Category: people

“It should come as no surprise that where the arts were concerned, the Obamas didn’t just ignore the Pennsylvania Avenue playbook, they wrote their own script. They established dynamic programs and raised considerable money for arts initiatives. They also sometimes drifted away from the traditions of the past, which could leave locals frustrated and impatient.”

“Barack and Michelle Obama are arguably more conversant in popular culture than any other couple that has occupied the White House. And in four months, when his presidency comes to a close, they will depart as full-fledged celebrities, embraced by America’s two arbiters of cool: Hollywood and hip-hop.”

“He is interested in culture, to be sure, but it is the living culture of our time, often the celebrity culture of popular music and commercial theater, but rarely the stuff people used to call “high” culture. Or that, at least, is the image his handlers have crafted.”

“The portrait became iconic overnight. Photographed in Washington D.C. in 1967, it showed a Vietnam War protester, Jan Rose Kasmir, holding a flower as she confronted a row of National Guard servicemen outside the Pentagon. The image became a symbol of the flower power movement and helped change public opinion against a war that had already lasted more than a decade.”

“I don’t believe in the Nietzschean notion that what doesn’t destroy you makes you stronger. You see these soldiers come back with PTSD; they’ve been to war and seen death and experienced these existential crises one after the other. There are traumas in life that weaken us for the future. And that’s what’s happened to me. The various slings and arrows of life have not strengthened me. I think I’m weaker. I think there are things I couldn’t take now that I would have been able to take when I was younger.”

“In case you haven’t seen the viral video of the incident – which, it turns out, was filmed by [her] friends – it is 18 minutes of mayhem.” (And she had considered using cockroaches.) Now that she’s in trouble, she’s very, very sorry.

“The document, called The Will of Naunakht, tells the story of a woman who decided only some of her eight children should be recipients of her estate and clearly disinherits others for not taking care of her in her old age. … Those who contested the will in the future could be recipients of a severe punishment – ‘a hundred blows’ and [confiscation of] his property.”

“In 1938, the Munchkins were paid US$50 per week, about US$900 in 2016. Meanwhile, Toto and her trainer earned US$125 per week, which would now equate to about US$2,100 per week. The Munchkin cast never even saw their names in the credits.”

Frustration is present in Cage’s missives to orchestral and museum directors around the world as he struggles to earn a living and be taken seriously as a composer. For decades, he was his own booking agent and asked people to help underwrite concerts. As well, he pleaded valiantly trying to establish a center for new music at Cornish School, Bennington College, and Mills College—all for naught. Tellingly, he wrote to young composer, “I never made enough money (from my music) to live on until I was fifty. Interrupted my music in order to do odd jobs in order to eat, etc.”

“As far as I’m concerned, what you create in a 30-seat, hole-in-the-wall improv theater in Phoenix can be far more meaningful than a mediocre sitcom being half-watched by seven million people. America doesn’t need more stuff. We need more great stuff. You could make that.”