Category: people

At the age of 62 Garrison Keillor is busier than he’s ever been. He “has become an American institution during his 30-plus-year career, often compared to Mark Twain or Will Rogers, or both. But the expanding Keillor “brand” is in no danger of ending up on a cereal box or in a reality show. He’s not that needy. Keillor is like the sausagemaker who loves to hear compliments about his product, and is happy if you buy it, though he will never once mention it’s for sale. Don’t ask to watch him make it, either, or where he shops for his ingredients. He’ll start edging for the exit.”

North Carolina’s Eastern Music Festival has canceled an appearance by Blair Tindall, whose provocative memoir, ‘Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music’ is the talk of the classical music world. When organizers of the festival learned that concern about the book’s content had prompted another festival for young musicians to cancel Tindall’s appearance, the decision was made to cancel the July 5 talk. “We are concerned that some of the material might be inappropriate or confusing to a 14-year-old student.”

“It’s been a good year for B.B. King, named by Rolling Stone magazine as the third-greatest guitarist of all time. He’s recording a new album of duets with Elton John, Eric Clapton and Gloria Estefan, a memorabilia book bearing his name soon will be released, and he recently broke ground on the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretative Center in this small Mississippi Delta town. Yet King, acclaimed around the world, still laments what he believes is a lack of respect for blues music in America, where radio stations mostly play hip-hop, pop and rock.”

LA disc jockey Nic Harcourt is the tastemaker of the day on his KCRW show Morning Becomes Eclectic. “At a time in radio when D.J.’s generally possess little personality and no responsibility for choosing the music they play, he has emerged as the country’s most important disc jockey and a genuine bellwether.”

Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre would have been 100 last week. “French newspaper and magazine supplements, as well as television panels, radio shows and bookstore displays, utterly swamped the idea, pushed by ideological enemies of bad faith, that 20th-century Europe’s most famous philosopher has long since grown passe. Did Sartre hate America or regret it? Was the “freedom” he exalted the same as George W. Bush’s? Could the “later Sartre” fairly be dubbed a “godfather of political terrorism”? The tiny, wall-eyed, serial seducer and manuscript producer would have loved every paragraph.”

Esrtwhile philanthropist Alberto Vilar gets out of jail after some help from a friend. “The conductor Valery Gergiev has put up $500,000 in cash to help secure Mr. Vilar’s freedom on bail, in what Mr. Gergiev’s manager called an act of deep friendship.”

“A federal arbitration hearing has been finalized for July 7 to settle the case brought against National Public Radio by the union representing a staff editor who was disciplined for his supervision of a David D’Arcy report about the Museum of Modern Art’s involvement with a painting looted by the Nazis.”

Tenor Ben Heppner reflects on the vocal crisis two years ago that kept him off the stage for eight months. “Those performances are seared on my memory. I had a panic attack. It was like my heart was beating 150 beats a minute. I was sweating in places I never knew I could sweat. Every inch of my body was running in sweat. I was thinking, ‘What are you doing here? You’ve never sung this publicly before.’ And when I sang, this squeaky voice came out… and I thought I was going to die. Somehow I got through it, but it was not my finest hour.”

If Li Cunxin was a character in a potboiler, you would scarcely credit it. There’s the sensational defection, a new dance career and life in the US brokered by a former first lady. Then a move to Australia, followed by a second flowering as a dancer, then an improbable switch from the stage to stockbroking, then life as a bestselling author.

Philanthropist Alberto Vilar’s fall has been startlingly rapid. “There may be an element of schadenfreude behind the speed at which Vilar has been dropped by the arts establishment: an old money distaste for new wealth. Vilar said he was public about his giving to act as an example to others; his hunger for attention rankled with some. Beverly Sills, the former chairwoman of the Met, told the New York Times: “He was not, how shall I say, quiet about his giving. I think that was a turn-off for other members of the board, the fact that he wanted attention. Meanwhile, Vilar continues to insist that everyone who is patient will be paid.”