Category: people

“A Dutch court has sentenced a 27-year-old radical Islamist to life in prison for the November murder of controversial film-maker Theo van Gogh. Mohammed Bouyeri, who has joint Dutch-Moroccan nationality, had made a courtroom confession and had vowed to do the same again if given the chance. The murder in Amsterdam stunned the Netherlands. The court ruled that it was a terrorist act. The judge said the murder had triggered ‘great fear and insecurity’ in society.”

“Constantino Brumidi, the Italian-born fresco artist whose ornate Renaissance- and Pompeian-style murals decorate much of the United States Capitol,” remains a relatively unknown figure in the corridors of Washington power. “Enter [Joseph] Grano, a fast-talking lawyer and civic gadfly whose causes include historic preservation, and who is now dedicated, he said, to making Brumidi “a folk hero for Americans.” As chairman of the Constantino Brumidi Society, a loose-knit group he runs out of his apartment here, Mr. Grano has spent five years poking and prodding Washington’s power elite to honor Brumidi: on coins and stamps, with Congressional resolutions, even the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.”

Filmmaker Roman Polanski has won his libel suit against Vanity Fair magazine, which published “an article that accused him of propositioning a woman while on the way to the funeral of his murdered wife.” Polanski was awarded $87,000 in damages by the British court that heard the case.

A new biography of James Brown seeks to repair the singer’s damaged reputation, earned over a tough decade. “The true fan will say, “Skip the books and listen to the music.” Good advice, since no amount of description can capture the essence of James Brown. But given the state of popular music these days, listening is not a simple proposition. To a large degree, what one hears will depend on one’s background, age, and cultural outlook.”

New York Times Sunday Arts & Leisure editor Jodi Kantor is leaving the job after 2 1/2 years to be a reporter at the paper. “After a couple of years in the building, I’m dying to actually get out and report some stories myself.”

Actress Melissa Gilbert is stepping down as head of the Screen Actors’ Guild after four years at the helm. In announcing her decision, Gilbert spoke of deep rifts within the union leadership, and warned future guild leaders that she will be “watching them like a hawk.”

Musicians don’t come much more Israeli than Daniel Barenboim. The pianist and conductor grew up in Tel Aviv, and has retained his citizenship even as his career took him around the world. “With such bona-fide Israeli credentials, you would hardly have expected Barenboim to become one of its government’s most conspicuous critics. Yet, like Menuhin before him, Barenboim’s questing mind ensures that his own considered opinions transcend mere political correctness… In 1999 he formed, against all odds, an orchestra made up by an equal number of young Arab and Israeli musicians… to demonstrate that, through music, it is possible for people from warring factions to co-exist peacefully. After six years of hard work, it is proving an overwhelming success, and that fact alone should convince politicians of the importance of music in education.”

Glynn Ross, the founding general director of Seattle Opera, has died, aged 90, after suffering a stroke. “Ross, a former Golden Gloves fighter who grew up on a Nebraska farm, founded and ran Seattle Opera for two decades, and also developed its international calling card: regular productions of Wagner’s four-opera masterpiece, the ‘Ring’.”

Harper’s magazine editor Lewis Lapham has taken the stand in fugitive filmmaker Roman Polanski’s libel case against Vanity Fair, retelling the story that led to the lawsuit in the first place. In the article in question, Polanski was said to have tried to seduce a young actress on the way to his wife’s funeral, offering to make her a star in exchange for sex. In court, Lapham remained firm in his memory of the incident, saying he wa “impressed by the remark [Polanski made to the actress], not only because it was tasteless and vulgar, but because it was a cliché.”

“San Francisco Symphony patrons who watch the stage of Davies Symphony Hall carefully are seeing a welcome sight this month. William Bennett, the orchestra’s principal oboist, is back in action after a bout of tonsil cancer. Bennett was diagnosed in September, just before Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas and the orchestra made their live recording of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony. He kept mum until the recording sessions were over, not wanting to distract anyone from the task at hand, then went in for surgery followed by a punishing course of radiation and chemotherapy. Today, the tumors are gone, and Bennett, 49, is back where he belongs.”