“Tenor sax legend Sonny Rollins was a triple winner Wednesday at the annual Jazz Awards, garnering musician of the year honors for the second straight year” as well as best tenor saxophonist and best jazz recording.
Author: Matthew Westphal
When Jeff Daniels Was Ready To Quit Acting
Not long before landing the lead in Aaron Sorkin’s new HBO series The Newsroom, Daniels was about to leave his profession. Major studios weren’t casting him; independent producers couldn’t afford him. “I was tired of being the guy they’d tell, ‘Look, we’d love to have your 55 films of experience and< we have no money,'”
Why Should E-Books Have To Be Like Books? Why Not Like, Say, Trading Cards?
Reading an e-book “still feels like, well, reading a book: tabbing through pages, digesting information linearly.” But the tech company Semi-Linear’s new Citia iPad app “reinvents long-form non-fiction for the tablet, turning books into something that resembles less a sequence of chapters and more a digital spread of sharable, customizable, collectible cards.”
The Short Story That Changed The New Yorker And Messed Up Mary McCarthy’s Marriage
Frances Kiernan on McCarthy’s “The Weeds”.
American Theater And Its Secret, Wayward Brother: Boxing
“[The] truth is that pugilism and the American theater have been in bed together from the very beginning. The idea of these two areas of amusement being totally segregated from one another is far newer. The common birthplace of these estranged siblings was the 19th-century saloon.”
A Brief History Of Espresso Machines (And Their Fanciful Designs)
“In the 19th century, coffee was a huge business in Europe with cafes flourishing across the continent. But coffee brewing was a slow process … Seeing an opportunity, inventors across Europe began to explore ways of using steam machines to reduce brewing time – this was, after all, the age of steam.”
The Long, Slow Rise Of The Fork
Knives and spoons go back to antiquity, but the fork didn’t arrive in Byzantium (from Persia) until the 11th century, and made it to France only in 1533. It took even longer for the fork to shake its image as dainty and unmanly.
Brazilians Flock To Theme Park To Experience Winter
About three hours from São Paulo, in a high valley planted with pine trees, lies Campos do Jordão, “a cozy cluster of German-styled beer halls, Gruyere-perfumed fondue joints and timber-framed Swiss chalets with steep A-shaped roofs designed to bear the weight of heavy snow.”
England Awards £56M In Matching Grants For Endowments
“More than £50 million has been given to arts groups, including London’s Old Vic Theatre, to help them build up endowment funds to meet day-to-day running costs. Money from the Government’s Catalyst: Endowments fund will be shared between 34 groups including the Hallé Concerts Society in Manchester, the Arnos Vale Cemetery Trust in Bristol and the Birmingham Royal Ballet.”
Sports Painter LeRoy Neiman, 91
“The accessible works of art he painted depicted sports and other leisure activities with bold, distinctive strokes on a canvas that invariably brimmed with color. He was so successful that as early as 1976 The [L.A.] Times called him ‘in market terms … a bigger success than Rembrandt – or any other painter’.”