Bel Kaufman was “a former New York City schoolteacher whose classic first novel, ‘Up the Down Staircase’ — shot through with despair and hopefulness, violence and levity, bureaucratic inanity and a blizzard of official memorandums so mind-bendingly illogical as to seem almost Kafkaesque — was hailed as a stunningly accurate portrait of life in an urban school when it was published in 1965.”
“A lyric tenor of some vocal heft, Mr. Bergonzi lacked the sonic weight and brilliance of tenors in the Wagnerian mold. But what he did possess was an instrument of velvety beauty and nearly unrivaled subtlety.”
“Last month, while staff were still trying to digest a cut of 657 jobs announced in April, they responded icily as Conway helped unveil an overhaul of the public broadcaster that will axe about another 20 per cent of their colleagues, or 1,500 positions across English and French services, over the next five years.”
The 10-day block comes after anonymous changes were made to entries on politicians and businesses, as well as events like the Kennedy assassination. The biography of former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld was edited to say that he was an “alien lizard”.
“I mean, I don’t know, I have only played in about 200 opera houses, and it certainly has acoustics that would do an aeroplane hangar a disservice. For a catholicity of reasons, it’s not the wisest place to put on anything … with the possible exception of maybe a circus.”
“The band, known for hits such as Notorious and Hungry Like the Wolf, are claiming that Chicago-based company Worldwide Fan Clubs have breached contract by not paying the band promised revenue.”
Western film and TV viewers knew her as the go-to actress for feisty Indian old lady roles (Bend It Like Beckham, Bhaji on the Beach, Masala, Jewel in the Crown, Dr Who). Yet she had a seven-decade stage and movie career in the subcontinent: she toured as a young dancer with Uday Shankar, and worked in Bollywood well into her 90s.
Alex Ross investigates the truth behind the famous old World War II story of how Strauss convinced U.S. soldiers not to commandeer his house by telling them, “I am the composer of Der Rosenkavalier and Salome.”
It’s a “diverse roster of big names in the arts, literature and entertainment – including Linda Ronstadt, dancer-choreographer Bill T. Jones, author Maxine Hong Kingston, Broadway composer John Kander and L.A.-nurtured visual artist James Turrell — will receive the National Medal of Arts from President Obama.”
“The problem is, the only thing newsworthy about Magic in the Moonlight – an unexceptional, oddly slack late-period Allen picture – is that it’s his first release after decades-old allegations of sexual abuse resurfaced last winter … And now we were all being told to pretend like this ubiquitous scandal never happened.” Jason Bailey eased up to the issue, sort of, and Allen answered like a practiced politician.
“Lucien Clergue befriended Pablo Picasso in 1953. Over the next 20 years, he took intimate portraits of the artist in his studio, at bullfights and on the beach.”
“Charles M. Jones (1912-2002) was, in fact, easily one of the greatest comedy directors in the history of motion pictures, indisputably on a par with Preston Sturges, Billy Wilder, Mel Brooks or Woody Allen.”
Boris Kachka offers a notably sympathetic account of how the 88-year-old author of To Kill a Mockingbird, so feisty – and so beloved by her friends and neighbors – for so many years, came to her enfeebled, embattled, litigious current state.
“The reclusive and bitingly satirical novelist … explored the myths of the American West in Little Big Man and the mores of 20th-century middle-class society in a shelf of other well-received books.”
“Meticulously drawn and colored, and annotated with historical information, Mr. Tierney’s paper-doll books are not just for children — and some are not for children at all. His aim, he often said, was to contribute to the visual literature of costume history.”
Garner, star of ‘Maverick’ and ‘The Rockford Files,’ “was a genuine star but as an actor something of a paradox: a lantern-jawed, brawny athlete whose physical appeal was both enhanced and undercut by a disarming wit.”
“The opera said in a statement that it has mutually resolved its differences with Campbell and his ex-wife Ann Spira Campbell, a former high-ranking adminstrator at the company. It said the differences arose out of their former employment relationships with the opera.”
“He harnessed those two sounds – old blues and new rock – into something forceful and his own, a gritty music notable for a raw-nerved intensity.”
After presiding over the rise and collapse of theatrical giant Livent (Phantom of the Opera, Ragtime), falling deep into debt and serving a prison sentence for fraud, Drabinsky has had his license to practice law revoked by the Law Society of Upper Canada [Ontario].
“Ms. Stritch’s career began in the 1940s and spanned almost 70 years. She made her fair share of appearances in movies, including Woody Allen’s “September” (1987) and “Small Time Crooks” (2000), and on television; well into her 80s, she had a recurring role on the NBC comedy “30 Rock” as the domineering mother of the television executive played by Alec Baldwin.”
“Once, when she went to the Actors Studio for a tune-up, [Lee Strasberg] just waved her away with ‘Elaine, you were born with The Method’.”
“Thee popular Estonian composer Arvo Pärt and the South African playwright Athol Fugard are among the recipients of the [$147,500] 2014 Praemium Imperiale awards, Japan’s highest honors in the arts. This year’s roster of winners also includes architect Steven Holl, painter Martial Raysse and sculptor Giuseppe Penone.”
“Mr. Stout, an associate in Frank Gehry’s office before establishing his own firm in 1996 in Los Angeles, explored the relationship between architecture and energy in holistic designs that were no less sculptural and humane for being ecologically responsible. Sustainability helped shape form.”
“Now, with the publication this week of The Mockingbird Next Door: Life With Harper Lee, [former neighbor] Marja Mills’s memoir of what she describes in the book as a warm friendship with Ms. Lee and her older sister, Alice Lee, Harper Lee is back to remind us that she did not authorize the book or cooperate with Ms. Mills.”
“Most references to director, writer and actress Desiree Akhavan place a neat three-word descriptor by her name: bisexual Iranian American, often followed by the words ‘the next Lena Dunham’.” But being young, female, and a writer/director/actress is where the similarities end.
“He had an incomparable stick technique (something he pooh-poohed as a technique). A brilliantly accomplished musician (he was a virtuoso violinist and a composer), he boasted what must have been a genius-level IQ. He appeared capable of playing four-dimensional mental chess while carrying on a dinner conversation with lesser mortal beings.”
“[The] superstar Marxist philosopher … [has] been accused of the worst professorial misdeed of them all: plagiarism. And not just any plagiarism – plagiarism of a 1999 article in American Renaissance, a white supremacist magazine published by an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated a ‘hate group’.”
“We’ve only got a few left,” he comments, adding that a “high percentage” of those who have invested will have done purely because of the proximity to the trumpeter.
“Regarded by many as South Africa’s leading writer, Gordimer was renowned as a rigid moralist whose novels and short stories reflected the drama of human life and emotion in a society warped by decades of white-minority rule.”
“‘Don’t understand why life takes beautiful people away,’ Haden said, his voice shaking and struggling against a question that ultimately hangs over all of us. ‘Beautiful people give of themselves.’”