Category: people

“I used to get it, the whole carnival of one frock festival after another leading to the Academy Awards and the unveiling of the allegedly best movies of the year. Now I see an endless sprawl of mindless celebrity worship.”

“The bulk of his estate, worth millions of dollars — perhaps tens of millions — was to go to a trust to provide scholarships to needy children here in his native state and in Georgia, where he grew up. But nearly eight years after his death, at 73, on Dec. 25, 2006, the I Feel Good Trust has not distributed a penny to its intended recipients.”

“Whether they sent us into a collective tizzy with their scandalous album covers or had us pumping our fists in favor of their truthful testimony, these 25 women (plus a few honorable mentions at the end) were the ones who got us talking, thinking, re-thinking, and maybe, just maybe, planning a revolution of our own.”

“To most opera lovers worldwide, Ms. Martin is best remembered for her potent mastery of the challenging soprano parts in the works of Wagner and Richard Strauss. She was a regular at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany, dedicated to Wagner’s music, and she appeared at the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Covent Garden, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and other leading opera houses.”

“To hear Norman Bridwell tell the story – and hundreds of millions of children around the world have read his tales for more than 50 years – Clifford the Big Red Dog almost never came to be.”

After a two-decade-plus career as one of her generation’s leading dramatic mezzos, Dalis returned to her hometown of San Jose, where she founded Opera San José in 1984 and led it to become a widely-admired regional company with its own theater.

“His attempt to brand the arts as an elite concern played particularly badly in Quebec; some analysts believe the quote cost him a majority in that election. Many outside Quebec were equally unimpressed: Surely ordinary Canadians, with their garage bands and their dance lessons, are as appreciative of the arts as any elite.”

“I’ve been thinking about 1998. I was twelve years old that year; Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. were both killed that year. To learn about that kind of violence existing in the world — both racist and homophobic — it changed me. I don’t know if I fully understood it at the time, but I was terrified. And terror does many things but it also clarifies.”

“His career fairly exploded after the Cliburn win. With top-drawer management, he had a busy schedule of playing with the world’s top orchestras, and in the most prominent recital halls. Latin good looks and that natural ebullience didn’t hurt. Given the bumpy history of Cliburn winners, critics speculated that this guy just might have staying power. But something happened along the way.”

“If I had broken through any glass ceilings, I would know. If I had broken through a glass ceiling, I would have felt some cuts, I would have some bruises. There’d be shards of glass in my hair. I’d be bleeding. … So how come I don’t remember the moment? When me with my woman-ness and my brown skin went running full speed, gravity be damned, into that thick layer of glass and smashed right through it?”