Sunday NY Times Arts Goodness

Real quick, there were two particularly interesting articles in the Arts section of last Sunday's Times. The first discusses a sexual harrassment suit against writers of "Friends" for making crude jokes during writing sessions. I must say I'm familiar with the phenomenon of trying to out-do someone's gross-out, although I'd never, ever participate in such a contest :). I'm kind of curious to see if these comedy writers are better at it than other people. The other article is on the use of beta blockers by musicians to control stage fright. There's no mention of whether singers use these things; I've always found nerves to affect me more in singing auditions than on other instruments. My take is that the use of beta blockers is no big deal; they don't seem to be harmful healthwise, and I figure that if their use was really decreasing the quality of the music, you'd see it in audition and competition results (with the non-users winning more often).