The Art Directors Guild has put the finishing touches on its controversial merger with two smaller unions representing illustrators and set designers.
The three-way merger was one of the last acts of Tom Short before he retired last year as president of the umbrella labor organization International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. Short argued the combination would strengthen the bargaining clout of the guilds and reduce turf fights between them.
But the action was deeply unpopular among members of Local 790 (illustrators and matte artists) and Local 847 (set designers and model makers). Members of the locals voted it down, fearing they would lose autonomy and be forced to join a union dominated by art directors who act as their supervisors.
Despite the opposition, the National Labor Relations Board refused to block the merger at the request of the locals.
The Art Directors Guild said Thursday that it had completed a restructuring to combine the operations of the three unions that included naming a new 20-member board with reps from each of the crafts.
As expected, Scott Roth will remain as executive director the Art Directors Guild, which now has 2,000 members, up from 1,500. Marjo Bernay, former business agent of the two locals who was also elected a trustee on the new board, is negotiating a possible ongoing operational role in the union.
"We're looking forward to working cooperatively with all the crafts working under the same union," Roth said in a statement. He said there would be no layoffs as a result of combining the staffs.
Joseph Musso, former president of Local 790, who opposed the merger, said he and others have little choice but to go along with the new marriage. "We're trying to make the best of something that we're not totally enthralled with," said Musso, who is a member of the new executive board.
-- Richard Verrier
Last night's 'Lost': Un-Locke-d
The following post discusses Wednesday's episode of "Lost," "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham." It's best if you've seen the episode before proceeding. By the way, I'm using some pictures from "316" below because ABC's press site did not post any "Bentham" photos yet.
More than ever, I feel like I have zero ability to predict what other people will think of an episode of television. You may have loved "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham." And that's cool. I had high hopes for it -- I knew the episode was going to run extra long and hoped that promised an extra ration of "Lost" goodness.
It's not that I thought it was bad. It was just more of a "phfffft" episode than a "wow" episode. I think the problem is that my expectations were high, and the episode was just sort of … there. So the answer is for me to give up on having expectations about "Lost" -- I do heart the show, but I have no ability to predict what episodes will float my boat and which ones will (ideally) serve as bridges to future awesomeness.
So, we finally got a bunch of answers about John Locke. However the answers we got felt like they revisited territory the show had already covered. They revealed Locke, again, to be a pawn in the games of others. And we still don't know why, exactly, Locke is special. ("Because you are," Widmore told him. OK then.)
If you're a Locke fan, then this may have been Christmas. Not that I don't dig Terry O'Quinn's performance, but Locke hasn't been one of my favorite characters for a while now, given that he's so frequently manipulated by others. And this was nothing if not the Locke Manipulation Hour (Now With Added Widmore!).
Aside from filling in details about how Locke became Bentham and so forth, the episode raised a host of questions. This episode finished off the first third of the season, according to how executive producer Damon Lindelof said the season would unfold. As did last week's episode, this episode set up some questions we may be getting answers to in the next two sections of the season (or beyond):
Why does Ben kill Locke? He talks Locke out of suicide, only to kill him minutes later. My guess regarding the question above: Presumably Ben strangles Locke because Locke mentioned Eloise Hawking. Does Ben kill Locke because he does not want her to transport Locke back to the island alive? Would that interfere with Ben's plans somehow? Why does the mention of her produce that reaction -- given that we know Ben knows her? Despite killing Locke, Ben takes great care to make sure that Locke's body is transported back to the island. Does he know that the island will re-animate Locke? If so, does that not matter to Ben's plans? Both sides of the Ben-Widmore feud clearly think Locke is special and needs to be back on the island. If Widmore wanted him back alive, why did Alpert tell Locke he had to die? Who is Alpert really working for?I did like the fact that every doubt I have about Locke was voiced by the other characters. They got to say what some of us might have been thinking: Locke doesn't have much, if any, credibility left. To sum up, as Sayid did nicely, is Locke desperate to return because he has nowhere else to go?
Is he in fact just a sad old man who crashed on an island? A man with no one to love? Everyone else thinks Locke is just a crank and a loser. I suppose Locke lets Ben play him so frequently because Ben at least gets Locke to believe there's something more to him than that.
I did feel sorry for Locke in this episode, as he prepared to kill himself in that seedy hotel, and as he bounced around like a shuttlecock between Widmore and Ben. If I were Locke, I would be pretty frustrated with both men's double talk and scheming and secretiveness.
And O'Quinn's excellent performance gave the story of Locke some real tenderness. His quest to reunite everyone and bring them back was like Locke's pathetic version of "The Amazing Race" -- it took him all around the world and he failed to complete every task.
Or did he? His visit to Jack set in motion the events that would lead several Oceanic Sixers back. So maybe Locke did have to die. It is written.
Still, I felt like we'd been through quite a few "we have to go back" scenes between various characters already this season. Perhaps the episode lacked suspense because we've known for a long time that Locke ended up in a coffin. Sure, there was a twist within the episode regarding how he died, but it did seem, to use a word that we heard in this episode, inevitable. As did his hale and hearty return to the island.
A final thought: It bothered me -- and it seemed typically Locke-ian -- that near the end of his conversation with Ben, Locke just blithely offered up the news that Jin is alive, that he has Jin's wedding ring and he knows of the existence of Eloise Hawking. Will Locke never learn to just spew things to Ben? Sheesh.
Hail of bullets time:
Photos: Terry O'Quinn; Zuleikha Robinson and Naveen Andrews; Said Taghmaoui; Jeff Fahey (yes, that is the clean-shaven Lapidus!) and Matthew Fox.
Local film looks at faulty child molest cases
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ARTS: A Way of Seeing African Women
PARIS, Feb 26 (IPS)It would be easy to walk past the Dapper Museum without giving the building a second glance were it not for the striking images of African women at the entrance. Tucked in a side street of the 16th arrondissement, just off the chic avenue Victor Hugo, the Dapper has an unremarkable facade and lies far from the gleaming Louvre and Orsay museums. But its exhibitions stand out in a city filled with museums, galleries and blockbuster art shows.
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