“Sellars is best known for his work in opera, first coming into focus in the early 1990s with his then-revolutionary updates of the Mozart/Da Ponte trilogy, continuing through his collaborations with John Adams on Nixon in China and Dr. Atomic, among others, and on through his singular interpretation of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, recently staged with the Berlin Philharmonic and soloists at the Park Avenue Armory.”
Category: people
Tom Magliozzi, Clack Of “Car Talk”, Dead At 77
Producer Doug Berman: “He and his brother changed public broadcasting forever. Before Car Talk, NPR was formal, polite, cautious … even stiff. By being entirely themselves, without pretense, Tom and Ray single-handedly changed that, and showed that real people are far more interesting than canned radio announcers. And every interesting show that has come after them owes them a debt of gratitude.”
The Poet And Critic Who Never Retired, Just Wrote On, Facing Death
Clive James “knows what is coming, and he still seems in a hurry to write a little more, burnish a little more and hope to be remembered.”
Ian Fraser, Composer And Longtime Julie Andrews Collaborator, Dead At 81
“Fraser was the arranger and conductor on numerous television shows during the golden age of musical specials in the 1960s and ’70s, winning the first of his 11 Emmys for the 1976 ‘America Salutes Richard Rodgers’ show that aired on CBS.”
David Armstrong, A Photographer Of Intimacy, Dies At 60
“Openly gay long before legal protections regarding sexual orientation were enacted in most states, Mr. Armstrong was best known for unabashed black-and-white close-ups of beautiful young men, many of whom were his lovers or objects of his desire.”
Sherman Alexie, Movie Script Doctor (Wait, Really?)
“In Hollywood, they brought me in for funny—making scenes funnier and making people more likable. It’s funny they would hire an Indian to make white people more likable!”
Ten Years On, Theo Van Gogh’s Murder Still Haunts The Netherlands
A decade ago Sunday, the filmmaker, media figure and right-wing provocateur was shot and had his throat slit by a young Moroccan Dutchman who claimed he was defending the name of Allah. “In this tidy country of 17 million, which prides itself on tolerance, the murder opened a raw and polarizing debate … which is still raging.”
Crisis Management, PR Firm, Speakers Bureaus Drop Jian Ghomeshi
With a second woman coming forward by name to accuse him of assault and a former Q producer giving details of sexual harassment, both Ghomeshi’s longtime PR reps and top crisis-management firm Navigator have dropped him as a client, as have two firms who booked him for speaking engagements.
One Woman Defends Jian Ghomeshi, Saying Everything He Did With Her Was Consensual
“I do want people to know how thorough our consent talks were.” So (naturally) she contacted Dan Savage. Dan offers a transcript of his interview with her and offers his attempt to square her account with those of his accusers.
Galway Kinnell, Poet Of Nature, Religion And Human Rights, Dead At 87
“He also wrote frequently about death. ‘The Book of Nightmares’ was inspired by the horrors of the Vietnam War. But as angry as he could be, he sometimes considered mortality more gently and wistfully.”