Law suits

Tuesday

Andy Miller

The many shades of Pink Floyd

The English rock band Pink Floyd was founded 60 years ago in Cambridge. Reading two new books about them, it struck me how much time and place matter to their story. Now in their eighties, the surviving members remain a product of the milieu in which they were formed: middle class, semi-boho, comfortably numb. First they moved to London; then to the outer reaches of the cosmos. After that they circled the planet for decades, recollecting the emotions of their youth in both tranquillity and anger. You can take the multi-million-selling, emotionally repressed space cadets out of Cambridge… Broadly speaking, five different businesses have traded under the name Pink Floyd.

Tuesday

Travis Elborough

Unhappy band of brothers: the Beach Boys’ story

Film noir was the term coined by the French in the late 1940s to describe the genre of Hollywood crime movies which probed the darkness that lay in the shadows cast by all that bright Californian sunlight. The Beach Boys, who broke through in the early 1960s with a repertoire that hymned, in five-part harmonies, the Golden State’s promise of sun, sand and waves, bronzed bodies, beach-party ‘babes’, hot rods and open highways, were – and remain – the quintessential Californian band. But their story, an unhappy family saga featuring the three Wilson brothers (Brian, Carl and Dennis) and cousin Mike Love, is, like that of California’s itself, as dark as it is light. Their presiding musical genius, Brian, died in June.

Wednesday

Cockburn

Lizzo doesn’t want anyone to out-fat her, dancers claim

From our US edition

Earlier this month, a lawsuit was filed against Lizzo, the plus-size flute-playing singing sensation. It was alleged that she created a “hostile work environment and engaged in sexual harassment.” Lizzo has denied the allegations. But one week later and lawyers representing three of Lizzo's former dancers say they've received new complaints. Ron Zambrano said that his firm, which specializes in employment law, is vetting new allegations from at least six people who said they toured with Lizzo, including other dancers and some who said they worked on her Amazon reality show, Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls. The allegations are of a “sexually charged environment” and failure to pay employees.

lizzo

Sunday

Matt Purple

Glenn Youngkin’s brass-knuckled conservatism

From our US edition

How is the mood in Virginia these days? It appears to be a bit litigious. Last month, seven school boards announced they were suing Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin over his executive order banning mask mandates in schools. The ACLU is also suing Youngkin over the order, despite the fact that it used to sue to protect liberties, not infringe on them. Youngkin, meanwhile, is suing the Loudoun County School Board, which is also being sued by parents incensed over its mask policies as well as all of its other policies. Cut to me sitting in my Alexandria apartment terrified that a lawyer is about to knock at the door. Certainly a blizzard of lawsuits is nothing extraordinary in modern-day America — or many other powerful nations for that matter.