Category: people

“Walter, previously a moderate eater, developed a ravenous appetite. ‘He started to gain weight,’ his wife later told me, ‘and his pants changed three sizes in six months.’ … He was also prone to getting ‘stuck’ in various activities – playing the piano, for example, for eight or nine hours at a time. Even more disquieting was the development of an insatiable sexual appetite.”

“[Her] work, which fused dance, theater, mime, spoken word and video into small quasi-narrative worlds, … mined quotidian experiences like washing, cooking and building to yield works celebrated for their rich characterizations and dramatic momentum.”

“Franzen, whose writing tends to be very careful, has a gift for putting his foot in his mouth when he speaks publicly. … But if you look at Franzen’s taste in writing, it’s clear that he isn’t quite as one-dimensional as his bad press would lead readers to believe.” Scott Timberg reviews the evidence.

“The husband of Russian pianist Natalia Strelchenko has been arrested after the musician was found murdered at their home in Newton Heath, Manchester. John Martin, 48, is understood to be the man police arrested on 30 August on suspicion of murdering the prodigious pianist and remains in police custody for questioning. He is a double bass player who also acted as the victim’s manager.”

“Manuela Hoelterhoff has decided to retire after 11 years during which she has written, edited and presided over more than 20,000 stories, weekend TV shows and radio segment on the arts, architecture, books and music, science, the Nazis and Hamlette … Manuela is one of the most versatile writers we’ve ever had and we will miss her wit and sharp pen.”

“Renowned as a Mozart interpreter, Mr. Cleve spent his career primarily on the West Coast. He was the music director of the San Jose Symphony from 1972 to 1992 and in 1974 founded the Midsummer Mozart Festival, an annual concert series in the Bay Area that he directed to the end of his life.”

“As a temple statue come to life and near-naked in gold body paint, he erupted into sensational airborne bravura with perfect form. Yet as critics across the country noted, Mr. Renvall’s gifts went far beyond pyrotechnics.”

“Describing his patients’ struggles and sometimes uncanny gifts, Dr. Sacks helped introduce syndromes like Tourette’s or Asperger’s to a general audience. But he illuminated their characters as much as their conditions; he humanized and demystified them. In his emphasis on case histories, Dr. Sacks modeled himself after a questing breed of 19th-century physicians.”

“In telling a story, you’ve got to leap, you’ve got to leave out so much. And you’ve got to know which crag to leap to.”