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https://static.bangkokpost.com/media/content/20241126/c2_2908870_241126133955.jpgWhat should online shoppers know to keep their wallets safe this holiday season? No matter the time of year, consumers need to take precautions to protect their hard-earned money from scams, particularly when shopping online during the holiday season. Last year, the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) tallied more than $73 million in losses from cybersecurity scams during the holiday season. A tried and true tip is worth repeating and sharing with friends and loved ones: if a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Specifically, be on alert for unsolicited emails, online coupons and promo codes. While shoppers like a good bargain, don’t fall prey to clickbait. Think before you click. Don’t download attachments. Check if an emailed link is legitimate by typing the URL of the retailer or vendor into your browser to check its legitimacy. Stick with trusted retailers. Don’t put your wallet at risk by making a purchase with an unknown vendor. Also, be mindful to only use secure Wi-Fi. When scrolling or browsing online away from home, take care to double-check network names. Wi-Fi with typos and those not requiring a password are red flags for criminal scams. Take a moment to review security settings on your social media platforms and internet-connected devices. Tighten up privacy settings to prevent bad actors from mining your information, stealing your identity and targeting you for their next scam. Enable automatic software updates and use complex passwords. Throughout the year, it’s good practice to keep close tabs on your banking and credit card accounts. During the holiday shopping season, it’s even more important to closely track charges and withdrawals to verify you made those purchases. Before typing in your payment information online, make sure your information is encrypted. Look for the URL to begin with https: and show the padlock icon. As you go about your holiday to-do list, don’t let cybercriminals take the joy out of the season. Be sure to add cybersecurity to your checklist. As a former and incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I’ve long worked to combat counterfeiting, protect consumer safety and strengthen intellectual property and trademarks. Counterfeit products not only rip off consumers, they harm innovation, impede entrepreneurism and damage the American economy. In our consumer-driven economy, it’s imperative to keep the integrity of the marketplace intact, protect creators from intellectual property theft and ensure consumers are buying authentic products, not getting duped by fake knock-offs. From luxury brands to cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, the distribution of counterfeit products undermines the rule of law and is bad for consumer safety, economic growth, competitiveness and innovation. As co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional Trademark Caucus, I’ve worked to raise public awareness about dangerous counterfeit goods and strengthen intellectual property rights. In 2021, I helped enact legislation to beef up protections against fraudsters who sell stolen, counterfeit or dangerous products to unsuspecting consumers using the online marketplace. In the 118th Congress, I re-introduced legislation to crack down on money laundering schemes by criminals trafficking illicit products to American consumers. Is consumer fraud a problem in Iowa? According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), consumer fraud in Iowa reached $42.6 million in losses in 2023. Last year, Iowans filed nearly 20,000 fraud reports to the FTC, and more than 3,700 cases to the Iowa Attorney General. Those numbers underscore why Iowans need to stay vigilant and take steps to prevent fraud, particularly online. The FTC says the three most reported scams in Iowa in 2023 were imposter scams, identity theft and fraudulent online shopping experiences. I hear from Iowa financial institutions that invest in anti-fraud software and employee training to thwart fraud and protect customers from financial losses and theft. The Iowa Attorney General advises Iowans to only do business with established sellers, avoid unsolicited messages and be wary when sending money electronically – such as Cash App, cryptocurrency, or Pay Pal – and avoid such payments to people you haven’t met. Know that law enforcement and government agencies will never threaten arrest for refusing to pay over the phone, or demand that Iowans keep their conversations secret. In this season of gift-giving, don’t let fraudsters be the Grinch who steals your hard-earned money. Iowans also need to beware of a scam that’s called “check washing.” Criminals get checks—often by stealing them in the mail—use chemicals to remove ink, write in their own names and payment amounts and then cash them in. If online payment isn’t an option, or you prefer writing a check to pay bills, take precautions to protect your money. According to the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), inspectors recover $1 billion in counterfeit checks and money orders every year. The USPS advises people not to leave checks in the mailbox overnight. The best protection is to drop check payments inside the post office or hand directly to a postal carrier. Unfortunately, flipping the flag at your home mail box is a red flag that scammers use to steal your mail and your money. To report a potential scam to the Iowa Attorney General, contact (515) 281-5926 or file a complaint here: https://www.iowaattorneygeneral.gov/for-consumers/file-a-consumer-complaint To file a report with the FTC, visit: https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/ #/ To report suspected mail theft, visit: https://www.uspis.gov/report , or call (877) 876-2455.Our world is at a critical juncture. The devastating effects of global warming are increasingly evident, and the crisis is deepening. To mitigate it, we must urgently reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Failing to act now will only increase the human and economic toll. The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, presents a unique opportunity for effective collective action. Amid heightened geopolitical tensions and global uncertainty, COP29 will serve as a test of the multilateral system on which humanity's ability to respond to this existential threat depends. The groundwork for coordinated action was laid in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 with the creation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which established the annual Conference of the Parties (COP) to promote consensus-based solutions. The philosophy was simple: given that climate change is a global issue, addressing it requires a collaborative approach. The UNFCCC fosters cooperation between smaller countries and superpowers, enables civil society organisations to engage directly with governments, and facilitates cross-border technology transfers. Perhaps most importantly, it provides a framework for collective action in which each country's efforts encourage others to step up their own. While the 1997 Kyoto Protocol set binding emission-reduction targets for developed economies, it quickly became clear that more was needed. In response, developed countries pledged in 2009 to mobilise US$100 billion annually by 2020 to support developing countries' climate policies. The 2015 Paris climate agreement marked a turning point, setting the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels and ensuring that the increase stays well below 2°C. To monitor progress, the agreement established a system of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) through which each country outlines its emission-reduction plans. Periodic global audits assess whether countries are on track to fulfil their climate commitments. Regrettably, the first global audit, released ahead of last year's COP28 in Dubai, showed that we are far from meeting these climate targets. It also offered a comprehensive roadmap, calling on all countries to commit to NDCs aligned with the 1.5C goal and establishing clear steps and timelines -- including transitioning away from fossil fuels -- that could bring the Paris agreement's objectives within reach. COP29 represents the next step for the multilateral approach, with leaders expected to agree on a significant boost to the $100 billion climate finance target -- the so-called New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). Moreover, each country must submit its updated NDCs by February 2025. Transparency is essential to this process. If the Paris agreement's targets are the destination, and the NDCs are the roadmap, the NCQG provides the fuel needed to get there. Building trust in countries' commitment to bold climate action and willingness to provide the necessary financing is key. As COP29 President, Azerbaijan is urging all countries to submit NDCs aligned with the 1.5C target as soon as possible. We are also doing everything we can to secure a fair and ambitious new climate finance goal that addresses developing countries' needs and matches the scale and urgency of the crisis. Falling short would force us to confront tough questions: Are we willing to accept the failure of the Paris agreement? And what are the alternatives? One thing is clear: without a viable backup plan, we must do all we can to meet the 1.5C goal. Sleepwalking into climate catastrophe is not an option. To be sure, the multilateral system has its flaws. But it remains the best framework to tackle this daunting challenge. Over three decades, it has fostered lasting international cooperation, a shared understanding of the science, and a strong consensus concerning global climate goals. The alternative to multilateralism is a fragmented response, with governments pursuing their own agendas without coordination or cooperation. This approach would mean slower progress, higher costs, and less equitable outcomes. Without a unifying goal, any sense of shared purpose would all but vanish. We have no choice but to make the current system work. With an agenda focused on advancing climate action, Azerbaijan could bridge geopolitical divisions. But our success hinges on countries' willingness to commit to the multilateral process. The frameworks for coordinated action are in place. Now, we must find the political will to put these tools to use. COP29 is our chance to prove that multilateralism can work. ©2024 Project Syndicate Mukhtar Babayev, President-Designate of COP29, is Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan.
Black Friday is here early. Can we be 'de-influenced' out of a sale?
NoneOne night last month, near the end of the Chicago International Film Festival, a particularly long line of moviegoers snaked down Southport Avenue by the Music Box Theatre. The hot ticket? This fall’s hottest ticket, in fact, all over the international festival circuit? Well, it’s a 215-minute drama about a fictional Hungarian Jewish architect who emigrates to America in 1947 after surviving the Holocaust. The film’s title, “The Brutalist,” references several things, firstly a post-World War II design imperative made of stern concrete, steel, and a collision of poetry and functionality. Director and co-writer Brady Corbet, who wrote “The Brutalist” with his filmmaker wife, Mona Fastvold, explores brutalism in other forms as well, including love, envy, capitalist economics and how the promise of America eludes someone like the visionary architect László Tóth, played by Adrien Brody. Corbet, now 36 and a good bet for Oscar nominations this coming January, says his unfashionable sprawl of a picture, being distributed by A24, is also about the “strange relationship between artist and patron, and art and commerce.” It co-stars Felicity Jones as the visionary architect’s wife, Erzsébet, trapped in Eastern Europe after the war with their niece for an agonizingly long time. Guy Pearce portrays the imperious Philadelphia blueblood who hires Tóth, a near-invisible figure in his adopted country, to design a monumental public building known as the Institute in rural Pennsylvania. The project becomes an obsession, then a breaking point and then something else. Corbet’s project, which took the better part of a decade to come together after falling apart more than once, felt like that, too. Spanning five decades and filmed in Hungary and Italy, “The Brutalist” looks like a well-spent $50 million project. In actuality, it was made for a mere $10 million, with Corbet and cinematographer Lol Crawley shooting on film, largely in the VistaVision process. The filmmaker said at the Chicago festival screening: “Who woulda thunk that for screening after screening over the last couple of months, people stood in line around the block to get into a three-and-a-half-hour movie about a mid-century designer?” He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with Fastvold and their daughter. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length. Q: Putting together an independent movie, keeping it on track, getting it made: not easy, as you told the Music Box audience last night. Money is inevitably going to be part of the story of “The Brutalist,” since you had only so much to make a far-flung historical epic. A: Yeah, that’s right. In relation to my earlier features, “The Childhood of a Leader” had a $3 million budget. The budget for “Vox Lux” was right around $10 million, same as “The Brutalist,” although the actual production budget for “Vox Lux” was about $4.5 million. Which is to say: All the money on top of that was going to all the wrong places. For a lot of reasons, when my wife and I finished the screenplay for “The Brutalist,” we ruled out scouting locations in Philadelphia or anywhere in the northeastern United States. We needed to (film) somewhere with a lot less red tape. My wife’s previous film, “The World to Come,” she made in Romania; we shot “Childhood of a Leader” in Hungary. For “The Brutalist” we initially landed on Poland, but this was early on in COVID and Poland shut its borders the week our crew was arriving for pre-production. When we finally got things up and running again with a different iteration of the cast (the original ensemble was to star Joel Edgerton, Marion Cotillard and Mark Rylance), after nine months, the movie fell apart again because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We couldn’t get any of the banks to cash-flow the tax credit (for location shooting in Poland). It’s completely stable now, but at that time the banks were nervous about whether the war would be contained to Ukraine or not. And then we finally got it up and running in Budapest, Hungary. Q: That’s a long time. A: Every filmmaker I know suffers from some form of post-traumatic stress (laughs). It sounds funny but it’s true. At every level. On the level of independent cinema, you’re just so damn poor. You’re not making any money, and yet from nose to tail, at minimum, a movie always takes a couple of years. With bigger projects, you might have a little more personal security but a lot less creative security with so many more cooks in the kitchen. Either route you choose, it can be an arduous and painful one. Whether you’re making a movie for a million dollars, or $10 million, or $100 million, it’s still “millions of dollars.” And if you’re concerned about the lives and livelihoods of the people working with you, it’s especially stressful. People are constantly calling you: “Is it happening? Are we starting? Should I take this other job or not?” And you have 250 people who need that answer from you. Every iteration of the project, I always thought we were really about to start in a week, two weeks. It’s just very challenging interpersonally. It’s an imposition for everyone in your life. And then there’s the imposition of screening a movie that’s three-and-a-half-hours long for film festivals, where it’s difficult to find that kind of real estate on the schedule. So essentially, making a movie means constantly apologizing. Q: At what point in your acting career did you take a strong interest in what was going on behind the camera? A: I was making short films when I was 11, 12 years old. The first thing I ever made more properly, I guess, was a short film I made when I was 18, “Protect You + Me,” shot by (cinematographer) Darius Khondji. It was supposed to be part of a triptych of films, and I went to Paris for the two films that followed it. And then all the financing fell through. But that first one screened at the London film festival, and won a prize at Sundance, and I was making music videos and other stuff by then. Q: You’ve written a lot of screenplays with your wife. How many? A: Probably 25. We work a lot for other people, too. I think we’ve done six together for our own projects. Sometimes I’ll start something at night and my wife will finish in the morning. Sometimes we work very closely together, talking and typing together. It’s always different. Right now I’m writing a lot on the road, and my wife is editing her film, which is a musical we wrote, “Ann Lee,” about the founder of the Shakers. I’m working on my next movie now, which spans a lot of time, like “The Brutalist,” with a lot of locations. And I need to make sure we can do it for not a lot of money, because it’s just not possible to have a lot of money and total autonomy. For me making a movie is like cooking. If everyone starts coming in and throwing a dash of this or that in the pot, it won’t work out. A continuity of vision is what I look for when I read a novel. Same with watching a film. A lot of stuff out there today, appropriately referred to as “content,” has more in common with a pair of Nikes than it does with narrative cinema. Q: Yeah, I can’t imagine a lot of Hollywood executives who’d sign off on “The Brutalist.” A: Well, even with our terrific producing team, I mean, everyone was up for a three-hour movie but we were sort of pushing it with three-and-a-half (laughs). I figured, worst-case scenario, it opens on a streamer. Not what I had in mind, but people watch stuff that’s eight, 12 hours long all the time. They get a cold, they watch four seasons of “Succession.” (A24 is releasing the film in theaters, gradually.) It was important for all of us to try to capture an entire century’s worth of thinking about design with “The Brutalist.” For me, making something means expressing a feeling I have about our history. I’ve described my films as poetic films about politics, that go to places politics alone cannot reach. It’s one thing to say something like “history repeats itself.” It’s another thing to make people see that, and feel it. I really want viewers to engage with the past, and the trauma of that history can be uncomfortable, or dusty, or dry. But if you can make it something vital, and tangible, the way great professors can do for their students, that’s my definition of success. “The Brutalist” opens in New York and Los Angeles on Dec. 20. The Chicago release is Jan. 10, 2025. Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.South Dakota scores with 12 seconds left to beat FCS top-ranked North Dakota State 29-28
One night last month, near the end of the Chicago International Film Festival, a particularly long line of moviegoers snaked down Southport Avenue by the Music Box Theatre. The hot ticket? This fall’s hottest ticket, in fact, all over the international festival circuit? Well, it’s a 215-minute drama about a fictional Hungarian Jewish architect who emigrates to America in 1947 after surviving the Holocaust. The film’s title, “The Brutalist,” references several things, firstly a post-World War II design imperative made of stern concrete, steel, and a collision of poetry and functionality. Director and co-writer Brady Corbet, who wrote “The Brutalist” with his filmmaker wife, Mona Fastvold, explores brutalism in other forms as well, including love, envy, capitalist economics and how the promise of America eludes someone like the visionary architect László Tóth, played by Adrien Brody. Corbet, now 36 and a good bet for Oscar nominations this coming January, says his unfashionable sprawl of a picture, being distributed by A24, is also about the “strange relationship between artist and patron, and art and commerce.” It co-stars Felicity Jones as the visionary architect’s wife, Erzsébet, trapped in Eastern Europe after the war with their niece for an agonizingly long time. Guy Pearce portrays the imperious Philadelphia blueblood who hires Tóth, a near-invisible figure in his adopted country, to design a monumental public building known as the Institute in rural Pennsylvania. The project becomes an obsession, then a breaking point and then something else. Corbet’s project, which took the better part of a decade to come together after falling apart more than once, felt like that, too. Spanning five decades and filmed in Hungary and Italy, “The Brutalist” looks like a well-spent $50 million project. In actuality, it was made for a mere $10 million, with Corbet and cinematographer Lol Crawley shooting on film, largely in the VistaVision process. The filmmaker said at the Chicago festival screening: “Who woulda thunk that for screening after screening over the last couple of months, people stood in line around the block to get into a three-and-a-half-hour movie about a mid-century designer?” He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with Fastvold and their daughter. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length. Q: Putting together an independent movie, keeping it on track, getting it made: not easy, as you told the Music Box audience last night. Money is inevitably going to be part of the story of “The Brutalist,” since you had only so much to make a far-flung historical epic. A: Yeah, that’s right. In relation to my earlier features, “The Childhood of a Leader” had a $3 million budget. The budget for “Vox Lux” was right around $10 million, same as “The Brutalist,” although the actual production budget for “Vox Lux” was about $4.5 million. Which is to say: All the money on top of that was going to all the wrong places. For a lot of reasons, when my wife and I finished the screenplay for “The Brutalist,” we ruled out scouting locations in Philadelphia or anywhere in the northeastern United States. We needed to (film) somewhere with a lot less red tape. My wife’s previous film, “The World to Come,” she made in Romania; we shot “Childhood of a Leader” in Hungary. For “The Brutalist” we initially landed on Poland, but this was early on in COVID and Poland shut its borders the week our crew was arriving for pre-production. When we finally got things up and running again with a different iteration of the cast (the original ensemble was to star Joel Edgerton, Marion Cotillard and Mark Rylance), after nine months, the movie fell apart again because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We couldn’t get any of the banks to cash-flow the tax credit (for location shooting in Poland). It’s completely stable now, but at that time the banks were nervous about whether the war would be contained to Ukraine or not. And then we finally got it up and running in Budapest, Hungary. Q: That’s a long time. A: Every filmmaker I know suffers from some form of post-traumatic stress (laughs). It sounds funny but it’s true. At every level. On the level of independent cinema, you’re just so damn poor. You’re not making any money, and yet from nose to tail, at minimum, a movie always takes a couple of years. With bigger projects, you might have a little more personal security but a lot less creative security with so many more cooks in the kitchen. Either route you choose, it can be an arduous and painful one. Whether you’re making a movie for a million dollars, or $10 million, or $100 million, it’s still “millions of dollars.” And if you’re concerned about the lives and livelihoods of the people working with you, it’s especially stressful. People are constantly calling you: “Is it happening? Are we starting? Should I take this other job or not?” And you have 250 people who need that answer from you. Every iteration of the project, I always thought we were really about to start in a week, two weeks. It’s just very challenging interpersonally. It’s an imposition for everyone in your life. And then there’s the imposition of screening a movie that’s three-and-a-half-hours long for film festivals, where it’s difficult to find that kind of real estate on the schedule. So essentially, making a movie means constantly apologizing. Q: At what point in your acting career did you take a strong interest in what was going on behind the camera? A: I was making short films when I was 11, 12 years old. The first thing I ever made more properly, I guess, was a short film I made when I was 18, “Protect You + Me,” shot by (cinematographer) Darius Khondji. It was supposed to be part of a triptych of films, and I went to Paris for the two films that followed it. And then all the financing fell through. But that first one screened at the London film festival, and won a prize at Sundance, and I was making music videos and other stuff by then. Q: You’ve written a lot of screenplays with your wife. How many? A: Probably 25. We work a lot for other people, too. I think we’ve done six together for our own projects. Sometimes I’ll start something at night and my wife will finish in the morning. Sometimes we work very closely together, talking and typing together. It’s always different. Right now I’m writing a lot on the road, and my wife is editing her film, which is a musical we wrote, “Ann Lee,” about the founder of the Shakers. I’m working on my next movie now, which spans a lot of time, like “The Brutalist,” with a lot of locations. And I need to make sure we can do it for not a lot of money, because it’s just not possible to have a lot of money and total autonomy. For me making a movie is like cooking. If everyone starts coming in and throwing a dash of this or that in the pot, it won’t work out. A continuity of vision is what I look for when I read a novel. Same with watching a film. A lot of stuff out there today, appropriately referred to as “content,” has more in common with a pair of Nikes than it does with narrative cinema. Q: Yeah, I can’t imagine a lot of Hollywood executives who’d sign off on “The Brutalist.” A: Well, even with our terrific producing team, I mean, everyone was up for a three-hour movie but we were sort of pushing it with three-and-a-half (laughs). I figured, worst-case scenario, it opens on a streamer. Not what I had in mind, but people watch stuff that’s eight, 12 hours long all the time. They get a cold, they watch four seasons of “Succession.” (A24 is releasing the film in theaters, gradually.) It was important for all of us to try to capture an entire century’s worth of thinking about design with “The Brutalist.” For me, making something means expressing a feeling I have about our history. I’ve described my films as poetic films about politics, that go to places politics alone cannot reach. It’s one thing to say something like “history repeats itself.” It’s another thing to make people see that, and feel it. I really want viewers to engage with the past, and the trauma of that history can be uncomfortable, or dusty, or dry. But if you can make it something vital, and tangible, the way great professors can do for their students, that’s my definition of success. “The Brutalist” opens in New York and Los Angeles on Dec. 20. The Chicago release is Jan. 10, 2025. Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.
“Music, Movies, Magic” more than lives up to its name, delivering all three in a single nostalgic night. The November 22 show, presented by the Cultural Center of the Philippines and Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra Society, Inc. at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater, was an aural trip down the cinematic memory lane, bringing to life the iconic soundtracks of a wide variety of movies. After some brief opening words from Anton Huang, PPOSI chairman, and Kaye Tinga, CCP President, the show began in earnest. Under the baton of music director and maestro Gerard Salonga, the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra (PPO) began with Dvořák’s Carnival Overture , an energetic piece that seems to leap and bounce right off the walls of the concert hall. Another equally light-hearted overture, the Die Fledermaus as heard in The Great Waltz (1938) combines whimsy and intricacy to capture the 19th-century Vienna that its composer Johann Strauss II lived through. From the sports drama Chariots of Fire , Elgar’s Nimrod takes its time building up its swelling, undulating melody but is no less captivating for it. Local films were given the spotlight as well – after a brief intermission, the PPO began with Bato sa Buhangin , a sentimental love song from the 1976 film of the same name and smoothly transitioned to Tubig at Langis , an iconic song that can be found in many a film’s emotionally cathartic scenes. The Philippine Madrigal Singers, one of the most acclaimed choral groups in the world, made their entrance around this time with Iduyan Mo , the work of National Artist for Music Ryan Cayabyab for the 1980 historical drama Aguila . The evening also featured individual performances. Camille Lopez-Molina’s powerful La Mamma Morta filled the hall with the aria’s raw, yearning mournfulness, her voice soaring effortlessly through its dramatic highs and lows. Soprano Lara Maigue performed Der Hölle Rache , one of the most demanding arias in opera, its fast-paced staccatos proving a challenge for many sopranos. Equally moving were the instrumental pieces led by concertmaster Diomedes Saraza Jr., particularly John Williams’ Schindler’s List: Main Theme , which tugged at the heartstrings with its haunting violin strains. Jules Massenet’s Thais: Meditation , as famously featured in Titanic , provided a tender counterbalance, its ethereal melodies weaving a spellbinding atmosphere of introspection and beauty. Performing the tender, poignant love songs Be My Love from The Toast of New Orleans (1950) and Mi Mancherai from Il Postino was musical theater artist Arman Ferrer. Meanwhile, Cris Villonco delivered a powerful Michel Legrand medley arranged by Gerard Salonga, a triptych including What are You Doing for the Rest of Your Life, The Windmills of Your Mind , and A Piece of Sky . These evocative pieces linger in one’s mind long after the last note has been sung. However, the highlight of the night was Tonight (Quintet) from West Side Story featuring Ferrer, Maigue, Molina, Jonathan Velasco, and Gary Fabricante. Set within the context of gang rivalry in New York City, this modernized retelling of Romeo and Juliet overflows with pathos. This performance was further elevated by the Alice Reyes Dance Philippines group, whose choreography brought the story of gang rivalry and star-crossed love to vivid life. Alice Reyes herself, a National Artist for Dance, was in the audience during the show. Part of the experience of live music is realizing the intricacy of each piece, that every part of it is indispensable whether it be a powerful roar or a tinkling as soft as the wind. Attempting to capture the feeling through video or audio is not dissimilar to attempting to take a picture of the moon – the broad strokes are present, sure, but it cannot be compared to the real McCoy. The movement of every string on every instrument, the texture of all the different sounds coming together, and the vibration of the air itself is one of the most integral parts of the show; it is how you know you are listening to art created live. No retakes, no remixes, just one fleeting night. The program finished in a shower of confetti with a Christmas medley of the classic Home Alone holiday films to greet the Yuletide season featuring Somewhere In My Memory , Star of Bethlehem , and Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas . As softly twinkling parols descended to hang over the stage, it’s impossible not to appreciate the effort that goes into making these performances seem effortless. Proceeds from the show will go toward the PPO and its further expansion, from training new orchestra members to international promotions. Image credits: PPO/Facebook
Out-of-form New Zealand opener Devon Conway will miss the third test against England in Hamilton to remain at home for the birth of his first child this week, the team said on Monday. Conway, who scored just 21 runs over four innings as the Black Caps suffered heavy losses in the first two tests, will be replaced in the squad by uncapped all-rounder Mark Chapman. "Family comes first in this environment and we're all really excited for Dev and his wife Kim to welcome their first child," said coach Gary Stead. "Mark was with the test squad in India recently and returned to the Plunket Shield by scoring an impressive 276 - so it's a good time for him to be joining us." The absence of Conway might also give the ultra-loyal Stead the opportunity to bring Will Young into the batting line-up for the final test of the series, which starts at Seddon Park on Saturday. Young scored 244 runs and was named Player of the Series when New Zealand stunned the cricketing world by sweeping India 3-0 in late October and early November but was dropped for Kane Williamson for the England series. Conway's wife Kim went public on social media after suffering a miscarriage at the start of the year, saying she did not want to feel ashamed or embarrassed about it. "We will have our miracle one day and we will love them with everything," she wrote in a post on Instagram.