Of course, Landau also starred as Rollin Hand for several years in the original Mission: Impossible and the heroic villain of Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Category: people
George A. Romero, The Man Who Made ‘Night Of The Living Dead,’ Has Died At 77
The man who jump-started the modern zombie era didn’t like The Walking Dead and some other new zombie projects, even while he continued working in the genre (and in other genres). He once said of newer zombies, “They’re just dervishes, you don’t recognize any of them, there’s nothing to characterize them. … [But]I like to give even incidental zombies a bit of identification. I just think it’s a nice reminder that they’re us. They walked out of one life and into this.”
Irina Ratushinskaya, Soviet Dissident Writer Who Inscribed Poetry On Soap With Burnt Matchsticks, Has Died At 63
Speaking of persistence: “Sentenced in 1983, on her 29th birthday, to the seven-year maximum term for ‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda,’ Ms. Ratushinskaya composed some 250 poems in prison, many drafted with burned matchsticks on bars of soap. She memorized them and smuggled them on cigarette paper through her husband to the West, where they were published, and where human rights groups indefatigably lobbied for her release.”
A Stuntman On ‘The Walking Dead’ Has Died After An On-Set Accident
John Bernecker, a 33-year-old stuntman for the popular zombie show, “reportedly fell more than 20 feet from a balcony onto a concrete floor, suffering a head injury.”
Can You Really Learn Comedy From Steve Martin Or Acting From Dustin Hoffman?
“As a business, MasterClass seems primed to capitalize on this era of self-betterment, when thousands flock to Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop newsletter for advice on wellness and self-care has become a millennial mantra. But just how effective are the classes, which range between three to six hours? Does watching an acting course taught by Kevin Spacey actually give aspiring stars a leg up in Hollywood?”
Thoreau Was A Darwinist
“With the possible exception of Asa Gray, no American read the Origin of Species with as much care and insight as Henry David Thoreau. … That the struggle among species was an engine of creation struck him with particular force. It undermined transcendentalist assumptions about the essential goodness of nature, but it also corroborated many of Thoreau’s own observations.”
Anne Midgette Takes Her Son To “Sound Of Music” And Experiences Some Unfamiliar Non-Criticy Feelings
“In my unfamiliar role as plain audience member, and parent, I found myself partaking of a protective view of the live performing arts that I generally abhor. All too often, I feel, live performance is treated as an invalid, something that needs to be shielded from the harshness of the outside world. It shouldn’t need this kind of special handling; and in my professional life I encourage myself and everyone to take a more active relationship, to dare not only to attend, but not to like. Yet I somehow seemed to fear, for my child, the thing that so many of my readers feel: the tacit idea that a strong critical voice might be powerful enough to snuff out the glimmerings of interest. It’s an especially patronizing view since it presupposes that, if someone is not told that something is not very good, he will not notice it himself.”
Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo Dies At 61 In Captivity
He was the first Nobel Peace Prize laureate to die in state custody since Carl von Ossietzky, the German pacifist and foe of Nazism who won the prize in 1935 and died under guard in 1938 after years of maltreatment.
Why Are Some Of Us Still Reluctant To Take Sylvia Plath At Her Word About Ted Hughes’s Abuse?
“[There’s a] cultural bias against women’s voices and the domestic truths of women’s lives and the deep role this has played in painting Plath as both a pathetic victim and a Cassandra-like, genius freak. It is only in a culture where these two things be claimed simultaneously that Hughes, a known philanderer and violent partner, can spend forty years botching the editing of, or outright destroying, his estranged, now dead wife’s work, then win every conceivable literary prize and be knighted by the Queen.”
Alex Ross: When Trump Evoked Symphonies (And Symphonies Evoked Power)
Presuming to speak for that civilization, Trump said, “We write symphonies. We pursue innovation. We celebrate our ancient heroes . . .” The Internet cried with one voice: “We write what?” Like many of Trump’s utterances, the line was at once ludicrous and sinister. His veneration for orchestral music came as a surprise to almost everyone, and the implication that some cultures are incapable of creating symphonies stirred bad memories.