The police charged the son, identified as Bashid McLean, 23, and the friend, William Harris, 26, with unlawful dissection of a human body and hindering prosecution, accusing them of having worked together to cut up the dead body of Mr. McLean’s 45-year-old mother, Tanya Byrd.

In addition, the police charged Mr. Harris with possession of stolen property and marijuana possession.

The circumstances of Ms. Byrd’s death remains under investigation. The police said Mr. McLean and Mr. Harris accused each other of having killed her.

The medical examiner has yet to determine a cause of death.

The police said that the two men made the task of determining the cause much more difficult because of the grisly method by which they disposed of her body, cutting it into pieces with a saw and distributing the remains in four bags around Melrose in the Bronx.

Detectives found evidence in Ms. Byrdâ! €™s apartment - a few blocks from the area where her body was found by a dog-walker early Tuesday morning - that she had been dismembered there, including a box for a saw, the police said.

Friends remembered Ms. Byrd as a friendly mother of a young son with Down syndrome and an older son, Mr. McLean, who was withdrawn.

At least one neighbor recalled regularly hearing a woman yelling in Ms. Byrd’s apartment.

New York, Past and Present: Cynthia Zarin Talks About ‘An Enlarged Heart’

In the personal essays that make up her new book, “An Enlarged Heart,” Cynthia Zarin writes about the changing face of New York City, the pleasures of a good coat, and her life as a poet and journalist, including her time at The New Yorker magazine. In a recent e-mail interview, Ms. Zarin discussed these subjects and more. Below are edited excerpts from the conversation:

Q.

On the first page of the book, you call yourself “the most provincial person in the world.” But in these essays you recall traveling to Rome and Venice and working for The New Yorker. What makes you provincial

A.

Well, I live only a few blocks from where I was born, and my children were born in the same hospital, Mt. Sinai, asI was â€" that’s unusual, I think, these days. I’ve done some fairly ordinary traveling, and in the periods when I was writing for The New Yorker I traveled a bit on assignment, but compared to many people I’ve stayed fixed, and I tend to like to return to places I’ve been: blocks, restaurants, cities.

Q.

Later you write that your “ear for languages,” including English at times, is “almost nonexistent.” You’ve written several books of poetry. Are you a poet because of, or in spite of, this problematic ear

A.

I am terrible at languages. At school I was relieved of the language requirement because I was hopeless. Right now I am trying to learn Italian, with my youngest daughter. She is streets ahead of me. I think for me language often takes the form of words spoken or sung just out of earshot, and I found early on that it was important to me to try to hear what was being said, by me or by others, and try to get it right. B! ut precision often yields to mystery. I find language elusive.

Q.

The book’s title essay, about trying to diagnose a frightening bout of illness your daughter suffered when she was young, reads differently than the other pieces; less ruminative and more headlong, for obvious reasons. Was the process of writing it different than the others

A.

“An Enlarged Heart” was written only a few weeks after a terrible time in the life of my family. I wrote it almost all at once, on an old Selectric typewriter on a desk in my bedroom when we returned to New York. The piece was a way of finding language to describe something that, to me, was so shocking and had so changed how I thought about things. In order to know what I felt, I had to write it down. It’s not an elliptical piece.

Q.

Coats and shoes and curtains, among ther things, serve as strong prompts to your memory throughout the book. What is it about clothes and decor that capture your imagination as a writer

A.

I think that the things we love and that we choose often find us â€" or that in finding them, or keeping them, we reveal a little bit of our dream life. When I was about 13 or 14, my mother declared she would not go shopping with me anymore, because I was looking for something that was in my head, rather than on the racks of Bonwit Teller in 1974; a Platonic Closet, rather than a Platonic Cave! I was reading in Grace Coddington’s memoir the other day that Alexander McQueen sewed talismans into his clothes â€" an impulse I understand.

Q.

In a few essays, particularly in “! Restauran! ts,” there’s an elegiac sense of what disappears from New York over time. Having lived here a long time, is there a particular closed-up place you miss the most

A.

The other day I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and I found myself thinking about the pool in the cafeteria. It was made of green marble, I think, and when I was a child we used to throw pennies into it â€" that’s a real loss; it was magic: a lagoon in the center of the museum! And the Éclair Bakery on West 86th Street; in my twenties, when I was feeling blue, I used to walk over there and eat â€" what else â€" eclairs. Isaac Bashevis Singer lived down the block and I often saw him there. And Zito’s on Bleecker Street â€" I was there on the day they closed and I asked if I could have the bread board and Zito said, “what do you want that for,” and I have it in my kitchen. And Café des Artistes, and the old movie theaters, the Thalia and The New Yorker, which was like walking down into a nautilusâ€

Sara Barrett Cynthia Zarin

Q.

The last and longest piece in the book is about your time working at The New Yorker, as an assistant to its legendary editor William Shawn and later as a writer. You refer to it as “the magazine” until three pages into the essay, and you also write about E. B. White without ever naming him. Is this a coyness meant to mirror that of the magazine

A.

That’s interesting. I think I was writing internally: that is, it was always spoken of simply as “the magazine,” so that is the locution that comes naturally to me. There are many people in the book who are not named â€" some of th! ese were ! editorial decisions, and decisions to protect privacy. With E. B. White, the decision was that any reader who cared who it was would know who it was, as you did, and if they didn’t know, it wouldn’t matter very much. And I’m not sure I’d describe the magazine as coy: I think there was a fierceness about privacy, and about the importance of inference, which is a kind of respect for the reader.

Q.

You write that after Shawn’s tenure ended and you left the offices, “it took a long time for me to know how to think again.” What do you mean by that

A.

William Shawn created an atmosphere, by legerdemain, on purpose, by default, what have you, in which writers, even ones who were virtually untried, as I was, were given a kind of quiet nod in which space and sometimes huge swaths of time were granted for writing and thinking. For me, and for others, that was formative. It ended abruptly, with a kind of violence, and it doesn’t exist anymor.. When I left the magazine I felt that without it I didn’t know how to put two sentences together. It was a kind of aphasia. I grew up and out of that â€" one does â€" but it took a while, and longer than I might like to admit.

Q.

There have been many book-length memoirs about working at the magazine. Were you ever tempted to write one yourself, or does this essay represent all you want to say about it

A.

This essay was a surprise: that is, I had in the back of my mind that I wanted to write something about Mary McCarthy’s Regency chest, which by a series of events had come into my possession â€" and I thought the essay would be generally about furniture, and specifically about Mary McCarthy, who is part of the furniture, one might say, of my reading and writing life. But when I began it quickly turned into something else â€" a meditation! , really,! about Mr. Shawn and The New Yorker, and the life of the magazine and what it meant to me and to people I came to love. Allen Shawn had written a memoir in which he discussed his familyâ€"without that, I do not think I would have felt comfortable doing so. In any case, I hadn’t planned to say anything about the magazine publicly, really. Whether it is the last word or not, I have learned not to predict what I am going to say about anything, but at the moment, this is it.

New York, Past and Present: Cynthia Zarin Talks About ‘An Enlarged Heart’

In the personal essays that make up her new book, “An Enlarged Heart,” Cynthia Zarin writes about the changing face of New York City, the pleasures of a good coat, and her life as a poet and journalist, including her time at The New Yorker magazine. In a recent e-mail interview, Ms. Zarin discussed these subjects and more. Below are edited excerpts from the conversation:

Q.

On the first page of the book, you call yourself “the most provincial person in the world.” But in these essays you recall traveling to Rome and Venice and working for The New Yorker. What makes you provincial

A.

Well, I live only a few blocks from where I was born, and my children were born in the same hospital, Mt. Sinai, asI was â€" that’s unusual, I think, these days. I’ve done some fairly ordinary traveling, and in the periods when I was writing for The New Yorker I traveled a bit on assignment, but compared to many people I’ve stayed fixed, and I tend to like to return to places I’ve been: blocks, restaurants, cities.

Q.

Later you write that your “ear for languages,” including English at times, is “almost nonexistent.” You’ve written several books of poetry. Are you a poet because of, or in spite of, this problematic ear

A.

I am terrible at languages. At school I was relieved of the language requirement because I was hopeless. Right now I am trying to learn Italian, with my youngest daughter. She is streets ahead of me. I think for me language often takes the form of words spoken or sung just out of earshot, and I found early on that it was important to me to try to hear what was being said, by me or by others, and try to get it right. B! ut precision often yields to mystery. I find language elusive.

Q.

The book’s title essay, about trying to diagnose a frightening bout of illness your daughter suffered when she was young, reads differently than the other pieces; less ruminative and more headlong, for obvious reasons. Was the process of writing it different than the others

A.

“An Enlarged Heart” was written only a few weeks after a terrible time in the life of my family. I wrote it almost all at once, on an old Selectric typewriter on a desk in my bedroom when we returned to New York. The piece was a way of finding language to describe something that, to me, was so shocking and had so changed how I thought about things. In order to know what I felt, I had to write it down. It’s not an elliptical piece.

Q.

Coats and shoes and curtains, among ther things, serve as strong prompts to your memory throughout the book. What is it about clothes and decor that capture your imagination as a writer

A.

I think that the things we love and that we choose often find us â€" or that in finding them, or keeping them, we reveal a little bit of our dream life. When I was about 13 or 14, my mother declared she would not go shopping with me anymore, because I was looking for something that was in my head, rather than on the racks of Bonwit Teller in 1974; a Platonic Closet, rather than a Platonic Cave! I was reading in Grace Coddington’s memoir the other day that Alexander McQueen sewed talismans into his clothes â€" an impulse I understand.

Q.

In a few essays, particularly in “! Restauran! ts,” there’s an elegiac sense of what disappears from New York over time. Having lived here a long time, is there a particular closed-up place you miss the most

A.

The other day I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and I found myself thinking about the pool in the cafeteria. It was made of green marble, I think, and when I was a child we used to throw pennies into it â€" that’s a real loss; it was magic: a lagoon in the center of the museum! And the Éclair Bakery on West 86th Street; in my twenties, when I was feeling blue, I used to walk over there and eat â€" what else â€" eclairs. Isaac Bashevis Singer lived down the block and I often saw him there. And Zito’s on Bleecker Street â€" I was there on the day they closed and I asked if I could have the bread board and Zito said, “what do you want that for,” and I have it in my kitchen. And Café des Artistes, and the old movie theaters, the Thalia and The New Yorker, which was like walking down into a nautilusâ€

Sara Barrett Cynthia Zarin

Q.

The last and longest piece in the book is about your time working at The New Yorker, as an assistant to its legendary editor William Shawn and later as a writer. You refer to it as “the magazine” until three pages into the essay, and you also write about E. B. White without ever naming him. Is this a coyness meant to mirror that of the magazine

A.

That’s interesting. I think I was writing internally: that is, it was always spoken of simply as “the magazine,” so that is the locution that comes naturally to me. There are many people in the book who are not named â€" some of th! ese were ! editorial decisions, and decisions to protect privacy. With E. B. White, the decision was that any reader who cared who it was would know who it was, as you did, and if they didn’t know, it wouldn’t matter very much. And I’m not sure I’d describe the magazine as coy: I think there was a fierceness about privacy, and about the importance of inference, which is a kind of respect for the reader.

Q.

You write that after Shawn’s tenure ended and you left the offices, “it took a long time for me to know how to think again.” What do you mean by that

A.

William Shawn created an atmosphere, by legerdemain, on purpose, by default, what have you, in which writers, even ones who were virtually untried, as I was, were given a kind of quiet nod in which space and sometimes huge swaths of time were granted for writing and thinking. For me, and for others, that was formative. It ended abruptly, with a kind of violence, and it doesn’t exist anymor.. When I left the magazine I felt that without it I didn’t know how to put two sentences together. It was a kind of aphasia. I grew up and out of that â€" one does â€" but it took a while, and longer than I might like to admit.

Q.

There have been many book-length memoirs about working at the magazine. Were you ever tempted to write one yourself, or does this essay represent all you want to say about it

A.

This essay was a surprise: that is, I had in the back of my mind that I wanted to write something about Mary McCarthy’s Regency chest, which by a series of events had come into my possession â€" and I thought the essay would be generally about furniture, and specifically about Mary McCarthy, who is part of the furniture, one might say, of my reading and writing life. But when I began it quickly turned into something else â€" a meditation! , really,! about Mr. Shawn and The New Yorker, and the life of the magazine and what it meant to me and to people I came to love. Allen Shawn had written a memoir in which he discussed his familyâ€"without that, I do not think I would have felt comfortable doing so. In any case, I hadn’t planned to say anything about the magazine publicly, really. Whether it is the last word or not, I have learned not to predict what I am going to say about anything, but at the moment, this is it.

AMC Confirms New Show Runner for ‘The Walking Dead’

AMC Scott M. Gimple, a writer and producer for “The Walking Dead,” has been named the new show runner of the series.

“The Walking Dead,” the hit AMC horror series, will live on for its fourth season under the stewardship of a new show runner, Scott M. Gimple, the cable channel has confirmed. Mr. Gimple, a writer and producer who joined “The Walking Dead” in its second season (and whose previous credits include the television series “FlashForward” and the film “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance”), was first reported to have been promoted to the position of show runner b the Hollywood trade publications in January. At that time, AMC had about as much to say about the news as a zombified corpse might. But on Wednesday, the cable channel finally confirmed his appointment in a news release that also announced production on Season 4 of “The Walking Dead” would begin in Atlanta on May 6.

Mr. Gimple is the third  show runner in the short but highly successful run of “The Walking Dead.” He succeeds Glen Mazzara, who ran the series in its second and third seasons, and who announced in December he was parting ways with AMC over unspecified creative differences. Mr. Mazzara had replaced Frank Darabont, the filmmaker behind “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Green Mile,” who originally developed â! €œThe Walking Dead” from the comics of the same title, and who left the series after its first season.

Smithsonian Says Looming Cuts ‘Won’t Affect the Public’ - for Now

Despite automatic federal spending cuts scheduled to take effect on Friday, the Smithsonian Institution has promised to keep its 19 museums and the National Zoo in Washington open for their regular hours, The Associated Press reported.

“Right now, it won’t affect the public,” Linda St. Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Smithsonian, said. Ms. St. Thomas said that the scheduled 5 percent cut - some $40 million â€" would be applied to maintenance, new construction, hiring, research, training and travel. The Smithsonian, which employs about 6,000 people, received $857 million from the federal government this fiscal year.

The director of the National Zoo, Dennis Kelly, said the zoo has been hoarding cash to make sure it has enough to care for its animals and continue its research, according to The A.P. “We think we have a plan that allws us to squeak through to the end of this fiscal year, ” Mr. Kelly said. “But we can’t sustain this. At the end of the fiscal year, if we’re still in this mode, the entire Smithsonian is going to have to rethink all of our priorities.”

Court Overturns Settlement of James Brown’s Estate

The long and tangled court fight over the estate of James Brown entered a new chapter on Wednesday when the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned a settlement dividing up his fortune, saying the former state attorney general had failed to follow Mr. Brown’s wishes in brokering the deal, The Associated Press reported.

Henry McMaster, the attorney general at the time, negotiated a settlement in 2009 that split up the singer’s estate, giving nearly half to a charitable trust, a quarter to his widow, Tomi Rae Hynie, and dividing the rest among his adult children.

But the supreme court ruled on Wednesday that the deal had a fatal flaw: it ignored Brown’s last wish that all his money go to charity. The court said Brown was of sound mind and body when he made his will before dying of hear failure in 2006 at the age of 73. The justices sent the case back down to lower court to be reconsidered and chastised Mr. McMaster for turning a blind eye to Mr. Brown’s instructions.

“The compromise orchestrated by the A.G. in this case destroys the estate plan Brown had established in favor of an arrangement overseen virtually exclusively by the A.G.,” Associate Justice John W. Kittredge wrote. “The result is to take a large portion of Brown’s estate that Brown had designated for charity and to turn over these amounts to the family members and purported family members who were, under the plain terms of Brown’s will, given either limited devises or excluded.”

Lead Singer Fired by Stone Temple Pilots

Rahav Segev for The New York Times Scott Weiland, center, with Stone Temple Pilots in 2008.

The Stone Temple Pilots have parted ways with their longtime lead singer Scott Weiland. The group put out a single-sentence news release on Wednesday: “Stone Temple Pilots have announced they have officially terminated Scott Weiland.”

The San Diego hard-rock and grunge band, which came to prominence in the early 1990s, reformed in 2008 after a five-year break and toured heavily last year.

Mr. Weiland, one of the founding members, plans to do a solo tour beginning next month, mining material from the group’s first two albums. He told Rolling Stone in an interview earlier this week that the band had been going through a rocky period.

“My personal feeling is that we need some new blood in the band,” he said. “We’ve been playing the same greatest hits set since we got back together. I’d like to make a new record. It will breathe new life into the group.”

He added his views had created some tension in the group: “There were some hurt egos. But that’s the way it is.”

Already Competing With the Boys, Girls Get Their Own Wrestling League

Julie Glassberg for The New York Times Rosemary Flores, 17, a wrestler for Curtis High School, pinned an opponent during a tournament in January in Harlem. With more young women interested in wrestling, the Public School Athletic League is starting a new city league for girls.

The Taft Educational Complex, in the South Bronx, started a boys’ wrestling team in November, and along with the dozens of boys who attended a season-opening meeting, there was one girl, Samantha Torres, 16.

The coach, Josh Lee, asked the restlers what motivated them to join, and soon all eyes turned to Ms. Torres.

“I said, ‘I want to show everyone that girls aren’t weaklings, and that just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I can’t wrestle,’” she recalled.

After a silent pause, the room erupted in applause. Once practices and matches began, however, some teammates were uncomfortable working out with Ms. Torres, and some opponents declined to compete for fear of losing to a girl, she said.

“When we first started practicing, some of the boys found it weird and really didn’t know what to do,” said Ms. Torres, adding that whatever qualms there were have abated now that she has begun beating some of the boys and has become “just another wrestler on the team.”

But the awkwardness she encountered is often a deterrent for girls seeking to join boys’ teams, even though there are no rules barring them. So the city’s Public School Athletic League has decided to gi! ve the girls a league of their own and is inaugurating a girls’ wrestling program with 16 teams in 12 weight classes that officials estimate will include about 300 girls.

The new league will draw from all five boroughs, including Bathgate High School in the Bronx, Hunter High School in Manhattan, Flushing High School in Queens, Canarsie High School in Brooklyn, and New Dorp High School on Staten Island.

It will be the first league of its kind in New York State, league officials said. The season will begin in March, culminating in a citywide tournament in May, said Eric Goldstein, chief executive of the Education Department’s Office of School Support Services.

Officials identified 15 schools with a core group of female wrestlers already competing on the boys’ squads, or where coaches and school officials believed there was enough interest from female students to give wrestling a try, Mr. Goldstein said. The 16th team, he said, will be a citywide “catch all” team for girls at schoos without programs.

“We had a growing demand for girls’ wrestling for the last few years,” Mr. Goldstein said. “We were really surprised at the response we got from the girls wanting to wrestle.”

Spring sports tend to be played outdoors, leaving more indoor athletic space available for wrestling, said Donald Douglas, the executive director of the P.S.A.L.

Female wrestling advocates said that starting teams in schools would attract girls who never considered that they could participate in organized wrestling.

“Nothing gets girls to join like seeing a girl throw another girl,” said Cheryl Wong, director of women’s wrestling at Beat the Streets, a nonprofit that promotes wrestling and that worked with the P.S.A.L. to start the new league.

Ms. Wong, an accomplished freestyle wrestler, has encouraged scores of girls to attend the clinics and practices that Beat the Streets runs as part of its mission to create and! strength! en school wrestling teams in the city.

There are 72 girls wrestling on boys’ teams in New York City public high schools, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. That number far outpaces the number of girl wrestlers in the rest of the state, but is far less than the numbers in states that already have separate girl wrestling programs, like Texas (2,416), California (2,008), Washington (1,071) and Hawaii (456).

Beat the Streets, which has helped reinvigorate school wrestling in New York City, will provide mats, uniforms, shoes and headgear to the new girls’ teams.

Rather than use collegiate rules that the boys’ league uses, the girls’ league will follow the freestyle rules used in Olympic wrestling. (The International Olympic Committee recently announced that it was dropping wrestling from the Summer Games). The style places more emphasis on westling on one’s feet instead of grappling on the mat.

One of the new teams will be Curtis High School on Staten Island, which already has a dozen girls on its boys’ team. At the Mayor’s Cup championships, a citywide competition held last month at the Harlem Armory that had a separate girls’ division, the Curtis girls won the girls’ team championship. One if its stars, Rosemary Flores, 17, who wrestles in the 126-pound class, won an individual championship.

For Ms. Flores, it was her third Mayor’s Cup title in a row. She is widely considered the best female wrestler in the city and one of the best in the nation at her weight classification.

Although Ms. Flores said she would rather wrestle boys than girls, she is looking forward to the girls’ program because “it’s great for female wrestling, and I can always use more matches.”

Kimberly Cardenas, 18, a senior from Petrides High School on Staten Island who won the girls’ 99-pound title at the Harlem tourna! ment, sai! d she was excited that Petrides would field a girls’ team.

Ms. Cardenas, who has more than 100 high school victories, against boys and girls, said that when she began as a freshman, “I was the only girl on the team and I got beat up pretty bad.”

“Some boys forfeited the match rather than wrestle me,” she said. “You could tell they were scared. They didn’t want to hurt me. Some boys were like, ‘Why does she have to be allowed on the team’ They were uncomfortable because they didn’t know how to practice with a girl.”

Ms. Torres, from Taft, also said that once she showed her mettle on the mat, male opponents began backing out of matches.

“One boy told his coach, ‘I can’t wrestle her because my friends are all here, and I can’t lose to a girl,’” said Ms. Torres, who took fourth in the girls’ division of the Mayor’s Cup tournament.

Her coach, Mr. Lee, said, “She’s, without a doubt, the toughest person on the team, and you can ask any boy on he team that.”

Already Competing With the Boys, Girls Get Their Own Wrestling League

Julie Glassberg for The New York Times Rosemary Flores, 17, a wrestler for Curtis High School, pinned an opponent during a tournament in January in Harlem. With more young women interested in wrestling, the Public School Athletic League is starting a new city league for girls.

The Taft Educational Complex, in the South Bronx, started a boys’ wrestling team in November, and along with the dozens of boys who attended a season-opening meeting, there was one girl, Samantha Torres, 16.

The coach, Josh Lee, asked the restlers what motivated them to join, and soon all eyes turned to Ms. Torres.

“I said, ‘I want to show everyone that girls aren’t weaklings, and that just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I can’t wrestle,’” she recalled.

After a silent pause, the room erupted in applause. Once practices and matches began, however, some teammates were uncomfortable working out with Ms. Torres, and some opponents declined to compete for fear of losing to a girl, she said.

“When we first started practicing, some of the boys found it weird and really didn’t know what to do,” said Ms. Torres, adding that whatever qualms there were have abated now that she has begun beating some of the boys and has become “just another wrestler on the team.”

But the awkwardness she encountered is often a deterrent for girls seeking to join boys’ teams, even though there are no rules barring them. So the city’s Public School Athletic League has decided to gi! ve the girls a league of their own and is inaugurating a girls’ wrestling program with 16 teams in 12 weight classes that officials estimate will include about 300 girls.

The new league will draw from all five boroughs, including Bathgate High School in the Bronx, Hunter High School in Manhattan, Flushing High School in Queens, Canarsie High School in Brooklyn, and New Dorp High School on Staten Island.

It will be the first league of its kind in New York State, league officials said. The season will begin in March, culminating in a citywide tournament in May, said Eric Goldstein, chief executive of the Education Department’s Office of School Support Services.

Officials identified 15 schools with a core group of female wrestlers already competing on the boys’ squads, or where coaches and school officials believed there was enough interest from female students to give wrestling a try, Mr. Goldstein said. The 16th team, he said, will be a citywide “catch all” team for girls at schoos without programs.

“We had a growing demand for girls’ wrestling for the last few years,” Mr. Goldstein said. “We were really surprised at the response we got from the girls wanting to wrestle.”

Spring sports tend to be played outdoors, leaving more indoor athletic space available for wrestling, said Donald Douglas, the executive director of the P.S.A.L.

Female wrestling advocates said that starting teams in schools would attract girls who never considered that they could participate in organized wrestling.

“Nothing gets girls to join like seeing a girl throw another girl,” said Cheryl Wong, director of women’s wrestling at Beat the Streets, a nonprofit that promotes wrestling and that worked with the P.S.A.L. to start the new league.

Ms. Wong, an accomplished freestyle wrestler, has encouraged scores of girls to attend the clinics and practices that Beat the Streets runs as part of its mission to create and! strength! en school wrestling teams in the city.

There are 72 girls wrestling on boys’ teams in New York City public high schools, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. That number far outpaces the number of girl wrestlers in the rest of the state, but is far less than the numbers in states that already have separate girl wrestling programs, like Texas (2,416), California (2,008), Washington (1,071) and Hawaii (456).

Beat the Streets, which has helped reinvigorate school wrestling in New York City, will provide mats, uniforms, shoes and headgear to the new girls’ teams.

Rather than use collegiate rules that the boys’ league uses, the girls’ league will follow the freestyle rules used in Olympic wrestling. (The International Olympic Committee recently announced that it was dropping wrestling from the Summer Games). The style places more emphasis on westling on one’s feet instead of grappling on the mat.

One of the new teams will be Curtis High School on Staten Island, which already has a dozen girls on its boys’ team. At the Mayor’s Cup championships, a citywide competition held last month at the Harlem Armory that had a separate girls’ division, the Curtis girls won the girls’ team championship. One if its stars, Rosemary Flores, 17, who wrestles in the 126-pound class, won an individual championship.

For Ms. Flores, it was her third Mayor’s Cup title in a row. She is widely considered the best female wrestler in the city and one of the best in the nation at her weight classification.

Although Ms. Flores said she would rather wrestle boys than girls, she is looking forward to the girls’ program because “it’s great for female wrestling, and I can always use more matches.”

Kimberly Cardenas, 18, a senior from Petrides High School on Staten Island who won the girls’ 99-pound title at the Harlem tourna! ment, sai! d she was excited that Petrides would field a girls’ team.

Ms. Cardenas, who has more than 100 high school victories, against boys and girls, said that when she began as a freshman, “I was the only girl on the team and I got beat up pretty bad.”

“Some boys forfeited the match rather than wrestle me,” she said. “You could tell they were scared. They didn’t want to hurt me. Some boys were like, ‘Why does she have to be allowed on the team’ They were uncomfortable because they didn’t know how to practice with a girl.”

Ms. Torres, from Taft, also said that once she showed her mettle on the mat, male opponents began backing out of matches.

“One boy told his coach, ‘I can’t wrestle her because my friends are all here, and I can’t lose to a girl,’” said Ms. Torres, who took fourth in the girls’ division of the Mayor’s Cup tournament.

Her coach, Mr. Lee, said, “She’s, without a doubt, the toughest person on the team, and you can ask any boy on he team that.”

Musicological Sparring, Courtesy of David Byrne and Questlove

Because making music is, at heart, a formidable acting job, in which the performer projects a stage persona that may not be much like what he or she is like offstage, public interviews with musicians can be a gamble. One way around that is to find a couple of players who come from different musical worlds, yet have things in common that might not be immediately apparent, and let them quiz each other for 90 minutes. And you can rig the game by choosing musicians who are secret scholars of musical arcana, and who enjoy a bit of musicological sparring. That was the Public Theater’s strategy on Tuesday evening, when it presented the first installment of its Public Forum series at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, at New York University.

Elizabeth Lippman for The New York Times David Byrne at the AfroPunk festival in Brooklyn in August.

In one corner, wearing a burgundy pullover and clocking in at 60 years old was David Byrne, the front man and composer of Talking Heads, who has gone on to a remarkably varied career since the band’s breakup in 1991, and whose latest project is a show based on his 2010 album “Here Lies Love,” to be staged at the Public in April. In the other, sporting a grey sweater with a large, colorful heart pin and a metal comb stuck in his anarchic Afro, was Ahmir Thompson, better known as Questlove, the 42-year old drummer for the eclectic Philadelphia hip-hop and soul group the Roots, which performs nightly as the house band on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.”

Lloyd Bishop/NBC Questlove on the set of “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.”

Both were there in other capacities, too. Mr. Byrne is the author of “How Music Works,” a thick volume of musical reflections that was available, in a huge stack of autographed copies, in the foyer outside the hall. Questlove - or, as the moderator, Jeremy McCarter addressed him, at one point, Professor Questlove - is currently teaching a course on classic albums at NYU. He was engaged for that job, as h explained during the forum, after he responded, firmly but patiently, to a dismissive review of a Public Enemy album by a young National Public Radio intern.

Mr. Byrne’s book and Questlove’s course yielded the first potential fault line: hadn’t Mr. Byrne suggested, in his book, that the creation and adoration of revered musical canon was a bad thing Well, not exactly, Mr. Byrne said. He was “going after classical music,” not the pop canon that Questlove is teaching. And even at that, he said, “there’s some classical music that I really love, and some that I don’t get and I don’t think I will ever get.” What he! really o! bjects to, in fact, is “the subliminal thing going on, that listening to that music instead of the pop music I listened to, would make you a better person. It became this class thing.”

It was left to Questlove to defend the classics, which he did in an unusual way, noting that he had studied classical music, with his father’s encouragement, and had been accepted to the Juilliard School, but decided to work with his rap group instead.

“It’s funny you say that,” he told Mr. Byrne, referring to the class issue, “because I had a teacher who could speak both languages. And I remember when we first started studying Stravinsky - the class trip was going to see ‘Rite of Spring’ - and he finally found a way to explain it to us.” His technique He described Stravinsky as the Public Enemy of classical music. “For those who are unfamiliar with Public Enemy’s music,” Questlove added, donning his professor’s cap, “they wanted to be music’s worst nigtmare, the hip-hop version of the Sex Pistols. Just cramming in samples one on top of the other until it didn’t sound like music anymore, it just sounded like a mess. They wanted their music to give that experience where, ‘this is what it’s like in the inner city.’ Once he explained it to us, we couldn’t wait.”

From there, the discussion wandered freely through musical philosophy and history. Mr. Byrne worried about the professionalization of music - the idea that young people were being discouraged from making music for the love of it, and being taught that there was a professional class of musician whose job it is to create music, and a consumer class, whose job it is to listen. He and Questlove wandered through the creation of the New Wave scene in the late 1970s (Talking Heads enjoyed being part of it for a while, but later chafed at being categorized) and Questlove’s creation of a Philadelphia hip-hop movement, based on live jamming, 20 years later (he believed that the only ! way to cr! eate momentum was to bring like-minded but competing musicians together).

They talked about reviews: Talking Heads was eager to read them, but Mr. Byrne now waits a year; Questlove checks his computer regularly to see how his projects are being rated. They mused on the nature of success (Questlove, speaking of the Roots, said, “we were never platinum” - meaning, huge sellers - “so our saving grace was our critical acclaim”) and about the genesis of Talking Heads’ “big suit” (it was the result of a Japanese fashion designer’s comment about everything being bigger onstage). Questlove marveled at the way techniques used in Mr. Byrne’s 1981 collaboration with Brian Eno, “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts,” anticipated techniques used in hip-hop. And he held forth amusingly on his own long campaign, so far unsuccessful, to get Bill Withers to collaborate with him.

Hugh Brown/Cinecom International Films Mr. Byrne in the concert film “Stop Making Sense.”

Probably the most striking moments of the discussion, though, were Questlove’s theories about musical education. One should, he argued, start young: he recently loaded up a couple of iPods for a friend with a new baby, and attached it to speakers around the child’s crib. He would not say what was on the playlist, apart from Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa, but he asked his friend to play the music around the clock. As for advice for older students, sought by a teacher in the audience, he took a strikingly traditional stand.

“I’m never that ‘follow you dreams’ guy,” Questlove said. “Because some people’s dreams will get realized, and some dreams won! ’t get ! realized, so I kind of feel it’s dismissive - ‘Oh! Follow your dreams, kid, see you later!’ My radical advice is simple: you have to practice, and you have to be organized. Which I know also sounds rather like bland, dismissive advice, but I think it’s true. If you look at all of history’s great figures, it’s discipline, practice, organization.”