Paul McGourty woke up one brisk morning in 2008 and asked himself, “What if I were hit by a bus? Would my life have made a difference?”

He liked his job as marketing manager at Au Bon Pain in Boston. But he wanted to do more to change lives. Five years later, he is a registered nurse working in the operating rooms of Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Milton, earning good pay, and taking great satisfaction from his job.

The leap from restaurant to operating room might sound like a big one. But for McGourty, who went to the University of Massachusetts School of Hotel, Restaurant, and Travel Administration, it was a launch from a foundation of skills shared by the hospitality and health care industries: the ability to relate to people.

“It’s all about making the customer feel welcome and special,” said McGourty, 39, of Needham.

McGourty’s career change took years, but it followed a tried and true path of assessing strengths and building on them by acquiring new skills. It also required perseverance, stamina, and overcoming rejection.

Kayana Szymczak For the Boston Globe

Paul McGourty began thinking about a career change after his mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2008.

McGourty began thinking about a career change after his mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2008.

When he took his mother to the hospital and doctor’s offices, he was struck by the professionalism, caring, and sensitivity of health care providers who put his mom at ease.

“They carried themselves and moved about with such a sense of purpose,” he recalled.

Encouraged by friends and relatives, McGourty applied to nursing school at MassBay Community College in Wellesley. He was rejected at first.

With health care a growing field, such programs are increasingly competitive.

But McGourty had another problem. While in school at UMass, McGourty never took biology, chemistry, anatomy, or physiology — all prerequisites for MassBay’s nursing program.

So McGourty took an intermediate step, enrolling in a month-long certified nursing assistant course at the American Red Cross in Cambridge.

With the certificate in hand, he parlayed his customer service skills from the hospitality industry into a job as a patient care assistant who transported patients, monitored their status, and assisted them with daily activities at Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital.

McGourty worked nights and studied by day, taking the nursing prerequisite courses at MassBay Community College. He was earning half the salary he made as a marketing manager, but the experience fed his desire to become a nurse.

“It wasn’t uncommon for a doctor to say, ‘What do you think?’ ” he recalled. “I felt like I was making a difference. I’d leave the hospital at 7:30 or 8:30 in the morning feeling on top of the world.”

McGourty next enrolled in a three-semester certificate program in surgical technology at MassBay, which included some of the same prerequisites and courses as the nursing program.

When he finished his certificate, he became a surgical technician who maintained sterility and operating equipment in the operating room at Brigham and Women’s Faulkner.

McGourty was finally accepted into MassBay’s nursing program in 2011. To his interpersonal and technical skills, he added clinical and critical thinking skills.

With his surgical technology experience complementing his nursing degree, he was hired as an operating room nurse by Beth Israel Deaconess in Milton in August.

He had two other offers but chose Beth Israel Deaconess because he believed it offered the best of both worlds: a small community hospital setting and affiliation with a major Boston medical center.

As an operating room RN, McGourty assesses patients, develops nursing plans of care, and reevaluates patients. He’s always thinking about patient safety and prepared for the unexpected.

“Should something happen, you need to be ready with Plan B,” he said. For example, a patient might come in for a hip replacement but unexpectedly need a blood transfusion.

He works 8- to 10-hour shifts, always on his feet. Sometimes his back aches and his ankles hurt at the end of a shift. But he’s never had a second thought about his career change.

“I feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be for the first time in my life,” he said. “In catering, if someone didn’t get a sandwich, it’s not a big deal. In health care, it’s a person’s life at stake.”

Summary: Paul McGourty woke up one brisk morning in 2008 and asked himself, “What if I were hit by a bus? Would my life have made a difference?” He liked his job as marketing manager at Au Bon Pain in Boston. But he wanted to do more to change lives. Five years later, now a registered nurse, he is working in the operating rooms of Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Milton, earning good pay and taking great satisfaction from his job. The leap from restaurant to operating room might sound like a big one. But for McGourty, it was a launch from a foundation of skills shared by the hospitality and health care industries: the ability to relate to people.


Owner Bob Sage will be closing the Howard Johnson Hotel on Boylston Street in Boston's Fenway neighborhood at the end of the year.

Sage will sell the property to the developers who have built many of the upscale residential and retail buildings transforming the Fenway.

Sports stars and famous entertainers were regulars in its heyday, and single rooms went for $10.50 a night.

Sage opened the Fenway Motor Lodge in 1959 as one of the city’s first new hotels in decades.

The VIP Lounge at the Fenway Motor Hotel in 1965.

The walls of the "cartoon room" at the Fenway Motor Hotel were decorated with original cartoons by famous artists.

Sage eventually welcomed a partnership with Howard Johnson’s, a fast-growing chain known for its bright orange roofs.

“This was like my first child,” Sage, 87, recalled on a recent afternoon.

Guests waited in the lobby of the hotel.

The hotel also houses the Hong Kong restaurant.

Developers have not finalized their plans for the property, though they previously outlined a proposal for a 12-story hotel and residential building on the 1.5-acre site.

Summary: After 54 years in business, hotelier Robert Sage is selling his Boylston Street Howard Johnson’s to make way for development that is rapidly transforming the neighborhood around Fenway Park. Developers Steve Samuels and Adam Weiner will buy the property as part of their broader effort to build hundreds of new apartments, stores, and restaurants on the street. After years of negotiations, the sale is expected to close at the end of the year. Weiner previously outlined a proposal to build a 12-story hotel and residential building in place of the Howard Johnson’s, but the plans are still in flux. A spokeswoman for the developers said they intend to provide more details about the project in early 2014.


“Overexposed” no doubt refers to the fact that Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine has arrived in the past year as a star in his own right as one of the judges on “The Voice,” the television talent show. But the new album, the California group’s fourth studio release in a decade, has another, less charitable distinction: It marks the first time Maroon 5 has completely receded into its songs’ glossy production.

Summary: “Overexposed” no doubt refers to the fact that Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levinecqhas arrived in the past year as a star in his own right as one of the judges on “The Voice,” the television talent show. But the new album, the California group’s fourth studio release in a decade, has another, less charitable distinction: It marks the first time Maroon 5 has completely receded into its songs’ glossy production.


The Hammerstein Ballroom wasn't big enough for dueling divas Bette Midler and Cher on Friday night. The Divine Miss M dissed a tardy, lipsynching Cher as "someone who used to be famous" according to witnesses at WKTU's "Miracle on 34th Street" concert. The latest flareup between the superstars was sparked by Cher, who due to sing first appeared a half hour late. Apparently, she'd been getting her face retooled by makeup artist Kevin Aucoin, but Midler's camp suspected her dramatic entr Midler did seem to get a kick out of Cher's mouthing the words to three prerecorded tracks from her new album. When Midler took center stage with her musicians and her backup singers, The Harlettes, she told her soundman, "Start my tracks.

" She quickly informed the audience that was a joke. "No, I sing live," she said. "I don't need tracks.

" Midler also added that in contrast to the situation with the previous camera shy entertainer, photographers were welcome to take as many pictures of her as they liked. "i'm a star," witnesses heard her say. 'I'm not someone who used to be famous and is trying to become famous again.

" A spokeswoman for Midler, who proceeded to burn down the house with five songs, vouched that her client made the lip synching crack but insisted that she never delivered the second dig. The sold out KTU show, which also featured Ace of Base, Deborah Cox and Jennifer Paige, ws hosted by Jennifer Lopez. The actress with the beautiful booty wore an offfwhite, backless gown. She must have been in a hurry to get there, because she apparently forgot to put on any underwear. Not that this bothered any of the men in the audience. Tom & Nicole's crowded bedroom Nicole Kidman's performance in "the Blue Room" may have livened up her marriage to Tom Cruise . Joking around after her Broadway debut on Sunday, the actor told us he sometimes asks Kidman to "bring home a few" of the characters she plays. (They include a hooker, an au pair, a politician's wife, a model and an actress.) "Be quiet, Tom," Kidman scolded. "You're talking to a reporters.

" Cruise pleaded, "Please, can't you at least bring home the au pair tonight?

" Kidman said that her own Catholic upbringing gave playwright David Hare the idea for giving one of her characters the line: "You know how Catholics are passion in the dark and guilt the next morning.

" But co-star Iain Glen said that Cruise has given him very little to feel guilty about. Even though Glen has stage-sex with Kidman 10 times a night. "Tom has been very encouraging. We're all great friends.

" In fact, Cruise and Kidman (who celebrate their eighth wedding anniversary on Dec 24) plan to spend Christmas with Glen and his wife, "Masterpiece Theater" star Susannah Harker, in New York. Presumably with their clothes on. Raging Democrat Robert De Niro is coming to the aid of his President. The actor has been lobbying representatives to vote against impeaching Bill Clinton. De Niro spokeman Stan Rosenfield tells us the Oscar winner "favors censure.

" Rosenfield said he did not know which lawmakers have received calls from the publicly bashful star, but he vouched that the lobbying effort was De Niro's idea. "He's a concerned citizen," said Rosenfield. "You can't just wait for an election to express yorself.

" Fergie's dad recovering Good news for Sarah Ferguson. The Duchess of York's father reports that his prostate cancer is in remission. Maj. Ronald Ferguson, who's been waging a quiet battle against the disease, disclosed his condition last Friday. "I kept it from everybody except for my wife," the major told a British TV interviewer, adding that he was diagnosed two years ago. Hopkins wants out Anthony Hopkins' agent must be having a heart attack. The Oscar-sinning star reportedly wants to quit acting because it's "very bad for one's mental health.

" Hopkins, who's filming "Titus Andronicus" in Italy, says he finds his profession "tiresome, disturbing, and deeply distasteful," according to an interview in Britain's News of the World. Hopkins also says that he's "been in deep depression over acting and tried to cover it up," reports the paper. The actor says he "wants to do something else" with his life and will follow his interest in music, do some writing and live in L. A. Hopkins' publicists were unaware of his intentions and were trying to reach him in Italy at press time. Travolta's ringding-a -ling John Travolta might want to start buying weding rings in bulk. "I lose so many," the actor admits in the new issue of Harper's Bazaar. Wife Kelly Preston corroborates the actor's story, adding that wedding bands go missing in the spa, in the car, at dinner, on movie sets. 'Sometimes we find them again," she says. "He has a box of them by the bed.

" Fortunately, they're both trusting souls. "I know he's not fooling around," Preston tells interviewer Richard Rayner. Travolta, likewise,says he's happy she had the opportunity to date other stars, like George Clooney and Charlie Sheen, before they wed. "I'm glad those relationships happened because one has to know what one wants and what one doesn't," Travolta says. He also credits the Church of Scientology with giving them guidance. "If Kelly and I have an issue on how to handle something with [son] Jett, we'll consult what LRH [Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard] has to say on the matter and see if it sheds light," Travolta says. "Or it might be marriage counseling. There's no area that Scientology doesn't deal with.

" Liv and let love Liv Tyler and Joaquin Phoenix either had the easiest breakup or they've got nerves of steel. The "Armageddon" actress enjoyed herself with her new man, rocker Royston Langdon, while ex-lover Phoenix stood just a few feet away talking to a model at the Christmas party that Michael Stipe, Jane Pratt and music exec Julie Panebianco threw Saturday night at Casa La Femme. Among the revelers: Cameron Diaz, Christian Slater, Gretchen Mol, Helena Christiansen, Lisa Loeb, Paula Cole, Stephen Dorff, Sandra Bernhard and the underage marrieds Macaulay Culkin and Rachel Miner drinking Cosmopolitans.


05/02/2014 at 02:55 PM EDT

With less than a month to go before

The reality star, 33, works out nearly every day, often in the early morning, according to an insider, varying between classes at Barry's Boot Camp and spinning at SoulCycle. "She alternates between different types of workouts for a better result," says the source.

North often gets in on the action – Kardashian pushes Nori in her stroller on long walks around their Hidden Hills neighborhood. And there's no rest for the weary, even on vacation. When Kardashian took an Easter trip to Santa Barbara, "she kept up with her workouts," says the insider. "She's very focused and dedicated to her routine."

, it's clear that Kardashian's hard work is paying off. Famously criticized for the

, the star has been steadily shedding the weight through a healthy Atkins-based diet and her commitment to exercise.

Says the insider: "It's obvious she wants to look her best for the wedding. And she looks amazing!"

Summary: "She's very focused and dedicated to her routine," an insider tells PEOPLE


Design is more interesting when it is driven by intent and urgency, rather than the wish to tickle the appetites of shoppers of products. Medical and military objects, or those formed in the face of material shortages, or in response to the release of a new technique, tend to have a surprising logic and a true inventiveness that comes from situations where preconceptions are wasteful luxuries. No one would have come up with something as luminously odd as an x-ray or a submarine unless they really had to.

The same is true of the banners, balustrades and stranger devices used in protest, where there is an unequal balance of resources between protesters and whatever authorities they are opposing. There is the added factor that there is a kinship between artistic and political discontent: a similar urge lies behind the wish to reinvent things and reinvent society. "Our world is in dire need of… creative maladjustment," said Martin Luther King. "To disobey in order to take action", according to the philosopher Gaston Bachelard, "is the byword of all genuine creative spirits."

Both are quoted in the content-rich catalogue to Disobedient Objects, the Victoria and Albert Museum's new exhibition. The show offers a piquant selection of the physical, spatial and graphic inventions generated by dissent. Some are practical, such as water bottles repurposed as face masks protecting against tear gas, and lock-on devices, the contrivances of chains and metal tubes with which people attach themselves to each other, or to buildings or bulldozers, to make it hard for the police to move them.

Others are propaganda, such as a trade union banner or the 1986 leaflet (produced by London Greenpeace and, it later turned out, an undercover police officer) that sparked the interminable McLibel trial.

The most memorable are those that turn the actions of their enemies against themselves. There are the book bloc shields, which are protective shields decorated with enlarged images of the front cover of books (Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince, Thomas Paine's Rights of Man) such that riot police are obliged to belabour Literature and Knowledge with their truncheons. There are the dwarf hats worn by opponents of the Polish regime in the 1980s, which, as all protests were illegal, put the police in the position of arresting people for the crime of dressing as dwarves in large numbers.

Some exhibits employ the charm of something woven or crafted, such as the arpilleras, the appliqued textiles made first in Chile and then in other places, that commemorate people taken away by ruling regimes and other atrocities. With these, the labour and care taken in making them commands respect and disarms aggression.

There are found objects, such as the saucepans and lids used in Argentinian protests. The catalogue, quoting Bachelard again, says the exhibition is of "many small Promethean disobediences, at once clever, well thought out, and patiently pursued, so subtle at times as to avoid punishment entirely".

There is, inevitably, something jarring about showing the artefacts of raw protest, sometimes concerning life and death, in the genteel surroundings of the V&A, just across from the gift shop. With pleasant graphics and tricksy fonts, the show feels a bit boutique. You wonder if it shouldn't be much, much bigger, and storm through the renaissance galleries like Bolsheviks in the Winter Palace, but that would only magnify the paradox.

There is also an a-critical position. As often, when the uprisings of the oppressed are described, a tone of hushed piety prevails, as in the presence of children's drawings, an assumption that everything is wise and wonderful. Yet we know that revolutions are not always nice, beneficial, well-directed or competent. Most of the causes that feature are ones liberal-minded people would sympathise with, though the not-so-nice Ulster Volunteer Force makes a brief appearance. Whether consciously or not, violent artefacts of protest are absent: no molotov cocktails, for example.

It would be good to know more about what worked and how well. Some of the movements represented were spectacularly successful, such as the suffragettes, gay rights, Solidarnosc and the anti-apartheid campaigns, whereas protests against what is now called neoliberalism, their themes remarkably consistent over the decades, don't seem to have got very far. You wonder to what degree design played a role in both successes and failures. There is, finally, an unintended consequence of the proximity of artistic and political radicalism – it's possible to blur one with the other and be too easily satisfied with something that looks as if it is changing the world, when it's not.

The trap of making bloody struggles into an aesthetic diversion is one the show doesn't completely escape. Very likely, given the context of a grand old museum named after an empress and her consort, it was impossible to escape it. But it is still a thought-provoking and mind-nourishing show and the catalogue more so.

In other news, two striking commissions: the designers Barber Osgerby are to design the inside and outside of the new Crossrail trains, which, after decades of British trains having been less beautifully designed than the average vacuum cleaner, is a step forward. And Goldsmiths, University of London, incubator of much of BritArt, has chosen the young architectural collective Assemble to design a public gallery on their New Cross campus to show the work of international artists, students and staff.

It's an exceptional choice, showing an openness to the new that is too rare. Assemble, as featured on these pages recently, have until now specialised in temporary structures realised with the resourceful recruitment of professional and volunteer labour. This is a wholly new type of building for them, and that, under the procedures of most competitions, would have barred them from the start.

But most competitions, by choosing only people with track records, end up with predictable selections. There's some risk that, by taking on jobs like those of others architects, Assemble will too-quickly resemble other architects. The opportunity is that, by coming from outside the usual box, they can refresh the well-worn idea of an art gallery.

Disobedient Objects is at the V&A, London (020-7942 2000) until 1 February 2015

Summary: A thought-provoking history of the tools of protest comes with the inbuilt irony of being staged in a grand old museum, writes Rowan Moore


In Davis Square on Columbus Day weekend, an eclectic blend of bands will fill the streets and fill the air, blasting melodies and weaving through the neighborhood. In its seventh year, HONK! will reign over the Somerville hub for five days — and as usual, it will be loud.

The HONK! Festival is a celebration that gathers activist street bands from across the nation and beyond to bring awareness to meaningful causes and, above all, set a live soundtrack for an entertaining event. The idea for the festival came from the Second Line Social Aid & Pleasure Society Brass Band (SLSAPS), a local band that formed under the pretense of supporting Boston’s first Iraq war protest.

“It was impromptu,” says longtime SLSAPS trombonist Kevin Leppmann, adding that the majority of bands involved with HONK! also materialize spontaneously. “[We were] unhappy with conventional protests with no uplifting sense. [We wanted] to turn that around and make protests more active and audience-involved events.”

After three years of livening up campaigns, the members of SLSAPS wanted to branch out even further. “Our band’s motto is, ‘We aim to please if the cause is true and the time is right,’ ” said Leppmann. A marked increase of activist street bands in the mid-2000s motivated the SLSAPS troupe to seek out like-minded musicians. They successfully gathered 12 bands in Somerville for a weekend filled with free music and a fun atmosphere.

“It’s like walking into a Dr. Seuss book,” said Leppmann of the whimsical atmosphere. “We essentially create an alternative universe right there in Harvard Square, right there in the street. You’re seeing something magical [because we set up] right in the middle of everyone’s everyday life where there’s usually business, and we turn it upside down. It’s an extraordinary experience.”

He wasn’t the only one captivated by the festivities. Since its 2006 creation, HONK! has spread across the nation at an infectious pace, with a presence from Austin, Texas, to Seattle to Brooklyn, N.Y. “All these groups in other cities have made it their own, but have kept to the general flavor of keeping it a grass-roots, community-organized festival,” said Leppmann. “Truly homegrown; that’s the HONK! way.”

While HONK! is expanding countrywide, the original Somerville-based festival has also ballooned. What started as a 12-band gig has exploded into a celebration featuring 34 acts, hailing from Somerville to Italy. The largest Somerville HONK! yet is slated to sprawl across nine venues in Somerville and Cambridge neighborhoods, featuring a primarily free array of outdoor concerts, a large parade and smaller processions, indoor concerts, and a symposium.

“It’s gotten a lot bigger,” said SLSAPS saxophonist Ken Field. “We’ve learned a lot through the years about how to do these things. [But it’s still] a totally noncommercial event, it’s all about the music, the bands, and the audience.”

The high-energy festival was initially created to raise awareness of sociopolitical and activist issues, and while that mission remains, it has transformed into something more.

“It’s not folk-music protest songs. Some are directly related to issues, but most are not,” said Field. He added that a large chunk of the audience isn’t drawn out by the social activism, but by the quality of the production. “A lot of [our spectators] are not — nor do they need to be — aware that this is a festival of activist street bands. It’s just an incredible spectacle of music.”

Featured bands have various platforms, ranging from hard-hitting political and socioeconomic stances to the simple aspiration to “take back the streets,” like Tony Randazzo of Minneapolis-based Brass Messengers. “I don’t know that there’s a shared political vision as a group, but we all share this desire to see folks take over and take back street life. And Somerville HONK! is so well-organized and put together. The way they’ve created these little nooks and stages on the street is really amazing.”

Leppmann said that not every band has an explicit activist motivation, but they all have the drive “to play for free on the street. Most of the bands have a mission that’s different from most bands. They’re playing for the fun of it, [and] to play for free in the street is a goal in and of itself.”

The HONK! Festival blurs the line between audience and participant, and encourages observers to become doers. And performers hope that notion will remain, even after the HONK! celebrations wind down, in Boston and elsewhere.

“[It’s a] rejuvenating time to get together, but also to really share the kind of political work we’ve been doing around the country, and seeing where social movements overlap,” said Lily Paulina, trombonist for Rude Mechanical Orchestra, based in New York. “We get a lot of inspiration out of seeing and listening to and talking with bands from around the country, remembering that other folks are doing similar work that we’re doing.”

Field said if HONK! encourages people to get off their chairs and take a more active role in improving society, it’s succeeded as a festival.

“The genesis of this festival is that people become activists to take action to improve their world, instead of sitting back, watching TV, and complaining,” he said. “When we say, ‘activist street bands,’ we mean they’re getting out there and doing something to be helpful. Whether that’s writing a letter, voting, or even posting something on Facebook — it’s just something that helps.”

Summary: In its seventh year, the HONK! Festival, set for Columbus Day weekend in Davis Square, is a celebration that gathers activist street bands from across the nation and beyond to bring awareness to meaningful causes and, above all, set a live soundtrack for an entertaining event. The idea for the festival came from the Second Line Social Aid & Pleasure Society Brass Band (SLSAPS), a local band that formed under the pretense of supporting Boston’s first Iraq war protest.


It’s impressive that Israeli writer-director Ari Folman offers so much freshly provocative speculation on digitally rendered actors in “The Congress,” a half-live-action, half-animated headtrip that throws Robin Wright into a dizzying showbiz paradigm shift. Folman, director of the animated 2008 Beirut war memoir “Waltz with Bashir,” adapted his new film from a novel by Polish sci-fi author Stanislaw Lem (“Solaris”). But Lem’s story is merely a springboard for Folman’s wildly sprawling meditations on what the advent of virtual performance means — for artistic integrity, creative spirit, celebrity culture, human identity, even our hold on reality.

Wright stars as herself, or a close approximation: an actress in her mid-40s first seen being lectured by her agent, Al (Harvey Keitel), for all her iffy career and life choices. Al urges her to take Miramount Studios’ offer to scan her likeness and buy the exclusive lifetime rights. Her professional clock wound down a while ago, and Al doesn’t want to hear any more about her anxieties or her ailing adolescent son (Kodi Smit-McPhee, “Let Me In”). (Wright’s digs next to an airport runway apparently aren’t a down-on-her-luck indicator, just an opportunity for some jets-and-kites metaphorical contrasting of technology and soul.)

Wright cries, resists, relents. In a clever touch, she pauses on her way down the studio corridor to gaze silently at her decades-younger image on a poster. “I need Buttercup from ‘The Princess Bride,’” Danny Huston’s effectively hardball exec tells her. “Jenny from ‘Forrest Gump.’ I don’t need you.”

A scanning sequence inside a cavernous strobe-globe encapsulates the movie’s conceptual strengths and dramatic unevenness. The film-crew resume of the technician in charge is a nice reveal. So is Keitel’s lengthy control-booth monologue about what makes Wright and Al’s professional relationship tick, a speech intended to make her cry for the scanner. But as for an old Bronx tale meant to make her laugh – oy.

At the 45-minute mark, the film jumps ahead 20 years, and into animation. The studio’s virtual-being ambitions have by now given rise to Abrahama City, a sort of real-life Toontown on the edge of the desert. Sexagenarian Wright snorts a chemical she’s handed at the border and is instantly animated, just like the cracked resort surrounding her. (The rendering is rough but stoner-serviceable in a “Heavy Metal” way.) Wright’s pimped-out likeness has made so many gazillions for the studio, they figure it’s worth having her at their big cultural confab. But she’s horrified by plans they announce to push beyond artificially crafted movie experiences. Their pharmaceutical department (!) has figured out how to reduce an actor to a chemical substance. Entertainment will be consumed in a very literal sense, with the masses eating or drinking a celebrity and imagining what they will.

A lovestruck computer animator (Jon Hamm) who’s overseen Wright’s greatest digi-roles ends up being her guide through a second fast-forward, by which point almost the whole of society has morphed into a peace-love-dope fantasia of cultural caricatures. You’ll feel the echoes of “The Matrix” and other dystopias in all of this, particularly when Wright is reunited with an old doctor friend (Paul Giamatti) in the real world. But hearing Folman’s characters talk about chemically transmitting “story data” straight to the subconscious? That’s got a completely original ring to it.

Summary: “The Congress” review: Robin Wright stars as herself in a half-live-action, half-animated headtrip from Israeli writer-director Ari Folman (“Waltz with Bashir”).


Acutely sensitive to its surroundings ... Alvaro Siza's Serpentine Pavilion. Photographs: Sarah Lee

Hampstead Heath has its giant table and chair to intrigue London's leisure-seekers this summer, but over to the west, Kensington Gardens has ... Well, what is it? This year's Serpentine Gallery pavilion is a little harder to place. Perhaps it's a many-legged alien insect. Or could it be the cardboard dividers from an outsized box of wine? Or perhaps some Roman battle machine that's been left out in the rain too long? In fact, it's a collaboration between one of the world's most renowned andrespected architects, Portugal's Alvaro Siza, his former colleague Eduardo Soto de Moura, and Cecil Balmond of Britain's Arup, and it's both the simple shelter it appears to be and something far more complicated.

In the past few years the Serpentine's pavilions have been a playful fixture of the summer, a chance for Britons to enjoy the work of architects considered too cutting-edge to be permitted to build anything permanent here. Zaha Hadid started things off in 2000 with her reconfigured marquee. Daniel Libeskind dropped one of his angular metallic interventions next to the gallery a year later. Toyo Ito raised the bar with his radical cube of crazy cross-hatching in 2002, and Oscar Niemeyer cooled things down a year later with a tranquil tropical number. This year, the distinguished run almost came to a halt. An enticingly radical design by Dutch architects MVRDV was announced, which, rather than building a structure adjacent to the gallery, plonked a giant artificial hill on top of it. It was an audacious project, but excessively so, as it proved impossible to build within the allotted timeframe. It has been shelved for a later date.

In comparison, the replacement for the MVRDV pavilion is simplicity itself. A cafe by day and a venue for talks and events at night, it is little more than a grid made from short planks of timber, folded down at the edges to form the walls. Panes of polycarbonate fill in the squares of the grid until it meets the ground on extended "legs". Anyone with a basic knowledge of woodwork will be able to see immediately how it's been put together: with mortise and tenon joints. A bolt secures each joint and there's your pavilion. So while MVRDV set themselves a mountain to climb, this looks like it could have been assembled from a flat-pack - given a thousand years' worth of Sunday afternoons.

"A pavilion is usually an isolated building, but with this site we felt we should maintain a relationship with the gallery and the trees, and these things were the start of the idea," explains Siza. "In front of the house there are two hedges forming half an ellipse. That gave us the suggestion to make a curved surface to complete the ellipse. And as the trees outside were in a position that avoided making a rectangle, we decided to make the four faces curved. The curves are not symmetrical because of the position of these trees, so they adapted to these accidents. Also the roof began suffering accidents. It's like a vault but it comes down approaching the gallery, like a compliment. Architecture is often developed through such accidents and difficulties. In the end that gives character to the buildings."

A quick poll of passers-by on the exterior of the pavilion before it had opened produced mixed reactions: many likened it to a dinosaur or an armadillo; some couldn't wait to get inside; others found it hostile, unremarkable, or even ugly. A group of workmen nearby said they preferred it before they put the polycarbonate panels on it, others that it would look better with plants growing over it.

After more than 50 years in the business, Siza is no stranger to such reactions. Although he is revered by fellow professionals, and won the prestigious Pritzker prize in 1992, he has never been a high-stakes architectural superstar like Norman Foster or Frank Gehry. Rather than turning out flamboyant structures, his buildings can look unremarkable at first glance. But Siza's mastery lies in subtler qualities such as context, spatial relationships and use of light. He's generally a less-is-more modernist who favours clean, straight lines, whitewashed walls and almost-blank geometric volumes, but his buildings are usually too sensitive to their users and their surroundings to veer into uptight minimalism.

One of his most celebrated works, for example, is a public swimming pool built in the late 1960s at Leça da Palmeira. It consists of little more than concrete planes and platforms defining a group of tidal pools, but with minimal intervention they create a space that relates to both the natural rock formations and the concrete seawalls of the decidedly un-picturesque Altantic coastline.

From a similar school of thought, the younger Eduardo Souto de Moura worked in Siza's office during the 1970s before branching off on his own. At least one of his projects is arguably more famous in Britain than any of Siza's: the Braga Stadium, which hosted football matches during Euro 2004 - it was the one with a sheer granite rock face at one end of the pitch. The two architects have collaborated before, on Portugal's flagship pavilion at Expo 98 in Lisbon, but that was formal and monumental, in marked contrast to the casual, playful building at the Serpentine.

"We worked at the same table, sometimes both writing in different corners of the same piece of paper," says Siza. "It's a work of friendship and amusement. It's like a holiday, because one of the attractions of this work is that there is no bureaucracy, no need to know about regulations. It was very free."

The influence of Arup's Cecil Balmond is there to see in the broken up geometry of the structure, and the fact that the whole thing stands up. On closer inspection, the timber grid appears to be warped out of shape and the lines of the timber elements are staggered zig-zags, as if it the building had been shaken by an earthquake. Despite the basic construction methods, the pavilion is the result of serious computing power and precision engineering. Every piece of wood and every pane of polycarbonate is different.

Had they been allowed inside the pavilion, the sceptics of Kensington Gardens might have been won over by Siza and Souto de Moura's artistry. In contrast to the exterior, the space inside is unexpectedly grand and yet almost ecclesiastically tranquil. The semi-opaque panels give the ceiling a luminous glow, and the leaves of the surrounding trees are silhouetted on the walls. A solar-powered light in the centre of each roof panel turns on automatically at dusk, but because each panel is differently orientated, the lights come on one by one. And as with Siza's other works, the pavilion is acutely sensitive to its surroundings. The walls appear to bow outwards in deference to the surrounding trees, and openings at the corners neatly frame young trees and views across the park. The decision to leave the bottom metre or so of the structure open means that visitors sitting at the cafe tables (designed by Siza, of course) will be able to see out across the park.

Siza has yet to visit the site, though. Souto de Moura came and took notes and photos from which they worked out the design. But Siza is not offended that people have likened his structure a giant armadillo. "Actually, I think it is my fault," he says. "In the beginning when describing it, I said it was like an animal with its feet in the ground. It wasn't in our minds to make it look like an animal, but in the end we are always confronted with nature and with natural forms. Forms are not only defined by complex mathematics and proportions, we can look around and we have trees and dogs and people. It's like an alphabet of proportions and relations that we use. I think that's one of the tasks of the architect: to make things look simple and natural which in fact are complex."

Summary: It may look like a flat-pack armadillo, but Alvaro Siza's new pavilion has a complex heart, says Steve Rose.


One of the prints in the auction: Jackie and the Kennedys, Wedding Day in Newport, 1953, by Toni Frissell

A rare photograph by celebrated war photographer Robert Capa is to be sold at auction as part of one of the greatest private collections of historic news images – a treasure trove from the heyday of photojournalism.

The Capa photograph of a Gypsy wedding in Slovakia in 1947 could be the rarest surviving image by the Magnum agency photographer, who was killed covering the conflict in Indochina in 1954. The photo survives only as a single print, with the negative thought to have been lost in the 1950s, and is expected to fetch up to £9,000 in Paris on 30 April.

The collection of photographs from the 1930s to the 1970s was amassed over 70 years by the veteran magazine photo editor John G. Morris, a colleague and close friend of many of the 20th century's greatest newspaper and magazine photographers. The collection includes photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour, Dorothea Lange, George Rodger, Eugene Smith, Willy Ronis, René Burri, Otto Hagel and Hansel Mieth, Marc Riboud, Lisa Larsen, Alfred Eisenstaedt and Philip Jones Griffiths.

Morris, now aged 94, was the London picture editor of Life magazine during the second world war. At its peak, Life regularly sold millions of copies a week. It was the primary showcase for the world's leading documentary photographers, with socially concerned picture-based stories focused on ordinary life.

Capa had already been hailed as the world's greatest war photographer for his Spanish civil war images, including the famous "falling soldier" shot, when Morris worked with him on the story that led to the most famous series of photographs of all time – the surviving "magnificent 11" shots of US troops landing on Omaha Beach in Normandy on D-Day. The sale includes a rare early print of one of those 11 shots.

Also included in the auction, entitled The Photo Diary of John G. Morris, are several hitherto unseen photographs taken by Morris in France soon after D-Day, while he was working with his staff photographers on the frontline. Of great interest to photo-historians is a rare shot of Capa at work, photographing German prisoners being rounded up in Normandy. No other shot of Capa at work in a war zone is known to exist.

Other rarities include informal photographs of the Kennedy clan in the 1950s taken by US photographer Toni Frissell.

After Life magazine, Morris was the first executive editor of the celebrated Magnum photo agency. He went on to run the photo desks of the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Speaking from his home in Paris, where he has lived since the early 1980s, Morris said: "My hope is that this auction will change the outlook on photojournalism in the money markets. I know that's a strange thing to say, but photography auctions in the past have consisted primarily of aesthetically beautiful prints which did not necessarily have much to do with telling the truth about life through the daily newspapers and in magazines.

"Art photographs have been attracting enormous prices at auctions, but in the coming auction many of the prints have been used by newspapers and magazines, many of them with marks on, crop marks, publication marks, etc. It remains to be seen how these kind of photographs will go at auction."

US-based Getty Images, the world's largest commercial picture library, is understood to be taking a close interest in the John Morris collection. Getty already owns the Hulton Picture Library, the archive of the British weekly news magazine Picture Post.

In recent years, art photography has become a target market for dealers and investors. In 2006 a 1904 photograph of a moonlit pond by Edward Steichen sold for just under $3m (£1.8m) at Sotheby's in New York. In 2008 Edward Weston's Nude (1925) fetched $1.6m at the same auction house. Last November Richard Avedon's 1955 shot, Dovima with Elephants, sold for $1.2m in Paris.

"As far as I know, this is the first photojournalism collection to come on to the art market," said Morris. "So in setting minimum prices for the pictures, and estimates, it's been a sort of ballpark thing. We don't know what will sell and what won't." Prices for pictures in the Morris collection start at £18, with the Capa shot of the Gypsy wedding an estimated €8,000-€10,000.

"My personal favourite is the Capa shot of the Gypsies," said Morris. "That picture seems to touch people… I love it. Capa's humanity was special; he had a feeling for people, an instant rapport with almost anybody. I remember in Normandy in the war, we arrived in a Jeep one afternoon at Mont St Michel with Ernest Hemingway and the Time journalist Bill Walton. We took a walk up the street and Capa just stopped and joined a game of cribbage that some fishermen were playing, and next there would be a girl, and he joked 'Where's your boyfriend?' He just charmed the entire place in one walk.

"Henri [Cartier-Bresson] I respected for totally different reasons. He scarcely ever talked to the people he was photographing. He was a passionate person, but his passion emerged in curious ways. He would get angry, pull out a penknife and threaten you. He had a temper."

Hollywood is set to bring to the big screen the story of Capa's love affair with fellow photographer Gerda Taro during the Spanish civil war. Provisionally entitled Waiting for Robert Capa, the film will be directed by Michael Mann and features Tamara Drewe star Gemma Arterton as Taro and The Social Network's Andrew Garfield as Capa.

"I have mixed feelings about selling the pictures," admitted Morris. "But on the other hand, at my age, what the hell am I going to do with them? I'm not going to be around for ever."

The Photo Diary of John G. Morris, Drouot Montaigne auction house, Paris, 30 April

Summary: Images by Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson and others are in a collection owned by the veteran Life magazine photo editor John G. Morris


Macy’s M has spent hundreds of millions of dollars beefing up its e-commerce firepower in recent years.

That has given Macy’s a big head start over rivals such as J.C. Penney JCP and Kohl’s KSS , in terms of having the ability to use stores to fill online orders or orders from other stores, as well as the ability to offer customers the option of ordering online before coming in stores.

The strategy is paying off: Macy’s saw the biggest jump of any large retailer in consulting firm Interbrand’s most recent ranking, and Macy’s now gets about 10% of its sales online after a few years of high growth. But now, as competitors catch up, Macy’s is trying to keep one step ahead as it pursues its “digital/brick-and-mortar” hybrid business model.

So it is testing some ideas like same-day delivery or smart fitting rooms and implementing others that are ready for primetime, such as accepting the Apple Pay AAPL digital wallet and deploying iBeacon readers so it can zap personalized ads to customers as they walk through the store.

“The customer is driving innovation,” RB Harrison, chief omnichannel (integrating stores and e-commerce) officer at Macy’s, told Fortune in a recent interview. “She or he is increasingly expecting a seamless experience between a digital and in-store environment.”

Last week the retailer, which also owns the high end Bloomingdale’s chain, announced an extensive series of initiatives aimed at making the best use of its technology to make sure customers that come to shop stay to buy, whether online or in stores.

Here’s a look at a few of them.

This fall, Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s will start testing same-day delivery of online orders, trying it out in eight key markets such as Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., with Deliv, a same-day delivery provider whose investors include all four major mall operators, including General Growth Properties GGP and Simon Property Group SPG . Two years ago, Macy’s and others were testing out the service with eBay Now EBAY but those efforts were seen as a “very crude initial experiment.”

“We didn’t provide any of that. This is totally Macy’s,” Harrison said. The shopper simply goes to Macy’s site and if the product is available, and the order placed, the customer gets a text message or email with the projected delivery time or asking if he or she wants to change it. Harrison said he doesn’t know how popular the service will prove to be but said he expects customers to make good use of it. “It doesn’t mean that everything has to be delivered that way but it can help in an emergency.”

Macy’s is not ready to give it a try in New York just yet given how much more complex same-day delivery would be in that market, Harrison added. The move also comes as Amazon AMZN accelerates its own efforts for ever faster delivery.

Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s have started rolling out Radio Frequency Identification technology in 2011 with a view to being better able to track the exact location of a given item anywhere in the supply chain or in-store, an essential condition to being able to use stores to fill e-commerce orders and for finding and packing an item ordered on the web for in-store pickup.

“There’s an omnichannel component to RFID. We’ve always said RFID would help us maintain more accurate inventory, and with more accurate inventory we would buy the right stuff, have it in the store and in turn take care of the customer more efficiently,” Harrison said. (Under failed former CEO Ron Johnson, J.C. Penney JCP attempted its own wide-scale RFID deployment, but ran out of money and dropped the project.) The retailer is pushing the rollout to RFID to more fashion categories next year. More retailers are following suit now.

Beacons in-store Macy’s will expand the use of shopkick, a popular real-world shopping app, to all of its stores after a successful pilot last holiday season in its Manhattan and San Francisco stores. Shopkick’s shopBeacon technology, an enhanced mobile location-based feature built upon Apple’s iBeacon, will be placed inside certain store departments and allow Macy’s to send personalized department-level deals, discounts, recommendations and rewards to customers who want that. The installation should be done by early autumn. Penney also has some beacons deployed, but the technology is still largely absent from big box retail.

Macy’s image search Macy’s has started to roll out its Image Search feature, which lets shoppers looking for a specific item they took a picture of and search through the assortment available on macys.com to see if the retailer has it, or a similar item.

Smart fitting rooms Bloomingdale’s is testing smart fitting rooms at four of its stores. The rooms have a wall-mounted Apple iPad that let a shopper or customers scan an item to see whether other colors and sizes are available in the store and summon the associate to bring alternates. This is meant to prevent customers from giving up in frustration at the idea of having to get dressed again to go into the store to get more items to try on.

Summary: Macy's is looking to pad its lead over rivals in e-commerce by piloting features such as same-day delivery and smart fitting rooms.


FORTUNE — On the second day of sworn testimony before congressional lawmakers, General Motors GM CEO Mary Barra attempted to distance her company from its past, repeatedly referring to the automaker as “today’s GM” as she responded to questions and accusations over a decade-long failure to reveal a defective ignition switch that has been linked to at least 13 deaths.

Barra, who took over as CEO in January, told lawmakers during a Senate Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Insurance subcommittee hearing that she first learned about the faulty ignition switch on Jan. 31, after an executive committee made the recall decision. In February, the automaker issued a recall of the 2003-2007 model year Chevrolet Cobalt and HHR, Saturn Ion, Saturn Sky, Pontiac G5, and Pontiac Solstice. The recall was later expanded to include all model years, affecting about 2.6 million cars worldwide.

“Today’s GM will do the right thing,” Barra said. “Our customers and their safety is at the center of everything we do.”

MORE: GM hires Kenneth Feinberg to consult recall effort

In the late 1990s, GM had more of a cost culture, Barra said. Since the 2009 bankruptcy, that culture has shifted more toward customers and safety, she said.

Barra’s assurances were met with skepticism from lawmakers, including a former state attorney general and prosecutor, who accused GM of a cover-up. Lawmakers were particularly concerned that GM redesigned the defective ignition switches in 2006, but never changed the identifying part number.

“This goes beyond ‘unacceptable,'” said Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. “I believe this is criminal.”

Ayotte later said GM’s failure to change the part number after the redesign amounted to criminal deception.

Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, who is a former prosecutor, also used the term cover-up and called GM engineer Ray DeGiorgio a liar.

MORE: GM’s Barra to speak before Congress: ‘Not waiting’ to make changes

During a deposition last year related to a suit against GM, DeGiorgio, the lead switch engineer on the Cobalt, said he could not explain why the part was changed and that he had not approved it. However, an internal document showed DeGiorgio had signed off on the change, McCaskill said during the subcommittee hearing.

Several lawmakers, including Ayotte, questioned why GM’s general counsel didn’t immediately alert the CEO about problems with the same part number after the deposition. Lawmakers also questioned why Barra, who has been with the company for 33 years, didn’t learn about the faulty ignition switch sooner and was unable to answer more of their questions.

“Something is very strange, that such a top employee would know nothing,” said Senator Barbara Boxer of California.

Problems with the ignition switch were identified as early as 2001 in a pre-production report for the model year 2003 Saturn Ion, according to documents provided prior to an earlier hearing before the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. The report said a design change resolved the problem.

However, issues persisted, and in 2004 GM opened an engineering inquiry to look into a complaint that a 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt vehicle could be “keyed off” while driving. Ultimately, no action was taken. A year later, the driver of a 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt was killed in a crash. A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigation determined the frontal airbag system didn’t deploy and that the vehicle power mode status was in “accessory,” not “run.”

MORE: GM recall: A civil case or criminal prosecution?

“What we know now is that would have only cost $2 to repair,” said Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts. “It was apparently $2 too much for General Motors to act despite the decade of warnings, accidents, and deaths.”

Markey asked Barra if GM would voluntarily provide all documents, including accident reports, notices that a fatal accident could have been caused by a faulty part, and all details from consumer complaints it receives about all of its vehicles.

Markey and fellow Massachusetts senator Richard Blumenthal introduced legislation last month that would require auto and equipment manufacturers to automatically submit an accident report or other document that first alerted them to a fatality involving their vehicle to an early warning reporting database operated by NHTSA. The federal agency would then be required to make those documents public in a searchable, user-friendly format.

Boxer asked if Barra would support legislation that would ban recalled vehicles from becoming rental cars. When Barra ducked the lawmaker’s question, Boxer said, “The culture that you’re representing here today is the culture of the status quo.”

Earlier this week, GM announced a separate recall of 1.3 million vehicles in the U.S. over concerns they may experience a sudden loss of electric power steering. On Friday, GM extended its ignition switch recall by another 824,000 vehicles to cover all model years of the Chevrolet Cobalt and HHR, Pontiac G5 and Solstice, and the Saturn Ion and Sky in the U.S. because faulty switches may have been used. In all, the ignition switch recall affects 2.19 million vehicles in the United States.

GM also announced Monday that it has more than doubled its first-quarter charge to $750 million to cover the cost of recall-related repairs. This amount includes a previously disclosed $300 million charge for three safety actions announced March 17 and the ignition switch recall announced Feb. 25.

GM’s total number of recalled vehicles in the U.S., including the power steering issue, ignition switch, and three other safety issues, has now surpassed 5 million.

Summary: On the second day of testimony before congressional lawmakers, GM's CEO tried to distance the company from its past.


The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is a smorgasbord of cool, with gadgets and prototypes filling the convention halls for three days. While most of the technology tends towards the small — smart phones, tablets, and wearable computers — one industry that gets major play at the annual conference is decidedly larger and perhaps even more mobile: cars.

With the auto industry in an arms race to have the newest, coolest, most useful technology, CES is the perfect place for car companies to show off their new features and talk about what we’ll be seeing in the coming year in showrooms. With CES underway this week, here’s a few of the most tantalizing things we’ve seen from the auto industry so far.

Summary: Here's some things to look forward to in the world of connected cars.


Alison Pill and Joshua Leonard

01/07/2015 AT 05:25 PM EST

Joshua Leonard relied on his pals to keep a secret when he made a surprise and old-fashioned proposal to

, the actor told PEOPLE of his happy

Leonard, 39, had the couple join friends on a group excursion to California's Joshua Tree National Park, where Pill thought she was in for some serious hiking, he told PEOPLE at Tuesday's Los Angeles premiere of HBO's

, held at the Avalon Hollywood.

Instead, after nearly taking a tumble on the park's lunar landscape, Pill, 29, said "yes" to a proposal that Leonard had cleared over the holidays with her parents, who live in Canada – and one that their buddies were in on.

"We have astonishingly duplicitous friends," Leonard said of them keeping the big secret that Pill now calls thrilling.

"It was pretty amazing. I thought we were about to take a picture," Pill said. When a friend pulled out a camera to capture the moment, "I was like 'Alright, let's â¦ Wha, what?' "

Then Leonard, dropped to one knee to pop the question, later offering a 1920s-style diamond ring recreated by a friend's jeweler stepfather.

"I told her that I loved her more than anybody on the planet," Leonard said. "It was pretty good. Her hands were shaking, and so about 30 seconds after I gave it to her I said, 'You might want to put that on now.' "

Pill did eventually wear the ring, posting a photo on

on Saturday of the two together with the caption, "Let's do this, 2015!!!!"

Summary: After getting her parents' permission, Leonard got on one knee for the well-kept surprise


Apple investors have waited a long time to see a chart like the one above, drawn by Creative Strategies’s Ben Bajarin from smartphone sell-through data provided by CounterPoint Research’s Neil Shah.

Both Shah and Bajarin expect Samsung’s shipments will be back on top next quarter. But it almost doesn’t matter. The millions of jumbo iPhones that Apple cranked out last quarter took the wind right out of Samsung’s phablet sales.

Or, for those who prefer more apocalyptic metaphors, here’s AppleInsider’s Thursday headline: Apple Inc’s thermonuclear assault on Samsung vaporizes Android’s remaining profit pillar.

“After years of failing to do much more than embarrass Samsung Electronics in legal battles over patent infringement,” wrote Daniel Eran Dilger, with evident glee, “Apple has rapidly obliterated Samsung’s mobile division profitability, rendering it as barrenly unprofitable as every other Android or Windows licensee with razor thin margins in the phone, PC and tablet market.”

Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter at @philiped. Read his Apple AAPL coverage at fortune.com/ped or subscribe via his RSS feed.

Watch more coverage on Apple’s blockbuster quarter from Fortune’s video team:

Summary: Samsung will probably be back on top next quarter, but the damage has been done.


Once upon a time, a viral hit had the chance of sticking. After Twitter blew up at South by Southwest in 2007, the app continued to grow. Now Twitter TWTR is a $30 billion publicly traded company. A year after Twitter’s breakout success at SXSW, Foursquare did the same thing. It had a long reign of popularity before it drifted off the hype cycle.

Today, the hype cycle that propelled Twitter and Foursquare into the mainstream has a much sharper edge. Apps can explode in popularity faster than ever, which means they can burn out just as fast. Hot new apps look more like blips in the news cycle than actual companies. Today, if an app goes viral, it’s probably doomed.

Think about some of the biggest viral hits of the last few years. Remember Yo? Remember Ello? Remember Secret? Remember Frontback? Remember Draw Something? Remember Turntable.fm? Remember Chatroulette?

Many of these apps are still around, but the excitement around them has faded and the users have lost interest. Frontback’s rankings in the App Store, according to App Annie, peaked in April of last year. Yo peaked in July and has steadily declined since. Secret peaked in August.

The rate of consumption (and the subsequent discarding) of new apps is accelerating. Chatroulette had nine months in the spotlight. Turntable had around a year. Draw Something only had six weeks. Frontback was hot in the tech scene for a few months. Same for Secret. Ello and Yo each had a week.

That brings us to this this week, where I’m entrenched in the mecca of viral hits and social media noise: South by Southwest. For the first time in three years, there’s actually a breakout hit. Meerkat, a livestreaming social media app, has exploded thanks to a heavy reliance on integration with Twitter (and a striking similarity, in functionality and logo, to Snapchat). Since launching in late February, the Meerkat has climbed into the top 100 social networking apps in the U.S. The app is perfectly suited to a festival like SXSW: it’s social, it’s live, it’s fun, and it’s frivolous. It is the topic of conversation at parties. The stakes could not be higher.

But it also might be doomed. Today, as first reported by BuzzFeed, Twitter will no longer allow Meerkat to import a user’s follower lists from its service. In other words, Meerkat has been cut off. Importing Twitter’s social graph is a big part of how Meerkat went viral. Without this functionality, Meerkat users must add friends manually. That creates a barrier to making the app useful right away. The move is “consistent with our internal policy,” a Twitter spokesperson told Fortune. (Notably, Twitter recently acquired a competing livestreaming app called Periscope, which has yet to launch.)

It’s possible this could kill Meerkat”s chance at success. It’s also possible that Meerkat’s viral success would have killed it, regardless of Twitter’s power move. As Yo, Ello, Secret, Frontback, et al have shown, app users are a fickle bunch.

A year ago, I interviewed Ian Bogost, game designer and professor of interactive computing and literature, media, and communication at Georgia Institute of Technology, on this topic. His comment rings even more true today: “Those sorts of consumer shifts used to take years or decades, but now they can happen in months or weeks or days, and we’re becoming accustomed to that idea.”

Summary: Nothing viral can stay.


Last week, in a not-so-surprising move, United Technologies UTX announced that it is weighing whether to unload helicopter manufacturer Sikorsky—maker of such iconic aircraft as the U.S. Army’s UH-60 Black Hawk and the rotorcraft that transport the President of the United States. Divesting itself of Sikorsky makes sense for UTC. In a company that has cemented itself as a maker of sub-systems and components, Sikorsky is the only systems integrator in UTC’s portfolio. Meanwhile, demand from the U.S. military—Sikorsky’s single largest customer—has appreciably softened.

But the announcement has raised questions about what happens to a Sikorsky separated from UTC, fueling speculation that one of America’s largest helicopter manufacturers will likely be spun out, bought up by an American rival, or even snatched up by an overseas competitor. Last week UTC’s CEO Gregory Hayes did nothing to quash such rumors. At an analyst event, Hayes said Sikorsky is “just not quite as attractive as the rest of the businesses.” He also suggested that the company would be open to considering offers from a foreign buyer.

Who that buyer would be is unclear to the point that such a sale, especially to a foreign buyer, remains unlikely. Despite a good deal of churn in the rumor mill, considerations ranging from anti-trust regulations to taxes to simple cash-flow make Sikorsky either an unattractive or difficult acquisition target for the companies that otherwise might want to acquire Sikorsky’s contracts and technical know-how.

There are several reasons UTC would want to divest itself of Sikorsky, not least softening demand from military customers. As Hayes noted, Sikorsky doesn’t really fit with UTC’s core focus, but strong growth made it worth keeping around. That’s no longer the case. “You can keep a company if it’s out of line with your focus as long as it’s delivering double-digit growth,” says Richard Aboulafia, vice president for analysis at aerospace and defense consultancy Teal Group. “But when that growth stops, you do what you can to move away.”

That growth has definitely slowed. The U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps.—two of Sikorsky’s (and the global helicopter market’s) most important customers—don’t have the money to modernize their fleets fast enough. Sikorsky did roughly $7.5 billion in sales last year, but netted only $219 million in profits. Its single-digit margins lag other divisions of UTC and could be a drag on any company that might acquire Sikorsky as well.

But should UTC go through with the divestiture as expected, an acquisition—especially a foreign acquisition—is unlikely. Potential buyers of Sikorsky include Boeing BA and Textron TXT in the U.S. and Airbus or Augusta Westland (a joint venture between Italy’s Finmeccanica and British multinational GKN) in Europe. But assuming either wants to pay up for Sikorsky’s slow near-term growth prospects, an acquisition by either Airbus or Boeing would likely face pushback from anti-trust regulators, analysts say. Other companies that might actually want Sikorsky’s technology portfolio, like Textron, don’t have the cash to buy it.

Couple that with the massive tax bill that such a sale would generate and the fact that Sikorsky’s existing military contracts—including those for a new Presidential helicopter—would likely move the Department of Defense to get involved in any foreign transaction, and the prospect of a major merger or acquisition grows dimmer still.

The most likely outcome: UTC spins out Sikorsky as a stand-alone company, one that makes some money but not a ton of money, at least in the near term. Sikorsky likely won’t be able to leverage its strong suite of next-gen helicopter technologies as demand for new rotorcraft remains low. But the U.S. Army does have a major initiative planned to modernize its helicopter fleet throughout the 2020s and 2030s, for which Sikorsky is competing. Until then, an independent Sikorsky will likely get by selling Black Hawks and civilian helicopters until global demand for rotorcraft improves.

Watch more business news from Fortune:

Summary: Weak military demand makes puts the future of one of America's most storied aircraft makers in question.


Jeff Bauman and Heather Abbott

Charles Krupa/AP (2); Michael Dwyer

04/08/2015 AT 04:45 PM EDT

Shortly after a Massachusetts jury

of 30 counts related to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, victims and family members of those killed spoke out about the verdict, poignantly expressing grief, hope and relief that justice had been served.

"Today's verdict will never replace the lives that were lost and so dramatically changed, but it is a relief, and one step closer to closure," Jeff Bauman, who lost both legs following the bombing, said in a statement on his

Tsarnaev faces the death penalty after the bombings he carried out with his late brother killed 3 and injured more than 250 people.

MIT police officer Sean Collier was killed as authorities pursued the Tsarnaev brothers following the attacks. On Wednesday afternoon, his family expressed relief about the guilty verdict – and displayed the #BostonStrong spirit.

"While today's verdict can never bring Sean back, we are thankful that Tsarnaev will be held accountable for the evil that he brought to so many families," they told

"Finally, we want to say how much we care for the victims and survivors of this senseless tragedy and their families," the statement concluded. "The strength and bond that everyone has shown during these last two years proves that if these terrorists thought that they would somehow strike fear in the hearts of people, they monumentally failed. We know Sean would be very proud of that."

Heather Abbott, who lost her left leg below the knee in the tragedy, also spoke out on her

"Thanks to everyone who reached out today and have continued to support me and the other Bombing victims and their families over the last 2 years," she wrote. "Nothing can ever replace the lives that were lost or changed forever, but at least there is some relief in knowing that justice is served and responsibility will be taken."

And the family of Martin Richard, the 8-year-old boy killed in the attack whose autopsy was used during the trial, released a statement giving their thanks to the government.

"The Richard Family would like to thank law enforcement and the Department of Justice for their efforts in this matter," the statement reads. "The Richard Family has no comment on the verdict. We appreciate your continued respect of the familyâs privacy – especially their young children – during this time."

Wounded MBTA officer Dic Donohue also shared his thoughts on Twitter:

First, I want to thank everyone for supporting me and my family over the last two years. Although we cannot change the past, including (1/3)

the loss of a friend and fellow police officer, justice has been served today. We have again shown, as a society, that terrorism will (2/3)

not prevail, and we will hold those accountable for their acts against our nation. God Bless America. (3/3)

Summary: "Nothing can ever replace the lives that were lost or changed forever, but at least there is some relief in knowing that justice is served," victim Heather Abbott said


A Cambridge obesity treatment developer has filed plans to go public and raise $86.2 million.

Zafgen Inc. is developing drugs to treat severely obese patients who aren’t helped by other treatments. The firm’s lead product candidate is a twice-a-week injection.

The drug works by rebalancing the way the body produces and uses fat stored in adipose tissue, the company says. The imbalances in obese people make it more difficult for them to lose weight and keep it off, according to Zafgen.

Zafgen said it intends to use some of the proceeds from the stock sale to finance a Phase 3 clinical program for beloranib to begin this year. In January it reported that a Phase 2a study of the drug, in patients with a severe form of genetic obesity, Prader-Willi syndrome, reduced body fat content by 8.1 percent after four weeks of treatment.

According to the Obesity Action Coalition, severely obese persons can face a half-dozen or more related medical conditions, and 112,000 deaths a year in the United States are attributed to obesity.

Zafgen said the cost of treating patients with Prader-Willi syndrome can typically run $100,000 to $200,000 a year.

Along with Zafgen, US biotech firms targeting obesity include Boston-based Intarcia Therapeutics Inc., which is developing minipumps that are inserted under the skin to deliver a new drug for controlling type 2 diabetes and obesity. Meanwhile, Mountain View, Calif.-based Vivus Inc. received approval for anti-obesity drug Qsymia in mid-2012, but sales of the drug have been slow to date.

Zafgen has raised at least $114 million in equity funding since its launch in 2005. Top investors include Atlas Venture of Cambridge, which owns a 35.6 percent stake in Zafgen, and Third Rock Ventures of Boston, which owns 35.4 percent of the company’s shares.

The company intends to list on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol ZFGN.

The company’s timing to go public may be tricky. While up-and-coming biotech firms have been streaming into the public markets for the past year, a sell-off earlier this month saw many publicly traded biotech firms lose share value. The benchmark Nasdaq Biotechnology Index dropped 11 percent between April 1 and April 14, though it has since recovered some.

One local biotech firm, Burlington-based Aldeyra Therapeutics, postponed its planned IPO earlier this month.

Another biotech, Cambridge-based Cerulean Pharma, sold shares as scheduled in mid-April but at a much lower price — $7 — compared with its target of $11 to $13.

Summary: A Cambridge obesity treatment developer has filed plans to go public and raise $86.2 million. The company, Zafgen Inc., is developing drugs to treat severely obese patients who aren’t reachable helped by other treatments. The firm’s lead product candidate is an injection known as beloranib that’s given twice a week. The drug works by rebalancing the way the body produces and uses fat stored in adipose tissue, the company says. The imbalances in obese people make it more difficult for them to lose weight and keep it off, according to Zafgen. The company plans to begin a Phase 3 clinical program for beloranib this year. In January it reported that a Phase 2a study of the drug, in patients with a severe form of genetic obesity, Prader-Willi syndrome, reduced body fat content by 8.1 percent after four weeks of treatment.


We've seen a lot of the later work of Milton Avery (1893-1965), whose gifts as a colorist made him one of the foremost American painters. Now, a new show at Bard College reveals some of the early work of this born landscapist, who also painted figures and portraits.

At the just-inaugurated Milton and Sally Avery Center for the Arts on the Bard campus in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., an Avery show of 40 works includes a ''find'' of 10 of his earliest canvases, never before publicly shown, that had been stored in a niece's home and overlooked for more than 50 years until they were recently found by Sally Avery, the artist's widow.

The 10 paintings date from 1918 into the 20's, and include views of the landscape around the Connecticut River and in Gloucester, Mass., whose light, scenic forms and atmospheric effects contributed heavily to the development of his later style. The show, entitled ''Milton Avery: Early and Late,'' also includes some 30 later works, dating to 1959, among them his famous ''Portrait of Rothko,'' ''Black Sea'' and ''Poetry Reading.'' By pointing up the similarities between his early and later work, the exhibition enhances our understanding of Avery, who was unaffiliated with any school and whose reputation is steadily growing.

The Avery Center is part of the Edith C. Blum Art Institute on the Bard campus, 100 miles north of New York City, and a pleasant automobile trip. Take the New York State Thruway to Exit 19 at Kingston; follow signs to Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge. Across the bridge, follow 9-G north 3.7 miles to the campus entrance, marked by two stone pillars.


SOMEWHERE inside ''Rich and Famous,'' George Cukor's splashy, elongated new comedy, there is the material for a possibly brilliant two-character one-act play. This film, which opens today at the Cinerama II and other theaters, covers too much ground too superifically, being about the friendship of two women, from their days as Smith College undergraduates in 1959, through their separate careers, one husband and a number of lovers, up to the present.

The women are initially interesting and, when the material is right, they are very funnily played by Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen. The first is Liz Hamilton (Miss Bisset), a young woman with literary ambitions and who, indeed, writes a critically acclaimed book soon after leaving college. The other is Merry Noel Blake (Miss Bergen), an all-American blond beauty from Atlanta who desires nothing more than a husband, a child and a life of domesticity.

When we see them 10 years after their departures from Smith, each appears to have achieved her goals. Liz has won something coveted called the National Writers Award, and Merry Noel has a husband (David Selby), a pretty little daughter and a house on the beach at Malibu, Calif. She has also, unfortunately, written to the best of her limited talents a big, trashy novel called ''A House by the Sea,'' all about the love lives of her rich and famous Malibu neighbors.

With Liz's help, ''A House by the Sea'' is published, and Merry Noel becomes the Jacqueline Susann of her era, appearing on ''The Dick Cavett Show'' to reveal that she reads ''Gone With the Wind'' twice a year, and on ''The Merv Griffin Show,'' where she confides the kind of sane sex advice she gives her daughter. Pretty, naive Merry Noel turns out to be the media sensation of the decade, and Miss Bergen has a marvelous time with the role, growing increasingly more abrasive and overdressed with her success until, finally, she comes to look like the Plaza Hotel fountain as decorated by someone like Edith Head.

But it's at this point that ''Rich and Famous'' comes apart at its couture seams. The movie can't make up its mind whether it's about a tumultuously difficult but rewarding friendship or whether it's a sendup of the contemporary literary scene. It fails as both.

The culprit is Gerald Ayres whose screenplay is based on ''Old Acquaintance,'' the 1941 John Van Druten Broadway comedy that was made into a not very successful film with Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins in 1943. Mr. Ayres has spread his talents very thin. There are times, as when Liz Hamilton announces that The New York Review of Books has called her ''a master of ironies,'' that one wishes Mr. Ayres had made the two women into anything except writers, perhaps interior decorators. Though he has written two big roles, he doesn't seem capable of writing either a romantic drama, like ''The Turning Point,'' or an informed satire.

Miss Bisset is so good one can almost believe that her Liz Hamilton could write a decent book, if only because she seems to have such a genuinely disordered emotional life. One of the funniest sequences in the film, and one of the wildest things Mr. Cukor has ever filmed, is a scene aboard a Los Angeles-to-New York 747 jumbo jet, in which Liz allows herself to be seduced in the first-class toilet by a bereaved widower just as the plane is landing at Kenne dy International Airport.

Liz also has a passing fling with an 18-year-old New York hustler and a somewhat longer affair with a 22-year-old reporter (Hart Bochner) from Rolling Stone, a fellow who is quite convincing until he starts quo ting T.S. Eliot on D.H. Lawrence, but then Liz, unfortunately , is not above dropping quotes from Proust and Yeats.

Even more difficult to take is the metamorphosis of Merry Noel from the most successful junk writer of her generation into an author who could be seriously competing for the so-called National Writers Award against a novelist who, one gathers from the screenplay, is of the stature of Toni Morrison.

I've never really understood what critics have meant when they describe Mr. Cukor as ''a woman's director,'' except that he's had the great good fortune to work with the best, including Garbo and Sophia Loren, and has done very well by them. If ''Rich and Famous'' fits into this reputation, it's only because the women have the bigger roles and there's not a man in the picture with the personality of a tadpole. The men are even so sloppily cast that Mr. Bochner and Matt Lattanzi, who plays the New York hustler, look enough alike to make confusing a very simple episodic narrative.

Mr. Ayres can occasionally write good wisecracks - ''We were a very good marriage. Everyone said so, and not just the magazines, even our friends.'' But he has no particular insight into the publishing scene. Nor does he ever convince us of the enduring strength of the friendship that lasts through thick and, more often, thin.

Though Misses Bisset and Bergen are appealing actresses, ''Rich and Famous'' doesn't hold together. One dense, well-written confrontation might have told the film's entire story.

''Rich and Famous'' is all subsidiary effects, including its fancy clothes, its scenes shot in an Algonquin Hotel lobby meticulously reproduced on a soundstage, a pretty Connecticut farmhouse seen in a picture-postcard winter landscape and chic cocktail parties. Oh, those cocktail parties! Among the people who turn up as dress extras at the parties are Roger Vadim, Ray Bradbury, Nina Foch, Christopher Isherwood, Oliver Hailey and Frances Bergen, who is the widow of Edgar and the mother of Candice. Vincent Canby

RICH AND FAMOUS, directed by George Cukor; screenplay by Gerald Ayres, based on a play by John Van Druten; director of photography, Don Peterman; edited by John F. Burnett; music by Georges Delerue; produced by William Allyn; released by United Artists. At the Cinerama II, Broadway and West 47th Street; Loews New York Twin 1, Second Avenue and 66th Street; Greenwich 2, Seventh Avenue and 12th Street, and other theaters. Running time: 117 minutes. This film is rated R.

Liz Hamilton . . . . . Jacqueline Bisset

Merry Noel Blake . . . . . Candice Bergen

Doug Blke . . . . . David Selby

Chris Adams . . . . . Hart Bochner

Jules Levi . . . . . Steven Hill

Debby at 18 . . . . . Meg Ryan

Boy, Jim . . . . . Matt Lattanzi

Ginger Trinidad . . . . . Daniel Faraldo

Debby at 8 . . . . . Nicole Eggert

Martin Fornam . . . . . Joe Maross

Judy Heller . . . . . Kres Mersky

Martha Antilles . . . . . Cloyce Morrow

Voice . . . . . Cheryl Robinson

Desk Clerk . . . . . Allan Warnick


IT used to be that you became a dancer by toiling away with unlimited hope and very limited money in the small private studios that dot New York. If you were lucky, you were accepted for advanced training at a school attached to a major company and gained a kind of inside track on employment.

Today, however, aspiring dancers are increasingly turning to universities to learn their trade. And colleges are moving quickly to meet these needs.

The number of formal dance degree programs in traditional academic institutions has grown, partly because of the acceptance of dance as a profession and partly because, in the eyes of many young dance students, they offer facilities and learning opportunities unavailable in the studio world.

''Our students get an excellent education not just in dance but in the humanities as a whole,'' said Carolyn Brown, dean of the dance program at the State University of New York College at Purchase. ''The more you know, the more you are able to give.''

In addition to performing, the new programs may offer instruction in the managerial side of dance as well as in emerging fields such as dance therapy. And dance is also beginning to be seen as an area for scholarly research within the arts. Many of the programs cite immediate placement of from 50 to 75 percent of their graduating students in some form of dance work, but administrators still worry that the bubble might burst. ''Not everyone will make it as a dancer,'' said Dean Brown, a Wheaton College philosophy major who danced for 20 years with Merce Cunningham. ''We are also developing future audiences.''

Dance has long been offered as an adjunct to university physicaleducation, music and theater courses. Now these are being expanded into full-scale departments offering programs that lead to bachelor's or master's degrees in art, science, education or fine arts. In many cases, the facilities of the academic programs far surpass those of private studios. The dance complex at Purchase, for example, includes 12 studios, a theater, two whirlpools, a sauna and a ''body corrections studio.''

The bachelor's degree in fine arts, the B.F.A., is likely to offer the most intensive dance program. Strong emphasis is placed on the ability and experience of the entering student, and the curriculum normally requires at least one technique class a day.

The Dance Magazine College Guide to Dance in North American Colleges and Universities, which is published in New York and is a valuable directory for college-bound dancers, lists six major colleges in and around the New York City area that offer bachelor of fine arts programs. Four are in Manhattan: the City College of the City University of New York, the Juilliard School, Marymount Manhattan College and the New York University School of the Arts. Others are the State University of New York at Purchase and Adelphi University in Garden City, L.I.

The New York University School of the Arts and Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville offer master's degrees in dance performance, and Brooklyn College offers a Bachelor of Science degree in concentrated performing. The Herbert H. Lehman College in the Bronx, a member of the City University system, offers a B.F.A. in theaterdance.

Among those offering dance programs with less concentrated performing requirements are Barnard College, City College, Hunter College and Marymount Manhattan, all in Manhattan; Brooklyn College, Sarah Lawrence, Lehman and Bard College, in Annandale-on-Hudson.

Those who seek something more intensive than a liberal-arts program with a strong dance concentration should be prepared, with the B.F.A. programs generally offered, to be admitted by an audition based on physical proportions, natural facility for movement, technical level and, in some cases, choreographic skill. Poor high school grades do not necessarily eliminate the entrant.

''Really, in a sense, our dance majors have chosen the hardest of all,'' said Florence Waren, chairman of the City College dance department. The 30-odd liberal-arts credits required of most B.F.A. candidates generally may range over such subjects as philosophy, music, literature and language, but the City College student must take the same 36 core credits as other degree candidates in the system, and the credits must similarly be spread over the humanities, social sciences and sciences.

Among the major credit courses, besides ballet, modern dance and a variety of dance techniques and improvisation and composition, classes in anatomy, kinesiology, dance history, criticism, notation and teaching may be offered.

Dance departments in universities with other strong theater-arts programs can offer crossover studies, as is the case with New York University and Juilliard.

Stagecraft courses are often offered in universities that, like Purchase and Marymount, have full-production theaters. In fact, the major drawback to the B.F.A. program, as Norman Walker, chairman of the Adelphi dance department, sees it, is that it is restricted to single majors.

The opportunities offered for student performing differ from program to program. Most of the universities attempt to fill their faculty with working choreographers and performers, rather than professional teachers, and some, like City College, regularly bring in outside choreographers to augment the students' performing repertory of dances choreographed by the faculty and fellow students.

Most of the schools are content to turn out performers, pure and simple.''I don't believe in the whole idea of a degree for performers,'' said Dean Brown of Purchase. ''That's not why the students are here. I tell them, 'Mr. B.' '' - referring to George Balanchine, codirector of the New York City Ballet - '' 'and Merce Cunningham won't take you because of your degree. They'll just laugh at you.' ''

What advantages does the university have over the traditional studio route to becoming that ''very good dancer''? ''Adelphi can offer centralized, varied, top study in concentrated form,'' Mr. Walker said, ''so that the student can concentrate totally on dance and not be distracted by the rat race.''

Students who choose the independent studios for their training may never have the kind of formal work with choreographers that the university B.F.A. programs offer. Andrea Snyder, administrative assistant to Stuart Hodes, dance chairman of New York University's School of the Arts, pointed out that enrolled students may also participate in outside studio work in New York, the dance capital of the world.

''Dancers have to scrabble hard for a living and yes, when some are pressed to the walls, they go into teaching,'' said Martha Hill, director of the Juilliard Dance School. ''Some of those who do not get into companies go on to become administrators or balletmasters. And whenever I walk through the Broadway area I stop to see which of our kids is in 'A Chorus Line' or 'Dancin' ' now.''

Illustrations: Photo of The Julliard School (Page C2)


There's a legend about management consulting. A small company facing some prickly problems invites in a consultant. He asks the president to describe what his company does. ''Why, we manufacture glass bottles for soft drinks and beer,'' is the answer. Significant pause. ''No, I don't agree,'' says the consultant. ''It seems to me that you're in the packaging business.''

That's sheer Drucker - Peter F. Drucker, the 71-year-old management visionary, author, lecturer and consultant. Packaging has now come to him.

Harper & Row is offering The Essential Peter Drucker (''only $83''), an eight-volume library starring ''Managing in Turbulent Times,'' his latest, which is currently on best-seller lists. His editor estimates that each of the previously issued books in the package has already sold more than one million copies.

Also included are ''Concept of the Corporation,'' Mr. Drucker's huge study of General Motors, published in l946, and ''Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices,'' l974, considered Mr. Drucker's most definitive work.

Many of Mr. Drucker's oft-quoted epigrams aim to deflate the techniques of latter-day advocates of managerial reform: ''Far too much re-organization goes on all the time. Organizitis is like a spastic colon.'' ''Too much effort is expended on organizing recreational programs and getting officials to say hello to employees. The emphasis should be on the job itself.''

The Vienna-born sage often concedes that he's the world's ''worst manager,'' always preferring to work alone. A part-time secretary helps out with his typing but Mr. Drucker himself answers the phones.

These days, Mr. Drucker is affiliated with the Claremont Graduate School in California and teaches a seminar in Oriental Art, while devoting his consulting services to favorite charitable organizations. He has also completed the first draft of a new book, which he says is fictional.

What does Mr. Drucker feel is the best-managed organization around? ''The Girl Scouts,'' he says.''Tough, hard-working women can do anything.''

What of his 18 books? ''Writing is a compulsion neurosis. Sooner or later, I feel that the world needs another book by me although the world has so far shown no such abberation. I like to think, however, that my real expertise lies not in management but in the field of Oriental Art. Someday, I'll write a book about that.''

Illustrations: photo of Peter F. Drucker


Jerome E. Vielehr resigned yesterday as president of the Jos. Schlitz Brewing Company, and Frank J. Sellinger, vice chairman and chief executive officer, took over his duties.

The resignation was announced without explanation. A spokesman for the Milwaukee-based company, John A. Rourke, said the 49-year-old Mr. Vielehr, who has been president since April 1980, ''gave no reasons nor did he announce any plans.''

In a parallel development, Anthony J. Amendola, 55, former president of the Pabst Brewing Company, joined Schlitz as executive vice president for marketing. He had been president and chief operating officer of Pabst, also based in Milwaukee, from 1979 until last January, when he resigned. Mr. Rourke said that there was no connection between Mr. Vielehr's resignation and Mr. Amendola's appointment, ''except for the coincidence of dates.''

Mr. Amendola fills a slot at Schlitz vacated two weeks ago when Robert A. Rechholtz, 44, resigned as senior vice preident for marketing. Mr. Reichholtz joined the Adolph Coors Brewing Company in the same post.

In recent years, both Schlitz and Pabst have been losing sales to Anheuser-Busch and the Miller Brewing Company. Last year, Pabst had 8.4 percent of the market, or 15.1 million barrels, only 100,000 barrels more than Schlitz. Last month, a bid by the G. Heileman Brewing Company to acquire Schlitz collapsed after opposition by the Justice Department.

Mr. Sellinger, 67, who will take over Mr. Vielehr's title, joined Schlitz four years ago from Anheuser-Busch and has recently been featured on the corporation's television commercials. Daniel F. McKeithan Jr., 45, continues as chairman and Arthur J. Tonna, 54, as executive vice president for corporate operations, a position to which he was appointed a month ago.

Mr. Vielehr came to Schlitz last year from the Coca-Cola Company, where he had been vice president for international trade since 1976. He had been with Coca-Cola since 1966 and is a former president of its Aqua-Chem unit.

Mr. Amendola, a former salesman for Anheuser-Busch, spent 22 years with the D'Arcy, MacManus & Masius advertising agency, where he rose to the presidency of the St. Louis office in 1976. He left D'Arcy about two years later and was a consultant for a year and a half before being hired by Pabst as its president.


Cissy Patterson Smith, daughter of Edward James Smith of Upper Marlboro, Md., and the late Ann Bowie Watson Smith, was married yesterday to Samuel Kirk Millspaugh of Timonium, Md. The Rev. James Conner performed the ceremony at Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church in the Georgetown section of Washington.

The bride, a stage and television actress, was named for a family friend, Cissy Patterson of the Chicago publishing family. Her father retired as executive vice president of the Meadow Gold Ice Cream Company, a division of Beatrice Foods, in Washington.

Mr. Millspaugh, son of the late Mr. and Mrs. Martin Laurence Millspaugh of Baltimore, is chairman of the board of the Kirk Stieff Silver Company, Baltimore silversmiths, which was founded by his great-great-grandfather Samuel Kirk in 1815. His father was president and chief executive officer of the company when it was known as the Kirk Corporation. The bridegroom's previous marriage ended in divorce.


WASHINGTON— Is there a way to provide a framework or environment for political and economic change in Poland and other Eastern European countries of such a kind that the prospect of change will not automatically activate the Kremlin's most acute concerns about its possible effects on Soviet security?

A multilateral East-West arms-control agreement for Central Europe could provide such a framework. The sometimes ill-humored discussions between the United States and its European allies about possible sanctions against Poland and the Soviet Union in connection with the imposition of martial law in Poland have obscured the fact that there has been little public discussion about what such measures are intended to ultimately achieve - indeed, about long-term Western objectives with respect to Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe.

Western opinion appears to recognize that it is not feasible for the West to use force to try to change the overall status quo in Poland and Eastern Europe and that the effect of other Western actions on the situation in Poland is at best limited. But, at the same time, Western opinion will not accept indefinite continuation of the repressive status quo. Pressures from both outside and inside Eastern Europe to expand individual liberties there certainly will continue.

Manifestly, the greatest obstacle to increasing the liberties of Poles and other Eastern Europeans is the Soviet Union's hold over the area. But despite divergent views in the West about the internal health of the Soviet system, there is no serious expectation of its imminent collapse. Therefore, if the Western coalition wishes to pursue the objective of enhancing Eastern Europeans' liberties, for the foreseeable future it will have to take account of the hard fact of Soviet control. The question, then, is, Are there circumstances in which Soviet leaders, however grudgingly, might be more likely to accept social and economic change in Poland and other Eastern European countries?

Possibly so. The Soviet Union's interest in Eastern Europe has several intertwined motivations, combining military security, and ideological and economic interests. Security interests are probably the most important. Soviet leaders have tolerated a certain amount of political and economic change in Eastern Europe but have strongly resisted changes affecting the security status of the region.

A multilateral arms-control agreement that would reduce and limit the level of military forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Pact, and that would entail Western acceptance of continued participation by Poland and the Eastern European countries in the Warsaw Pact, could provide some assurance to Soviet leaders that the West would not seek to convert political and economic change in Eastern Europe to the military disadvantage of the East and to challenge Soviet security interests in the area. Consequently, such an agreement might make Soviet leaders less unwilling to accommodate internal pressures for change.

The current negotiations in Vienna on the mutual and balanced reduction in NATO and Warsaw Pact forces -the ''M.B.F.R.'' talks - already have reached a point that makes such an agreement possible. The agreement already proposed by the West - the Warsaw Pact participants have accepted many significant elements of it -would provide a barrier to Soviet military intervention in Poland. It would take the form of a contractual limitation on the increase of Soviet forces in Central Europe - an obstacle that is not insurmountable to the Soviet Union but that is nonetheless useful to the West.

It is possible that this feature of an agreement would make Soviet leaders reluctant to conclude it at a time when they may see a possible future requirement for Soviet military intervention in Poland. Nonetheless, if the Western governments participating in the Vienna talks show real political interest in a practical outcome, the Kremlin may decide that the increased stability produced by an armscontrol agreement in this region of maximum East-West confrontation outweighs such a shortcoming, and may move decisively in return. If, on the other hand, Moscow is convinced that the inevitable long-term result of political and economic change in Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe will be Western efforts to turn the military potential of Poland and the other Eastern European countries against the Soviet Union, then every attempt to bring about important change will continue to meet with utmost Kremlin resistance, explosive as such repression may prove.

The type of East-West security arrangement provided by an arms-control agreement therefore seems the only framework for gradual change in Eastern Europe acceptable to both East and West. The United States and its NATO allies should energetically pursue the Vienna negotiations for this reason as well as for their intrinsic benefits for Western security.