Pixie Portrayer Arrested on Drug Charge

Youtube screengrab Sharissa Turk played a fairy in a video by a Staten Island group, the White Trash Clan, for a song, “My World Is Blue,” that sings the praises of prescription drug abuse. Ms. Turk, 22, was arrested in real life on Wednesday on charges of selling Oxycodone to an undercover officer.

The hip-hop music video, posted to YouTube last summer, is a paean to recreational prescription drug use on Statn Island.

Set partly in Duane Reade drug stores, it presents a fantasy world tinted blue, apparently for the color of the pills, and features a young woman playing a blue fairy and blowing kisses to the camera.

“Crush and sniff it,” one man raps. “Blue is my world in this life how I live it, come out to Staten Island, pay a little visit.”

This week, the life of the woman playing the fairy took a turn, the police said, when she was arrested and charged with three counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance. The police said that the woman, Sharissa Turk, 22, had sold Oxycodone to an undercover officer on three occasions and that she “was one of nearly three dozen loosely affiliated drug dealers on Staten Island’s south shore.”

On Thursday, the police announced her arrest as well as those of 31 others, and said they had seized over 1,000 prescription pills of Oxycodone, Vicodin and Xanax; 250 grams of cocaine; more than 200 bags o! f heroin; $17,000 in cash and a handgun as part of a narcotics investigation in the borough.

“Life is ecstasy on the video, not so much now,” said Paul J. Browne, the chief police spokesman, on Thursday evening, though it was not immediately clear whether other participants in the video were among those arrested.

Staten Island has repeatedly been the focus of efforts to curb prescription drug abuse. In 2011, an investigation revealed a prescription drug ring that put nearly 43,000 pills worth $1 million on the black market in New York City in just a year.

Environmental Group Targets Spewing Buildings in Pollution Report

Ruth Fremson/The New York Times Steam billowed from a power plant in Astoria, Queens, in October. Energy use by buildings accounts for 75 percent of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions.

When people consider the prime sources of carbon gas emissions in New York City, cars, trucks and buses belching smoke are often the first culprits to come to mind.

In fact, homes and offices spew far more carbon into the atmosphere than all motor vehicles in the city combined. Some 75 percent of all carbon emissions in the city come from the buildings.

Using that sometimes surprising fact as a starting point, the nnprofit Urban Green Council has outlined a series of measures that it says could result in the city’s reducing carbon emissions by 90 percent by 2050 - a far more ambitious figure than the city’s current goal [pdf] of 30 percent by 2030.

Perhaps most striking about the report, “90 by 50” [pdf], released on Thursday, is that it does not assume any fancy new technology or major change in how people live.

Instead, it relies on a strategy that many people have been reminded of by a grandparent at one point or another: keep the heat in during the winter and out during the summer.

In an article in Slate - and a nod to the “broken windows” crime-fighting approach made famous during the Giuliani administration - the proposal was called “the triple-pane windows theory.”

The council’s report calls for buildings to be viewed not as objects trapped in the amber of outdated heating and cooling technology, but more as infrastructure similar to roads and sewers.

The report outlines several steps to make buildings more efficient and outlines different approaches for eight different building types most common in the city - from low-slung brownstones to towering skyscrapers.

First, it envisions ridding the city of its increasingly aging system of heating many buildings with steam-generated power and ending all dependence on coal. Instead, buildings would be connected to the grid with high-efficiency electrical pumps.

Beyond the major infrastructure changes, the report says that a series of seemingly small changes could have a striking impact It calls for better insulation, heat recovery ventilation and plugging of air leaks, among other actions. It also proposes using triple-glazed windows.

The report estimates that such an effort would require a capital outlay of $94 billion over 35 years. But it also estimates that the savings from increased energy efficiency would be $87 billion over that time.

Of course, the impact would go far beyond the financial. The ultimate goal is to combat climate change, which Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has recommitted himself to battling in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

“Our climate is changing,” Mr. Bloomberg wrote days after the storm. “And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it might be - given this week’s devastation - should compel all elected leaders to take immediate actio! n.”

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The city is already a global leader in reducing greenhouse gases, the report notes.

“But it is not enough,” the report states. “To ensure a global environment in which human society can bring security and prosperity to all its members, climate science tells us we must reduce carbon pollution dramatically. A figure of 80 percent globally by 2050 is often cited. A reduction of 90 percent in the readily measured fraction of the city’s emissions will be necessary to meet this goal, and this study outlines an energy economy for New York City in 2050 that will match this challenge.”

Tony Awards Eligibility Panel Skirts an Orphan vs. Orphan-Keeper Battle

Little orphan Annie and the villainous Miss Hannigan may be arch-enemies in the Broadway musical “Annie,” but the actresses playing them will not be facing off this spring at the 2013 Tony Awards.

The Tony Awards Administration Committee, an oversight panel made up mostly of theater producers, issued a series of eligibility rulings for acting categories on Thursday, and its starkest decision involved the leading ladies in the current revival of “Annie.” The committee chose not to elevate two-time Tony winner Katie Finneran, who plays Miss Hannigan, into contention for a nomination for leading actress in a musical, even though Dorothy Loudon won the 1977 Tony in that category for her portrayal of the orphanage manager. Ms. Finneran will be eligible for a nod for eatured actress instead.

The committee did put 11-year-old Lilla Crawford into contention for a leading actress nomination, and also made Anthony Warlow (Daddy Warbucks) eligible for a nomination as lead actor.

The committee did not disclose its reasoning regarding the “Annie” cast members; the deliberations are made behind closed doors. Typically a show’s producers ask the committee to place actors in certain categories, and usually the producers try to avoid having their performers square off against each other or risk canceling each other out. A spokesman for “Annie” did not immediately have a comment from its producers about whether they had wanted Ms. Finneran to be eligible for featured actress and not compete against Ms. Crawford.

Meanwhile the actor Dan Stevens, best known for his starring role on television’s “Downton Abbey,” was made eligible for a ! featured actor nomination for the Broadway revival of “The Heiress,” giving his co-star, David Strathairn, a clear shot at a nomination in the leading actor category.

The other eligibility rulings on Thursday were fairly predictable. While Al Pacino was the main box office attraction in the recent Broadway revival of “Glengarry Glen Ross,” he was put in contention for a nomination for best featured actor for his performance as Shelly Levene - consistent with the eligibility of the actors in that role in the 1984 and 2005 productions of the play on Broadway. Also eligible in the featured category will be Mr. Pacino’s co-stars, including Bobby Cannavale, David Harbour and Richard Schiff.

For the musical revival of “The Mystery of Edwin Dood,” Stephanie J. Block and Jim Norton will be eligible for leading actress and actor nominations, while their co-stars - Will Chase, Gregg Edelman, and Chita Rivera - were made eligible in featured categories.

One play from the 2012-13 theater season, “The Performers,” will not be eligible for Tonys because the critically drubbed production did not run long enough; the show closed in November after 24 preview performances and 6 regular performances.

The organizers of the Tonys have yet to announce the date of the annual awards ceremony, but it is likely to be in June.

Love, or Something, Was in the Air

Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times Moment to remember: Becky Goldberg and Andy Siln captured their Valentine’s Day date at a special sewage plant tour for lovers in Brooklyn on Thursday.

David Nelson had a Valentine’s Day surprise for his girlfriend. He was so excited, however, he let his intentions slip during dinner the night before.

“He spilled the beans,” said his girlfriend, Heather Weed, a 25-year-old civil engineer who was dressed for the holiday on Thursday in a red-and-pink-striped sweater and red shoelaces. “But we had talked about it before,” Mr. Nelson, an urban planner, ointed out a little defensively.

No, it wasn’t a marriage proposal. It was a tour of New York City’s Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

The couple, who share a cozy one-bedroom in Bedford-Stuyvesant, held hands during a lecture on the five steps of sewage treatment. (“Here’s the magic,” Jim Pynn, the plant superintendent, said of Step 3: “Biological treatment.”) Afterward, they took in the city views from the observation deck atop one of the giant stainless steel “digester eggs,” where sludge is stabilized during a 15-day process.

Love was certainly in the air on Thursday. Or was that the sewage

For scores of New Yorkers who wanted to mark Valentine’s Day without the usual hearts and flowers, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection had just the token of affection. For the se! cond year in a row, it offered free tours of the Newtown Creek plant, the largest of its 14 wastewater treatment facilities.

Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times What could be more romantic

To some, the tours proved as irresistible as a dark chocolate truffle. Citing demand, the department added a third 75-person tour at the last minute; all three were filled to capacity. “It’s a unique way to spend Valentine’s Day, but it’s also a great opportunity to learn about the wastewater process,” a department spokesman, Christopher Gilbride, said.

But the day was not entirely about catch basins and combined sewer overflows. The complex in some ways resembles a gleaming work of sculpture, with its eightegg-like pods visible for miles.

The plant, which dates back to 1967, has undergone a $5 billion overhaul in recent years and was honored by the New York City Art Commission. At night, the eggs are bathed in blue light, the handiwork of the lighting designer Hervé Descottes.

There is even a visitor center where an exuberant fountain courses through the lobby. Those elements appealed to the urban planner in Mr. Nelson, if not the romantic. “It’s not only a great public investment infrastructure,” he said. “It’s a great public space.”

Using a PowerPoint presentation, Mr. Pynn traced the history of wastewater treatment from the city’s earliest days to the present. Now, the city treats more than 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater daily, from toilets, washing machines, sinks and, when it rains, storm water. The treatment plants, Mr. Pynn said, remove “94 percent of the pollutant load,” far exceeding the requirements of the Clean Water Act.

Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times Indoors and out, the treatment plant abounds with beguiling views.

Talk of sewage works in mysterious ways. As the tour moved up to the observation deck, some couples seemed to stand a little closer.

As Mr. Pynn expounded on the giant propeller that circulates three million gallons of sludge inside each digester egg, Shawn Killebrew, a television editor, leaned in to kiss his wife, Courtenay Kendall, a TV producer.

Knowing that his wife scoffs at Valentine’s Day, Mr. Killebrew had simply asked her to take the day off from work. She still did not know where they were going as he led her from the subway to the treatment plant.

“I told him I would run f there was one ounce of romance,” she said after the tour. “This beats dinner in a restaurant any day.”

Then why all the snuggling “When it’s an unromantic situation, we get romantic,” Mr. Killebrew said.

For Joseph Szabo, who works as a machinist for the Department of Environmental Protection in Red Hook, Brooklyn, the tour was a way to share something of his occupation with his wife of 20 years, Erika.

She more than rose to the occasion. “It’s gorgeous,” she said. “It’s unbelievable. I would never think this was romantic, but it is.”

Not everyone was so lucky in love. Jose Fernandez, a 30-year-old filmmaker visiting from Mexico, had arranged to take the tour with his girlfriend, an art student in Manhattan. But she canceled at the last minute, saying she had a class. Jilted at the plant, he went on the tour alone.

Mr. Fernandez was trying not to let his disappointment show. “I’m meeting her for lunch,” he said. “And I took a lot of pic! tures.”!

Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times Pipes full of wastewater gleamed against an azure sky. It was a beautiful day.

Theater Talkback: Better Off Buried

Ruby Washington/The New York Times Orlando Iriarte in the revival of “Moose Murders” at the Connelly Theater.

It’s news to nobody that the contemporary theater thrives on nostalgia. Scan the offerings of any Broadway season of the past decade or so and you’ll probably find more revivals than new shows. This season alone we’ve seen spectacularly unnecessary celebrity-fueled productions of “Glengarry Glen Ross,” “The Heiress” ad “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” Money-minting duds, all three of ’em.

But in the last couple of seasons the New York theater has taken its love affair with its own past to perverse new extremes. We’re not just recycling the hits anymore, but trying to capture the mad magic of the legendary bombs.

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Molly Ranson in the 2012 revival of “Carrie.”

Last year MCC Theater exhumed the flop musical “Carrie” from her fiery grave, in the hopes that a more serious-minded, scaled-down production would prove the musical to be not merely a camp footnote in Broadway history but a respectable show. I’m afraid it didn’t quite work. While the score had its moments of beauty and passion, and the singing, by Marin Mazzie in particular, was often galvanizingly good, this watered-down, message-stuffed “Carrie” simply didn’t give us what we really wanted to see: the flashy, high-concept extravaganza that went down in flames so sensationally the first time around.

This season a small Off Broadway company called the Beautiful Soup Theater Collective took an even more dubious stab, as it were, at turning a fabled diaster into a night of bad old-fashioned fun: “Moose Murders” made its first return to a major (sorta) New York stage, at the Connelly Theater in the East Village. The resulting show ranks high among the most insufferable nights I’ve spent at the theater - and I was there for “Prymate,” folks! Remember that one Andre de Shields as a chimpanzee - or was it an ape - in a self-serious drama about something to do with simians, and science, and James Naughton looking miserable.

It’s not a coincidence, I think, that both “Carrie” and “Moose Murders” date from the 1980s. Once upon a yesteryear, several big duds studded every Broadway season. During the Golden Age, as the decades between 1930 and 1970 have come to! be calle! d, the number of productions on the Great White Way was much higher than in subsequent years. With 50 or 100 shows opening a season, a belly flop made a much smaller splash. The annals of bad musicals throughout these years have been richly documented in Ken Mandelbaum’s indispensable book “Not Since Carrie,” a compendium of misfired shows (capped by “Carrie” itself) that makes for howlingly good reading.

But by 1980, when Frank Rich became the chief theater critic of The New York Times, Broadway production had dwindled significantly as costs skyrocketed, so that a turkey like “Moose Murders” or “Carrie” arrived with a much bigger squawk. (It also helped, I’m sure, that Mr. Rich wrote so deliciously of tasteless theater.) These two shows, bad though they presumably were, earned outsized reputations for folly that left behind them a haze of yearning: Having seen either or both became a badge of honor of sorts. Small wonder theater companies couldn’t resist attempting to trade on their notoriety to fill their seats with those seeking to quench at last their curiosity about just how dire these two infamous shows were.

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Phyllis Frelich and Andre De Shields in the play “Prymate,” which opened on Broadway in 2004.

We have our answers now, and maybe it’s time to kiss goodbye any lingering longing to revisit the best of Broadway’s worst. I, for one, can honestly say that finally seeing “Carrie” and â€! œMoose Mu! rders” did not enrich my theatergoing life by one iota. And I sincerely hope that no enterprising producer out there is trying to drum up funds for a revival of the Peter Allen vehicle “Legs Diamond,” another famously terrible musical from the 1980s. With or without Hugh Jackman channeling the song-and-dance-man, I have zero interest. And while it is practically the only show bearing Stephen Sondheim’s name that has not been revived - and revived, and revived - in recent years, I don’t particularly pine to see “Getting Away With Murder,” the (presumably moose-free) mystery thriller he penned with George Furth, a quick Broadway flop in 1996.

But perhaps there are those among you who harbor a secret (or open) desire to give reputed ogs another day. Are there Broadway shows you’ve either seen or read about that you believe should be given a second chance to prove the naysayers wrong Anyone for a revival of “Grind”

$5 Million Gift to Aid Juilliard Program for Minority Students

The Juilliard School said on Thursday that it has been promised a $5 million gift that will go a long way toward guaranteeing the survival of music lessons for poor minority school children. The money comes courtesy of a former journalist turned venture capitalist, Michael Moritz, and his wife Harriet Heyman, a writer.

Juilliard said it needed $7 million to fully endow its Music Advancement Program. The course provides 65 students between 8 and 14 with ear training, instrument lessons and theory classes on Saturdays, at low cost. The conservatory was poised to suspend the program in 2009, citing budget cuts and difficulty raising money for operations. News reports at the time about threats to the program prompted an initial round of contributions that kept it alive.

$5 Million Gift to Aid Juilliard Program for Minority Students

The Juilliard School said on Thursday that it has been promised a $5 million gift that will go a long way toward guaranteeing the survival of music lessons for poor minority school children. The money comes courtesy of a former journalist turned venture capitalist, Michael Moritz, and his wife Harriet Heyman, a writer.

Juilliard said it needed $7 million to fully endow its Music Advancement Program. The course provides 65 students between 8 and 14 with ear training, instrument lessons and theory classes on Saturdays, at low cost. The conservatory was poised to suspend the program in 2009, citing budget cuts and difficulty raising money for operations. News reports at the time about threats to the program prompted an initial round of contributions that kept it alive.

Speech Aside, the State of the City Was Bouncin\'

Nothing gets a crowd psyched for a political speech like an encomium to lip gloss.

A teenager’s ode to lip gloss. A song whose lyrics include “Down in Jamaica we give it to you hot like a sauna.” A dash of M.C. Hammer, with a hint of Vanilla Ice. And perhaps the least subtle of Marvin Gaye’s myriad paeans to passionate embrace.

For those who tuned in at noon on Thursday for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s final State of the City address, it appeared for over half an hour that a dance party had broken out at a municipal function.

As guests in the Barclays Center and viewers online awaited the mayor’s entrance at the arena â€" which came more than 30 minutes after the scheduled starting tie â€" they were exposed to a playlist loaded with arresting choices.

Some seemed befitting of the setting, like “Where Brooklyn At” by Notorious B.I.G. (not the part where Biggie says “The two weed spots, the two hot glocks / That’s how I got the weed spot /I shot dread in the head, took the bread and the lamb spread,” but, you know, the “Where Brooklyn at” part) and, predictably, “Empire State of Mind,” the Jay-Z anthem that blared as Mr. Bloomberg approached the podium.

Others were more curious: a remix of Mr. Gaye’s “Sexual Healing,” “Temperature” by the reggae artist Sean Paul and a mix involving at least one if not both of “U Can’t Touch This” by M.C. Hammer and “Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice. The mix played during a dance performance by a group of children before Mr. Bloomberg spoke. Adult dancers from the Brooklyn Nets also appeared at one point, set to a remix of “Respect” by Aretha Franklin.

Did you know Michael R. Bloomberg, New York’s “love mayor,” was born on Valentine’s Day 1942.

Occasionally, the songs lent themselves to interpretation. For those who view Mr. Bloomberg as a singular figure â€" or others seeking evidence of his high self-regard â€" there was “Ain’t No Other Man,” by Christina Aguilera.

More often, though, the music’s relationship to city politics seemed tenuous. The strangest entry was perhaps “Lip Gloss” by Lil Mama, whose chorus reads: “My lip gloss is cool / My lip gloss be poppin’ / I’m standin’ at my locker / And all the boys keep stoppin’.”

Local history: Barclays Center is just three blocks from Jay-Z’s old stash spot at 560 State Street, which receives a shoutout in this song.

The song list was a sharp departure from politicians’ often conservative forays into musical selection. In his runs for the nation’s highest office, President Obama turned to songs whose very titles conveyed a desired message, like “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” by Stevie Wonder or “We Take Care of Our Own” by Bruce Springsteen.

Whitney Day, A Brooklyn DJ, holding court at SOTC. “We’re going for a Brooklyn vibe,” she says. http://t.co/vVu02PC4

â€" Michael Barbaro (@mikiebarb) 14 Feb 13

The soundtrack was the work of the disc! jockey Whitney Day, whose Web site says she has “an instinct for reading the crowd and an ability to artfully mix genre-blending sets.” Some of the early reviews for Ms. Day were quite favorable.

“I’m recording Bloomy’s pre-State of the City soundtrack for future usage,” Colin Campbell, a New York Observer reporter, wrote on Twitter. “This is bananas funky.”

Philadelphia Orchestra to Record for Deutsche Grammophon

Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in January.

Ah, a conductor with benefits. Riding the train called Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Philadelphia Orchestra said it will release its first recording on a major label in 16 years, on Deutsche Grammophon. Mr. Nézet-Séguin is the orchestra’s new music director, a rising star in the conducting world who has been recording for Deutsche Grammophon since 2008.

The record deal shows how a highly touted conductor’s luster can bring extras. Mr. Seguin is in the middle of recording seven Mozart operasfor Deutsche Grammophon and has an agreement for three orchestral recordings as conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic, another orchestra he leads. The Philadelphia deal comes to an orchestra that only recently emerged from bankruptcy court and is struggling to re-establish its footing.

The orchestra said it would record Stravinsky’s 100-year-old “Rite of Spring,” which had its first United States performance in 1922 - by the Philadelphians under Leopold Stokowski. (The “Rite” is not exactly under-represented on disc: Decca recently released a box set of 37 recordings of the work.) The Philadelphia Orchestra release will also include Stokowski’s orchestra transcriptions of three Bach organ works.

Now Hear This: Library of Congress Issues Plan to Preserve Recordings

If you listen to music, the state of recorded sound may strike you as healthy and robust. Whether you hear it in a club, on the radio, on mp3, compact disc or LP, and whether the recording was made last week or decades ago, the sound is solid and the experience can be immersive.

But historians of recorded sound have long been fretting about the relative delicacy of that sound, or more specifically, of the media on which it is stored. And anyone who has listened to transfers made from early cylinders - the dominant format for the first quarter-century of recordings, before the invention of the flat 78 rpm disc - or who has tried to play a digital file in an obsolete format, understands their concerns.

These worries, and their ramifications for the national legacy, became a matter of government concern when Congress passed the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000. That bill directed the Library of Congress to âœplan and coordinate a national effort to develop policies and programs to save our nation’s recorded sound history and ensure its accessibility to future generations.”

Now the library and its National Recording Preservation Board, which includes musicians, composers, musicologists, archivists and representatives from the record industry, have announced a plan meant to streamline the ways recordings are archived and made available. All told, the 78-page Library of Congress National Recording Preservation Plan, which was completed in December and released on Wednesday, includes 32 recommendations.

The plan addresses ways to preserve and digitize recordings, with special attention to rarities like broadcasts and recor! dings made on antique, neglected and other “at risk” formats. The urgency of this part of the project is clear from the library’s estimate that about half the recordings originally made on cylinders, for example, are already lost.

“As a nation,” James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress said when he announced the plan, “we have good reason to be proud of our record of creativity in the sound-recording arts and sciences. However, our collective energy in creating and consuming sound recordings has not been matched by an equal level of interest in preserving them for posterity. Radio broadcasts, music, interviews, historic speeches, field recordings, comedy records, author readings and other recordings have already been forever lost to the American people.”

Among the missing are early recordings made by Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland, discs by George Gershwin and a wire recording made in the cockpit of the Enola Gay during the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945.

The library’s lan also includes guidelines for the creation of a national directory of sound collections and their holdings; educational programs, including the establishment of degree programs in sound preservation and archiving, and a new approach to copyright that will help clarify the ownership of older recordings - a move, the library says, that will help make many long-out-of-print recordings more widely available.

New York Philharmonic Names Principal Clarinetist

Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times Stephen Williamson performing with St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble in 2008.

The New York Philharmonic’s solution is now the Chicago Symphony’s problem. The Philharmonic addressed its four-season lack of a principal clarinetist by hiring Stephen Williamson away from the Chicago Symphony, the orchestra disclosed on Thursday. Mr. Williamson was one of the first appointments made under the watch of Chicago’s music director, Riccardo Muti and is in the middle of only his second season there. Chicago will now have to find a replacement, although a Chicago Orchestra spokeswoman said Mr. Williamson officially was on a one-year leave.

With Stnley Drucker’s retirement from the Philharmonic in 2009 after 60 years, the orchestra held auditions for a principal clarinetist but did not pick a winner. It then thought it had scored a coup by luring a star in the clarinet world, Ricardo Morales, from the Philadelphia Orchestra, but Mr. Morales later backed out. The Philharmonic has been inviting prominent players in for a week of performances on stage and in solo auditions. Mr. Williamson passed through in the final week of November, for a program consisting of the New York premiere of a symphony by Steven Stucky, the Barber Violin Concerto and the Rachmaninoff “Symphonic Dances.”

In the end, Alan Gilbert, the music director, opted for Mr. Williamson with the approval of an orchestral audition c! ommittee. Starting his job next season, he will know the way to Avery Fisher Hall: from 2003 to 2011, he was a principal clarinetist at the Metropolitan Opera. While his tenure was brief in Chicago, Mr. Williamson made a mark. He was heard with the orchestra when it recorded the score for the movie “Lincoln.”

LIPA Customers Are the Most Dissatisfied in the Country, a Study Says

Uli Seit for The New York Times A downed transformer in Long Island Power Authority territory in Farmingdale after Hurricane Sandy.

The results of the first survey of utility customers since Hurricane Sandy are in, and they indicate that the New York metropolitan area is a hotbed of dissatisfaction.

Ground zero for the griping was on Long Island, where business customers of the Long Island Power Authority registered the lowest level of satisfaction in the entire country, according to a study released late Wednesday by J.D. Power ad Associates, a marketing research firm.

The power authority’s widely panned performance after the storm led a governor’s commission to propose dissolving it last month.

Connecticut Light and Power, which serves most of Connecticut and was widely criticized for its response after Hurricane Irene struck in 2011, ranked next-to-last nationally in the satisfaction survey.

The study is an annual survey of businesses of all sizes, from mom-and-pop restaurants to the headquarters of global corporations. It shows that, as a group, businesses in the Northeast lost a lot of faith in their p! ower providers last year.

The scores for 2012 measured the attitudes of business customers throughout the year, reflecting their residual feelings about how utilities performed in late 2011 as well as their fresh sentiments in the two months after Hurricane Sandy, said Jeff Conklin, senior director of J.D. Power’s energy practice.

“Nearly every utility in this segment is showing a decline from last year,” Mr. Conklin said.

Indeed, the average score for large utilities in the East on the firm’s 1,000-point scale fell to 623 from 639. But some utilities, including Consolidated Edison, fared relatively well.

Con Edison, which provides electricity to almost all of New York City and much of Westchester County, moved up the rankings, despite a significant drop in its customers’ satisfaction. While its score on the customer satisfaction index dropped to 639 this year from 654 in 2012, Con Edison rose to second from third among large utilities in the East.

Con Edison’s scor this year matched that of Jersey Central Power and Light, which serves much of central New Jersey, including most of the Jersey Shore. The New Jersey utility’s business customers had been the most satisfied in the region in last year’s survey, but lost a lot of confidence. In the new survey, the level of satisfaction with Jersey Central Power and Light fell about 5 percent.

The responses from businesses can differ from the opinions of residential utility customers. J.D. Power’s last survey of residential users, released in July, also ranked the Long Island Power Authority and Connecticut Power and Light as the two worst large utilities in the East. But that survey also ranked Con Edison only average for the group and Jersey Central Power and Light well below average.

In five months, each of those utilities will receive another verdict from their resid! ential cu! stomers.

One Hundred Times \'Forever Dusty\'

The musical “Forever Dusty” celebrated its 100th performance at New World Stages on Wednesday night. Audience members were invited to sing along with the performers, led by Kirsten Holly Smith as Dusty Springfield. The show’s producers said that the first 10 fans to arrive dressed as the singer would receive free admission.

Live Video: Mayor Bloomberg\'s Final State of the City Address

Watch Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg deliver his final State of the City address from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. He is scheduled to begin at noon.

Also, we here at City Room are interested in what’s up at the micro level. The past couple of years, we asked readers to provide their own State of the Block reports, and we’re asking again. Please tell us how your block has been doing here, or tweet at us using the hashtag #NYCblock.

Foundation Says It Regrets Payment to Disgraced Journalist

The Knight Foundation says that it regrets paying a $20,000 honorarium to Jonah Lehrer, the disgraced journalist whose appearance at a Knight conference in Miami on Tuesday drew sharp criticism on Twitter and elsewhere.

“In retrospect, as a foundation that has long stood for quality journalism, paying a speaker’s fee was inappropriate,” the foundation said in a statement posted on its blog. “Controversial speakers should have platforms, but Knight Foundation should not have put itself into a position tantamount to rewarding people who have violated the basic tenets of journalism. We regret our mistake.”

The foundation noted that it began discussing the appearance with Mr. Lehrer before he resigned last summer from The New Yorker after revelations that he had recycled past work in blog posts and fabricated quotations in his best-selling book “Imagine.” While the fee is not unusual for high-profile speakers, the statement continued, “it was simply not something Knight Foundation, given our values, should have paid.”

The Knight Foundation, whose assets totaled nearly $2.2 billion in 2011, is dedicated to supporting “transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts,” according to its mission statement. The media critic Jim Romenesko noted on his blog! that the $20,000 it paid to Mr. Lehrer, who spoke at a “media learning seminar” for community foundations, was as much as it gave the Miami-Dade Public Library in 2011 “to encourage creative writing among the communities teens” and slightly less than the $25,000 it gave to the Minnesota State Fair “for a participatory public art experience called the giant sing-along.”

Lady Gaga Cancels Tour Because of Hip Injury

Evan Agostini/Invision, via Associated Press Lady Gaga performing in December.

Lady Gaga has torn soft tissues in her hip joint and the injury has forced her to cancel the rest of her Born This Way Ball tour to have surgery and recover, Live Nation Global Touring announced Wednesday.

Tests showed that the pop diva had torn a ring of soft elastic tissue, called the labrum, in her right hip that will require surgery to repair. The labrum follows the outside rim of the hip joint’s socket, holding the ball at the top of the femur in place. Athletes and dancers sometimes develop a tear in the tissue, and such injuris can be fixed using arthroscopic surgical techniques.

About a dozen concerts have been called off, among them a Feb. 22 show at Madison Square Garden and a March 6 show at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Refunds for the canceled performances will be available at point of purchase starting on Thursday.

On Tuesday night, Lady Gaga canceled four performances in Chicago, Detroit and Hamilton, Ontario, saying she was suffering from severe inflammation of her joints, a condition known as synovitis. She said she had been hiding an injury from her managers and fellow performers. But the announcement on Wednesday suggests the injury is more severe than simple swelling and it may take months for her to recover.

Lady Gaga Cancels Tour Because of Hip Injury

Evan Agostini/Invision, via Associated Press Lady Gaga performing in December.

Lady Gaga has torn soft tissues in her hip joint and the injury has forced her to cancel the rest of her Born This Way Ball tour to have surgery and recover, Live Nation Global Touring announced Wednesday.

Tests showed that the pop diva had torn a ring of soft elastic tissue, called the labrum, in her right hip that will require surgery to repair. The labrum follows the outside rim of the hip joint’s socket, holding the ball at the top of the femur in place. Athletes and dancers sometimes develop a tear in the tissue, and such injuris can be fixed using arthroscopic surgical techniques.

About a dozen concerts have been called off, among them a Feb. 22 show at Madison Square Garden and a March 6 show at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Refunds for the canceled performances will be available at point of purchase starting on Thursday.

On Tuesday night, Lady Gaga canceled four performances in Chicago, Detroit and Hamilton, Ontario, saying she was suffering from severe inflammation of her joints, a condition known as synovitis. She said she had been hiding an injury from her managers and fellow performers. But the announcement on Wednesday suggests the injury is more severe than simple swelling and it may take months for her to recover.

What\'s the State of Your Block in 2013

Craig Ruttle/Associated Press What’s going on down there, New York

At noon today, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will give his annual State of the City address (we’ll carry it live).

But at City Room we’re also interested in what’s up at the micro level. The past couple of years, we asked readers to provide their own State of the Block reports. Your responses (here and here) have been wide ranging, thoughtful, funny, sad and uplifting, providing a mosaic counterportrait to the broad-stroke picture painted by the mayor.

The ast year has been hard, or worse, on hundreds of blocks of New York City thanks to Hurricane Sandy. In much of the city, though, the cycle of eternal change/stagnation has continued as ever. Either way, please tell us how your block has been doing in the comment box. You can riff on anything from crime to legit business, property values to homelessness, potholes and street trees to the comings and goings of neighbors.

Include your borough, as well as your street and which streets or avenues it is between. You may of course remain anonymous. And as always, we’ll republish some of our favorites. If you’re the Twittering type, use the hashtag #NYCblock.

Thanks very much!

Record Label Apologizes for Lil Wayne\'s Obscene Reference to Emmett Till

Associated Press Emmett Till was 14 years old when he was murdered in Mississippi in 1955.

Epic Records has offered its regrets and said it would go to “great efforts” to pull down an online version of a widely criticized track on which the rapper Lil Wayne makes an obscene analogy involving Emmett Till, whose murder was a crucial incident in fomenting the civil rights movement.

The track, a remix of “Karate Chop” by the rapper Future, features a brief appearance by Lil Wayne on which he performs a couplet that begins, “‘Bout to put rims on my skateboard wheels” and concludes with an obscene line refering to the fatal assault on Till.

Till, a 14-year-old black Chicagoan, was beaten, tortured and murdered in Mississippi in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman. The white men charged with his kidnapping and murder were acquitted. Among other tributes, Till was later memorialized in the early Bob Dylan song “The Death of Emmett Till.”

The “Karate Chop” remix had been criticized by the Mamie Till Mobley Memorial Foundation, whose founding director, Airickca Gordon-Taylor, a cousin of Emmett Till, told The Chicago Sun-Times: “My agenda is not to be disrespectful to Lil Wayne, even as much as I feel he’s been disrespectful to my family. We just want Emmett’s name removed from that song.”

Ms. Gordon-Taylor said the song “shows total disregard of where you’ve come from,” adding: “He wouldn’t even be out there rapping these stupid lyrics without the ! sacrifice Emmett made. Personally, I think Lil Wayne should just go ahead and apologize to my family. It’s hurtful.” Ms. Gordon-Taylor said she would also seek the assistance of the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson.

In a statement reported by The Associated Press, Epic Records said, “We regret the unauthorized remix version of Future’s ‘Karate Chop,’ which was leaked online and contained hurtful lyrics.” The record label added, “Out of respect for the legacy of Emmett Till and his family and the support of the Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.”, it will go “through great efforts to take down the unauthorized version” and said the official version of the song “will not include such references.”

A Valentine Sandwich Board

Dear Diary:
Some people wear their heart on their sleeve; one subway passenger wore his on a cardboard sign over his winter coat.

It was a typical morning on the B train until a handsome 20-something man - with a large sandwich board sign around his neck - entered the train and began to speak.

“I don’t want money; I want advice,” the man began, his voiced filled with despair. “My girlfriend just broke up with me. How can I get her back” The sign he wore featured a large photograph of him being kissed by a beautiful young woman, and boldly headlined: “I LOVE THIS GIRL!”

He moved from passenger to passenger, offering a felt-tip marker, asking each to write a few words of advice on his sign. Many were touched by his plea, writing comments like: “Good guys deserve to be happy. You’ll find love soon.” The outpouring of support was impressive - both sides of his sign were soon filled with the advice of helpful strangers.

The real magic began when my fellow passegers who, in typical New York fashion, had ignored one another before, spontaneously began to talk, a lively exchange sparked by the universal human experience of the agony of love lost. The West Indian nanny, the retired college professor, the Rite-Aid cashier, the Australian tourist and others â€" all of us spoke candidly about the spectacle we had just witnessed, for sure, but mostly about first loves and recovery from breakups and second chances.

The animated conversation continued all the way uptown.

If you’re wondering (like the song) what becomes of the brokenhearted, I don’t know. He got off at the next stop.

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