Category: people

First of all, he never stopped working. “‘He’s always had this incredible mind and drive and charisma,’ said Mike Kaplan, who met McDowell when he was a marketing executive on ‘Clockwork Orange.'” So playing a constantly on-the-go (and on the hunt) conductor on the Amazon show isn’t such a stretch.

Hundreds of fans, some in costume, cheered as Mayor Eric Garcetti and Police Chief Charlie Beck switched on the iconic signal and splashed a yellow oval with a bat silhouette high up on the wall of City Hall.

She knew how she wanted to be seen, and she sculpted her own fame. Her paintings made her wealthy and famous. She was the highest-paid woman artist in New York City within a decade of moving there from Texas. But her self-presentation—the high priestess of the high desert in crepe dresses and dirty work boots—made her an icon.

David Joyner (who used to be a software analyst for Texas Instruments): “Now Barney is about 70 pounds, and it can get over 120 degrees inside. … The head doesn’t come off. The head doesn’t swivel. There’s no facial expressions that can be made. I can only see a certain amount, because of the peripheral of Barney’s mouth. And when Barney’s mouth is closed, I can’t see anything. So what I would literally do [to prepare] is I would walk around my apartment as if I was blind.” (video)

“In his hands, the conventions of the drawing-room comedy became the framework for social analysis. … With its focus on the quirks and barely concealed anxieties of the privileged class, Mr. Gurney’s work was often likened to that of the novelist John Cheever and the playwright Philip Barry. His settings were often the stately homes of the well-to-do. His characters included self-satisfied corporate executives, crusty academics, imperious dowagers and bewildered teenagers on the cusp of adulthood.”

“[He] specialised particularly in the performance of 20th-century repertoire, working with such composers as Milton Babbitt, John Cage, Elliott Carter, George Crumb, Morton Feldman, Philip Glass, [etc.] … He premiered Glass’s Violin Concerto in 1987 and was the dedicatee of John Cage’s Freeman Etudes – Books I and II, composed between 1977 and 1980.”

“The vivid world of make-believe people is for children only. (If you’re not convinced of the ubiquity of this assumption, just imagine the water-cooler conversation that would ensue if a co-worker casually let slip, “I spent my lunch break imagining how a young girl I dreamt up might respond to being lost in a foreign country.”) It may be considered acceptable for an adult to play video games or fantasy baseball…but evidently in order to become functional adults each of us must renounce our personal Puff the Magic Dragon.”

Those familiar with Dylan’s music might recall that he winkingly attributed fabricated quotes to Abraham Lincoln in his “Talkin’ World War III Blues.” So Dylan making up an imaginary quote is nothing new. However, I soon discovered that the Moby-Dick line Dylan dreamed up last week seems to be cobbled together out of phrases on the website SparkNotes, the online equivalent of CliffsNotes.

For instance, “this secret FBI summary made the mistake of treating variations on Baldwin’s name and identity” – variations such as “James Arthur Baldwin” and “Jimmy Baldwin” – “as a set of potentially criminal pseudonyms.” Then there’s J. Edgar Hoover writing, in a note at the bottom of a memo, “Isn’t Baldwin a well known pervert?” (Well, look who’s asking.)