Category: people

The soldiers of the “Ghost Army” were “artists and illustrators, radio people and sound guys. Handpicked for the job from New York and Philadelphia art schools in January 1944, their mission was to deceive the enemy with hand-made inflatable tanks, 500-pound speakers blasting the sounds of troops assembling and phony radio transmissions.”

“The great Danish philosopher of subjectivity would have been two hundred years old on May 5th, and, looking back, we can see that ironic, angst-ridden modern literature begins with him. Strindberg, Ibsen, Nietzsche, Kafka, Borges, Camus, Sartre, and Wittgenstein are among his heirs – and without him, where would Woody Allen be?”

“The show became a classic — remade in a movie, honored in song and spoofed on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ ‘3rd Rock From the Sun’ and ‘The Simpsons.'”

“It’s an understatement to say that, given his accomplishments, Mr. Jacobs is not nearly as well known as he should be.”

“Mr. Miles was part historical sleuth, part preservationist, part bard. His films, which combined archival footage, still photographs and fresh interviews, were triumphs of curiosity and persistence in unearthing lost material about forgotten subjects.”

Beuys “was obsessed with Steiner’s occultism and his racial theories — and with the abstruse ideas of a Germanic soul, a German spirit and a special mission for the German people.”

“[She] appeared in films and on television but … won her widest acclaim on the stage in New York and around the country, performing the work of Shakespeare, Molière, Pirandello, Edward Albee and other dramatists over a 60-year career.”

The artist and his brother were walking to meet their mother at a restaurant when “they saw a commotion ahead of them. On the ground were overturned tables. There were people shouting and throwing chairs and waving sticks, Mr. Ai said. He got out his cell phone and began recording the scene.”

Says one group leader: “It would be a huge danger for capitalism if working men and women were united, so one of the best ways to divide and conquer the workers is by enabling men to over-sexualize women and by preoccupying women with sexualizing themselves. This is why we need to oppose Barbie.”

“During his [27-year] tenure – one of the longest of a director of any major American art museum – the Guggenheim deepened its collection, expanded its exhibitions program, vastly improved its publications and took its first step toward becoming a global institution.”